RUSH: The Official Program Observer has a question. What is it? (interruption) Mmm-hmm. (interruption) Oh, wow. If I…? (interruption) El Snerdbo has asked me what I would be passionate about if I, what, retired, or just was not doing this at all? (interruption) If I was not doing radio, what would I have done? Well, that was the problem.
You know, when I got fired for the fifth time and left radio, I was 28 and went to work for the Kansas City Royals. I thought I was finished in radio. I’d given it my best shot. Being a DJ didn’t work out, and I was not passionate about working for a baseball team. It’s just what was available. I tried to make the most of it, but I found out that I wasn’t cut out for corporate conformity.
(interruption) No, I never wanted to be a pilot. I didn’t want to do anything else. Well, I always said that I would run an airport if I weren’t doing this. I’m fascinated by how that all works. But this has been my one passion. I don’t know. (interruption) Oh. Snerdley has said he can see me running a tech company. No, no, I like being a customer too much.
One thing I learned about working for the baseball team: Once something that is a hobby or a vocational passion becomes your job, it totally changes. I got to the point where in year five, I was hoping the team didn’t make the playoffs because I was ready for 18-hour days to end. Well, I couldn’t tell anybody that. Making the playoffs, going on the World Series (chuckles), that’s what it’s all about.
But that had happened in the first year. Well, second year for me. So it was grueling, and it wasn’t a whole lot of money, either. But this has been the only real passion that I’ve had. One of those times I got fired, I thought about going into radio sales, until I had an interview with a sales manager at a station in Kansas City and the guy was a genuine lunatic.
I’m interviewing for the job and he’s yelling and screaming at me about what his demands will be and what they are. I’m saying, “Geez, I have to face this every day?” He was a genuine shouting, maniacal guy. It’s like sometimes I think people behave in front of me just to see what I will do or how I will react to, say, what they think is outrageous. When I met Shimon Peres in his office in Israel…
On my famed trip to Israel in the Summer of 1993, Rabbi Nate Siegel was one of my hosts along with Malcolm Hoenlein of the American Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. It was five days that was worth a college semester. It was five jam-packed days. By the way, Nate Siegel just had a birthday. I sent a video. Did you ever get an acknowledgment on that video? (interruption)
I didn’t either so I don’t know if he got it, but I sent him a Dittocam birthday greeting. Anyway, we had meetings with Yitzhak Rabin and with Shimon Peres in his office, and in the meeting with Peres, he kept undoing his belt. He’s sitting there and he kept undoing his belt and then rebuckling it. He’d look at the holes in his belt while we’re talking.
His first topic of conversation with me was the importance of trees and greenery to everything. It’s like somebody had given him a briefing and he thought that I was some extreme, wacko right-winger walking in there and he was trying to taunt me. So this sales manager, who knows what this guy thought. The guy was shouting and screaming and throwing things off of his desk, and showing me what he was going to be demanding every day in terms of sales.
This guy every day in a sales meeting? No way.
This is the long version here of telling you that this is why I’m so fortunate. I was able to end up doing what I think I was born to do. I’ve never had passion for anything else — I mean, career-wise — like I’ve got for this. (interruption) Thought about being an actor? I’ve never thought about being an actor. By the way, you have to temper all of these thoughts with: If I ever did, what are the odds?
There’s no way, unless I became a liberal first.
You know, folks, let me tell you. I’m watching some things happen in the media. There are a lot of… I shouldn’t say “a lot.” There are some noteworthy supposed conservatives in the media who are all of a sudden gaining a lot of praise from the Drive-By Media. I’m going to tell you, that is highly seductive. When you start getting universal accolades and praise from those people, it’s tough to resist.
“The Big Clique wants you,” is the way it works, and I’m starting to sense that happen to some in the media that you have always thought to be conservative. I can’t ever imagine something like that happening to me. So being an actor? No way. I’ve never wanted to be. I mean, that’s not actually true. To be honest, there’s a whole lot of stuff I would like to try. Just tons of it. But in terms of making careers out of them? No.