Perception of safety in Downtown, local sports with Tommy Hicks, and a ship show of controversy over vessels in the Port of Mobile.
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[0:02] Welcome to this week's episode of Lagnapod. I'm your host, Rob Holbert. Everybody else, introduce yourselves. Ashley Trice. Grant McLaughlin. Kyle Hamrick. Tommy Hitch. All right. We're here today. That's good. We all survived Mardi Gras last week. Everything's good. I feel just refreshed. Feel rejuvenated. I do. Starting to feel like a human again. Yes. Yeah. Last week was still a little rough. But we're back, and we're doing some of the Lord's work here. Kyle, you've got this week's cover story, which is basically going down and talking to folks in Loda, downtown Mobile, the business owners down there, about these, you know, the recent gunshots on Joe Cain evening for one, but just the general feeling about what's going on downtown. Yeah, we kind of took a Charles Dickens approach here. He liked to walk around downtown and talk to folks. I didn't know that. This was the best of times. This was the worst of times. I thought maybe you were going to tell me you saw some ghosts of.
[1:04] That's in the next story. That's coming up. Joe Cain passed or something like that. The three spirits of Mardi Gras. I've seen a ghost of Joe Cain present who's still wandering around town. Yeah. Also looks like a homeless guy. But anyway. Just a little bit. Anyway. But yeah. You know, so I went downtown and talked to some bar owners, some restaurant owners. Pick their brain, you know, we've got all kinds of new tourists and guests coming to downtown because of Amtrak, cruise ships, stuff like that. Are we safe enough for these people? Some business owners said that, yeah, we're safer than we've ever been. Things can't get better than this. Some people said, no, this is as worse as it's been. You know, we've had more violence than ever and something needs to be done. So, this was sort of predicated by Vlad from Mediterranean Sandwich Shop after...
[1:59] There was a shooting in the building. Somebody just shot out the front door, the glass in the front door. Just walked down the street, pulled out their gun, and shot this window out. Like this is Dodge City or something. It was the same night as the other shootings. This one was actually early in the morning of Fat Tuesday, like 1250-something. For no apparent reason, just shot out a window. For no reason, just was walking down the street, shot out the window. But that prompted him to say, I'm not doing any more late night stuff. But it wasn't just that. He said, you know, to the crowds. But it was the precipitating event. That was my last straw for him. He said, you know, the lead and gyros don't mix, and we're going to cut off our late night service now after many, many years. I mean, and David Rask from Heroes was like, you know. He said if it was a lot safer feeling, then we might open. It seems that the two lodos, I would say, are perfect. Up to 10 p.m. and then after 10 p.m. Right, right. There's the daytime one, which is when Vlad said most of the people from Amtrak are coming in to eat a gyro is during the daytime. But after those folks get on the train and folks go home, when the night falls, Dodge City. The loneliness calls. Yeah, the loneliness calls.
[3:17] Ooh, I want to dance with somebody. All right. No, that's when it gets bad, is what Vlad said. Well. And something needs to be done. And I think even as a, as an old guy who doesn't go downtown late any, very often anymore, um, the, uh, the, I, I think you can see there's a very different, uh, it is a real dichotomy.
[3:42] I mean, it is, there, there's downtown up to a certain point and then it becomes a very different place at night. It becomes a lot more wild. um there's you know i i i go back to years past when when i was young and uh ashley when you were young when we all used to go downtown the party didn't start downtown go out until 10 30 yeah but it's now i think um it's a lot different down there and i mean that may sound like maybe we're just being old people and going like that's just different than it used to be but i but i think that's what a lot of the people that we've talked to or say some of the people we've talked to I mean, some of the folks who deal, I think, in late night bars were more like, no, everything's great. But, you know, for instance, Rasp, you know, he quit serving after 9 o'clock a while back. Yeah, since COVID. He just said that the, you know, the clientele changes and the whole attitude changes. A lot of things going on downtown. Right. The scooter gangs are out now. The scooter gangs, man. Getting on the scooters again. Well, I mean, that was part of it. Like I was saying, the curfew is not being, of course, for these underage kids. Right. Yeah. Well, I think that's a big, a big part of it. And I hear that a lot from people down there. It's just, you know, it's, hey, at, you know, after a certain time on, especially weekend nights, the...
[5:00] You know, there's just a lot more mayhem and a lot of young people down there who are doing things that they shouldn't be doing. And then, you know, I think Rasp alludes to people who are, I guess he sort of says, maybe shouldn't have liquor licenses, that they're doing things. Yeah. Having claimed that, you know, some folks maybe shouldn't have the ability to sell booze. He kind of got into that a little bit. And Vlad alleged that, you know, there's a lot of underage drinking that goes on downtown that he claims is not being properly enforced.
[5:32] And what we should note here through all of this is there's a platoon of police downtown. There's thousands of police. And when the shootings on Joe Cain Day happened, there was like 50 or 60 cops and they got to the scene fast. But the presence of police, it seems, is not enough to deter folks from getting mad at somebody and then shooting them or shooting into a crowd of people. Yeah, I think that's I mean, I think that's been pretty, you know, pretty well explained at this point is that there are just folks who don't care what the proximity is to police officers or to crowds of people who might identify them or any of those things who just whipping out guns and shooting folks. Um, you know, that's not to say downtown is every weekend there's shootings downtown. That's not, I still would say that, you know, I've walked around downtown Memphis and in the not too distant past. I could tell you, I'll take Mobile any day of the week. Same. Yeah. Um, but you know, I've walked down the darkest roads in downtown Mobile before I walk around downtown Memphis at two in the morning. But, but it does still raise the question. And a lot of people have talked about it you know should we continue having all night, bars and you know should places stay open until 6 or 7 in the morning or whatever and have that going on you know is that productive for downtown I mean that's always been one of our you know we've always sort of.
[6:59] Proud of that you know we're the city that's up on all night yeah we're a little mini new orleans because we stay up all night yeah our bars can stay open and people come in from other places and like holy crap y'all do y'all stay awake all night yeah um and i certainly remember seeing the sunrise walking out of bars when my youth sure as you say with pride on your face i can tell you you're like and i did you know you know and it and it does i mean it i mean i do think it in some ways is helpful to business. When I lived in Austin, Texas, it closed at two o'clock. Everybody had to be, everything shut down at two. And I think that would actually help businesses, you.
[7:39] You know staffing issues and stuff like that it might be actually more productive than well there are you know there are two kinds of businesses downtown and there are businesses that are there every day and they have normal business hours and they you know they bring their garbage in every day and they do all those things then there are businesses that are open on the weekends and they're open all night they put their garbage cans out and leave them and they don't come back for days and there's just um so there is a a dichotomy there is there are two two lotus to so to speak in that regard and so i think you know some for some of those people you know they're more than happy to have the things the way they are but i don't know that that is necessarily, productive if you're going to have you know if you if you're going to have tourism and you're if that's a big part of what we're doing and i mean and you talked to david clark and they're I mean, I think there are lots of great things going on right now. Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, the Amtrak numbers. Yes, the Amtrak numbers are amazing. You know, we're, you know, going to get that big new cruise ship. Yeah. You know, there's just, and it's just, you know, St. Louis Street. You know, it's going to be beautiful. There's a lot of great things.
[8:55] But, you know, there's a, yeah, I mean, and I feel totally safe every time I go downtown, but I don't go downtown. I mean, I'm asleep by 10 o'clock every night. Well, I mean, playing devil's advocate too, is if you want people to live downtown, does it help to have cars rolling down the street at three in the morning, you know, playing loud music or kids on scooters all night long or people out drinking and driving? There was a apartment behind the window that got shot out in Vlad's building. Yeah. I mean, you're not going to, I don't even know what time of day that happened, but I think it was. Just midnight? I think he thought it was, was it midnight or was it later? It was at midnight. So, I mean, a 2 a.m. curfew probably maybe wouldn't even stop something like that, but, um, But you do have to wonder if you're going to ultimately hopefully have more people living downtown, how many people want to live in an area where there are bars open all night long?
[9:54] I mean, if you look at the French Quarter as an example, most of the people who live in the French Quarter don't live on Bourbon Street. And they don't live right there. They live farther away from all that stuff. But I don't know where it goes from here, but that is a big issue, I think. Like raise the curfew so that only people who are over the age of 30 can come downtown? I think 21 and up is fine, but it's just so hard to enforce unless you're just going up, walking up to people and asking for their papers, basically. Well, but, you know, there's a lot of kids downtown on the weekends. There are. I mean, you can see all the kids on scooters. So going back to the scooter thing, but it is, I mean, there are tons of obviously teenage children on scooters riding around, certainly in our area. I've left, uh, I've left Gabby's around. Um.
[10:47] I shouldn't be proud to say, but I am proud to say it around two or three. And there are, I have seen like minors like riding around on scooters and I'm like, what are y'all doing? You know, what's the point? What's the point? Mad Max. Just driving around. It is beyond Thunderdome at this point. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that's, and it puts a lot of pressure on the police too. It does. So, you know, I mean, I've already. There's some things to think about. They've already gone on record on this scooter thing. I think it's a failed, I think it's a failed experiment. I really do. I have to say they were really useful to me during Mardi Gras. Someone who doesn't know where to park. Sure. But I don't think they're a good idea for like kids after like midnight. I have hated them from the start.
[11:33] I remember when we did the first story on them in 2022 or three and I hated them from the get-go. I've been a scooter hater from day one. You're a scooter hater. I just want something that's cuter. I like the line, the cuter scooter. Yeah, a cuter scooter. I think the line bikes that aren't motorized would be a good one. I think we have those. That's what we used to have. Yeah, we used to have those. I mean, those scooters just scare me. They're like, if they hit you, bones are going to be rough. I think if you sit down at the corner of Washington across from Moe's, you know, out in that courtyard and watch what happens on a Friday night, you'll say. Like, of course, a buggy.
[12:16] Maybe we can find some folks and we can race on the scooters and just see how fast they go. They go pretty fast. But, you know, I'm not laying it all at the scooters, but at the feet of the scooter company. But, I mean, it is, I think, part of that whole just sort of giving over in the middle of the night to other stuff. To Bedlam. It is. I mean, you know, the, the, the cruising that goes on and loud music and, and, you know, I know I sound, God, I sound like such a, it's so loud or whatever, get off my lawn, but it, but it does.
[12:50] You really have to wonder what is the, is this really what you want? Is this really the effort that is being put in throughout the rest of the day seems to be getting ruined at night by some of this stuff. You know, when Wyatt Earp was in charge of Tombstone, they, they took, they took the guns up. When you came into town you had to give up as soon as sam elliott got there and helped out yeah i just i just want to say it feels ever since kyle got married he gets older and older every day he is he's really aging rapidly but i'm tired i like to go to bed at 10 o'clock read my book and go to bed not 5 30 5 30 yeah 5 30 right when i get off of work he's right out they head to the morrisons immediately immediately anyway well we'll
[13:35] uh we'll continue looking at this in fall as we go along. But we're going to follow Tommy Hicks right after this break.
[13:49] And we are back. You were like medical reporter this week. I was. You had some very interesting medical stories in the sports section this week. Well, we like to have diversity in the section. It was good. But, I mean, they were involving two of the bigger sports notables of town. Certainly Terry Curtis, former head coach at UMS Wright, he had open heart surgery early February.
[14:21] He had had a serious heart attack like 30 years ago, 40 years ago. I read that when he was fairly young. Yeah, so he had a defibrillator, and apparently there were some issues with it. He went in to get checked. They found blockage. Yeah. So they went in and got rid of the blockage, But then the next thing was, can they get, uh, it was trying to get his heart rhythm on a, on a regular. So he was in intensive care apparently for like 11 days. Man. Well, 11 day hospital stay. Most of that time was in intensive care. He's back home. Good. He's resting, uh, doing well, you know, just going to be a deal where it's going to take a little time to re rebuild his stamina and not, you know, I don't think he's going to be doing any sprints in the next few days. That's, that's maybe later. He'll make it back. Yeah, he'll be fine. He's a tough guy. And then Willie Anderson, who— Former NFL— Former NFL standout offensive lineman.
[15:20] He's going to—he released a video last Friday to talk about the issues he's had with his kidney. He is having a kidney transplant on March the 3rd. And what was interesting is that, you know, they tested his sister to see if she would be a candidate. Nate, she was not. A couple of other family members, they were not. His girlfriend said, hey, I want to get tested. Turns out she's the perfect match. He better put a ring on that. He better put a ring on that. Yeah, I mean, talk about the made for one another.
[15:53] So she's donating a kidney to him at Emory Hospital in Atlanta. If he gets divorced, she'll take that kidney back. That's right. I'm taking that with me, Your Honor. It's mine. I'm only back.
[16:03] But apparently you know his the rating that they use to judge your kidneys operation is like if you sit sick normal is like 90 to 120 for young adults and it diminishes with with age if it gets to 60 or below for three months and you're considered to have chronic issues 15 though is the one where you have serious kidney failure. His rating right now is five. Good Lord. So he was on the transplant list at Emory and also at Duke University. And then the girlfriend matches. So wish him great luck next week with the surgery and hopefully everything will come out all right. Well, that's this week's medical report. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm glad to help. So moving back into some sports, some current sports uh the uh south regionals are going on and we had some some speaking of blockage there was some blockage going on there it's going on yesterday uh hadley kelly with mobile christian mobile christian girls won their 3a they're headed to the state semifinals next week in birmingham uh but in the game she blocked 23 shots 23 that's crazy it's crazy number and uh.
[17:27] It's a state record, duh, but it's only two blocks off of the national record, which was set by someone you may have heard of, Brittany Griner. Yes, heard of her. The WNBA player who is 6'10". Right. Hadley is not 6'10". Yeah. So 6'10", you can understand, sitting back when she was in high school, probably just batting away. Hadley, in a regional final championship game, 23 blocks, she had a triple-double in the game. That's a crazy amount of blocks. That's a crazy amount of blocks. You'd think after a while you'd quit going her way. Maybe shoot somewhere else. Yeah, that would probably be the thing. I don't know. Just getting the ball smacked into the stands every five seconds.
[18:11] Leave her alone. Don't go toward number 23. That's nuts. Let's not go there. And then we have a couple. You have a story about some kids at South who've been playing together since they were a little bitty. Yeah, since they were four years old, Gracie Dees, who played a high school ball at Sarah Land, Lily Stagner, who played at Faith Academy, Lily's sister just finished four years on South's softball team. They're both now at South Alabama as true freshmen. Both have started all 16 games so far. I mean, they just jumped in and boom. That's great. Lily's playing shortstop as a true freshman, and then Gracie's an outfielder. Gracie's hitting .327 with five doubles and two home runs. So far 16 games. Not bad. Lily's batting .271. She's had three home runs and 12 RBI already. They're pretty good. It's like, okay, go. But they've grown up together since before playing at Sims, playing park ball, playing travel ball together during the summers. It's just kind of cool. You know, the local kids are going to the local college.
[19:20] And making an immediate impact. So it's going to be fun to kind of watch and see what they do over the next four years. And then we've got a coach coming back into the area who, a name everybody may know. Caleb Ross, who led McGill-Tulin to their first ever football state championship back in 2015.
[19:42] He left here, went to Opelika for a year And then he went to Prattville for a little while, He spent four years at Troy as the director of high school relations and as an offensive analyst for them. And then this past year, he was part of the Alabama High School Athletic Association staff, but the itch to keep coaching just kept coming back. So the job opened up a fair hope. He said his wife was not happy when they left Mobile originally, so they'd been looking for an opportunity to get back into the area. And this was the perfect fit for them because Tim Carter announced his retirement at the end of this past season at Fairhope after 11 years, and that job was open. I think it's a really good fit, and he'll do a really good job out there. He's got a really good record from everywhere he's been, so it'll be interesting. Tommy, I did want to, something that was making me giggle this week, too, local sports-related, was I saw Gunnar Rivers committed to NC State, like his dad, and somebody was like, if we keep up at this rate, We'll have a new quarterback every three years because of all of the signs. Well, the next son in the long list of 10 children is a freshman this year. So he'll get to be on the varsity. So he'll be sitting there waiting. So they're set. They're set. Yeah. NC State's set. He'll be the sophomore starter, I'm going to guess. Yeah. Right.
[21:06] But yeah, I mean, that's great. He finally went ahead and announced where he wants to go. And Noah Ross, who was a running back for them this past year, has already signed with them. He's a year ahead of the runner. So he's already out there. So Phillip's already helping his alma mater reload in a big way. Tell you what. Because Noah rushed with more than 2,000 yards and 38 touchdowns last year. So that's a pretty good pickup as well. Yeah, no doubt.
[21:32] All right, Tommy. Thank you so much. We're going to take a quick break, folks. We'll come back and talk a little more. We'll be right back.
[21:44] And we are back so we've we've got a tale of two cities and a tale of two ships this this week too so another dickens classic another dickens classic yes ships the it was the best of boats it was the worst yes so the the best of boats was we got in this bizarre story this week that so um president trump announced that that a hospital ship was going to be sent to greenland that's right and so then people start sending me texts saying you know that the only two hospital ships that the navy has are in port here in mobile the comfort and the mercy right for the first time i believe since desert storm maybe they're in the same port at the same time and so you know we're right we write a story that basically says hey one of them's in dry dock we know one of them is up on land actually is or it's up in the it's it's not in the water i guess they've got it out of the water land it's up it's not in the water yeah but the other one's there.
[22:46] And you know and then so we do a story scott does story looking into it they were doing some work on them doing some work on it and then it's supposed to head to portland yeah next for more for like $80 million worth of renovation. Starting March 20th. Right. Yeah. And so, you know, we wrote that story, which of course, because it is the way the country is now, a story about a boat or ship causes everybody to then get into their corners and call each other names about politics. Yeah, folks got really upset about this story. They got upset that it was somehow, you know, but the following morning.
[23:24] I'm coming to work and I get text messages saying, Hey, the ship just left port. The mercy has left port. And so it's in the middle of the bay right now. And so we start tracking it because you can track ships, which I didn't know, but do a quick commercial for marine traffic.com folks. You can see every ship of the world. It's crazy. Website. I never knew that. It's so cool. It is the coolest thing. There, there it's, it's mind boggling when you look at it and see all the ships on there. But anyway, we started watching that and it's going. And so we reported that it was leaving the port, which also then turned into another fight about who was wrong and who was right.
[24:03] This story didn't age well. This story, well, because it's news. News does not generally age well. So, Kyle, where is Mercy now? The Mercy is somewhere in the Gulf along the same latitude, I believe, as Bradenton, Florida. Which we all know where that is, yeah. Right. This is, you know, it's about halfway down the Florida coast, halfway down the Florida coast. And it appears to be going toward the Panama Canal. It's going to sail between Cancun and Cuba. At this point, it is headed more in that direction than one would think swinging around Florida and taking the- Now, there's still time. It could. It could. They could get up in the wheelhouse and start turning like the Titanic and sail past Miami. They could easily take a portward drift and head toward the east. Head to Greenland. Yeah, I don't know. But we're watching it. We've heard from some sources that it's going to Portland. Right. And it will sail. You talked to some sources that were all in the ship, had some familiarity, and the crew was saying, we're not going to Greenland. Yeah. They said, there's no way we're going to Greenland. This is funny.
[25:11] Yeah. And now we're going to Portland. Not Portland, Maine. Not Portland, Maine. Portland, Oregon. That's right. They're going to sail through the isthmus of Panama and go up the Golden Coast past San Fran up to Portland. That's what we think at this juncture. We're not sure, but that's what— But it would make sense because March 20th is when it's supposed to be in Portland. But it's still, at this point, is still, for whatever reason, a political battle. And even— It could.
[25:41] There's still time. They could be like, wait, wait, wait a minute. Let's just swing a little left here and go toward Florida. So... Then more ship politics was ship politics. More ship. That was a P. It was pronounced. I'm pronouncing my P. I'm popping my P's. All politics are ship these days. Popping my P's. Real shippy. So the U.S. The S.S. United States has been in port being stripped down, getting ready to become the world's largest artificial reef. For a year. Off the coast of Florida. Right. But now there's trouble. Hold up. There's trouble. Erin Brockovich has come out of the woodwork and said that the ship is covered in hexavalent chromium. She hates that. Which, if you recall the movie with Julia Roberts, was what was in the water in Hankley. Yes. And she fought the system and got multiple millions of dollars. If there's hexavalent chromium around, she's going to be there. She's all that. She's on top of it. She says this ship is covered with it.
[26:52] Covered in it. A little late to the party, is she not? A little late to the party. She actually was behind the city council of New York who said we should save the ship. This information that she got about the hexavillacrobium came from the SS United States Preservation Foundation. They had got like a scientist in Florida who said it's covered in these chemicals. So these guys who let the ship come down here and be ripped pretty much apart, have its smokestacks taken apart, but now they want it back to be a museum. To save it. That's what the people in New York want. But they have hired somebody who says there's hexavalent chromium all over the ship and you can't sink it. But we want it back. Well, folks don't want this thing to sink. And now if we sink it with all this hexavalent chromium on it, allegedly, they say that it It would leach into the water and would taint the fish and would just be an all-around bad thing. And, um, I've, I've tried to get some information on if there is some hexavalent chromium on the ship. I feel a sequel coming.
[27:58] There could be a sequel, you know, down at the deep. Air Brock Avent 2. Yeah. The Empire Strikes Back or something.
[28:07] But, you know, and I've tried to find out, you know, cause this is a big deal. If there is hexavalent chromium on the ship, that could be a bad thing. I've not been able to confirm with any of the people doing the work on this. If they forgot to check for hexavillant chromium on it. To scrape the chromium off. The Okaloosa County Commission, who bought the ship to sink into a reef, says that everything is fine. They don't care. They are ready to see this thing glub, glub, glub, glub, down to the bottom of the ocean. That was a good sound effect. I'm sorry. Stay in your lane. I'm sorry. The sound effects are very fine. I don't know that I could do that one. That was a good one. They are ready to watch it go. So they're ready to watch it go down. They're ready to watch it sink to the bottom. So anyway, at this point, we really don't have an answer to whether there is hexavalent chromium or not, or if this is just a gambit by which to try to keep it from being sunk. It seems to me like I think we should do another good check to make sure we've got all the hexavalent chromium. Maybe Erin Brockovich will come here and we'll have an opportunity. Or Julia Roberts could come down. That would be better. That'd be fine with me. I'd be happier if she came. She could lick the side of the ship and say... Yep, that's it. Oh, there's some... These sound effects. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's just so much fun to do the sound effects. The sound effects are out of control. We could do like the Explorer from Rudolph. He could lick it. You want to be the SFF. There's gold in here. There's chromium in here.
[29:37] We could do something like that. Well, there's definitely going to be some more about this, I'm sure. I doubt we've heard the end of Aaron Brockovich on this one. This week, we missed this last week. Because we were all in the midst of Mardi Gras and partying. This is what happens every year. There's news that goes on in the rest of the state that doesn't permeate down here. But last week, it was revealed that the Public Service Commission, you know, we've got that whole bill over the Public Service Commission about maybe them becoming appointed versus elected. And it was revealed that the conversation between the Alabama power lobbyist, he had called the energy Alabama lobbyist.
[30:26] To sort of just try to direct them on how to how to back this bill and the guy from energy alabama recorded it yeah and it is one of the slimier things i've heard in a long time but it is i think i think it's uh very interesting stuff and the concept that you know we've got chip brown and some of these other people that are behind this bill saying this takes politics out of it um i think this is a real demonstration of how exactly it does not do that yeah you know what it reminded me of i remember in die hard when uh i think the guy's name was lewis was trying to talk to hans gruber like to broker deal yeah yeah baby right yeah yeah i've got you here that's what it gave me those vibes it does have that greasiness to it it's uh you know he.
[31:18] That guy ended up with his brains blown out. I will remind. We hope that doesn't occur here. But the Alabama power lobbyist at one point basically tells them, we'll say whatever we need to say. We'll tell them we're against it. If that helps you guys, we're going to give you the win here. We're going to let you take this big political win because this is good for everybody. And he says several times we don't care we're happy with the way things are that's fine but i need an answer by this morning on what the energy folks yeah what the energy folks are going to do you know it's like we're we're cool with whatever happens but man we really need this in a hurry yeah and uh and then he he's then he sort of threatens him he says you know they don't they don't uh want to hear about any of this they don't want to see energy alabama writing Yeah, it was like, don't tweet about this. We don't want a big old war, is what he said. We don't want a big old war. And then he said, you know, he would consider our big old fight. And he said he would consider it a fight if they posted on social media, which was a little ominous. But he chuckled when he did it.
[32:29] He was jovial. Yeah, because we're all buddies here. We're all buddies. I wrote my column about it this week. It's something, the link is in there. If you want to go listen to the whole 10-minute conversation, it's pretty fascinating. But it is, I think, you know, one of the things that the lobbyists from Alabama Power stressed is they want this bill to have Senate approval for these appointed commissioners. Yeah. Because they don't have a close relationship with Tommy Tuberville, and they think he's going to be the governor. And they've got some senators, and he named several senators who are their friends. And they just so happen to be people who get a lot of money from Alabama power. So there's no politics. We're going to take it out of politics and give it to the politicians. Right. And it's going to be great. It's going to be fantastic. Anyways, it's fascinating stuff. You don't get to hear that kind of stuff very often.
[33:26] I wonder if they consider leaking that phone call a fight. I would imagine that they're not happy about that. It doesn't look good.
[33:34] So moving on, we are on the verge. Maybe like nappy eve here, right? Ash is coming. Yes. It's the most wonderful time of the year. It is. It's giving. It's fun. Everybody can get out there and support the businesses and people that they love in the community. Snappy nominations start on Wednesday, March 4th at 3 p.m. So that would be next week. Yeah, next week. And they will run through Sunday, March 29th at midnight. You can vote once per day per category. Now, and during the nominations, it's open voting. So you can vote for anyone that, you know, as long as it's their correct category. Yes. Anyone, any business.
[34:18] And then at the end of that, we tally up the top vote getters in each category. And then we'll have the finals in May. Remember, you have to participate in the nominations in order to make it to the finals in order to win. Right. So you got to get your nomination game. So when people go in, just to explain it to those who might not have done this before, you go in and you can type in a name. Yeah any name yeah you can type it in you're not going there to look for a list you're going there and you're saying i think joe's john doe is the best artist in town whatever yeah and and and hopefully spell their name correctly it helps but if you but if you don't we still figure it out okay the back end of the software it is flags it and so is this the same person is this and we go yes and then if people misspell it the same way it'll still combine it yeah it's pretty so there's all that it does it it does help but if you can spell it correctly it's really the best way to do it and we do have some new categories this year i wanted to go such as um.
[35:18] Well, and your theme is Rhinestone Rodeo. Rhinestone Rodeo. Okay. All right. And the Beauty and Wellness, Best Martial Arts Studio, Best Permanent Jewelry, which I did not know what that was, but apparently it's a thing the kids all like. I didn't know there was a thing. City Life, we had Best Mardi Gras Float Designer. That was the winner of nappy category for 2026. Yeah, that's a good one. Eats and Drinks, The Dish That Defines Mobile. Okay. That is, we want the restaurant and then their dish that says mobility. I like that one a lot. Then best donuts, best fried chicken. All right. Then in health and medical, we got best menopause specialist, best audiologist, best nose job doc, best in-home senior care.
[36:10] Rodeo best anesthesiologist best crna best dental assistant all right and the kids i really like these this year we've got best crossing guard yeah there's some real celebrities on that front yeah if you know their name great but if not just the school and their intersection that's how we get what about angriest crossing guard i know that one i know which one that is yeah um best um and then best high school band director and then yeah and then finally for the professional services bankruptcy attorney estate planning title company home improvement company outdoor store and best lube job and that is about an oil change that's not in quotation marks okay it's an oil best oil change so okay lots of fun stuff um you know we always have a good time with this and i love the theme this year it's gonna be good tacky ron stones boots that's it yeah we're gonna kind of go western i think a little girl a little western all right That'll be fun So yeah Votenappies.com It has all the info On the side You can get all the Logos And all the Social media graphics To start your campaign All right Well that's all we got For Lagnapod This week folks So go ahead And start thinking About your Nominations And we'll be back Next Thursday Lagnap loves ya Later The Lagnapod Is a Something Extra Publishing production Executive producers Are Rob Holbert And Ashley Trice Music is by some pulse sounds and electro animals.
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