Jack DiPrimio, Political Organizer and Warren Campaign Volunteer

Right at 4 30 every day the Fox 92.3 here in El Paso doing us right with some Rolling Stones. I see Jack. Jack we're going to have you on in just a second. Jack just outside of Philadelphia PA coming in right now where we get a chance to meet him in person kind of at least see his face. We've answered his questions, had a chance to read some of his comments and now we're going to meet the and so Jack's coming on in just a little bit. Storm is there. Hello Ohio. Hello everybody out there. I see Ryan out there. DeMarcus. This is an all-star crew right here. There's got to be a way and maybe this already exists and I don't know how to use Instagram appropriately where we can get all of us in at the same time. I'd want to see everybody right now. I see Taylor on there. Great people. Street Fighting Man. That's right. What a great song. You can play and did this with Mike Stevens when we were living in New York together. You can play this and bleed it into Motor Away by Guided by Voices GBV. Same chord structure there at least for a little while. At least it seemed like it at the time. Okay hope everyone's good. I was just out on the front porch and was just hanging out and enjoying the beautiful weather. It was really windy and kind of nasty for the last two days and today just absolutely beautiful under a bright blue sky. No wind. 70 something degrees. Just perfect and these two friends drive up who I've known for ever since I moved back to El Paso in the late 90s. Lisa and Jorge and they had been living in Mexico last couple years and came back to be with family and to settle some business here. I think they're going to stay for a while but just sitting on the front porch and keeping our six foot distance from one another and getting a chance to catch up with them and talk to them and just have a slow good old-fashioned conversation. I can't remember prior to coronavirus when I was last doing things like that. It always seemed like there were too many things that we had to do. Too many things in the way. Too many important pressing matters to stop and just chill the **** out for a little bit and hang out and have a chill casual conversation with good people. In fact it happened earlier in the day as well. Amy and I were weeding so as you all may know we are trying to run the O'Rourke School for the Gifted out of our home and at 12 o'clock after PE and Spanish and science and math we have lunch and at 12 30 you have to be outside for 30 minutes and so Amy and I go outside and we're weeding in the front yard and a neighbor walks by with their pound puppy that they just adopted who they promptly let off the leash and that dog chases our dog around the yard and we just end up having this conversation. Who knows where it's going to go and we're weeding. We're in the sun. We're catching up. I don't know if there's a tiny silver lining maybe it is that life has slowed down for some of us in some way. I'm spending more time now with my kids than I have probably since they were born in a consistent manner day in day out. I've been on the road for the last three years of my life traveling Texas and then traveling the country. Before that I was a member of Congress going back and forth to Washington DC every week. Now I'm home all the time and probably too much for my family but I get to be with them and it's just been amazing. So I know there are so many people struggling right now. I know this is a really scary time for so many but I also want to acknowledge this part of it that for some of us lucky enough to be able to to be at home and to spend time with their families maybe for the first time in a while it's it's really at least this part of it been a little bit of a blessing and getting to see all of you through these Instagram live streams as well and I want to thank you all for for being here today. One of those things that I had a chance to do today that perhaps in another time I wouldn't have was to reach out to a good friend who'd been a big supporter in the Senate campaign in Texas, our friend Russ in Beaumont. I just learned that his dad had passed away and I called to check in on him. He was driving from Beaumont to Waco to go be with his sister and his family and to kind of settle his dad's affairs and he was telling me what it was like to try to connect with his dad at a distance at a moment where he couldn't be with him when he knew that his dad was ill and might very soon be passing away. His dad ultimately was moved into hospice care and what it's like to be able to try to connect with all of his brothers and sisters and in-laws in this period. It's a story that we're hearing from so many people right now. People dying at a distance and at a remove from their loved ones and the people closest to them. Reached out to Jen O'Malley Dillon today. You all may know her as a campaign manager for Joe Biden. She led our campaign before that and I saw a tweet that she'd posted that her dad is going to begin cancer treatment right now. So her dad doesn't have COVID-19 but her dad is going through a really painful long maybe two three month process and he's going to have to do it alone. His family will not literally be able to be there at his side. I'm sure they're going to call. They're going to zoom. They're going to be there in some way but they can't be there in the most important meaningful right up close and physically there with them kind of way. And so for all those who are having to go through this part of the shelter in place and the isolation our hearts are with you. And for all those who have lost somebody so far in this or fear losing somebody close to them we're thinking about you as well. Just some things that I was thinking about right now. Last thing and then I want to show you some numbers I want to bring on Jack. We have this organization called Powered by People. In fact I'm going to put the link up if I can figure out how to put it in the comments. And you know we originally started it as a means to bring grassroots volunteers. Here it's at the bottom of the screen now. To bring grassroots volunteers doing door knocking, canvassing, phone banking, texting, person-to-person engagement. Bring all these great folks into these state legislative races in Texas as we seek to gain a majority in the state house. Still looking forward to doing that work somewhere down the road but that work is not as pressing or as urgent as is the need to be there for one another at this time of crisis in the era of coronavirus. And so really proud of all of our Powered by People volunteers who've signed up for shifts at food banks wherever they live. Most of them here in Texas, in Amarillo, in Laredo, in El Paso, in San Antonio, in Austin, in Fort Worth, all over the state of We have filled thousands of shift hours, hundreds soon more than a thousand will have signed up for a shift. You can sign up for a shift as well at this link right here poweredbypeople.org. Sign up, we will connect you to your nearest food bank and put you to work. If you shouldn't be out of the house even though they keep you six foot distance, you wear a face mask and gloves at the food banks, you can make a donation to the Texas food banks at that site. Or if you are food insecure right now, you cannot feed yourself or your family, you can go to feedingtexas.org or one of your closest food banks or Feeding America and find out where you can go to a pantry or a food bank location or some are beginning to distribute food out to those who cannot leave the house. So I want to thank everyone who signed up for a shift and if you have not yet signed up for a shift and you can, please click this link right now, sign up or join one of our phone banks. You can also volunteer from home. In fact, there'll be a phone bank starting right after we stop this live stream today for two hours. We're going to call people all over the state of Texas, introduce ourselves and encourage them to volunteer at their local food bank. Okay, some real quick numbers. And our thanks to Elizabeth who tracks down the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization data. Almost two million cases globally reported thus far. The real number must be higher but this is what we're tracking apples to apples day in, day out. More than 125,000 deaths human beings on planet earth have lost their lives to COVID-19 that we know of so far. Many more again beyond what's been officially reported in the United States. 610,000 cases, 25,000 deaths. Although I believe that number is going to be revised upward significantly because we have found in New York state there was under reporting or misreporting by the thousands. So that number is certain to go up. In Texas, more than 14,000 cases and more than 300 deaths so far from our fellow Texans. Again, this is at best an indication of how bad the problem is in Texas. It gives us no clear idea of the scope of this because we have tested less people per capita in Texas than has any other state in the union. We do not have the test necessary to know how bad this is yet in Texas. But these are the numbers we have. I want to make sure that I share them with you. This shows number of new cases in countries around the world and you can see that the United States, more than any other country, adding on a daily basis but it is starting to flatten out. That's great news but it should by no means cause us to leave the house or to stop washing our hands or to keep anything less than six feet distance from those around us. This is number of deaths. You can see that deaths are still going up. It's kind of a lagging indicator. But again, we're outpacing every other country on planet earth. That is not an accident. It didn't just happen. It is due to leadership or lack of leadership, the missing tests, the missing PPE, the missing ventilators, the lack of preparedness, the squandered month of February as I believe a CBS reporter called President Trump to the mat on yesterday in a White House press conference that was certainly at that point becoming a propaganda exercise for the president and his re-election. I want to thank that reporter. I'm sorry I don't have her name at mine or on top of my tongue. Somebody here will and will call her out. But thanks for doing that and thanks to every network that is refusing to air these live and is instead providing the analysis, breaking down the lies, the facts, and making sure that we can make informed decisions in our lives. All right. There is a question button right here, right underneath the Powered by People link. You can press that, ask a question of me or Jack DiPremio, who is our guest. I'm going to bring him on right now. Jack is in high school. I'm going to find out what year. I believe he's 17. So he could either be a young senior or a junior. He is almost consistently the first person on this live transmission every day at 4.30 Mountain Standard Time. Always has thoughtful questions to ask of our guests. And Cynthia Kano, our wonderful executive producer, and I thought it would be a great idea to have Jack on and get his perspective on what's going on. And it's also a great way, since we've been going around the horn to all of the New York, Houston, Dallas, El Paso, LA, Springfield, Missouri, Chicago, Illinois, Evanston, Illinois, now just outside of Philadelphia. There's Jack. Great to see you. Jack, how are you? Yes. I'm so honored to be on this live stream. I was kind of nervous, but you seem really laid back, so I'm happy to be on this live. And there is a troll in the comments named Diego, who thinks that you've had me on before, but this is my first time. Diego, give him a break. Yeah, Diego. Jack, we're so glad that you would make some time to do this. And you've been such a consistent, faithful participant in our conversations before. So a couple of things that I know about you, and then you fill in the rest. We're going to want your biography, your 45-second biography. But what I know about you is you were an outstanding volunteer for Senator Elizabeth Warren in her presidential campaign. Cynthia told me you made more than 5,000 calls on the senator's behalf. You knocked on more than 1,000 doors, which is the very spirit of Powered by People, connecting with your fellow Americans on their front porch without Facebook ads or TV or any of that other stuff that's just interference or friction or static, just human-to-human connection. You are a passionate advocate in your school. I believe you are going to be a delegate to the state convention. Is that right? Well, actually, so I ran to be a national delegate to the DNC this summer, but Elizabeth Warren is no longer on the ballot. So, you know, it hurt. It was a lot of effort. It's definitely not for everyone running for office before you can even vote. It was just, this campaign was like nothing I've ever lived in before. I was kind of introverted about being politically active before this campaign, but what ignited that spark was, and I don't want to get emotional, but seeing you talk so honestly about the gun violence epidemic in this country and feeling hopeless in 2018 after coming home on Valentine's Day and hearing that those kids died in Florida was just horrific. And I'm so grateful for your leadership. And America, America deserves you a thanks that we never got to give you. So I just, I want you to know that we're all thankful for you. Oh, Jack, that is so nice. And you do not have to say that because I'll tell you what, I think the reason we're going to make progress on gun violence is because of people like you who forced people like me, frankly, to do the right thing. I mean, your leadership, your energy, your advocacy, you either get on board or you get out of the way. So you folks like Moms Demand Action, and we're going to have Shannon Watts on later this week, about which I'm very excited. You all have forced the conversation in this country that we've been afraid to have for decades. The House of Representatives have passed universal background checks. Virginia, and I'm talking about you, Skylar, Virginia has signed into law universal background checks and extreme risk protection orders. We are making progress. So there's a lot reason to be hopeful, but there's also a hundred reasons a day for us not to give up this fight. So gun violence is part of what got you involved, allowed you to overcome being shy about being in public, running for office. What else motivates you? What are you most excited for? So as a young person, like reading political philosophy seemed so like ethereal and it didn't translate into my everyday life. But as you grow older, especially in high school, you start to realize that, you know, I didn't come from a wealthy family. And when you get out there and talk to people, there's people just like me and people not like me at all who believe in different values. And I can't tell you how many Trump supporters I talked to who actually agreed with some of the things that I believed in. And it's the ability to have these conversations and just see people for who they are that drives me. And, you know, I have this like, it was a humanistic experience to just talk to voters in New Hampshire and see how they had difficult stories. You know, my father owned a business on the onset of the Great Recession and my family lost a lot of money and it was brutal. And, you know, Senator Warren really drove me to become politically active because she was out there on the front lines in Washington, D.C. fighting for a consumer agency that like the general public didn't have a lot of information about. And she was so tenacious in that fight. And, wow, Senator Warren just really lit a spark in me. And, you know, I didn't think I would get involved in this presidential race, but when she ran, I was like blown away. So and, you know, that was kind of like I kind of diverged there. But no, that's OK. I want to ask you something about what you just said. You talked about knocking on doors in New Hampshire. You talked about meeting Trump supporters and sharing with them your point. They weren't all good stories, by the way. Well, but that's that's part of the deal. But you also listen to them. And in some cases you found common ground. Talk a little bit about the difference between the opinions expressed on social media and the way that we engage and interact and sometimes ---- all over each other at a distance where we don't have to look each other eyeball to eyeball. And it's it's safe and easy to do that, though it doesn't make it right. And then what it's like to be on someone's front porch at their front door where they may really disagree with you. But I would guess chances are they're not going to say things in that same way. Tell us some of your experiences. Yeah. So in New Hampshire, you know, I talked to a father who lost one of his kids to the opioid epidemic. And it was it really hit home. And he was honest with me up front. He saw I had a Warren sweatshirt and he said, you know, I I'm happy that young people care and that you're out there talking to people. And he was like, I disagree with you. But in order for the government to work, you need a level of discourse that's peaceful. And it was reflected in the non-wealthy areas that I traveled to New Hampshire, with people just struggling to get by that had high school. They were raising kids themselves. And, you know, a lot of them weren't very politically active, but they they had a sense of who they were in the sense of pride that they wanted to hold on to. And it does translate into some dangerous mindsets, as we can see in the comments. Some nasty Trump people. It is nothing like social media. OK, guys, like, yeah, when you're when you're talking to people one on one, like you don't have a screen, you have to respect them, make eye contact. Like I'm 17, the middle age Trump people that get all riled up on social media, like, grow up, like, come on, this is not that's not real life. You know, I. I'm concerned that this fundamental pillar of our democracy, the thing you just talked about, that we can peacefully diverge our point of view, come to different conclusions about the things that we care about, but still civilly engage in discourse and conversation and then maybe find enough common ground to move forward, maybe not as much as you want, maybe not in the direction that I want. But but the thing works more or less, maybe frustratingly slow. But to paraphrase Winston Churchill better than all the other alternatives on the planet. Right. And I worry that after Corona virus, the hesitancy to physically engage and when I say physically engage, I don't mean physically engaged, be be in the same physical presence as somebody else, knock on someone's door. We might lose that. And that to me is the best part about campaigning. It's what you just described. You learn personal stories about people, inspiring stories, harrowing stories, stories that will stay with you the rest of your life and make you a better person and deepen your resolve to fix the things that are fucked up and broken in this country. I fear that through social media, we won't get that same depth and the same immediacy and connection. And it becomes way too easy to to be superficial or to be a dick or to or to gloss over things that really take a human to human conversation. A couple of quick questions, Jack, and I'm going to open this up to our viewers. What year are you right now in school? So I'm a junior in high school. And yeah, it's the Corona virus has completely made this different for all of us. And I want to shout out my teacher, Mr. Ennis, real quickly. He's one of the strongest people I know. And he's provided me with, you know, daily talks to just get me through. And like, I want young people to know that adults care and that you don't have to be alone in this. I know we like to scroll through Twitter all day, not talk to anyone, just sit in our rooms, but get out there and talk to people like, you know, we can get through this. And how are you learning right now? Are you doing Zoom calls? Are they just assigning reading and papers that you turn in? What's it look like? Yeah, so it's not the best. Like, I learned visually in a classroom and it's so easy to get distracted. I'm sure maybe, you know, I don't know how you're doing the homeschooling at home, but it's hard. And my teachers are giving me daily assignments. Some of them are a lot more relaxed because they understand that we might not have the same level of attention at home. But you know, I'm getting the work done, which is, I guess, all that matters. All right. Here's one of our first questions coming in. And Jack, if you could get your head to the top of the screen so we can see your... There we go. So what are Jack's dreams for the future? This is a nice, easy question. I had no idea what my dreams for the future were at your age, but tell us what yours are. I don't really know. I know that it's something in law or politics. I don't want to work at a corporate office. I would go insane. I really do want to work with the public because I think I like people. And I've always been driven to public service. I'm hoping to go to school somewhere in D.C. or New York and study political science and minor in philosophy and economics. And so, you know, depending on what I study in college and see what I like, you know, if I'm more economics driven, then maybe not focus on politics as much. But, you know, I haven't really thought about it that much. Working on a campaign would be great. So this question might be for me, but I'm just going to give it to you. Any plans to run for president in the future, Jack? Oh, my God. No. Seeing what you went through this campaign and all the crazy things. Don't take my example. I don't think I can do it. Take another one. No. How about you? Are you going to run again? We all went through this. I don't know. You know, I've learned never to say never. It is not really in any way appealing to me right now. I really love, and it's not the right circumstances to be doing this right now, but I really have loved being at home and being with my family. But I certainly look forward to supporting other candidates. And right now we're focused on these state house races here. Okay. This is from Skyler. What's your favorite memory when you were a volunteer for Elizabeth Warren, who, by the way, was so lucky to have you on her team? You are every campaign's ideal volunteer. You're in all the way. You're doing the work. You're engaging with voters. You reflect very well on your candidate. What was your favorite moment from that campaign? Watching Elizabeth Warren. I shouldn't bash other candidates, but watching Elizabeth Warren rep Mike Bloomberg in the last debate in a sports bar with a bunch of other cheering people was definitely a highlight of the campaign. She was masterful in every single debate. Her performance or her last two debates, just absolutely amazing. And just so excited, obviously, that she's still a senator and is still going to use those skills to advance this agenda. And who knows, maybe a chance she is our vice president. We'll see. And then president somewhere down the road. Okay. So this is from one of our fellow consistent viewers and listeners, material guy. You might be sick of people my age, 47 years old or older, saying this is why young people should be involved in politics. You're 17 years old. You're not even old enough to vote yet. Why should those seniors at your high school who are old enough to vote but haven't registered yet make a plan to vote in the November election? Yeah. So there is so much riding in this election. And I want the Bernie people to understand and even Warren people that this fight is not over. We have a candidate now who will address climate change and take actions necessary to alleviate a lot of the worst parts that will occur. It would be devastating for Trump to get in for another four years. And young people need to know that with the coronavirus, every issue that was talked about in the presidential campaign will be exponentially worse. So this should be a mandate now, looking at the news, looking at these death numbers, seeing what a president who is so narcissistic that he doesn't care about other people looks like, and having Joe Biden in the White House who cares for people he knows pain will be so much better for America. And also just like, hello, do you want to pay a lot in student debt? Like, do you want a president that addresses college debt? And to address the gun violence epidemic too. There's just so much riding in this election. I could go on and on and on. And also, Material Guy asks, like, how can young people get involved in politics more? I implore a lot of people my age to join the High School Democrats of America. We're a very formal group. You can run for elections in the organization, and you can set up your own chapter at school. I wasn't. My school is very strict. And it is true that if you are from the lower income school, you will see less political engagement. My school, Upper Darby High School, does not have a lot of political engagement, and we are a low income district. So you see these students from slightly wealthier areas, like, stay a lot more politically active. And I want schools that don't have a lot of resources to get connected to politics, because, you know, it's like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. A lot of students at my school are focusing on, like, the next meal that they'll get, like, whether or not they have access to the internet. Like, in order for us to be politically active, kids need to be aware of their problems, and then translate that out into, like, the bigger picture in society. Like, what am I doing here? And I want to see more of that in my school. So I don't want to be banned from starting any more political clubs if any of my teachers are on here. Have you seen the movie Rushmore? No, no. What's it about? Well, one dynamic is that the protagonist is starting a series of clubs at his high school and ends up getting kicked out of the high school. I won't tell you the rest of the story. But, Jack, I really love what you just said, because it's connected to the otherwise inexplicable. Why do we pay people a sub-minimum wage, at least a sub-living wage in this country? Why are folks working two and three jobs, still don't have enough to make ends meet? And many of them are working the jobs that are keeping the rest of us alive. They're stocking the shelves at the grocery store. They're cleaning the floors at the hospital. Why do people struggle to find housing in the richest, the most powerful country on the face of the planet? Why don't we have universal health care? Could it be that those who become politically engaged, including at a very young age, have the luxury to be able to do so, or the means to influence the outcome? And so, you know, intentionally focusing on young people who are in school districts that don't have the resources or the capacity or the means that wealthier school districts do is an amazing idea. And I would love if you or someone else spearheaded that effort to make sure ahead of November of this year that young people, regardless of your income, are playing a role and their voices are being heard by the candidates at the top of the ticket. So I love that idea. We're getting close to the top of the hour. Anything that you want to share, any questions you want to ask, anything you want to elevate right now in the time that we have? So, so many people, they were like, oh my God, you're going live with Beto. Let me send you questions. And I'm going to ask you the most common ones, specifically from young people. And this will be the speed round a little bit. You got it. You know, I'm a junior in high school. I toured Columbia. It was really cool. And it definitely gave me Beto vibes. I don't know what that means. Right. But, you know, what drew you to Columbia? Why did you end up deciding to go there? You know, I really wanted to be in New York City. My uncle Brooks, who's also from El Paso, moved there in the late seventies, was part of the music scene there. He was my cool uncle. Right. And yeah, I just, I wanted to, I wanted to follow him and set my sights on Columbia and just worked my ass off and was super lucky to have been able to get in and be able to get a nice financial aid package, student loans, work-study jobs, grants, and to be there with a lot of other, or I should say, people who are much smarter than I was from whom I got to learn. And then being in New York City as a kid from El Paso, Texas was an education in and of itself. So really, really good memories from that place. Awesome. And can I ask, what's the most memorable, the most memorable thing you did in college at Columbia? You know, so many good friends there. Yes. Something to say for Instagram. You know, I rode for two years on a crew team and I come from the Chihuahuan desert. So I had been in a boat a few times in my life and was, was rowing on the Harlem river, getting up at four o'clock every morning, driving the van to the, to the boathouse with the other rowers getting on the water. And it was just amazing to be in this cacophonous, hectic, everything at one city. And then to be in this really peaceful place on the Harlem river with eight other people in the boat and, and, and rowing. So I've got some just beautiful memories of those mornings rowing past the, the Sea Rock. So that's one for you. Yeah. Awesome. And what's the most Texan thing about you? My aunt actually asked this question at Easter dinner. I remember when I was thinking about running for Senate and a good friend of mine called me from New York and she said, Beto, you've got to start wearing a cowboy hat, big belt buckle, cowboy boots, wear a gun around, talk with a drawl. So yeah, I, I don't maybe fit the stereotype that a lot of people have of Texas, but fourth generation Texan born and raised here in, in El Paso. One of the few people that's been to every one of the 254 counties of Texas. So those might be a few Texas things. Yeah, absolutely. And Mr. Ennis, the teacher I mentioned earlier, wants to know what type of skateboard do you use? Cause he actually skates. He's a cool teacher. Go Mr. Ennis. I gotta meet Mr. Ennis. Oh yeah. You would, you would love Mr. Ennis. He's like, he's so cool. Actually a lot of students that go to my school confuse him for a student and they're like, Oh my God, you're a teacher. We were, we were campaigning for Eliz Markowitz in Fort Bend at the beginning of this year. And one of the early voting locations was a high school. And the vice principal came out with a skateboard and he said, Hey, we just confiscated the skateboard from one of the students. But we know that you ride. So you have the skateboard while you're out here. But then I turned it back in and the kid got a skateboard at the end of the day. I don't know what skate skateboards we have in the house right now, but when I was your age or a little bit younger, I bought a Powell and Peralta, Tony Hawk, Tracker trucks. And I forget what kind of wheels and ball bearings, maybe German ball bearings. That was a ball bearing. Can you imagine Trump doing that? No, I can't. Oh my God. That'd be, that'd be pretty funny. I'd pay to see that. Um, what was your least favorite subject in high school? I know mine. Um, I'm not going to that. I was, I was in remedial algebra for three years straight. I could not, I just couldn't get, uh, I just could not get it going. And my, it's so tough for me. I don't know why. What, what, what math are you taking right now? So I'm in statistics, which I need for political science. It's rough. It's not exciting. Like I want to be reading. I want to be reading philosophy. Let's get to the real problems. I like that. And I feel like math, uh, is what you have computers and calculators for. Um, and I'm, I'm with you. I had my head buried in books. I wanted to read. I wanted to, um, write. I wanted to connect and communicate. I did not want to have, uh, my head down in a book of algebra, working out problems. I just, I didn't have the patience for it. And I love your book recommendations. Like I just, I read one of my all time favorite books. It's about the city of Philadelphia. I've read it. Is that Buzz Bissinger? Yeah. A prayer for the city. I've got that amazing book. And, uh, you should, you should maybe read it a prayer for the city. And, um, there's a bigger book that I'm going to start. It's by Francis Fukuyama. He's a political scientist. Yeah. I, I, I tried to start last year. It's a pretty big book. It's called political order and political decay. Um, it's a tough read, but I'll try to get through it. So like reading, I do a lot of reading in my spare time. And that brings me to an other question. Like what would a 17 year old Beto be doing, like be doing during a quarantine? So somebody just, um, wrote that hackers are supposed to be good at, at math, referencing the fact that I spent a lot of time, this was pre-internet, right? So this was in the 1980s, um, on a bulletin board systems with a, you know, 300 BOD per second modem. And then maybe had a 1200 BOD modem after that calling in to other people's computers and connecting with them, downloading video games and, uh, posting text files and just again, connecting with people right all over the planet. Um, and so I was not, uh, it was not a jock. I was not a popular kid. Um, I was, I was a little bit of a, of a weirdo. Uh, and so I was very comfortable sheltering in place, being isolated, having my computer and connecting with the rest of the world that listening to records, uh, there's a place called the headstand in El Paso and, you know, uh, once or twice a month, I'd go and buy new records there, or I'd order records out of and listen to records, you know, call bulletin board systems, um, skate around the neighborhood. You'd be cool today, by the way, like you'd be. No, I wouldn't. I feel like you would like, that's like Beto vibes are artsy now. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know about that. Um, what, what are you doing all day when you're not, uh, checking in with your teacher and reading, uh, and buzz Bissinger, what, what are you doing? Um, so I've been watching Brooklyn nine, nine. I just started that. And I tried to get into Babylon Berlin. Oh, come on. No, I didn't like it. It just didn't like draw me in and give it five years, five years, and then come back to it. And I watched a parasite yesterday, which was a wild movie. Don't ask Lisa Dell and Tony about parasite. Actually. Yeah. Lisa, um, I've been texting Lisa, Lisa a little bit and, uh, she gave me some advice for the show. So I'll talk to, I'll talk about parasite with her. As she mentioned earlier, uh, last week, uh, I can't, I'm not going to repeat what she said. Totally inappropriate. Uh, but Lisa with her whiskey is coming back next Wednesday. We're going to have whiskey Wednesdays with Lisa Dell and Tony. Uh, we'll do our Chicago Evanston check-in next Wednesday. This Wednesday, um, we are going to have Dr. Gilman, uh, on again, uh, who, I don't know if you saw him. He's one of those incredible emergency room doctor in New York city. Um, the bad-ass of bad-asses, um, on the front lines of, of what's going on. And he's going to give us a frontline report tomorrow. Um, so we're going to have him on again. Absolutely. And, uh, federal, thank you so much. I want to stay in touch and, uh, stay Cynthia's texting me right now. Uh, I hear you have to go. I actually might jump onto that phone. Is Cynthia giving you the hook? Yeah. Cynthia's like, come on. Uh, you gotta love our producer. Um, Jack, I gotta tell you this. You, you are so inspiring to me knowing that you're out there makes me feel okay about the country. There are a lot of people like you who are intelligent, thoughtful, passionate, empathetic, care about the people around them, want to make this a better place and you're going to ******* do it. And we're going to have you to think, uh, when, when you all save us, uh, from ourselves. And so please, please keep it up and we'll get you back on the show again to check in, see how you're doing and, um, and tune in tomorrow. Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much, Beto. Have a good night. Adios. Bye-bye. Have a great night. Bye. So, uh, Jack says he might get on this call. If you want to join us at some point, um, you can go to poweredbypeople.org. That's where you can sign up to volunteer in a food bank or as Jack is about to do, you can get on a phone bank call to raise volunteers for the food bank, which basically just means we give you a call list of 30 to 50 great Texans and you call them one after the other and you say, um, Hey Joe, uh, Hey Lisa, um, there's an opportunity to volunteer at the food bank in your community. Um, there are really long lines and not enough people to, to box the food and distribute the food to them. Could you help us out? And it's as easy as that. If you want to join us in that effort, you can go to poweredbypeople.org. And if you haven't already seen this, go to my, uh, Twitter or Instagram or Facebook and see this really nice public service announcement that Willie Nelson, uh, and family cut for powered by people to try to get more volunteers out there. No greater champion for small family farms. Uh, just see farm aid as an example of that, or at this point, helping our food banks to get the volunteers that they need. And we want to thank the Nelson family for doing all of this work and helping to draw attention to the need for more volunteers at our food banks. Um, you all be well, uh, let me bring on the graphic for Dr. Gilman. Who's going to join us tomorrow. And well, I thought I had downloaded it. Um, she's going to kill me. Uh, some, someone will post it at some point, but you saw Cleveland Gilman, um, two weeks ago, uh, New York city emergency room, doctor amazing, um, writing these incredibly powerful moving diary entries that he posts on his Facebook and on Twitter. Uh, we're going to have him live tomorrow to tell us what things look like in New York city at the emergency room that he works at right now. Uh, our thanks to Christie, um, our graphics artists, Elizabeth, our statistician and Cynthia Kano, our producer, uh, Jack, our guests who just, if you weren't inspired by him, uh, you're not alive. Um, who gives us a lot of hope for what's going to happen in this country going forward for all of you for joining us and we'll see you manana. Adios.