Playing Glenn Beck on the Christmas Sweater Tour |
GLENN: Can I tell you something? I don't know how people do business, I really don't. I don't know how people stay afloat. Have you been to one of the rehearsals yet with the union thing?
STU: No, no, not yet.
GLENN: Have you heard about them?
STU: I heard about them, though, disaster.
GLENN: We're in the middle of rehearsing the Christmas show and just in the middle of -- and that's when I noticed that my mom was, "All right, five-minute break." "Wait a minute, what?" We were in the middle -- yesterday was the first day we rehearsed with the orchestra and the orchestra and the guy who's watching the time for the orchestra is like one of the horn players. And right in the middle of one of the pieces. So I mean, I'm rehearsing, they are rehearsing, we're full-fledged, you know, in the piece on the storm and all of a sudden he stands up and says, time. And I'm like, time, what are you talking about? "Time, five minute break." It's been crazy. I don't know how anybody does any job. It's absolutely insane.
STU: Wouldn't you just be embarrassed to do that?
GLENN: To do that? Yeah. I mean, why don't you wait until the end of the -- you know, wait until the end of the scene or something. Do you have to have that five minute break there? And you know what? It was -- this is where I would have been embarrassed. There's a few union people that we were rehearsing with last week and we had to have them and we were paying them but they didn't have anything to do. Nothing. They had nothing to do. So we were paying them to sit there, and they didn't want to be there because they have nothing to do. Like, go shopping or something, go do something. But they had to be there because of the union. So we would be rehearsing and they would say, "Time, we need a break." And I'm like, you need a break? I'm the one up rehearsing. You're sitting in a chair. Why don't you work for five minutes. That would be a break from what you're doing.
STU: You are saying that they were doing nothing already.
GLENN: Doing nothing.
STU: And then they stopped you to take a break?
GLENN: Yeah, I had to stop performing because they had to take a break. And I said, you've got to be kidding me. You're sitting there. You're not doing anything. They said, union rules; got to take a break.
STU: You can't wait until a logical point to pause and then take seven minutes. Take seven, we'll give it to you.
GLENN: But wait, it wasn't even that, Stu. It was, they weren't doing anything. They were doing nothing. They were sitting there. And I'm like, "I'm the guy who's doing the job. I'm the guy working."
STU: So what do you do when you're doing nothing and you take a break? Do you start working or do you go to sleep?
GLENN: I think that they started working.
STU: Like you just start doing push-ups?
GLENN: No, they started -- they do paperwork, they started doing something over on the side of the stage. "All right, guys, guys, guys, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're 4 1/2 minutes into work. Sit down. Sit down."
STU: Right, it's because they're overtired. You get to the point where you get overtired from not doing anything.
GLENN: Yeah.
STU: For too long.
GLENN: Last night it was -- because we had, for rehearsals here in New York, we had to rent an actual Broadway stage. That's cheap. And so we're renting this Broadway stage and all of these people are there. There are like 400 people there and it's like, "Okay, all I needed was a roll of scotch tape." "I know. This is the union that went to -- he had to go to the store. This union could actually handle the money and he could buy the tape. This guy over here, he can pull it out of the dispenser and this guy, he can just oversee to make sure all the OSHA rules are being followed with scotch tape." I mean, it's incredible. I don't know how business stays in business. I really don't. I've never had to deal with unions before. I hate them. I hate them.
Now, on the other side I did think we were in rehearsal and I did think how many times did people, they just don't care. You know, people were rehearsing until they were dead. You know, they're like, "I don't think I can go on anymore. Please, Mr. DeMille, I don't think I can go on anymore." "You will rehearse until we get it right!" "I've been here for 14 days. I haven't had a break. I haven't had any water at all."
STU: I mean, I get that, and you have to have some sort of law, but let's be honest about it.
GLENN: "And I'm 4 years old."
STU: There's no benefit for the guy running the show to make his people into sweat shop workers.
GLENN: That's the problem. All common sense is dead in America.
STU: I don't know. That stuff controls itself 99% of the time.
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GLENN: Really?
STU: I understand in Malaysian sweat shops there's an issue here.
GLENN: Wait, wait, wait. Hang on just a second. You're telling me that there's common sense left in America.
STU: I think there's common sense, yes.
GLENN: There's common sense left in America, after I told you the story, you know, on the common sense of I need to take a five-minute break. You haven't done anything!
STU: I didn't say there were common sense in unions.
GLENN: Well, there's common sense. Did I tell you the story about how the City of New York has told 22 churches to stop providing beds for the homeless because they have to do it five days a week or not at all? And so now they are going to be homeless out in the street shivering all night? No, no, you are right, Stu.
STU: No one said there was common sense in government.
GLENN: How about this one? How about this one? A little less I'm loving it could put a significant dent in the problem of childhood obesity, suggests a new study that attempts to measure the effects of TV fast food ads. A ban on TV fast food ads would reduce the number of obese young children by 18% and the number of obese older kids by 14%. You know, here's an idea. How about banning television entirely? Go out and play, fatso. What do you say about that? Hey, here's an idea. Does anybody have a kid in school that is actually engaged -- I am not making this up -- in cup stacking yet? I did this story about four years ago, maybe five years ago, and I made fun of it that dodgeball and everything else was, you know, too dangerous and so what was coming was competitive cup stacking. Do you remember this story? Competitive cup stacking. Joe, our head researcher on the program, he came in and he said, Glenn, you'll never guess what my daughter did at school yesterday in gym. And I said, what? I'm surprised she even has gym. He said, no, kids need exercise. She engage in competitive cup stacking. I know, it's crazy. Competitive? Why compete? I hope they all got trophies because there is no faster stacker than anyone else.