The Saturday Edition

It's Saturday. And this is not the Daily Grateful today. No, I thought I would do something different on Saturdays. I thought I would call it the Saturday edition.

It's on the same feed as the Daily Grateful that we host Monday through Friday, you know, on a regular basis now. Really, please, trying to get back into doing all this stuff like talking into a microphone on a schedule. It has been a challenge, I have to tell you. I did 35 years of live talk radio.

And there was no editing, there was no anything that microphone turned on. The guy on the other side of the double-beloverive glass pointed at me and I had to talk. I mean, you know, there it was. Boom goes to the dynamite.

I had to entertain people for two hours. I mean, you know, yeah, there were commercials. I got a break. I could eat some popcorn.

Or there was a guy that was on right after me. He was rambling with Ramsey and he did a travel show. And ever so once in a while, he would do it in the studio. But most of the time, most of the time, he was out at a hotel someplace at some exotic location doing a live remote and talking about, you know, how wonderful the hotel is and, you know, how the rooms were great.

He would just do this because they paid him. And, you know, he was, but when he would come and do the show in the studio, he would bring all kinds of food with him, all kinds of food. And he was just a great guy. He's no longer with us.

But a great guy. And I could imitate him. As a matter of fact, when I would do Ramsey, people didn't know it wasn't Ramsey. So I told him, I said, any time you want to take a weekend off and you're going to be in Hawaii that weekend, I will take your place.

They'll just send me out there and I'll pretend I'm you. And I will, you know, do all of that stuff. He never took me up on it. I couldn't quite figure out why.

But, you know, one time he came into the studio during my show and I did a Ramsey and he did a Ramsey and we were both ramsying each other. And he was trying to imitate himself, which was even more funny. So he was trying to exaggerate on his own voice. And now you're saying, can you do the Ramsey voice?

It has been many years since I've done the Ramsey voice. But he would be something like, hello, everybody. This is Ramblin with Ramsey. And today we are at the Gulf Park Casino.

And it is so nice here. They've got gambling. Can you imagine that they have gambling? That was Ramsey.

That was him. And I could do it just as well as he did. And I even told my boss, I said, you know, he's not even necessary. If you could get a producer to do all this stuff, I'll be glad to do it.

And I won't charge you extra. I just want to travel all over the place and have all the benefits of doing that. But you know, I was kidding. Ramsey did a great thing for me.

My middle son, I don't think he could be considered middle son anymore. My second son, Kyle, years ago, see if you remember this movie. They had an open audition for the second lead in a movie called Cop in a Half with Bert Reynolds. And this was over at Universal in Orlando.

And it was on a Saturday, you could go over there and they were going to do open auditions. Kyle was young. He was, I don't know, nine or ten, if that, maybe younger. I'm not sure.

But I took him over there. I said, oh, let's go. So we go over to Universal Studios. And sure enough, you go to the side entrance of the studio and there's a guy with a clipboard, you know, a guard with a clipboard just like in the movies.

And he said, you're here for the open audition? You go to that big building. There's this big building, which was a sound stage. But it was a big, big, big building.

And we went in there and there had to be a thousand kids with their show business parents. And I went there and just show you my coolness and what I did is I took a colored picture of Kyle. I think it was a school picture. I took it to a copy shop and I had a colored copy of it made with his name on it and my phone number on it.

And it had his, you know, Kyle Gross, ten or eleven years old, I forget what it was, has done school theater and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, that's what I had. That's what we went over there with. That's what I had.

I think I had three copies of it. I don't know why, but the number three just seems to have like stood out in my mind. And off we go. And there's all these people.

And then there's all these show business parents. And they've got portfolios of their kid. And there's one guy saying, I had a professional photographer take all these pictures of my kid. Here's my kid's smile.

Kid's sitting there on the floor with a coloring book. Okay. He seemed totally disinterested in being there. Here he is where he's sad.

And here he is like he just got a spanking and he's crying. Those are fake tears. I use an eyedropper thing to put him on there. And you know, all in, and then there's this woman.

Oh my gosh, this annoying woman that was next to us. We were like ahead of her in line. But she's saying, you don't have a portfolio. I said, no, I just got this little thing I took to the copy shop and this is what they made.

Oh, well, that's not professional. This is, you know that this is a movie. You know that this is a movie, don't you? And I said, yeah.

And she was, well, how many acting classes has he taken? I was a nun. Well, how many, what has he done to do that? Nothing.

Does he, I said he belongs to a drama club outside of school that he goes to? And it's just fun. Well, why are you here? I said, because this is an experience.

I'm a little son here, man. He likes acting. He thinks he thinks it's cool. And now we're at Universal in a sound stage and he's on audition for a movie with Bert Reynolds and he don't even know who Bert Reynolds is.

So this is going to be cool. He doesn't know who Bert Reynolds is. No, he don't care. He's, you know, more into Mario, you know, Mario Brothers in Nintendo.

This is what he's into. He's not into this other stuff. And she, oh, man, she was just beside herself. So it's moving right along.

And they've got about, I don't know, 20 desks up there with people behind each one of the 20 desks. And these are the talent scouts. And you get, you know, you got your name called and you went up there. I couldn't go with them.

He went up there by himself. And you have exactly one minute. They will ask you to say a few words. They will ask you to read something.

I, you know, I don't know what it was, but one minute, you know, like a, you got one minute to dazzle. So Kyle says, okay, you know, his turn. I said here, take your little Xerox copy of a picture. Colors, your ox though.

Color. You know, I went first class. I'm going to find the piece. I made three of them.

So, you know, take this and go. He says, all right, I'm going to take this and go. So this is cool. This is like really cool.

He goes up there and the irritating woman behind me, by the way, ahead of us was the irritating guy with the kid with the pictures of him crying with the fake tears. Yeah, I believe that. And you know, and the kids seem to, they were there like 30 seconds and they were gone. So then it was Kyle's turn.

He goes up there and the next thing, you know, Kyle's sitting at the desk and he's all animated and his arms are going everywhere. And I'm just sitting there watching and woman said he's been up there for two and a half minutes. I said, Oh, I hadn't paid attention. And you could see the woman laughing and Kyle's laughing and they're just having all this conversation.

I don't know what's going on. But you know, and Kyle stands up and moves or interests. They never ask him to do that. What's he doing?

I don't know. I'm here with you. You know, you know, as much as I do. He was there for six minutes, at least.

And she says, he's going to get a call back and he doesn't even have a portfolio. I said, what's a call back? She goes, that's what's going to happen. They're going to put him on the good list and you're going to have to come back.

I said, Oh, is that a good thing? Yes, that's a good thing. She goes, this is what we go for. We go for the call back.

That's the only thing my child is prepared for. You know, the whole, you know, her whole professional life, it was a kid or, you know, she said, Mom's a whole professional. It's called back and he's going to get one. You know, the kid with the portfolio and the pictures and everything didn't get one.

And so, okay. So he was up there for a total of 10 minutes. And then he comes back and not only does he have the little file folder that I gave him with Xerox pictures and now the file folders filled with all kinds of other stuff. And he comes back and he goes, I'm sorry, Dad.

We got to come back next week. And the woman is about ready to have a thrombo. She is about ready to just kill over and be done with it. I mean, she was, she was consumed with, I don't know.

You know, she was, she just could not believe that this was happening. I said, okay. So then I said to her, I said, good luck. And she just gave me this dirty look.

And off we went. And this brings us back to Ramsey. Ramsey wanted us to have a good day that day. He thought we should get there the night before.

And Ramsey has all of these connections at Universal. And he got us the penthouse at this giant hotel. It was a twin tower hotel directly across from Universal. He got that force to stay at and had breakfast brought in.

When I say the penthouse, there was like three bedrooms. There was like a kitchen. It came with a butler, all of this stuff, just boom, all of this stuff. And it was set up to where after we were done with the audition, I could go over there and he had his portable studio set up in there.

And he was waiting for us with his portable studio. And we went up there and I did my show live from this fabulous hotel. He says, you just got to plug the hotel. If you were, I did, he handed me the sheet.

I said, you would not believe I'm in this. I'm in the penthouse. And as it turns out, I found out it's the same penthouse that Mick Jagger was in when the Rolling Stones played Orlando a couple of years earlier than that. And I'd gone to that Rolling Stones concert.

So I mean, we had pretty nice digs and came back and did the show. And while I'm doing the show, Kyle is sitting over by the window looking down at Nickelodeon studios, which is no longer there. But it was there because dad, I want to go to Nickelodeon. I said, after the show, we will go to Nickelodeon.

So the whole thing's done, you know, and Ramsey, of course, you know, the audition did not get you free interns into Universal. But of course, Ramsey had complimentary tickets for us to go to Universal. So when we were all done, I'd done my show. I helped Ramsey pick it back up.

And off we walked across the street and, you know, I put our stuff in the car, walked across the street and went to Universal and went to Nickelodeon studios and did all of these things that you do over there. But you know, we were there for it was getting late and I was getting tired and we had to drive back to the shiny West Coast of Florida. So we did a few things over there. We'd been before, but we just went over there because he wanted to go to Nickelodeon studios.

So we went and saw that and then that was that. Oh, by the way, the callback, the callback was a week later. We had to go and we had a six o'clock at P.M. appointment there.

And it was during the week. So we drive over there and we get there at six o'clock. And of course, there's the guard at the gate. And I said, you know, he goes, and he's got his clipboard.

He goes, and who are you? And I said, I'm here with Kyle Croce. And he says, yeah, he's on the list and he tells us where to go. And it wasn't where we went before.

It was this office building that they had in there. So we go to the office building that they had in there and we walk in, you know, there's another guard at that door of the office building because the office is now closed because it's six o'clock. He said, no, you go up to the second floor, room 23, there'll be a bench outside. He goes, go and knock on the door and then sit down and someone will come and get you.

I said, OK, so we're going through there. And who do we see walking down the hall? Kyle had no idea who it was, but it was Ernest Bournain. It was just casually walking down the hall.

And I'm saying, holy cow, I think he's been in every movie there ever was. But Kyle had no idea who he was. But I was, you know, look at what is our life turned into now? So he goes in there and it's set on a paper that they were going to spend 10 minutes with him.

He was in there for a half hour. And I said, I'm going to be in the back and the woman comes out to see me. And she goes, you got a third call back and I'm sitting there thinking the woman that was behind us in line at the big cattle call, if she heard this right now, she would have a thrombo. But I said, OK, when is that?

She goes, it's next week and it'll be at the same time right here. And I said, OK, we'll see you then. And off we went. And, you know, and I'm sitting there saying, you know, there's a chance my son could be in a movie with Bert Reynolds.

There's a chance that my son could be in a movie with Bert Reynolds. There was going to be filmed in Tampa, by the way. And I said, wow, this is incredible. I took him back the next week, same thing.

Walk in the door, you know, go in your seat, a guard with a clipboard, go to the office. The other guard, let's just into the office. We take the elevator up to the second floor. And as we're getting off the elevator, there was a famous woman actor and I do not remember her name, but she had been a regular on the love boat.

I never watched the love boat, but I knew who she was. But her name escaped me. And she was coming on the elevator as we were leaving. And I'm sitting there saying to myself, why is she here?

And why was Ernest Borde 9 here? You know, why what's going on? I want to know what's going on over here. I just wanted to know.

So we, we learned to use that's what it was. Lauren to use that's the ladies name, came to me. So anyhow, we go and we snuck on the door, knock on the door and sit down. And sure enough, the same lady that saw us before was there.

And she said, he's going to see the actual casting director now, the big Kahuna casting director. He could be in there for 10 minutes to half hour to an hour. Who knows? I said, OK, so she takes him back there.

And she comes out to me. I like a cup of coffee. I said, I've never drank a cup of coffee in my life. So we're just visiting.

And I said, when we got off the elevator, Lauren too, was getting into the elevator. I said, I said, when we were here before Ernest Borde 9 was in the building wandering down the hall. I said, what were they doing here? What goes on?

I want to know. Because I'm curious. I wanted to know. She goes, I don't know about Ernest Borde 9.

But she was here meeting a casting director for some other project down the hall. That I do know. I said, oh, so she was here just like my son Kyle auditioning. And you know, well, kind of, they don't really audition people like that that they know.

They just talk to them. I said, OK, call it what you want. My son's in the same building with a big TV actor from the love boat. And, you know, this is cool.

Comes back. And then the next thing is we've got, we've made all of our interviews that we're going to make. We're going to go back and we will make a decision and we will let you know. I said, OK, didn't hear anything.

Didn't hear anything. Didn't hear anything. And then one day I went out to the mailbox. We lived in Tarpon Springs then in the city of Tarpon Springs, Florida, the home of the Sponge Docs.

And the mail came and it was from Universal, but it was in Hollywood, California. That was the return address was Hollywood, California. I said, this could be important. And I'm sitting there saying, am I going to have to take time off of work to go be a stage father for Kyle?

You know, I'm doing all of this as I'm walking back to the house without opening up the envelope. And I get back to the house and then I was looking at the envelope and the envelope was just a regular number nine envelope. And I'm sitting there saying, if he got the gig, he'd be a big thick manila envelope. He didn't get the gig.

I was right. And inside was a form letter. And I said, thank you so much for allowing us to see. And then you could see a place where Phil and the blank Kyle, you know, for his audition for blank and you know, they wrote the movie name and we appreciate his efforts and we will keep him in mind for future projects.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. It was a boilerplate rejection letter. Go away, leave me alone. Sorry, you're not going to be famous with Bert Reynolds.

And I said, oh, I'm going to tell Kyle. And my wife said, you're going to tell him directly. I said, OK. So at that time, I called Kyle because he was living with his mommy.

And I said, I got a letter today and you didn't get the part. He says, I didn't think I was going to get the part, but it was a fun experience. Wasn't it? We had a lot of fun going over there.

I said, we really did. That was a hoot. I enjoyed that. It was great.

It was wonderful. He was fine. Fast forward. I see in the Tampa Tribune that they're in town filming the Bert Reynolds movie.

And I said, wow, this is cool. This is really cool. And one day I had to go to a radio station in Tampa. And I had to go over there to pick up a piece of equipment because I, at that time, was doing my radio show from my house.

And there was another guy that lived in Tampa who did his radio, his nationally syndicated radio show from his house. But on the weekends, he did a live show at the local station, WFLA. So I would go over to WFLA while he was on the air and pick up that piece of equipment, take it home and use it, and then take it back to him the next day because he did Saturday and Sundays at WFLA radio. So I go over there and they've got all kinds of traffic blocked.

I had a hard time getting in. And there was a bar, this dingy little bar across the street from the radio station. And they had all these movie stuff out there. They had all of these, you could tell what was going on.

They were filming part of that movie. And lo and behold, who did I see? I see Bert Reynolds. I see him out there.

I'm saying, wow, that's Bert Reynolds. And I go in and I tell Paul, you know, I said, Bert Reynolds is outside the car. He goes, yeah, he's been over there all day. They've been filming.

Did you see the kid that got the movie? I said, no. He goes, if you go out there and you see a little kid, that's the kid who got the movie. I said, all right.

So I went out there and I was looking and looking and looking. And finally, I saw it like a card table set up underneath a little canopy that they had set up that people were going over there to drink, eliminate or whatever they do. And there was a young man and he was there and I said, oh, that's the kid that beat out, you know, that beat out Kyle. As it turns out, I said, I don't remember him from the auditions at all.

I never saw him, you know, at the big audition. Of course, there was a million people at the big audition, but I never saw him in the evening auditions. So I was very curious about that. And then I don't know, they finished up filming.

And they said, the young man that got the movie, they named him, I forget his name. And he was, you know, they casted him out of Los Angeles. He never even auditioned. They found him in Los Angeles.

And he got the movie. And that was his big chance to be a big star. We went and saw the movie. It was kind of cute to see the bar across the street from the radio station and other locations that we knew from Tampa where they filmed all of this stuff.

It was kind of cute. But the kid who did the movie, he did a good job. I thought he was very, very good. It was totally different from what they said they were looking for.

Unless it was just totally 100% different. And it was a cute movie. And to this day, if you ever see cop in a half floating around on a streaming service, watch it. But I will tell you that the kid was in the movie was never heard from again.

That was the only movie he was ever in. I looked him up on IMBD. And as a teenager, he was trying to do hip hop music or something. I don't know, but never again.

And like I said, I don't even remember his name. Although he did a wonderful job. And Kyle didn't care. It was just, you know, it was just, it was just one of those things where you got to be grateful for what you get and what we got in that thing.

Are you disappointed? No. It was an experience we had. We go over to this big studio, Universal Studios.

And we see TV stars and we see, you know, all kinds of people. And I see Kyle on the open audition being animated and watching the stage mom have a thrombo. It was great. The whole experience was cool.

I'm very grateful for it. Hey, this is the very first Saturday edition. You get it totally unedited. You're going to hear all my, I don't care.

It's just raw. We'll try this again next Saturday. Maybe I'll get my daughter to come over and sit on the other side of the table. Take care, everybody.