Blackjack dealer. The Greatest Rock Singing Voice. The 32 Year Prison Term.

Ever wondered what it's like to be enveloped in the soul-stirring sounds of rock legends Traffic, or to sit across from a poker-faced gambler, holding all the aces? Strap in for a rollercoaster ride of reminiscence and real-talk as we kick things off with a trip back to the halcyon days of Steve Winwood and his impeccable live performances.

Transitioning from the stage to the blackjack table, I'll share the grittier side of dealing cards in the buzzing casino atmosphere, where keeping your cool trumps all other strategies. Then, prepare to chuckle as I recount my stint as "the format violator" — a playful work faux pas turned into an office-wide jest. 

Transcript

Blade: 0:31

Traffic is a band I really love and was very, very important in my rock formative years back in the early 70s, and I love Steve Winwood. He's in my list of my top three lists, no less of the greatest rock singing voices. Number one is Robert Plant Top that and number two is Steve Winwood. Certainly Number three goes varies from time to time depending on the day, but today it's Axl Rose, number three greatest rock singing voice out of all the million singers there are. That's just today Number three. I leave that as a floater. I know he growls and yells a lot but somehow he's got whatever it is that, whatever it is, and I just love it. But Steve Winwood has lived on through the ages and gotten better and better. Many don't. Many get worse and many get to the point of being sad as they grow older and go on a stage at the age of 75. Rolling Stones are great still, but Steve Winwood? I saw a show with him at the Durham Performing Arts Center, I don't know 10 years ago, maybe 11 years ago. I couldn't believe it. Four random guys I'd never heard of. I couldn't even find him on a Wikipedia anywhere and it was incredible why. Because he picked them. That's how good he is. He knows who to put around him. But traffic show I saw at Walnut Creek I don't know, 2003 maybe, or four was one of the greatest shows I've ever seen. I was so happy after I saw that show that I still believe I'm just as happy now thinking about it as I was when I got out of that glad from traffic.

Blade: 2:06

Overused phrases, overused words in our language today and a lot of it these phrases and words being overused because we read so much and there's so much information out there that we have our hands on now on the internet. But they're phrases that the lemmings catch on to and they copy people and they use them over and over and over. And one of them is a sports analyst. If you watch sports and they always have to say the same thing they have to get on the same page. They're not on the same page. Do you find something different to say? Here's the truth of the matter. Sports analysts, tv sports analysts. Here's the truth of the matter. The team's playing like shit. Can't you say, oh, they're just playing like shit. Instead of they have to get on the same page. I know, I know they can't. What else are you going to say right. People that say actually.

Blade: 3:05

When you start off a sentence with the word actually, I'm already mad, especially when you're talking to me. No, it's when they're talking, when I overhear it, because right there, you are a know-it-all and you're going to correct someone, you're going to tell someone they're wrong and you're right by using the word actually. Right there, no one likes a know-it-all. Stop using the word actually and this word gamer. That's this new term, it's a new profession. You know gamer, you know I'm a gamer and people are proud to admit it. Now they admit it and they say I'm a gamer and they think it's cool when it's very uncool.

Blade: 3:43

You're addicted to video games. Why is that cool? It's not cool. You know and I'm not just talking to teenage kids you know who are addicted to games and kids that started at the age of you know, like six. You know, and from then on, that all they care about is computers and video games. You know I have adult friends that you don't see for weeks, for months, who are addicted to video games.

Blade: 4:06

Gamer, I'm a gamer. What do you got? One of those gamer chairs. You know headphones that twirl around your ears. You know you got a little neon. You know light underneath your desk and all that. You know two screens, two monitors and you know a console gaming console with 56 different buttons on it. Oh, you're proud of that.

Blade: 4:32

Out of all the things I'm addicted to, games is not one of them. Not a gamer, I'm not addicted to any kind of a game video game. I'm not addicted to gambling either, but I tried that out here in the beginning. Didn't have any money when I first moved to Arizona. Casinos everywhere. The allure of striking it rich strikes everyone and once you get in, it's too late, you're in too deep and I found this out. If you don't have anything to lose, then go to the casino. If you have everything to win, go to the casino. If you have a lot to lose, don't think about it.

Blade: 5:04

I took up blackjack dealing and, by the way, there are like 74 different card dealing games that I had to learn. Wanted to go to work at a casino. Seems like fun. You know and you don't know how to act as a dealer at a blackjack table or any poker table, and they tried to teach me at this poker learning school to show personality, because then people come back, you know and be nice and engage them and all that kind of, and I was telling them no, what you want to do is shut your trap, shut your mouth. You know because for one minute that they like you, it's only because they're winning and they're going to hate you, even if you have this great personality. And they don't want to hear it when they're losing, shut your mouth, man. That's the only way to be a dealer. You know, and you feel bad. You know for all the people that do lose and you see all these dealers around in the casinos that you know, once somebody loses, when the dealer comes up, five card 21,. You know you've got two people at the table sitting at 20 and he goes oh, nobody wants to hear that. We know you don't care. Shut your mouth if you're a dealer.

Blade: 6:14

But I couldn't keep up with all the. You know those guys are good man and the math you got to do in your head. I couldn't do it. I was no good at it, I couldn't remember it, all you know. So I just quit. I was offered a job and then I quit. Before I took the job, gambling Wow, anyway, what was I saying? Something about being addicted oh, I'm not addicted to being a gamer, everything else, you know, I pick, you, pick it.

Blade: 6:40

And I was thinking about this. We're all youtube hackers, right, we're all just you. We come on youtube and we've got a little podcast thing and we do our little deal, you know, and we're we're all the same. You know 20, what, 30, 50, 60 million people do it, right? Who's different? Joe Rogan, absolutely. I mean, he's the big podcaster out there on the internet, pioneer and all that kind of thing. But basically all the rest of us are all just kind of the same. And the podcasters that you hear, with two or three people, none of them have ever done it before, so they have shitty voices and they all talk on each other and they laugh ha, ha, ha, ha ha. You know, on each other and they interrupt each other and they're not professional broadcasters. You know, that's what you want. You want someone who's done it before, like me, who does it by himself, because I don't want other people interrupting me so I don't get my worthless points across. I want to be able to get my worthless points across in a clear, concise way, you know. So I don't, but I was thinking about that and how. You know, podcasting is the next radio thing. Only you add a camera so I can do a radio show. Now and it's like a dream come true.

Blade: 7:59

I was a prisoner in a cell for 32 years of my radio career. Prisoner in a cell, that's what I was. You know, I had some program director in the other room telling me what I could say and what I couldn't say, judging me, listening to every single word. I said you know what he'd say, why did you say that? And then he'd say well, that was funny. Ha ha ha. It's like I don't want to hear what you have to say. You know, and even if they don't say anything which is almost never these program director people, they it's always in your head of what you can say and what you can't say. And these podcasts, it's not regulated. All you have to do is click a box, you know, when you upload your, you know your podcast. That says what is it? X, like expletive content or something like that. You know what I mean. You can do and say and play whatever you want. It's incredible and that's why I'm doing it and I feel free.

Blade: 8:49

For the first time in 32 years, I'm out of jail. I'm out of radio jail, finally, and I have regrets about 32 years of being in rock radio Easy job, free concert tickets, free cable, you know. Free sporting events tickets easy job, you know, four hours a day in the end. And that's cool too, you know. But I have regrets about 32 years and that is like, unlike the greatest ones in my opinion Dino, costa, perry, stone, howard Stern those three guys, the greatest disc jockeys I never once got suspended. Howard Stern, those three guys, the greatest disc jockeys I never once got suspended. That should tell you something about my lack of talent. I never once got suspended, those three guys you know. Howard Stern especially, you know, fined $2 million by the FCC, you know, and suspended, you know, indefinitely by his whatever blank communications company, you know. And then he comes back with this grand return and he's even bigger than ever, you know, suspended, fired, whatever for offensive content. Never got once suspended, you know, or fired for that. But let me tell you something. I stretched it and I stretched it artfully. I stretched it right to the limit. I'm surprised that I never got suspended or fired, but embarrassed, it's embarrassing.

Blade: 10:14

One time the company you know suspended me for what a week, I think because I was breaking format. They were laughing, as they told me. Hey, we got to do it to set an example, you know, just don't do it anymore, you know? No, no, they didn't suspend me. They put me on probation. That's what it was. It was probation, you know, and after a week, they said okay, you're doing fine. You know, they called me the format violator inside the office there. They called me the format violator inside the office there. Here's the good thing about these video podcasts, though, is, if I think my content is offensive which it's not really I'll just suspend myself, give myself a huge fine of $60, which means I can't buy cheap shirts anymore, you know, for a week or something like that, and then I can say that I've been suspended by the BCC, the Blade Communications Commission. They fined me $60 and suspended me for offensive content. Bye.