 This is Dennis McMahon and welcome to Positively Vermont, and we're recording this on the first day of September, September 1, right here in beautiful Vermont, and we're very honored to have with us today an old friend from the world of media and the world of food and entertainment and everything else, and all that goes good with it, and that's Charlie Papillo. And Charlie Papillo is going to tell us about a very unique service that he's performing right now throughout the Green Mountain State called Travels with Charlie. But first of all, Charlie, welcome to Positively Vermont. Well, first, Dennis, let me say what an honor this is, you know, and it's kind of interesting because it's kind of like, you know, you and I are coming full circle now, you know, man, when I think about how my radio career, you know, 20 plus years ago with Ernie Farrar in the morning, then later joined by Lisa Nagel, she was with us for 10 years, great addition to the show, but you were there in the early days and Ernie and I termed you as the executive producer of the Charlie and Ernie show. We used to get these emails, and we didn't even know who you were, you know, we'd get these emails from this Dennis McMahon Esquire, and he'd have show ideas and show, you know, contacts, people to contact all over the world, and you were just a great friend. And, you know, it was a lot of fun doing that show and certainly a lot of fun, you know, having you be part of that show. So to come around now and have you doing the interviewing, interviewing me today, it's a real honor, Dennis, and I'm glad that, you know, things are going well for you with Positively Vermont. That's a great show as well. So I'm honored and happy to be here with you today. Well, thanks very much. And why don't you just start off to tell our viewers a little bit about yourself. Sure. Right up to your, with WVMT and right after that. Give us a little biography. Yeah, absolutely. And I also want to, you know, apologize because you know the rules of engagement here with, you know, being a guest on the show. I should be bringing you some graft, but with the Zoom thing, we're not able to do that. So, you know, the graft rules have been expelled for today. We ate a lot of donuts in that studio. Plenty of graft that came in. So Dennis, you know, my career started, you know, many, many years ago. I knew like Ernie Farrar, I knew when I was 10 years old what I wanted to do. I wanted to be in radio. And I didn't get into radio until my early 40s, I guess mid 40s. I started off before I got into radio. I was a mobile DJ for about 10 or 15 years. I own my own mobile DJ company for, for, you know, a few of those last few 15 years doing that. That, you know, my love was always playing music and being in front of people. And then an opportunity came up at WVMT and that opportunity was they needed an afternoon drive guy to do music. You know, it was an oldie station at the time. And I said, great, you know, let me apply. And I got in, you know, I was just so happy and thrilled. I was like, wow, I'm finally going to be playing music and I'm going to be on the radio. It's what I always wanted to do. Two years after I was hired, as most AM stations had changed in the market, they said, you know, nobody listens to music in mono. We're going to go to talk. And I said, well, that was a short career. I'm going to be, you know, shipping out here. And they said, well, we're going to do a live morning show. We need a host for that. Let's do a national search. And Ernie Farrar, God love him. He said, what are you doing a national search for? You got Charlie Papilla right here. You know, Ernie and I would do about an hour to gather every morning with sort of, you know, he went on until 10, but I would go in at nine to start pulling music. This is back in the day for all this old time, we used to pull the carts. You had to have your music ready. So I would go in and I'd be pulling my carts and Ernie be playing, you know, doing his last hour of his show. He hosted that with Mark Esper in the morning and then his last hours to buy himself. And Ernie would like say something and then he'd open up the mic and throw me in, you know. And we just, like Ernie says, there was this chemistry and we just, we just hit it off. So he suggested the management that they give me a chance. So we went on the air for two weeks and tried it. And man, 20 some odd years later, a lot of ups and downs. But, you know, when we retired, we were on top. We were beating some FM stations. And that was really when you think about it, an AM doing talk in a small market, like Roenton, Vermont, that we had great guests on, you know, the mayor or person in guitarist in, we'd have them come in the studio and play, you know, play a riff. And people had to name it and they'd, you know, they'd win a prize from Papa Franks and Manuski or something. So it was a lot of fun. You know, fast forward after that 20 years, I also had started a pizza business as you know. And I got many plugs and certainly got a good lift from that radio program, me mentioning pizzapapillo.com. I got to give a blatant plug, Ben, as you know, pizzapapillo.com available for weddings, rehearsal dinners, bar mitzvahs, bot mitzvahs, check it out on the web. That became very successful and reached a point where I said, you know, I think I'm going to just kind of pull back from radio and just do that. And I retired from radio in December of 2018. In January of 2019, I get a phone call from a friend of ours, Brad Berlin. Brad was, you know, Brad very well. Yes. Brad, Brad would like you would occasionally ring me up at the radio station and say, hey, I got a great idea for a guest or somebody's in town. They're looking for some media exposure. Would you be happy to give them the exposure? And I did. So Brad and I go way back as well. And Brad said, I got an idea for a project. I want to know if you're interested. Let's sit down and talk. And I said, well, you know, at first I was like, you know, Brad, I'm like, I'm just, I'm ready to just like, you know, sit it out here. I don't want to, you know, be in media anymore or whatever. So he said, well, let's talk. And we did. We sat down, we talked and he said it's a video project. You'd be filming videos and interviewing people much like you do now, but it would be different because obviously it's video. And I thought about it and I said, you know what? I mean, there was a point in my life when I wanted to do TV as well. So I said, this is as close as I'm going to get. You know, I mean, this is the trifecta. It's food. It's radio. And it's, it's video now, you know, it's TV basically. So I'm in. Let's do it. And here we are 30 something episodes later. Travels with Charlie. We just shot two yesterday. I think I put on about, I must have driven about six hours yesterday. We had, we did two shoots and man, we've been all over the state. I'm telling you, I'm going to places. I didn't, I was born in Burlington. I'm going to places I didn't even know existed and beautiful places too. Place, I mean, I mean, just anytime I get out of a, it's just huge. Really. It is, it is. And the one thing that I find, and we've had governor after governor, you know, pound on the desk and saying, we're going to have broadband. We're going to have cell coverage in Vermont. Well, please get it because. You don't have to go very far. And I find out all of a sudden your Google map on your phone just isn't working. I know. I've been down in places on white river and Lake pharmacy and down in Middlebury, even down in Manchester. Yeah. It goes off, but you're on, you're on your own. You need the old paper map to get you there. Exactly. And yeah, Brad's a great friend and he really knows his stuff. And I also understand you have a director, Asher. Chris was our director. So there's, there's the three of us. There's a Asher Chris, the director, Brad Furlan is the executive producer. And they kind of, you know, come up with the ideas for the shoots and where we're going to go. And I chime in a little bit. And then we go off. We've got a great camera crew. We're working with Mondo media. They, you know, something I'm just amazed with. I mean, the professionalism of these guys, they show up. They've got the GoPro. They've got to the steady cam, you know, all the, all the great stuff. Some we've had to shoot via zoom, but, you know, 90% of them have all been with the camera crew out. We just resumed going back out again. So we're having a great time doing that. And we're discussing real issues that affect Vermonters. And I guess, you know, the, the one way of putting it, you know, when I try to sell it to a guest, I call them up and they, and they go, Oh, well, you know, I don't want to do a debate. I don't want to, it's not a debate. You know, we may get two people from opposite sides of an issue, but it's never been a point. And you know, Dennis from my radio show, I mean, I was never one that would want to, you know, you know, attack people and, you know, you know, get them to yell and scream. That's the, you know, that's not what I did. It was always about fair. Yeah. It was almost about entertaining. Let's make it entertaining and people will listen. That's why I love this project because as we call it, it's, it's edutainment. We educate and we entertain at the same time. You know, there's this whole feeling that if you don't keep it entertaining, people are going to tune out. So we do some wacky things. You know, I've worn a plastic bag and jump in the lake and the lake out more to talk about the plastic bag band. I've milked the cow. You name it. You know, an Asher who says this, you know, we're still going to be, you know, he wants me to go in a hot air balloon and ride a ski lift. So who knows what, you know, what could happen next, but that's the whole point. We keep it interesting. It's not a debate. And we want to make sure that each guest shows their best self estimate number of legislators, leaders in the community, business owners, and they've all been treated fairly. And as they look at it, they see that people enjoy it. Obviously they do. Dennis, I'm amazed every time I take a look at the number of views that we've gotten. And I think the top one or anywhere in the 20, 30,000 range of views, which is simply amazing. We did run with a governor. We did it in a film noir, which, you know, Asher could explain that. He's a movie. I know that format. Yeah. You know what it is. You know, black and white, you know, I'm wearing the, you know, the trench coat and the fedora. We shot it in black and white and the governor went along with it. It was, you know, we shot it and 51,000 views. Last time I looked, people have seen that. And by the way, you can see us on Facebook. You can see us on YouTube. It's travels with Charlie. You have to spell it with an IE and you might get some John Steinbeck stuff in there. I think he copyrighted it first, but that's great. We took over. So what's the guiding principles? What is the philosophy behind this? Well, like I said, we want to talk about issues that are really facing Vermonters. You know, the name of the show, it's travels with Charlie Vermont politics in real life. And that's exactly what it is. And as opposed to doing a show in a studio, no disrespect to you, Dennis, what you do, we find that it's, whoops, we're going sideways here. Outside technical stuff. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. We're in the delivery. Right. We put that in the delivery. Exactly. Right. The backyard studio of the pillow industries here. You might, the garbage truck just went by a moment ago. Where I lost my train of thought here. We're talking about the guiding, the guiding philosophy behind it. Yeah. So, so, you know, what we try to do is present, you know, two different sides to a story, let people make up their own mind on, on, on, on it. And, and as I mentioned, you know, do it, do it in an entertaining way. And I think we've done that as a, a tested to the, you know, the number of people that we've had on the show and the issues that we've discussed. And these are things that are really. Affecting Vermonters. When you think about, you know, the recent compost. The discussion and the debate on, on minimum wage. We did that with a, with a business owner or restaurant owner. The marijuana law, which, you know, the pot bill. And that discussion, which was the first video that we shot. Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman, who's now a candidate for governor. We had him on as a guest and, and to take the guest out of their comfort zone, whereas, you know, typically they're doing that interview and they're sitting down on the couch and there's a fern over here and there's a, there's a, you know, a curtain behind them. We shot that one where it was with Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman and retired judge Ben Joseph. Ben, Ben is pretty strict. I mean, Ben doesn't even think alcohol should be legal to be, I'm serious. And you can watch that. It's the first episode. It's still on the, on, on Facebook. And we shot it in a bar. We went to Rossi's Lakeshore Tavern. Thank you, Jimmy Rossi. Another plug to Rossi's Lakeshore Tavern in Colchester. And we shot pool. We shot pool. We shot darts. And we played video games all while we're having this discussion. And it kept things moving. And as you've actually found out that David's a pretty good pool player. He says, I haven't played in 20 years. And, you know, he won pool. He beat Ben at the pool. And then he went on to do the video game. And it's like, wow, you're even good at this. So you find out a lot of things. And I think people kind of, they, they, you know, not that we're trying to have a gotcha moment, but people are relaxed. Guests are relaxed because we're doing it in an atmosphere where it's fun and it's not, we're not trying to have a gotcha moment. You know what I'm saying? Tell us about some of your other favorite episodes that you've had. Well, I got to say, I think my favorite episode probably is the one in Lake Elmore. I, this was, we did, I did it with Chris Bray and Rob Roper. Senator Bray, Rob Roper from the Ethan Allen Institute. And Rob and Chris don't see eye to eye on the plastic band. And, which is great. And they both agreed to come on and do the, do the episode. So, you know, again, kudos to, to Brad and Asher coming up with these ideas that we're going to have the, you know, the monster from the lake, the plastic bag monster. And that, and that's me. I mean, we had a GoPro under the water. They, and Dennis, you know, when I was in radio, it was one take of one take only. I'm finding out with, with video, it's like, okay, we're going to do that again at a different angle or we didn't like the way you did it. I'm actually underwater holding my breath and they're telling me stay under because we want the water smooth. And then we want you to come out of the water. I'm at the general store in Elmore. And I walk into the store and there's the owner of the store who recently passed away. God bless him and thanks, thanks to him for letting us do this. And there he is in the store and I walk in and he goes, wait a minute, didn't you hear about the band? You can't wear a plastic bag. And then we had this great discussion from that point on. And it was, it was a lot of fun doing. There's another episode that comes to mind. And this is one of my granddaughter, who she's only four years old and she watches the episodes because she likes to see the hijinks. If you don't see him, he shot this at Northwood, Vermont. We had an ambulance on call that day. And I'm in the ambulance laying on the gurney and I'm out. And the two drivers, the ambulance, the EMTs, what a great job they did. They've got the paddles out and they're going, bring them back, bring them back. And they're not really hitting me, but I'm jumping up, I'm jumping up and I don't come to. And finally one of them says, I got it. I know what we need to do. And he goes to the cabinet and he opens it up and he pulls a pizza out and he puts the pizza under my nose. And I wake up and I look into the camera and I go, welcome to another episode of Travels with Charlie, Vermont politics and real life. Was that scripted or was that? It's scripted. I mean, we don't have a, I don't have lines. I just know the general, okay, this is what we're going to do. And this is how we're going to do it. We did a couple of takes with that. That one went well. And, and then it's, it's on to the show. Before we go any further, I've got to mention a big thanks, as you know, on the Charlie and Ernie show on WVMT. My good friend Billy Bratcher of the Starline rhythm boys, he wrote the Charlie and Ernie theme song. Right. And every morning we started that show off, you know, Billy would do gigs with his band, the Starline rhythm boys. And people would ask me, hey, play the Charlie and Ernie song. And we only played it once. I said, you better learn how to do it when you go out. And they did. They played it a couple of times when they were out. So when we started doing this series, you know, two years ago now, there was some discussion about we need a theme song. And as you know, you know, playing music, if you don't own it and it's copyright fees and stuff that you got to pay. So I said, well, my good friend Billy Bratcher wrote a theme song. For the Charlie and Ernie show. Maybe I can get them to do one for our show. And man, Billy is a talented guy. And I'm not saying, I think he wrote it in about 20 minutes. He sends me off this thing. He says, here you go. You know, he's playing it. What do you think? I said, sounds great. All right, I'll get some lyrics. And next thing you know, it's the travels with Charlie. And I end my show saying, I'll see you in my travels. And the name of the song is, you know, I'll see you in my travels. He did a great job with it. I want to thank Billy for doing that. So, you know, you'll hear the music and then the, and then we get right into the show and the show starts and you'll hear the music at the end of the show as well. That's great. Have you had any backfires or anything? Or maybe episodes where people didn't expect it? I wouldn't say backfires. I think the one episode that we shot. And, you know, I'm not afraid to point out when somebody doesn't want to come on the show. Because I think that we treat people fairly. We give you an opportunity to express your point of view. And if you're, well, especially, and I'll, I'll mention it. I mean, it's Perry Freeman, city counselor from Burlington, Vermont. When Perry had called for disarming police officers. I thought that that was, I brought it up to Brad Nash. I said, I think we need to discuss this a little bit further. So the obvious thing to do would be to get Perry on along with a member from law enforcement. And I emailed, I phoned. I tried it every way to get in touch with Perry. And not even a response. So I said, well, I think we need to do the show anyway. So I went to a couple of my friends in law enforcement. Jojo Leahy, who's retired from the Vermont state police. Jojo said I'd be happy to do it. And Jen Morrison, Jen served in Colchester and in Burlington as the chief of police. And she said that she'd be happy to do it. So we had a great discussion with that. It seemed kind of unfair that Perry wasn't there. But as I pointed out, we gave you an opportunity. You could have been here. You didn't want to be here. And no disrespect to police. As everyone knows, I'm a great supporter of the police. And I have many friends and that are involved and still involved in the police departments. I said, what do you think guys? Can we shoot it at a donut shop? And they didn't flinch, they said. Absolutely, let's do it. But I said, you can tape it here. And we did. We taped it in the quality bake shop. And we ate donuts and drank coffee while we had a discussion about disarming police. But it's a great episode for those of you that haven't seen it, you should really watch it. I mean, to listen to two members of law enforcement. One, Jojo, who was actually shot. I mean, he's lucky to be alive. So to hear his story. And to get a personal touch of what it's like to be a police officer. I think sometimes people just take them for granted. I don't know, there's a real. What's happening now across the country to me is just, it's, it's disgusting. I can't stand it. The way that all police officers are being, being defamed and, and being scrutinized to, to put on that badge and to put on your weapon every day and go outside to, to say goodbye to your partner, husband, wife, whatever, whomever, as you leave the house and, and, and may not come home. That's, that's. I think we take that pretty lightly and we shouldn't. They're, they're, they're ready to put their lives on the line for you. Who are you going to call it two in the morning if you're defunding the police department, but that's for another day. I won't get on that today. Or use your time for that today, Dennis. Well, let me ask it September 1 where we got a few months left in 2020, been a tumultuous year. Tell us, if you wouldn't mind what you plan for the rest of the year, maybe some of your episodes. Well, I never really know, you know, I never, you know, we talk about some of the things that we might like to do. And, and a lot of it, I think depends on what's happening in Vermont. So we just kind of wait and see, as you know, the legislative session, this is an unusual one. I mean, they're back in session again. We've got some budget shortfalls that we've got to cover. There's some things that we've already discussed. We discussed the pension plan. We had Wolf, man, I just want to say Alex Wolf. And Dave Coates, you know, discussing the pension plan and the shortfalls that that has. So there's a lot of things going on that's still going to be solved that still need to be brought out. So in a lot of that has to do with what's going on in the legislature, but we'll, we'll see what some of the future shows may be. And as I mentioned, you know, I should still get this idea of getting me on a chairlift on a ski slope. I don't ski. I'm like one of the only Vermonters that doesn't ski. I don't ski and maybe in a hot air balloon. Who knows. That would be fantastic. Let me ask you this. How far just give us some locations where we have only a few minutes left, but where you've been throughout the state? Just some of the physical places. Wow. I've been to, I've been to West Glover. We went to Newberry recently. Rutland. I've done a few things here in Chittenden County. We've been in Williston. We wanted, that was one of the wee episodes that we've, we've shot there at a restaurant and St. Albans. Man, just all over the place. And again, as I mentioned, I've been to so many of these places that I have never been before. And I'm always just impressed when you get there. And it's, it's a small town and it's like, you know, a nice green. And there's the center of town and just real community feel. Civil War Memorial. There's a lot of those around. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Just amazing that the history alone that you can get just by traveling. Just reading the monument. Yeah. We've shot in Battery Park. As a matter of fact, and again, it's certainly a number of monuments there as well. That was the one episode where I took it upon myself to actually light that cannon that many of you see. And unfortunately, I think I hit champ. You'll need to see that episode. And that's one where you'll actually see Brad Furlin, who I think that's his acting debut. And he did a great job. We should get an Oscar for that. That's great. I mean, that's fantastic. And just give us a, we have a minute or so to wrap up just to give it an overall impression. So now what you've got personally out of this, your feelings for the people and the state and the future. Yeah. So I think the one thing that comes out from, you know, doing these videos is the opportunity for people of differing points of view to sit down together. Have a civil conversation, have fun doing it, and to come away with, well, you know what? I mean, in many instances, people is like, you know, that person on that side, he's a bad guy. He is a good guy. There's no good. There's no bad. You can have your own opinions. The fact that we can come together and have a discussion and do it civilly, in my opinion, is great. I think we're doing, we're doing great things. And it's a great service for people to, to see both sides of an issue being presented, presented fairly, and you can make up your own mind on it. We're not making up any minds for anybody. I never did, I never did that. I, you know, I'd give my opinion when I was in radio. I don't give my opinion as much doing this. I try to stay kind of in the middle and let both sides give their opinions, but you can, you can make your own opinion from it. That's great. And what if people want to get in touch with you? How would they get in touch with you? Well, the best way I guess is to go on Facebook, travels with Charlie, you can leave a comment there. And we'd be happy to, to, you know, look for suggestions about places that you'd like to see us shoot or topics that you'd like to see us do, or even guess that you'd love to have, have us do. That's great. Well, it's been a really wonderful talking to you. And it sounds like a very exciting project. And I want to thank Brad for advising me of it and then getting you here on positively Vermont. Well, Dennis, thanks to you for having me and thanks for what you do, you know, positively Vermont. Again, that's another, something that Vermonters and folks here in Chittinette County are, are lucky to, lucky to have you're on channel 17. And, and Chittinette County, people can, can see that. And hopefully we can get this video out through some other aspects as well through our network. So other people can see it as well. I really appreciate having, having you having me on today, Dennis. That's great. Well, great seeing you, Charlie. And thanks for appearing on positively Vermont. This is Dennis McMahon. My guest has been Charlie Papillo talking about his show Travels with Charlie. Thank you for watching.