Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Joshua Kornitsky: Hey, welcome back to another episode of Cherokee Business Radio. I’m Joshua Kornitsky, professional EOS implementer and your host today. And today’s episode is brought to you in part by the Community Partner program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors defending capitalism, promoting small business and supporting our local community. For more information, go to Main Street Warriors and a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors Diesel David, Inc.. Please go check them out at diesel. Com. Well, in the studio with me today is is really an incredible guy. I’d like to introduce Chuck Burge, the creator of Airaoke. Hey, Chuck, how are you?

Chuck Burge: I’m very well. Josh, how are you doing?

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh, it’s, uh. It’s been an exciting day today. If not a little bit too warm.

Chuck Burge: It’s a long day already. Yeah.

Joshua Kornitsky: But, uh, tell us a little bit about yourself before we talk about karaoke.

Chuck Burge: Well, uh, native of Marietta, uh, went to McEachern High School back when schools were the same first through 12th grade. So I went 11 years to the same school, but grew up, never lived further than five miles from the Marietta Square. Uh, very endeared to the city of Marietta. I love it very much. Um, went to Kennesaw Junior College, which was a two year school then.

Joshua Kornitsky: Now for Kennesaw.

Chuck Burge: State before Kennesaw State now it’s the second largest school in the state and got my associate degree, uh, business degree there, and then went to Georgia Southern and got my marketing degree at Georgia Southern. Uh, got married, got divorced, got two fabulous sons, uh, 36 and 28. Chip and Kevin and Boston and Nashville. And love them like they’re here every day. But they’re not. Yeah.

Joshua Kornitsky: Sure, sure. Well, thank you for giving us a little bit about your background. And before we get into air hockey, I feel like it gives a lot of perspective. Do you explain what you spent your career doing before area hockey, so that we can then talk more about that?

Chuck Burge: Well, my career was really kind of odd. Um, my first job out of college was working at Life Insurance Company of Georgia as a claims examiner and got promoted to internal audit, which I just still can’t believe I did that job. But it was great company, great benefits. We got off at noon on Friday and, uh, floated down the river every Friday afternoon during the summer. So it was a great job for a single guy. And then I got married and, uh, and in 89, when my oldest son was born, I said, well, I need to do something different to make some money because I know I got a kid to raise. And, uh, so I went to work for Mass Mutual Insurance Company and was rookie of the year agent in 1990, sold more Fisher policies than any agent ever had nationwide for MassMutual. Wow. And, uh, they put me into management, going out, recruiting and hiring and training new agents. Um, and then from that, I was having dinner one night at the Marriott Marquis Downtown Champion Sports bar with a guy named David Ponzio. And I’ll never forget that name, because that night literally changed my life. And, uh, we were sitting there having dinner with this guy Chuck Lorre. And what’s the guy’s name? Comes around and throws this book on the table and said, what is that? He said, it’s karaoke. I said, what is a karaoke? Because it was brand new to the States. Nobody knew what it was. He said, it’s this music system where we play the background music.

Chuck Burge: You get to provide the lead vocals. I said, no kidding. I start flipping through the book. I said, well, I got to do this. He said, we’ll pick out a song. I said, no, I gotta do what you’re doing. I said, how much fun would that be, right? And he said, well, as a matter of fact, we’re looking for someone. If you’d like to meet the owner, I’ll introduce you to him. So the next day I went met Greg Smith, and, uh, Greg said, yeah, as long as you don’t try to sell insurance, everybody comes up and sings, we’ll give you a shot. So he did. And 3 or 4 years later, Greg calls me and says, hey, Chuck, there’s this new karaoke company coming to town Thursday for a group interview, and I’m going to be in Vegas at the electronic show. Would you be willing to go for me and see what it’s all about? I said, yeah, I’d be glad to, uh, might meet somebody I can hire as an agent. This is what I basically said. Sure, absolutely. So I got out there, and what it was was Rent-A-Center, the Rent to own company, had started an entertainment division called Race Entertainment and had signed a $3 million contract with Diet Pepsi to put. You got the right one, baby. Uh huh. On karaoke and go all over the country and have people come up and sing it and get a cassette promotional gift of them singing you got the right one, baby, huh? And they hadn’t hired a soul.

Chuck Burge: I said, well, that’s pretty cool. I think you think about it. Yeah. So I went home that night and they called me back and said, hey, Chuck, we’ve got this narrowed down to ten people. Could you come back tomorrow? And I said, yeah, why not? So I went back and then the next night’s phone call was, hey, Chuck, are you working in here this weekend where you can watch you perform? I said, yeah, as a matter of fact, write it down at Marriott. Um, northwest at Interstate North Parkway. So a guy came from Manchester, England, Indianapolis and Wichita, Kansas, and introduced themselves. They said, hey, you know, we’re looking forward to seeing you. I said, great. And I had got a regular crowd by then, and I had friends coming in and saying, and I knew it was going to be a good show. So about halfway through the show, one of them walks up and says, hey, Chuck, he’s I said, what do you want to sing? And he said, no, flip it over. And yeah, it sounds like they said, we want you. That’s great. And that changed my whole life. Double my salary for when I was at the insurance company. And for the next two and a half years, I was number two karaoke office in the country. And, uh, was singing you got the right one, maybe Uh-Uh with the Uh-Uh girls for two and a half years.

Joshua Kornitsky: Listen, there’s got to be something special about a myriad of boy that can make a living off of Pepsi.

Chuck Burge: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So it was a very, very fun contract. And when the contract ended, I had take. I took all my, uh, marketing material or my, uh, karaoke equipment and sold it to a guy that owned a company called Monte Carlo Productions is a private casino company. And he said, I’ve always wanted my own DJ. He said, I’ve always subcontracted out. Would you be interested in coming in and running my DJ business? I said, sure, yeah. So I went in there and sold parties and I mean, I had such a great time. I, um, I did Evander Holyfield, 4th of July party three years in a row. Wow. Saying Under the boardwalk with Lenny Wilkins at the opening of Philips Arena. Uh, did Braves opening night parties in the parking lot at O. Atlanta-fulton County Stadium. I mean, I had a really pretty good name in the in the DJ industry for six years as a corporate disc jockey. Not on the air? Sure. And then, um, in 2000, January of 2000, the guy calls me from Boston who was the number one karaoke company in the country when we were doing the, uh. You got the right one, baby on promotion. He said, hey, Chuck, I’ve taken this Pepsi business and turned it into a national mobile marketing company and I need somebody to run Atlanta. Coincidentally enough for the All-Star game that summer and to 2000. And I said, you know, Mike, I really want to come home and spend more time with my kids. If you’ll promise me X and tell me this is the last job I’ll ever have. I’m all yours. So I did that, and I ran the All-Star game for Pepsi down in the Turner Field, then for 2000, and then got into creating grassroots marketing campaigns for large companies general Motors, Cingular Wireless, um, ran the Mall of America for five days for Diet Mountain Dew, hung out with Dick Vitale and John Wooden for five days. Wow. Wasn’t a bad day. Wasn’t a bad.

Joshua Kornitsky: Week. No no no no.

Chuck Burge: So and in 2008, when the economy kind of started tanking, I just started doing everything locally that I was doing nationally and, um, kind of once a fun time, I became my own boss and I wasn’t I was on the plane every week for 6 or 7 years and, uh, meeting somebody.

Joshua Kornitsky: I think you’d be hard pressed to find somebody who has more experience in a field that you wouldn’t think experience matters. Karaoke where it clearly does matter.

Chuck Burge: I learned a lot.

Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah, and the marketing aspect that served you well coming from, uh, from the the time in college ended up becoming your whole life. So. So what how did we get to ROI from all of that? Thank you for giving us the background, because that helps us understand why and who you are.

Chuck Burge: Well, karaoke came about, uh, I had not DJ or MC or anything other than like, friends, birthday parties or their wedding receptions or stuff since 2000. And then, um, in 20. Well, when in 2001. When, um, when the towers fell on nine over 11. Um, my best friend was supposed to be in the towers, but he missed his flight out of Atlanta the night before he would have been killed, thank goodness. So, uh, God thing know that he knows that. And, uh, and then when 2020, when Covid hit and they couldn’t do the stair climb anymore to raise money for the firefighters.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh, from okay from the Fallen Hero project.

Chuck Burge: Yeah, from the non Heroes project. Uh, I, I went to, uh, the chief of Cop County fire. Who was Mr. Kreider, who I’d known since he was 4 or 5 years old and said, hey, I want to do something to help raise money. And that’s where I came up with the area. Okay. I was out at the aviation museum in Marietta, and I looked at the big C-130 out there and said, how cool would it be to wrap a stage around the nose of that plane? Sure. And do aerial in front of an airplane.

Joshua Kornitsky: And that’s where it was born.

Chuck Burge: That’s where the idea was born. Okay. We couldn’t do it there because right across the street from the Aviation museum is a railroad track that has 72 tracks, 72 trains a day coming by.

Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah. So let’s see how that gets in the way.

Chuck Burge: So it didn’t make sense. So we moved up to Cobb International Airport. Uh, and Jim Cook with Atlanta Air Charter was nice enough to give us the hangar for a couple of years. And all we did was have an airplane face the hangar, wrap the stage around the nose of the plane, and people would come up and sing Airy Okie. It was really cool. Had the planes taken taking off in the background and all that. Very, very neat venue. But unfortunately, we outgrew the hangar in a couple of years. Uh, I mean, 250 was a max that would hold, and we were we were getting ready to bust out. Yeah. So we took it to the Strand Theater, and we’ll be having it there for the third year and our fifth year overall on August 30th of this year.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh, fantastic. All right. So if people want to want to see the event, do they go to the strand website. Do they go to your website.

Chuck Burge: They go to Eric. That’s I a okay. Dot org. You can buy tickets. You can buy. You can sign up saying we still have six singer spots left, which is very unusual at this time because usually we have a lot more. So the word’s getting out about this event and we’ve been running it well, and now we’re getting where people have been signed up since February to sing. And now we’ve got, we’ve got six slots left and it’s 25 people saying, uh, and somebody wants $1,500 in cash.

Joshua Kornitsky: Does it all happen that night?

Chuck Burge: Everything happens that night.

Joshua Kornitsky: That sounds like a lot of fun, too.

Chuck Burge: It is a.

Joshua Kornitsky: Lot of fun. So if somebody can’t attend. Is there a way they can still show support?

Chuck Burge: Uh, you can always support by sponsoring. Also, if you’ll go to archive.org and hit sponsorships up at the top, it’ll give you a list. It’s basically $250 an up. And, you know, the most important thing. I mean, it’s a really, really fun event, but it is for a nonprofit called the nine over 11 Fallen Aero Project. A guy named Mike Kirsch and Susan Kirsch and their kids, Wesley and Lauren, uh, are the ones that run this event. I run it for them. Sure. And I raised all the funds. But Mike was actually a, um, uh, captain detective, New York City captain and detective. And, uh, he was not on site when it happened, but he spent nine months there after it happened, recovering the bodies of his friends and identifying them and all. And now Mike is riddled with cancer. And from all the asbestos and stuff he got. So it’s a lot of me and Susan putting this together. But all the funds go to metro Atlanta. It’s not tunnels to towers. It’s a nine over 11 fallen hero project. So all the all the proceeds go to metro Atlanta.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s I’m glad you shared that because that makes it much more personal, much closer to home. Yeah. And it’s not that there aren’t people that need help everywhere. With regards to nine over 11, but it’s nice that we’re able to help the folks that are here. Yeah. That’s fantastic. So now how many years have you been doing here?

Chuck Burge: Here. This will be the fifth year.

Joshua Kornitsky: This will be the fifth.

Chuck Burge: Year, and next year will be the 25th anniversary of nine over 11. So hopefully we’re going to do something grander. Uh, it’s just hard to believe that it’s been 25 years. And we every year we have artifacts from ground zero at the event where people can come have their pictures made with it, which is really, really cool. And obviously.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’s cool and it’s somber too, but it’s.

Chuck Burge: Cool and somber. That’s a good way to put it. Yeah.

Joshua Kornitsky: Um, so over the the preceding years, have you had any really exciting or interesting events happen, you know, with the singers, with the crowd?

Chuck Burge: Oh yeah, Some of both. Uh, uh, the singers have been really good, and the whole premise is, like I said, we we look for singers, we look for sponsors, and we look for items that are donated to raise money. Because if you sign up to sing, there are five live judges there. And I want to thank Sarah for getting them from the Atlanta Orchestra this year. So our judges are going to be coming from Atlanta Orchestra. But the whole premise is bring all your friends to vote for you. It’s half audience vote and half judge vote, because we have about $25,000 worth of raffle items that we’ll raffle off. So the girl that won last year, Little Girl and Elise Lightner from Kennesaw State, sang Jolene, but she brought her family, she brought her track team, she brought everybody from KSU. And she was like, I think second in the judging, but she was first in the audience. So the whole.

Joshua Kornitsky: Premise, folks with her.

Chuck Burge: Whole premise, whole premise is come sing, bring your friends to vote for you and to buy raffle tickets to support the firefighters.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s amazing. And what does the ticket cost?

Chuck Burge: 25 bucks.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay, So it’s pretty reasonable really, particularly these days. Yeah. And for that much entertainment, it seems like it’s something that’ll keep you alive.

Chuck Burge: It’s a lot of fun. And I’ll give a little credit to Joe Turner, who is our emcee. And Joe is an international magician. And he fell in love with the event. I think you said, you know Joe, right?

Joshua Kornitsky: I’ve met Joe a number of times, and he’s also a great speaker.

Chuck Burge: Oh, very, very good speaker. So, Joe, I connected with him last week. I said, hey, I know you’re in, but I, I just need confirmation that you’re still in. And he said, I’m looking forward to coming back. So he he’s recently moved to Tennessee, but I appreciate him making the trip down to come to the show.

Joshua Kornitsky: Joe’s a good man. I’m glad he is coming down, too. He’s awesome. He’ll he’ll absolutely make.

Chuck Burge: The good singer too. I don’t know if you ever heard.

Joshua Kornitsky: Him sing, not know that. And I’m a terrible singer, so I’m going to do my best.

Chuck Burge: He can’t. He can’t compete. But he is. He is good. But the people that have won. And you asked earlier. Uh, Josh, uh, the guy that won the first year was invited to sing with the Trans-Siberian orchestra. Uh, the girl that won the second year is now singing opera in New York. Uh, the girl that won the third year is just some rock n roll singer around town here. Like I said, the girl that won last year just sang Jolene, and I said she was telling her about it at Kennesaw State, a show that I do a podcast. And she said, oh, I’d love to sing. I said, well, come on and sing. And so you just never know who’s going to win. Uh, we I don’t think we’ve ever had a really bad act. I’ve been doing this five years, from the time that I’ve been doing karaoke since 1992. I’ve seen a lot of bad acts.

Joshua Kornitsky: I, I, I have to pray for your ears. I can’t imagine what you’ve heard.

Chuck Burge: Most of the people that come to this really can’t sing or really think they can sing well.

Joshua Kornitsky: And the strand holds a.

Chuck Burge: 530.

Joshua Kornitsky: People. Yeah. So that’s a lot of people say if if you’re going to get up there and try to be funny, that’s a lot of people that try to be in front of you, in front of when you’re if you’re a terrible singer. So, yeah. Uh, I can’t thank you enough, Chuck. This is really great stuff that you’re doing. Such a wonderful, wonderful tribute to the nine over 11. Follow here Fallen Heroes Project. And to make it local and to make it resonate, that’s really incredible stuff.

Chuck Burge: Yeah, I’ve been given so much by this community and this is just what I can give back. It’s not much, but it’s what I can give. So as long as we do our all. Everybody does our own part. Everybody’s got their own charities. I mean, I also work for Mushroom Ministries. I volunteer at There Gobble Jog every year. I drove the Pink Pig at the at the, uh, Festival of Trees last year to help bring awareness for, uh, the sex trafficking in Atlanta. I want to give back as much as I can, but this is my heart. This is. This is where my passion is.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, I can’t thank you enough for sharing it with us, Chuck. Remind us again when? Where they buy the tickets. What is the date and the time?

Chuck Burge: The man is 6:00 on August 30th. Doors open at six. Singing starts at seven. But come and enjoy all the raffle items. And like I said, the artifacts from Ground Zero have your picture made. But it is Saturday, August the 30th. Um, and we just can’t wait to see who’s going to show up. An area key Karaoke. Karaoke? If, like I said, if you want tickets, if you want to sponsor or if you want to sing, or you can call me directly at (770) 428-9930. I’ll take phone calls. I’ll take text. Anybody want to reach out to me? Feel free to do so.

Joshua Kornitsky: Perfect. Well, uh, you know, Chuck Birch, honestly, the creator of karaoke. What an exciting event this is going to be. Uh, I will do my very best to be there. And I will absolutely not be singing. So that should 100% make more people come. As long as I’m not.

Chuck Burge: Well, if you fill up a seat, that’s all I can ask. There you go. There you.

Joshua Kornitsky: Go. Well, thank you again. And please make sure next year you come back when we’re talking about the 25th, we’ll we’ll do everything we can to help promote that.

Chuck Burge: Well, I appreciate you, Josh. All right, well, thanks for the invitation.

Joshua Kornitsky: Thanks, everybody, for joining. Thank you again, Chuck, for coming. This is Joshua Kornitsky, professional iOS implementer and host of Cherokee Business Radio.

Speaker1: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now here’s your host.

Speaker2: [00:00:22] Welcome to Cherokee Business RadioX Stone Payton here with you this morning. And today’s episode is brought to you in part by Alma Coffey, sustainably grown, veteran, owned and direct trade, which means, of course, from seed to cup. There are no middlemen. Please go check them out at my alma coffee dot com and go visit their Rotary Café at thirty four or forty eight, Holly Springs Parkway in Canton. As for Harry or the brains of the outfit, Leticia and tell them that Stone sent you. You guys are in for a real treat this morning. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Airaoke Mr. Chuck Burge. Good morning,

Speaker3: [00:01:05] Sir. Good morning. Stone, thanks for having me on.

Speaker2: [00:01:08] Oh, what a delight. Man, I think you and I got a chance to connect at some sort of business event networking kind of thing. Where did where did we. Do you remember

Speaker3: [00:01:16] Was the Woodstock business group at Reformation? Oh, Thursday mornings ago.

Speaker2: [00:01:22] Yeah, that’s a fun crowd and just a very collaborative crowd. Know you’ve got people in that and that group even from the same industry. They really do everything they can to try to help each other. I really I’ve enjoyed that about Woodstock Business Club. I’ve enjoyed that just all over town. Is that been your sense since you’ve been in this community that people genuinely try to help each other, even those that theoretically should be competing?

Speaker3: [00:01:50] Yeah, I don’t think it’s it’s a bad thing to have same people with same businesses and in the same meetings, everybody’s been helpful. I’m very involved in other business associations. Kenesaw and Marietta. Oh, okay. Wiscon. So, yeah. So it’s a it’s a great way to get out and meet people. I mean, there’s nothing better than face to face marketing.

Speaker2: [00:02:11] Hey, man. Well, that was a lot of fun, getting a chance to know you a little bit there. But I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation. Ereo GI mission purpose. What are you trying to accomplish with this thing?

Speaker3: [00:02:24] Well, you know, it’s funny. I came up with this idea about three years ago. I’ve been involved in the karaoke business for a long, long time, got out of it for a while. But I was literally one of the first karaoke shows in the country, probably one of the first 25 in America when it first came here in the early 90s. But a couple of years ago, it came out with this concept to have Ariyoshi, and we were supposed to have it last year, but unfortunately, Covid put an end to that. And when I saw that 9/11 was coming up on the 20th anniversary and it was on a Saturday night, I said, wow, you know what? What a great thing to do, to maybe honor firefighters and and have some fun at the same time. So I contacted the Cobb County Fire Department and they said we can’t take money directly. And they directed me to the Terry Farrell Firefighters Fund and Mike Korsh. Mike is the first fire run out of New York that contracted cancer from being on side at 9/11. And Mike Live, Mike and his wife, Susan, live here in Acworth now. And so I partnered with them. And we’ve been working on this for about four or five months. Pretty hard. And they’re great people. Might used to be a pretty good public speaker around town, but due to his cancer, he’s kind of lost his way a little bit. So it’s kind of taking over the role. But I just wanted to help. I mean, I remember where I was, you know, on 9/11 when it happened and everything that went through my mind. And these are just people because they haven’t been able to have their stair climb for the last two years due to Covid restrictions. I really wanted to help them. So that’s that’s kind of brought us to this day in time.

Speaker2: [00:04:06] All right. So this is a specific event and a major objective is to to raise some money

Speaker3: [00:04:12] For the firefighters to help for the firefighters of Georgia, even though it seems Terry Farrell, firefighter son, and Terry Farrell was a gentleman that was killed in in the attack on 9/11. And Mike was a very good friend of his. And once Mike retired, he wanted to give back some time and effort to raising money for the firefighters. And that’s how the Terry Ferrell firefighters fund came about. They have offices or I guess, you know, offices all over the country. But Micron’s in Atlanta, Georgia. So.

Speaker2: [00:04:42] All right. So the event itself, when, where, how?

Speaker3: [00:04:45] Let’s see. The event is September the 11th, which is coming up two weeks from Saturday, obviously the 20th anniversary of Bert Brown with Governors Gun Club is going to sing the national anthem to kick us off around five o’clock. Very cool. It’s a friend. And and then we’re going to bring 40 singers up. Basically, we’re going to empty a hangar at Atlanta Air Charters Hangar and Municipal Auditorium at Cobban National Auditorium. Jim Cook is allowing us to use this hangar for fun. Rattus so great, great guy. So we’re back in all the planes out of the hangar. One of the planes is going to. Face the hangar. We’re going to wrap a stage around the nose of the plane and then we’re going to randomly call up 40 people to sing karaoke or Aereo key in this case, and then four of them will be brought back up for the finals. And somebody is going to win a thousand dollars. Somebody is going to win a recliner from American signature family. And I got to mention, Charlie Darion, Charlie’s the owner of Charlie’s Angels mover’s. She is our title sponsor. So the whole tagline is, can you sing like an angel? Oh, wow. Yeah. So it’s really, really cool. As well as the karaoke contest. We’re going to do a little honor honorarium or a commemorative moment for 9/11 at nine o’clock while we’re while we’re tallying the votes for the finals. We’re going to be God bless the USA. And I think I think Charlie son is going to do that. He’s about to go on the voice. So it’s based on his availability. But if if if he can’t if he’s not doing that, he’s going to be doing that. Otherwise, we’ll get someone else to sing it.

Speaker2: [00:06:21] But can you go and distinctly not sing like on purpose saying, look, I am happy to be there, I’m happy to write a check, I’m happy to eat a hot dog. Whatever you got going on, I don’t want to sing. Are you allowed to do that, too? Absolutely.

Speaker3: [00:06:34] We have. We have. When you register at Aereo dot org, that’s HRA oky Torg. You register is either a singer or you register as in the ten day. If you register as a singer, you have to list five songs that you would sing, because we don’t want 40 people singing The Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston, you know. So we’re going to separate those and make sure that everyone’s singing a different song. But if you register as an attendee, you just come and vote. The one cool thing about this, the secret to this is if you want to win a thousand bucks, you need to come sing and bring all your friends with you because you’ll be able to vote by phone at the event.

Speaker2: [00:07:14] Oh, there you go. So, yeah, I’m a. I was going to say conscientious objector, but that’s not it. I’m just I’m on a 10 day. Oh, that sounds like so much fun. And it’s it’s the date again, though, is on the list

Speaker3: [00:07:28] September the 11th. It’s a Friday and Friday evening from five to 10. Oh, neat. Yeah, it’s really cool. The numbers are really coming up in terms of attendees. Like I said, the secret to winning is come saying and bring all your friends with

Speaker2: [00:07:40] You to vote for you. And a real shout out to Charlie. I do not know her. I know of her. One of the reasons we’ve recently launched a Women in business series and one of the host has expressed to me that she wants to invite Charlie to come on that show. And I can see why. I mean, there are two or three different people who have mentioned her to me, but shout out to her and thank her and thank all the sponsors for for their generosity and their willingness to be part of this is. That’s fantastic.

Speaker3: [00:08:11] Oh, absolutely. We’ve got some fabulous people. Naomi gets on at Georgia Rouf advisor Stephen Nessen. It’s Store Square. Lot of people Dako hitting their fantastic Publix is even giving this 250 dollar gift certificate for the silent auction, which is something we all will accept items for the sale and launched right up to the day of the event. But we having a lot of success raising money for the firefighters because that’s what it’s all about. I mean, they’re going to be food trucks there. There’s going to be alcohol, I guess I can say that on air. And all all the proceeds from the food and from the drink will go directly to the firefighters. Oh, that is fantastic. Yeah.

Speaker2: [00:08:55] So tell me a little bit what it must be like, because I really don’t have a good feel for it. I, I have been to quite a number of fundraisers, I guess you would say. And I’ve always enjoyed the food truck, the alcohol, the silent auction. I really haven’t been very involved on on getting one put together. It must be a lot of moving parts. What is that like trying to herd all the cats and pull something like this off?

Speaker3: [00:09:22] Oh, it’s a lot of fun because it’s what I enjoy doing. I’ve been putting together grassroot marketing campaigns in events for years and years and years. But it is a lot of tedious minutia involved. But, you know, parking, security, things like that. Make sure everybody is the right place at the right time. Yeah, but I have a pretty good support crew with me that’s working with me, Larry blockI, Jay Man. And like I said, Susan in my course from there, Terry Ferar Firefighters Fund and Charlie herself has been attending the meetings and just trying to get things underway. Jim Cook actually just called me the owner of L.A. City. Yeah, but he like I said, he’s donating his hanga, which is way, way cool because that’s that we thought that was going to be a major expense. And Jim’s has been very, very courteous to do that for us.

Speaker2: [00:10:14] So what what kind of crowd are you expecting at this point? You have a pretty good read on it.

Speaker3: [00:10:18] 250, 300.

Speaker2: [00:10:20] Oh, wow.

Speaker3: [00:10:20] Yeah, I. Friends tell me that if if you offer a thousand dollars out here for somebody to win as a prize, you’re going to get some

Speaker2: [00:10:27] Say you going to get some. Yeah. Yeah. And some of them are probably going to be pretty good and some of them probably won’t. And that’ll be fun, too. Well, yeah, that’s true. All right.

Speaker3: [00:10:37] You know, and I mentioned earlier that you bring your friends with you. But we do have five judges, actual judges that are going to be there on site as well. Man made my name. My judge. Oh, please, sir. Joliette Holmes, former district attorney of Cobb County. Andy Gaines, the general manager of the Strand Theater in Marietta. Abit with the Myriad Daily Journal Fontayne Lewis. He owns Jazz Jokes in Marietta, and he’s very well-connected in the music industry. So fontanel in some expertize to that. And then Angie Blank, who is Arthur Blank’s last wife, and she’s a very good friend of mine. We went to the same high school and she’s actually a sponsor of the event as well. So it was very, very nice to get some a diverse group as our as our judges. And what’s really cool is Americans saying that your family has given us five recliners for the event for my JudgeI maple sirup. And I was just sitting in the hardback fold up chairs for five hours. So we’re very appreciative for that.

Speaker2: [00:11:37] And this is a recliner, one of the things that a person can win in a silent auction.

Speaker3: [00:11:42] Now, that’s the second place prize. That’s the second place prize is like an eight hundred dollar recliner. Very nice. Very leather. I’ve actually sat and it’s very comfortable.

Speaker2: [00:11:50] I don’t know what the appropriate prize would be, but it just occurred to me that maybe you should have a prize for the for the worst singer. I don’t know what the right prize would be.

Speaker3: [00:12:00] We’ll have to get back to you on that stone.

Speaker2: [00:12:02] Well, I think it’s obviously I don’t have much experience organizing the events, but I love attending them. And it feels good to do something good. But it’s neat that you can do something good and have a good time at the same time, right? Yeah.

Speaker3: [00:12:17] You know, that’s kind of what my life has been about. I had about I had about as fine a 20 year run as anybody could ever have, like and I think I’ve told you personally that I was the one of the emcees for the Diet Pepsi, all hung girls when they did the National. You got the right one baby on the campaign. I mean, not being bat shit backstage with the Doobie Brothers, a couple of Super Bowls and see double basketball championships ran the Mall of America for five days. So this event and planning and marketing thing is just kind of made in my blood since it’s probably the early 90s.

Speaker2: [00:12:45] It’s right in your wheelhouse. But let’s do talk a little bit about your back story from a couple of different perspectives. What what causes what? Bring someone like you to a point where they invest considerable time, energy, effort, talent in a cause like like this. And and what what about your background caused you to express all of that in this way, which I think you started to touch on here? Yeah, well,

Speaker3: [00:13:12] You know, that’s a good question. You know, I

Speaker2: [00:13:15] Mean, hey, it took me a minute to get it out, but I thought I was a damn fine questions. I actually just

Speaker3: [00:13:20] I’m very passionate about anything that I do. I’ve got yeah, I’ve got two great sons and very passionate about them. And if I wanted to spend time with anybody more than anything else in the world, it’s my two sons. And like I said, I got into this cause marketing. I’ve served on a couple of boards here around Cobb County, and I just have a heart for people that that do good things for the community, the firefighters, policemen, anybody, EMT people, any first responders. I just I think they get such a bad rap in the mainstream media, and I want to support them. And I’ll try to do this without getting choked up. But it’s it’s important for me to take care of these people.

Speaker2: [00:14:06] Well, amen to that, at least from my purse. But I cannot imagine what it must take in terms of attribute, mindset, discipline, ethos for a person to to get up every morning and do that with their life and career. And when I say that, I mean these first responders, the firefighter, firefighters, the police officers, I mean, they do they do put their safety, their life on the line for us every day. And I am with you. I don’t feel like they’re properly recognized, rewarded. I suspect they’re underfunded. I don’t know enough about how money works to to know that. So I just I think I just think the world of what you’re doing, man.

Speaker3: [00:14:48] Well, I appreciate that. Like I said, that’s the main reason I’m doing it, because I want to help. I’ve always been a giver, a nurturer, if you would. But it’s just something I’m passionate about. And it doesn’t matter what I’m doing, whether it’s playing poker or the things that I love to do, I’m always passionate about what I’m doing. So I’m going to do something. It’s all about attitude and effort, you know, and if you’ve got the right attitude and you put the effort into it, it’s going to be successful. And that’s kind of my mantra. I love Jimmy Valvano was saying, you know, if you wake up and cry and laugh every. You’ve had a good day in that. Yeah, that’s kind of the way I believe.

Speaker2: [00:15:25] I like that, too. So with all of this, do you find any time to to engage in a day job you get or is it hunting, fishing in this?

Speaker3: [00:15:34] Well, it’s poker. And this right now, I’ve been playing poker once a month for 38 years or with a bunch of guys. So I have a great group of friends. But I do have kind of a side job now, but I’m more of a full time job after after Ariel selling alcoholic ice pops.

Speaker2: [00:15:53] Now, that sounds fun. Do you do anything that’s not fun? You don’t. If it’s not fun, you don’t do it. No, it’s

Speaker3: [00:15:58] It was funny. I had I had lunch with a lady named Kathy Camela from CBS 46 television the other day and her son Michael. And I said, Michael, if I could give you two pieces of my piece of advice, here’s what they are. Number one, never shake a man’s hand sitting down. And number two, never do something you don’t love because life’s too short.

Speaker2: [00:16:19] So so you really do have a bit of a day job. It’s a fun hustle for you. But it’s it’s alcoholic popsicle. Ice pops, would you? Yeah.

Speaker3: [00:16:27] Yeah. We just sold a million. Our company sold a million to Budweiser of lime. Rita Sweets, a very good product. All right. But I’m talking to a lot of the local breweries about maybe expanding, extending their brand to grocery stores and maybe the liquor stores and just have something up at the counter to people who take home and throw in a phrase related phrase. And you can’t get a DUI sitting at home drinking and eating alcohol or lightbox.

Speaker2: [00:16:53] So does a does a beer or some beer make the transition? I know you talked about the Lambretta some some beer yet.

Speaker3: [00:17:01] Yeah, well, we have some samples. I might try to get you some water. Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker2: [00:17:07] They’re like we’re earned media here at Business RadioX, but we will take compensation in the form of alcohol.

Speaker3: [00:17:13] There you go. So I’m just trying you we had like a pina colada and a apple bourbon or something, right?

Speaker2: [00:17:22] I bet Bertolli. Fantastic. Yeah. And of course, you know, as many people I’ve only lived there for four months, but I know every bartender in town.

Speaker3: [00:17:30] So you’ve only lived in Woodstock performance?

Speaker2: [00:17:32] I’ve lived in Woodstock. I raised two marvelous young ladies in East Covid, and we had two. And we had a great place there in the Pope school district. And Greyhound’s. Yeah, it was a fantastic place to raise the kids. But my wife and I, we downsized. We moved here right on the edge of town. And I mean, this is utopia for me because I walk every I walk to the studio. I’m I’m sitting here talking to you a mile from the house. It’s all time. And, you know, I enjoy you know, I enjoy a cocktail now. And again, nothing wrong with some of my buddies with you, but I bet that’s. But I bet that’s a fun word. But it’s in requires a degree of creativity that I think has got it’s got to be a guy like you with your kind of background to really pull it off and make it and make it home.

Speaker3: [00:18:20] Well, you know, back in the day before I got into the marketing, I was actually the assistant general agent for mass mutual insurance company in the early 90s. And I told these sales agents that I trained. One thing I said, the only reason you’re not going to be successful is you’re not telling the people your story. You tell enough people your story and you’re going to be successful if you’re not making enough phone calls. You’re not seeing enough people. If you’re not seeing enough people, you’re not making enough sales. So it was a 10 three one ratio. I’ll never forget. For every 10 calls you make, you’ll set three appointments, you make one sale. There wasn’t much to manage that. It’s just me. So you tell people what you do, you’ll be excited about it. You know, like I said, attitude and effort will get you a long way.

Speaker2: [00:19:04] Right? Right. All right. Before we wrap, let’s make sure that we cover any additional details that I may have neglected to ask about regarding the event. But let’s kind of recover what the events are going to be about, what people can expect, and let’s make sure they know how to get there, get tickets, whatever is appropriate.

Speaker3: [00:19:23] Ok. All right. Saturday, September the 11th, from five to 10, we will be having ereo give the Cobb International Airport in Kennesaw. Many of you may know that is McCollom Field, which has been for many, many years. But at five o’clock, we will sing the national anthem. We will be having 40 people out of the audience come up and sing karaoke, or in this case, Area Okee for them will be brought back for the finals. Somebody is going to win a thousand dollars. So, again, the secret is to. Come saying, bring all your friends with you to vote for you and you got a good shot at winning something pretty cool. Like I said, there will be food trucks there. There will be a silent auction for the Terry Farrell Firefighters Fund, and we have some great items already. Angie Blanc was very instrumental in giving us an autograph. Matt Ryan Jersey. We just got a set of Cutco Knives donated this morning for the silent auction. So the main thing is we want to come out and support these firefighters who do what you said earlier. They walk into danger every day without even blinking an eye. And we need to be appreciative of those people, men and women.

Speaker2: [00:20:31] Fantastic. All right. So is this something that they can go online and purchase anything for? Or you just show up and that’s where the money’s going to get raised?

Speaker3: [00:20:41] No, you need to go to ereo keyboard as Tom UWW, APRA oky dot org, ereo keyboard and you can buy your tickets at fifteen dollars. That will also get you to drinks. So we’ll get you admission into the event and we’ll get you to free drinks.

Speaker2: [00:20:56] Look, I can tell you as an experienced drinker to

Speaker3: [00:20:59] Drink 2015, but

Speaker2: [00:21:00] That’s a deal right there.

Speaker3: [00:21:02] And plus, Red Hair Brewery is donating alcohol for so there another sponsor. I wish I could list all the sponsors, but there’s so many. I don’t want to take all of your time, so.

Speaker2: [00:21:12] Well, well, kudos to you for for going out and engaging all these sponsors. And you got to feel good about the business community here in in Georgia, in the greater Atlanta area here in Cherokee County, Cobb County, Fulton County. I mean, it’s the business community is, I suspect, head and shoulders above many in this regard wanting to contribute to the to the community at large. Now, speaking of the community at large, our medium is such that sometimes oftentimes people are listening to our shows on demand down the road. So it’s entirely possible someone may trip over this interview well beyond the date. It could be six months from now, could be a year from now. So they may very well miss this event. And if they do, they still, though, may want to contribute to get involved in some way. Where should they turn their attention? Yeah, they need to

Speaker3: [00:22:10] Go to the Terry Farrell firefighter fund. OK, that’s the right place. Reach out decision course or my course. And they will be glad to help you and accept anything. I mean, I understand what you’re saying about community. I’m one of those rare individuals. I’ve never lived further than five miles from the Marietta Square. So I am very involved in my community and very proud to be a myriad in a Cobb County. And I appreciate this approach of my territory up to Cherokee County to be on your show, this one.

Speaker2: [00:22:42] That’s great. But you have your own pie bar over there. We’ve got to make

Speaker3: [00:22:45] Absolutely

Speaker2: [00:22:46] Sure they’ve got the fiber. But you got your own over there. Yeah. Yeah. Are we fortunate? OK, one more time before we clock out here. Website contact and general and phone and we’ll call

Speaker3: [00:22:59] It will wrap awesome things down to be able to attend area. OK, you go to WW W dot area. OK, dawg, that’s HRA Aoki dot org or you can reach out to me or my email at Dot Birju BRG at Gmail acom or you can reach me by phone at seven seven zero four to eight nine nine three. Oh. Anything short of my address? I think that’s enough.

Speaker2: [00:23:25] That sounds like Bleaney. Thank you so much for coming by. Keep up the good work. We’ll continue to follow this story. Don’t be a stranger as you continue to engage in these kind of efforts. We had to Business RadioX network and Cherokee Business RadioX specifically. We want to support your efforts and do anything that we can stop.

Speaker3: [00:23:44] God bless you. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker2: [00:23:45] My pleasure, buddy. All right. Until next time, this is Stone Payton for Chuck Birju and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you next time on Cherokee Business Radio.