Both with family roots in the heart of Essex, it was serendipity that Pizza John’s was the cheesesteak of choice as Senator J.B. Jennings and Nestor convened for the first time on the #TastyNes leg of the Maryland Crab Cake Tour with a lengthy chat about Bob Ehrlich, farmland in Maryland and the ways politics has changed here and keeping bipartisan lines of communication open in Annapolis and all over the state.
Nestor Aparicio hosts J.B. Jennings at Pizza John’s in Essex, Maryland, discussing local politics and personal connections. Jennings, a state senator, shares his family’s history with the restaurant and his involvement in local issues, including constituent services and budget challenges. They discuss the popularity of Pizza John’s and Jennings’ preference for a specific cheesesteak. Jennings also touches on his background in farming and politics, his relationship with former Governor Bob Ehrlich, and the impact of social media on public perception. The conversation highlights the importance of community service and the challenges of balancing personal and professional responsibilities.
Pizza John’s and the #Tastynes Tour
- Nestor Aparicio introduces the show, mentioning the Tastiness Tour and the various events they are hosting.
- Nestor talks about the Maryland lottery and the different sponsors, including Curia Wellness and GBMC.
- Nestor mentions the different locations they will be visiting, including Timonium, Slant in Fells Point, and Coco’s.
- Nestor introduces J.B. Jennings, a state senator, and shares a personal connection with him.
J.B. Jennings’ Background and Connection to Pizza John’s
- J.B. Jennings shares his family’s history with Pizza John’s, mentioning his grandfather who started the business in 1957.
- J.B. talks about his representation of the area, including Baltimore and Harford Counties.
- Nestor and J.B. discuss the popularity of Pizza John’s and the unique features of the pizza, including the crispy pepperoni.
- J.B. mentions his involvement with the Air Guard and how Pizza John’s is a favorite spot for military personnel.
Cheesesteaks and Political Connections
- Nestor and J.B. discuss their favorite cheesesteaks, with J.B. mentioning his preference for provolone, fried onions, mushrooms, mayo, and hots.
- Nestor shares his experience with different cheesesteaks and his preference for pineapple on his pizza.
- J.B. talks about his political connections, including his relationship with Bob Ehrlich and his involvement in politics since a young age.
- Nestor and J.B. discuss the challenges of politics, including the impact of social media on public perception.
Constituent Service and Legislative Challenges
- J.B. explains the importance of constituent service and how his office helps with various issues, including EZ Pass fines and pothole repairs.
- Nestor and J.B. discuss the challenges of the current budget and the importance of finding revenue sources.
- J.B. shares his approach to helping constituents, including offering to meet them in person to address their concerns.
- Nestor and J.B. talk about the importance of bipartisan cooperation and the need for legislators to work together.
Personal Stories and Family Values
- J.B. shares a personal story about his son’s ice hockey experience and the importance of earning opportunities.
- Nestor and J.B. discuss their family values and the importance of hard work and earning success.
- J.B. talks about his farming background and how it influences his approach to politics and constituent service.
- Nestor and J.B. discuss the impact of natural disasters, including Hurricane Isabel, on their communities.
Final Thoughts and Future Plans
- Nestor and J.B. discuss the future of politics and the importance of addressing the needs of constituents.
- J.B. shares his thoughts on the importance of education and the role of government in supporting families.
- Nestor and J.B. talk about the importance of small businesses and the impact of the pandemic on local economies.
- Nestor thanks J.B. for joining the show and shares his excitement for the upcoming events and the Tastiness Tour.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Pizza John’s, cheesesteak, Maryland lottery, tastiness tour, constituent service, budget challenges, social media, politics, farming background, community meetings, EZ Pass fines, ice hockey, Maryland crab cake tour, local businesses, legislative issues.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, J.B. Jennings
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, A of 1570 task of Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, doing marathon, crab caking, Marathon tastiness, ing and as serendipity would have it, great, great guests on the program here from pizza John’s. We are in the heart of Essex, Maryland. Some people think I’m from Dundalk. I am from Dundalk. I don’t know why they treat me better in Essex. Don’t tell the people. Cost us that, but I get treated nice down here in Essex. We’re gonna have pizza. We’re gonna swallow a lot of pizza, probably a lot of cheesesteak sports all over with maybe some crinkle cut fries with gravy the proper way. We get ice cream here. All brought to you by the Maryland lottery. I have the pressure Lux. I also have the lucky sevens doublers. I’m this close to getting the Raven scratch. Also, once I get them, we’re going to be into them into September. Monday, we’re going to be a cost us in Timonium. On Tuesday, we’re going to be at slant in Fells Point, and then on Wednesday, wrapping things up at Coco’s in where they’re celebrating 40 years. And I’m going to be celebrating with them on Sunday. That’ll be on Wednesday afternoon. Will be in Laravel. We’re here in Essex. You know, I’ve been trying to get this guy on. He is, he’s, you’ll always be my Vegas pool mechanic at the Maryland party. He throws a great Mako party. He has crossed county lines from Harford County down here to Baltimore County into the eastern part of Baltimore County. And JP Jennings not only a cousin to my ninth grade prom date, Stephanie Wheaton. And I guess this is, you know, small to more, how we get linked together. But today is day nine, backing up into the tastiness tour that I’m doing our 27th anniversary. My 27 legitimate favorite things in the whole world to eat and today, and people think I’m coming to Pizza John’s. I’m going to feature the pizza I am. I’m going to have the special done dog Venezuelan thing that I like, which is a Hawaiian with the pepperoni. We’re going to talk about that. But what really makes this place special is I’ve gotten into this cheesesteak argument and Bill Cole from cole roofing, not the politico, Bill Cody. They’re both my bill Coles. But you know that the other the roofing Bill Cole He says his buddies call him cheese steak Billy, because he likes cheese steaks. That’s sort of what he orders. Wherever he goes. If there’s a cheese steak on the menu, order it and he’ll be happy with it no matter what. And we got into cheese steaks, and I’m like, You know what? Man, no offense to even any of my other sponsors at all, but like this, the only place I get a cheese steak. And when I had you here. I said, Hey, can I get you some pizza? Get you something? You’re like, no, no, I’m gonna get a sub later. And I’m like, what kind of sub? And you said you looked at me with indignity, with Harford County in dignity, and you went a cheese steak. Of course, I’m getting a cheese steak. I’m in pizza John’s. So you are. You’re no tender foot. I got people coming from east, east part of town. I got people coming from the west side of the county over here today, who’ve never explored the wonder that is Essex and pizza John’s. But you know, you get your passport stamp, you come in here a lot, huh? I
J.B. Jennings 03:16
do you know this is a institution on the east side. You know, my family grew up on the east side. Jim Jennings, transmissions was my family, the heart and the heart of that Eastern Boulevard. Grandfather started it. I think 1957
Nestor Aparicio 03:31
I think he fixed a few transmissions for me. He probably did, he
J.B. Jennings 03:35
did. I know he fixed many of mine. I tore him up. So my father in uncles grew up right here in Middle River. I’ve represented the area because I have both Baltimore and Harford County in my district. So I do represent Middle River. My district lines probably about a half a mile
Nestor Aparicio 03:54
east of here, just this close, this close, yeah, literally. All right,
J.B. Jennings 03:59
so, but no pizza. John’s is it is the institution on the east side. It’s, you want pizza, pizza
Nestor Aparicio 04:04
John’s plenty of JB, Jenny’s constituents. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. My uncle
J.B. Jennings 04:09
actually used to have my Unfortunately, my late uncle, he passed away, but he had a house down here, and this is where
Nestor Aparicio 04:16
we got seagull. Is what an old guy like me would say, yeah,
J.B. Jennings 04:19
he was down. Well river watches on the other side, off of Hopkins Creek, is where his place was okay. And this was where we’d be down there all day playing. We drive up here, get subs to go, or pizza, and you sit down there and have dinner. But the pizza here, what we love is the pepperonis that they they curl up, cut the grease, crispy. They have cups of grease in all of that. And when people come here and they have their little napkins and they dip the grease out, you’re like, hard for Whoa. That is, that is, you can’t see your
Nestor Aparicio 04:49
hardcore here.
J.B. Jennings 04:50
Oh, yeah. And the other thing, so I’m a member of the Air Guard, so drill weekends are, you know, right over here at Martin state airport. Where else would you go? Right? This is, you come here on a drill weekend, you’ll see this place. Scattered with people wearing their uniforms, because this is one of the places we come. You’ll see retirements here. But when we have to do our PT and lose weight, we tend to like have to stay away for a little couple weeks or a couple months so that we stay stay shape, because there’s a couple calories in those people. But when it comes to cheesesteaks, absolutely there’s only two cheesesteaks I like over here. One in Baltimore County, which is cheese. Was just pizza. John’s
Nestor Aparicio 05:27
got a spot for me. Come on now. The other one, my gastronomy at the right time of the
J.B. Jennings 05:31
year, from in Harford County, okay, tambourinos, it’s up in Hickory. Never been there. They’ve got the best cheesesteak in
Nestor Aparicio 05:40
Harford County. All right. Well, one of my best friends growing
J.B. Jennings 05:43
up was a guy named Tony tambourino. Tambourinos and hickory, I think, has the best cheese steak in Harvard County. I found
Nestor Aparicio 05:49
a spot in Delaware that I’m raving about last couple of weeks. I was going to a concert when you find a legit place like near Philly with broccoli Rob and Italian beef and proper roast pork. But the cheese steak here, I’m so glad that you brought it up, because, like, I’m going to feature it, and you mentioned the pepperoni here. I like, don’t judge me. It’s controversial. I’m provocative, if you look me up on the internet, right? But like, I like pineapple on my own my pizza do? I’m not gonna, you know, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna apologize for that, but a ham and pineapple, it leaves me lacking something, no matter where I get it, even if it’s like, good ham or like double ghoul or whatever. But the pepperoni and the crunch and the salt of the pepperoni really sets off the Hawaiian pizza year. And I keep petitioning. It’s not like, I don’t know ownership around here. Brett’s too busy back spinning pizzas. Patrick’s up here spinning pizzas. But I keep saying you could add this onto the menu, because it’s something really unique. It’s, it’s like animal style at in and out. Yeah, you gotta know, I think with pizza,
J.B. Jennings 07:03
it’s you have a craving. Sometimes, sometimes you want a regular old cheese pizza. Sometimes you want pepperoni. Sometimes you’re craving the fish deep dish. But sometimes you’re craving, as you said, the Hawaiian. Sometimes you’re like, you know what? You know, I just want they have something up near us that one of the sub shops have. It’s called spaghetti
Nestor Aparicio 07:24
pizza. No.
J.B. Jennings 07:26
My kids love it. No. My kids love it. It’s, it’s this pizza where they put spaghetti on it and they put a topping on it, and kids love it. And it’s like, but how about white pizza? You like the white pizza? So sometimes you crave that. So it’s spinach pizza. So it’s, it’s depending what you’re crazy,
Nestor Aparicio 07:43
you know, I’m in New York. They give me the spinach pizza, and they serve it white, and then I asked for sauce. And you would think that, like, I’m, like, the Ugly American in Europe, asking for, like, a piece of ice, because they get, they feign out, Oh, man. Well,
J.B. Jennings 07:56
that’s how, that’s how they are with the Hawaiian pizza.
Nestor Aparicio 07:58
That’s how they are with the sausage pizza in New York. Put some sauce on there. So by the way, JB, Jennings is here. He is, you know, and this is where I’m gonna have some bipartisan fun, because I walked in here and he’s like, on the phone, doing this and that, and legislating this. And I don’t know what you’re doing. I mean, you represent people. You’re gonna have to explain to me what a state senator is, and delegate. You’re gonna risk Schoolhouse Rock this for everybody on the east side, but he’s over here, but by the the pinball machine, and we’re in the kids room over here, pizza, John’s. It’s lovely. You should if I were 10 years old that’s having a birthday party, I would this is where I want to be now, the Farrell’s is going over the over gold ring, right? It’s been gone, right? But, I mean, that’s what we did as a kid. So I come in and I swear he’s over here, and I’m over here, and we are the world. Was playing here, you know, I heard Michael Jackson. We are the world so, so we’re, you know, and I’m thinking Republicans and Democrats. I’ve had more Republicans on the show this week. And people give me a hard time about bipartisan. And I would say the world’s more bipartisan than maybe Donald Trump would have you believe, or the most hardcore mega folks or the most hardcore lefties are, you know, wherever it is, there is a center somewhere between Essex, Dundalk, Towson, and parts of Joppa and Joppa town that we all sort of meet together. And I do when I go to Mako, and I get invited to one of your soirees, and I see a bunch of Republican folks. By the way, David Marks is coming by, Republican councilman. We’re gonna get after him. He was making babies eight weeks ago. I met the baby at your party. I mean, your party’s a whole family affair. Then it started raining, yeah, and I gave you a hard time. So whoever got mad at me, we’re friends. I was just kidding. It rained on you.
J.B. Jennings 09:39
Politics is it has changed here, here’s, here’s. What I’ll tell you is, I was in politics before social media. Social media has ruined it with the fact that people, they see you, they put a picture that here I am, you know, in a function. I’ll give you a quick story. Years ago, I was at a. An event Governor O’Malley was there. Okay, somebody took a picture of me back
Nestor Aparicio 10:04
20 years ago. Yes, okay,
J.B. Jennings 10:07
at an event with Governor mallet, the governor I are talking it was in my district, actually, right over here, Wilson, point you were serving as what then I was in. I was in the House of Delegates. The delegates. Was my first term in the our second term in the house delegates. It was his first term as governor, and he was, it was ribbon cutting over there at Wilson point at a park, and we just happened to be talking, you know, trying to fight stuff for the district. And, you know, I’m telling them, you know, issues that we’re trying to get because we had an issue with flooding, because there’s kind of a low road as you go back there? Past the
Nestor Aparicio 10:42
airport? Got his ear talking your talk, just literally talking
J.B. Jennings 10:46
to Facebook at that point. This was like 2010 Facebook was pretty new. Somebody snaps a picture, it’s on Facebook, and everybody says, Oh, look, his best friend is and it was, what was wrong with that? Here I am talking to the governor. He’s in my district. We’re talking about issues in the district. He’s he’s willing to try to help me. And that’s what’s happened with Facebook or social guys, however you want to weaponize that’s what’s happened with politics. Is social media, is people see stuff and they immediately comment. I had something the other night where people were commenting on something that Wes. Moore passed this year about if you sell a house, move out of the state, you’re gonna be charged six, 6% sales tax. And I said, That’s not true. So here I am. It literally at 10 o’clock on a Friday night. I’m getting emails and texts from people saying, This is terrible. That you guys passed this. I said, Where are you learning this? Where did you hear this? And so, you know, I’m quickly like trying to read this, this, this blog that somebody’s put out there, and it’s no no that is withholding. If you live out of state and you sell a house in Maryland, it’s a withholding because you’re out of state that’s been on the books for years. It’s not It’s nothing new. Other states do it because the idea is that you live out of state, they want to make sure they hold the money. So hold the money and they get it. It’s settlement, sure. And because it’s on social media, it runs like, like a forest fire, brush fire, just takes off. And that’s the thing is,
Nestor Aparicio 12:12
we had phone booth when we were kids.
J.B. Jennings 12:16
Politics gotten tough. That way. We all get along. And as I say, and you know, years ago in the Senate, you give what’s called, we have three speeches that we give every year in both chambers. You give Washington Day speech, MLK date speech and Lincoln Day speech. And members give the speeches. Republicans give the Lincoln Day speech, generally a member of the Black Caucus gives the MLK speech, and usually a Democrat will give the Washington speech, or they’ll bring in somebody like a scholar or something to give the Washington Day speech. And so Mike Miller, late Senate President, gave me the honor giving the Lincoln Day speech, and I researched it, and I talked about and at the time, Goodwin had written a book about Lincoln and how his cabinet was made up of his rivals, and that’s how he made his cabinet, and that’s why he was very successful, is because he had people that had different thoughts than him, part of his team to give him different ideas that, you know, it just was more effective anyway. So I gave this speech, and in the end, I talked about how when we walk on, and I use the term red carpeted Battlefield, because the Senate uses red as its theme color, the carpet is red that we walk on the carpet of the our red carpeted Battlefield, we’re going to fight like tigers, and we’re going to battle as hard as we can on our issue, but once the debate is over, let us still be friends. Let us shake hands, compliment each other on the debate, but let’s leave and go have dinner with each other and then talk about the next debate and the next issue, because we can’t be enemies, because we may be enemies today on an issue, but tomorrow we friends on one. And unfortunately, some people don’t see it that way. And I call it the bell curve. You have some people who, what I call the outliers, that legislators, that they refuse to work with the Democrat or Democrats who refuse to work Republicans, they don’t get anything accomplished, and you got to have friends and you. But the thing is, you don’t give up your principles. I mean, I’ve still, I have my beliefs, sit here
Nestor Aparicio 14:27
and fight for a couple hours on a lot of issues, I’m sure, right? Yes, we could also sit here talk baseball and agree on this or that of the other but I think more than anything, I want to hear your background to why you wanted to get into this, and now that you’re into it, it’s kind of like me with this radio game, once you’re in it, you know, well, what the hell else am I going to do? But you’ve been at this game a while here, and have navigated Republican governors, Republican or Democratic governors, all the way through all of this, right? What got you inspired to want to be a part of. Say your East Side guy grew up in your background, because I don’t know enough about you. Quite frankly, I know you through but so I started, I started this honestly.
J.B. Jennings 15:08
So I started politics. I love politics. As a kid, I had a guinea pig. His name was Milhouse, which was Richard Nixon’s middle name. Always loved politics. Love Richard Nixon, I love Ronald Reagan. And here we are over here, Martin states, little fur over here. They used to have an air show, and I was at the Air Show. My father was part of the chamber, and they had a VIP tent. He was in the VIP tent. Did they do tricks and stuff like, Oh, yeah. They had all kinds of tricks. Unfortunately, it ended due to the f1 17, the stealth fighter crashed there. Yes, tragedy. Well, fortunately, the pilot survived. Got to meet him. But anyway, so I’m in the VIP tent, and they have this newly elected congressman. He just got elected. This was in 1994 he’s there. His name’s Bob Ehrlich. And you know, I’m this 19 year old kid, 20 year old kid in college, and, you know, had to be sitting there talking to him, and he said, Hey, we’re looking because he had just gotten into office. I think he was, it was his first 678, months in office. He said, we’re looking for interns. I said, Love the intern. So I started, went to his office, applied, was hired, and started interning for him. From there, once my internship was up, he was going to be running for re election, because Congress is every two years. The House Representatives every two years. So they hired me onto his campaign. So I started working that summer on his campaign, or the following summer on his campaign. And then once he was reelected, he hired me onto his congressional campaign, where I worked, both DC and district, while still going to college. And,
Nestor Aparicio 16:46
you know, I endorsed him on the on the air, had him in studio at the bar, yeah, and
J.B. Jennings 16:51
that’s how I got in, that’s how I got into politics. And then, you know, once I graduated college, it was kind of like, Alright, I need to go find a, you know, a real job next when I started a feed store up in Hereford. Guy named Jeff sharp actually started the store. He kind of brought me into it right after he had started it, and we were partners, and then I bought him out. So I had a farm supply store in Hereford called Maryland feed company. And I ran
Nestor Aparicio 17:13
my wife would get corn to feed the deer and bird seed. Okay, I like it. Peanuts feed the squirrel.
J.B. Jennings 17:20
So I’ve had a farming background. I love farming. I have cattle. I have a farm. My wife and I have a farm over in Joppa. And so my life at that point, this was in 1998 was all about farming. So I was feeding all the farms in Baltimore County, or most of them, you know, with, you know, with the middle of Bel Air and baumanns, feeding
Nestor Aparicio 17:39
analytically active through supporting Bob early. At that point, I had left
J.B. Jennings 17:43
politics, okay, once, once I, you know, had left him in 1990 once I graduated in 9798
Nestor Aparicio 17:51
job he had as a kid, yeah, it was, it was in
J.B. Jennings 17:52
college, right? And I kind of left and went in the feed store. So for four years I was running the feed store, doing that.
Nestor Aparicio 17:58
Did you always think you were going to run for something, something down the line, or no, maybe,
J.B. Jennings 18:02
yeah, I liked it, but I was too busy running the feed store. I know what that’s like, running the business, running the business, loving the business. And the problem I was always running into was, farming is tough because farmers, it’s farming is a way of life. It’s not the most profitable business out there. And developers are always trying to take the land, you know, they’re trying to develop the land because it’s, you know, it’s more profitable put a house on it than it is to put it in corn. And land preservation was big to me. And if you remember, we had an issue with hysteria back then, with ish, with fish on the eastern shore that were dying, and so we had a lot of farming issues, and we’re trying to help the farming community. And in 2001 Bob Ehrlich announced that he was going to run for governor and let me back up. I got my pilot’s license when I was 19 years old. Alright, so I’ve been flying out of Martin state, and he knew it, because once in a while I flew him when I was working for him, working for him, I’d fly to the beach, and he would
Nestor Aparicio 19:04
also featured in and justice for all, much like Tom Davis was featured in and justice for all. You know that, right? Martin state, airports in the movie, is it not? Oh my god, it’s where Jack Warden crashes the plane in the water, really? Oh,
J.B. Jennings 19:17
you know, Richard Nixon lived over here it. Martin state, just outside of it, okay, back in
Nestor Aparicio 19:24
Richard Millhouse, like back at the relation to his hamster,
J.B. Jennings 19:27
but guinea pig. But back in the 1940s right out of the Navy. He he was still in the Navy. He was decommissioning Navy documents, military documents. He was stationed over there anyway. I happened to be at the Verizon store at foxtail center, I think is what it’s called there in Timonium. You know, that’s when you had the old startak phones or something, you know, the older phones, because I was getting upgraded my phone, and he’s in there, and I saw him, we started talking because we were still good friends. And I said, Congratulations. Luck on the run. He goes, thanks. And he kind of says to me, because you still got that plane. Yeah, I still fly. He goes, I might need to call you. I said, Okay. So about two, three weeks later, I get a phone call from one of his staffers saying, hey, Congressman Ehrlich says he needs you to fly him out to Western Maryland. I said, Okay, I’ll do it. So his staff, like, at that point, because it had been four years, so a lot of his staff had left. Nobody really knew me, other than him, owned a plane, rented a plane, had a plane. I was ownership in a plane. It was like a partnership. It was four of us that either played helicopters
Nestor Aparicio 20:33
and Learjets and different stuff like that. But like, you get your pilot’s license not to have revenue. You weren’t looking to be a pilot, right? You were looking that’s
J.B. Jennings 20:44
a different story. No, I had always had the dream of being a airline pilot.
Nestor Aparicio 20:50
Okay, so there was a track for you. There was professional track, okay? But unfortunately, the people that go and get it
J.B. Jennings 20:57
the time, you know it’s to be a airline pilot. You have to have what’s called an ATP, and you got to have, I think it’s 1200 hours of flight time. It’s all the F when you got to accrue hours and do everything you can accrue hours, you know, 1200 hours is a lot of flight time. So back, you’re starting in 97 when I first started, or, I’m sorry, 95 when I first started flying and got my license in 96 it’s, it’s doing everything it can to build hours. Unfortunately, 911 kind of changed that course, because just the airline industry was was decimated with the amount of layoffs with pilots period of time. So at that time, I
Nestor Aparicio 21:33
still think you as a young man. JB, it’s 24 years it has, yeah,
J.B. Jennings 21:37
so you had a lot of pilots that were laid off. So I kind of at that point, I realized that was, it was gonna take years for me to Yeah. I wanted different
Nestor Aparicio 21:46
American Airlines. I got you so
J.B. Jennings 21:50
I was partnered. There was four of us that had ownership in a twin Comanche. And anyway, his office called said, Hey, can you fly? I’m said, Sure. So it was a Saturday morning. I had to meet him over. I said, meet me at Martin state. So it was He and two of his campaign workers. We got in the plane, and we had to fly out to Cumberland. And so I’m sitting left seat, he’s sitting right seat, and we’re flying on headsets, and they just change, if you remember,
Nestor Aparicio 22:15
really trusted him
J.B. Jennings 22:17
with his life. And
Nestor Aparicio 22:20
I don’t know. Man, would I go up in a plane with you? I don’t know. You still flying?
J.B. Jennings 22:24
No, right now, not right now. You got to give me some time to get current.
Nestor Aparicio 22:29
When Laverne and Shirley landed the plane, remember that? Yeah, so anyway,
J.B. Jennings 22:34
like Laverne in that flight, he and I started talking, because all the House of Delegates seats and all the Senate seats were up for reelection, and they the courts had just redrawn the lines, because it was redistricting with a passed in Annapolis and with the governor signed at that time, Governor Glenn Denning, the courts throughout they found unconstitutional. They redrew the lines, and the new seventh district, which is just outside of this area that we were in now, was a district that, when you looked at it, was like, perfect for me. And he kind of, literally, we’re in the plane. He’s holding a newspaper, reading it. I’m flying. I had it on autopilot. I’m like, looking at the map, looking at the newspaper, like, I think I could win that district. And he said, I think you could too. And it was in that plane ride that I decided to run for office, with him sitting next to me. He’s running for governor. I’m flying the plane. And so we landed in Cumberland,
Nestor Aparicio 23:25
and this was a one, right? Oh, it was yeah, 2001 Yep. And I got married in three and, and he was a sitting governor at the time, Yep, yeah.
J.B. Jennings 23:36
And he, he and his team got in the car and went to the to their event, and I just hung out at the airport because there wasn’t enough room in the car. I said, I’ll just, I’ll be fine. I’ll sit here.
Nestor Aparicio 23:49
He came to my wedding, did he Yeah, so I’m on the phone. He proclaimed a Gen and Nestor, in the state of Maryland, you can look it up. So
J.B. Jennings 23:55
remember, I called my dad, thinking my dad would be like, all terrible idea, don’t do that. He’s like, I think it’s a great idea. Like, really? I called the girl I was dating at the time, who’s now my wife. She’s like, I think that’s a great idea. And so on the flight home, I said, Hey, I think I’m gonna do it. And then I was off to the races. Well,
Nestor Aparicio 24:14
you know, I guess 24 years ago, right? Did you do by the way? JP, Jennings here, Senator, just outside of his district. Who knows where a good cheesesteak is, especially on my tastiness tour. So you had no illusions about it, like your district, kind of a heavier agricultural sort of area than maybe you think. When I think about farms over Off White Marsh, it is literally right. Yes, my district, I lived in White Marsh during that period of time. Literally,
J.B. Jennings 24:41
I Well, White Marsh has changed a lot since 2002
Nestor Aparicio 24:46
I sold my place. In three, I sold my place, and Jim Smith would be, you know, involved in this, because Isabel. I mean, when the flooding happened, yeah, I got flooded out of my place in White Marsh. I was at the right by the Boomi temple. I had. House and I came home from the Raven San Diego trip, the one where McAllister got thrown at, you know, this is, we’re going back a long way here. It was probably oh two. No, it was oh three. It was Isabel, was September of oh three, and like that got me out of there at that point because of, like, floods and what sort of natural disaster that happened to everybody on your side of the county. Oh, it
J.B. Jennings 25:23
was, it was, it was horrible down here. What it did to boldly quarters. It devastated it. I remember we had a kickoff for my, my store we’d actually revitalize. We remodeled it, and that Saturday morning was going to be the grand reopening. Isabel hit. Power was knocked out, and I couldn’t see that. You know, at our house, the power was knocked out, and I went to 711 the next morning to get a soda, and they had power, and I was talking to somebody, and I was thinking, How bad is it? They’re like, man, Eastern Baltimore County has been devastated. I’m like, really so, and I was still a volunteer firefighter at the time, so I went over to Jacksonville fire station, where I was a member, and got on the looked at the TV and realized how bad it was down here, and immediately drove down here to bully’s quarters, and it was just completely, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 26:24
when I talked to Jim Smith, whenever I’ve had him on the show, he just talked about, Hey, man, when you’re a public servant, you know whatever your other line of work was, when you’ve been through the Key Bridge going down, it is like I was in Florida the day the Key Bridge went down. Six o’clock in the morning. I’m in a hotel room with Luke. We recovered spring training, literally. And first thing I see on television in my hotel rooms, Johnny, oh, standing in this darkness of I mean real nine one, when
J.B. Jennings 26:51
you’re standing there and the water’s still receding and you know people are coming out begging you for help, and they’re soaked, and you realize they’re dogs, right? They’ve lost everything, yeah, and you’re their only hope. And that’s when we kind of, you know, in district seven at the time, you know, my delegates and I, you know, sometimes we would battle, but we put our differences aside. And that was, you know, Pat and Rick, Doug McDonough, paleria, myself, Senator Harris, we said, put our differences aside. We need to help this district. And we had hearings or not hearings, but we had community meetings where we reached out Jim Smith and again, that’s when nobody was democrat, republican. Everybody was whatever your title was, if you were county executive, if you were state senator, if you were state delegate, after the Key Bridge goes down, you’re a Marylander. That’s exactly it. It was in a term I use is it’s like September 12, right? It’s like how everybody felt September 12. We came together and we met down there. We used bully scores, Volunteer Fire Company, they opened it up for us, and we brought in every agency we could. We worked with the governor office. Governor Ehrlich said, Whatever you guys need. They brought down different agencies. We had it kind of like they were staged. They had tables with big signs that would say, you know, I think they were even handwritten. Said, you know, insurance administration, Department of Environment, every agency you could think of that would you could think of that people would need help from, were there, and people would go talk to them. And you know, that’s when you realize what the job is about. Yes, people think that it’s to go to Annapolis to write the laws. Yes, theoretically, that is the job, but it’s about constituent service. That is why I do this job. That is why,
Nestor Aparicio 28:41
well, you write the laws to make people’s lives better, right? Like you do, you try, you try
J.B. Jennings 28:46
to, to make, to make things run smoother, fix problems, make things more efficient. But unfortunately, I think we cause more problems with the laws we write because you have people to go look for laws. You know that? I call them 60 Minutes laws where you’ll see something, a bill, where you’re like, I saw that on 60 minutes three months ago, some issue that’s never happened before. Also now we have a piece of legislation coming in, because it’s like, somebody saw it on 60 minutes. But what I’m saying is, where I excel is in my office, my staff, Lauren Fowler, who works for me does an incredible job on constituent service. That is what she What does
Nestor Aparicio 29:24
that mean? So at the end of the year, what’s the number one call your office will get? Are they, you know, really top three issues? I mean, I think that’s the reason I want to come and have a cheese steak with the JB. Figure out what’s going on in your district.
J.B. Jennings 29:34
Number one is usually right now, it’s been easy pass. Okay? People once during covid, when they switched from being having toll collectors to completely automated with the EZ Pass, people weren’t paying their their easy pass. You know, they didn’t realize what’s happening, and they’re getting the fines in the mail. And what happens is it escalates quickly. What churn with changes from a $2 And 50 Cent easy pass. Toll where you get now, all of a sudden it’s getting a penalty on it. It’s getting interest
Nestor Aparicio 30:08
your community, get an $800 bill, and you lose your mind, right? Yes,
J.B. Jennings 30:12
it goes, it goes, it escalates. And the thing is, there’s no longer the thought sign there that’s saying, you know, easy pass. I forgot what it would say. If it was good or
Nestor Aparicio 30:20
it’s crazy. You’d even bring this up, by the way. JP, Jennings is here. We’re pizza. John’s doing a Maryland crab cake tour, brought to you by the Maryland lottery. And of course, curio wellness is sending me at the eat delicious things like this cheese thing, if you’re watching on video, we have a sunlight right above us, and there’s not a thing we could do about it other than squint, and I’m trying. But I got here through downtown today I began my day. I’m doing this eating tour down at one of the other places I’m featuring, and I came through the tunnel, and it was just the strangest thing, because I don’t go through the tunnel as much as I used to, right? Because I don’t live downtown. When I live downtown, I was kind of like always coming to see my mother over here in Dundalk. I’d always take the tunnel, and we have, we’ve had easy pass for, you know, since forever, since my wife and I got married, probably, and we’re one car family, so, you know, it’s kind of easier to figure out who’s doing what. And I went through and there was no toll and I’m like, I’m not used to that yet. No, yeah, I don’t know, even though, when it got taken out, but, like, I came out of there and there were no brake lights, and I’m like, Dan was saying, take the toll booths. Like I just, I’m not usually. Took him
J.B. Jennings 31:24
out at 95 I’m just getting used to Perryville. They’re still they’re still there at 895, the harbor, the harbor tunnel, the Fort McHenry, they’re gone. But you still don’t, you don’t have a sign tell you whether or not it’s paid or not. But the problem is they escalate quickly. And if you go, you know, back and forth. That’s twice as many. And then, you know, if you’re, you know, let’s do it for a week, going back and forth to work anyway. What happens is, it escalates very quickly. These fines take off. And, you know, the average homeowner, the average Marylander, it, it becomes very expensive. We’re talking hundreds of dollars. And sometimes it’ll get quickly to it’ll creep into the 1000s. And, you know, they’re calling the numbers. So
Nestor Aparicio 32:06
is the state giving any sort of relief on the fines and the, you know, like they have, I’ll pay for what I went through, they have, they
J.B. Jennings 32:13
have offered amnesty at times where they said, Hey, pay it and we’ll get we’ll do away with the fines and the penalties. You still, you still owe the interest, because you, you theoretically are using state money, so you gotta you always, you always owe the actual toll, and then they’re always going to get you on the interest. But they’ll call our office
Nestor Aparicio 32:32
down the wrong side of the tax man. That’s rule number one,
J.B. Jennings 32:34
right? But they’ll call our office to help. That’s like, usually the number one call we get. But people call us for everything you can think of, there’s a pothole that they’ll see, hey, there’s a poll. Can you get that fixed? They don’t call the county or what do they sometimes people don’t know who to call. They just see a pothole, I know. JB, yeah. And I get that all the time, right? And people don’t know, you know, they’ll call on someone. Should
Nestor Aparicio 32:56
they call you about, I guess that you don’t mind them calling you about any of this. I don’t mind
J.B. Jennings 32:59
it. It’s what, it’s what I’m here for. I love it. I love it. When people it. I love it when people reach out to me and but even
Nestor Aparicio 33:04
if it’s your old job, which might have been more, right, or a different job, something where you get something done, because to me, if there’s something wrong with a street light, I’m calling, I’m calling, I guess over here, Todd Crandall is probably,
J.B. Jennings 33:18
yeah. But like, for instance, you’re gonna have been marks one sure later. So our office and his office work great together. So sometimes, like he’ll have something that’s a state issue, he’ll pass it over. Okay? His office will call, or he’ll call me personally, say, Hey, I got a constituent just called on. It’s a state issue. Can you help me
Nestor Aparicio 33:35
Sure? Some nice lady living on a side street, it just doesn’t know? Or
J.B. Jennings 33:39
vice versa, we’ll have a county issue where I don’t have the relationship with the county that he’s got, and I’ll call him and or our office will call his office, where our staffs work great together, and say, hey, you know Councilman Mark’s office. We, we don’t like to just push the constituent off. Say, Oh, thanks for calling us, but you got to call him. You get the wrong place, right, right? We, as I say, it’s and I always tell my staff, put yourself in that person’s shoes. How would you feel if you called and they just said, Oh, call the wrong person. Call. Call this number whenever it says and they give you the number to call, the first thing you say you do is you take a deep breath, you sigh. You’re like, oh, man, I don’t want to do that. Whereas you say, You know what, we’ll call for you, and we’ll we’ll pass, we’ll handle this for you to the next step. And that’s what we do. And we work very closely with, you know, all the, all the congressional and it’s also on the federal side. There’s times people calls on a federal issue, like we get people who, I can’t tell you how many times I’ll get a phone call, Hey, um, we’re going on a cruise, and I didn’t realize my passport expired. It’s like, okay, when do you leave? Friday? Friday. And I’m like, It’s Wednesday, yeah. Can you help me? I’m like, so Lauren got incredible relationship with congressional offices because they’re the ones that required to do it where, you know, she’s able to call. Call them, we can pull the strings. And we’re like, okay, you have to
Nestor Aparicio 35:03
get to the point where that happens, where I need one of you to pull a string, but, but people, I do often wonder what people do call you about it everything, and where you get your juices flowing to be able to help them. It’s everything
J.B. Jennings 35:17
you can think of. We’ve had, you know, workers comp cases, we’ve had unemployment. We have a lot of unemployment issues where people call us, where they’re especially during covid, you know, during the whole covid issue. But you know, Lauren’s got a list of cases everything you can think of, where people are just having problems with government agencies, where sometimes, you know, government, you It’s unfortunately, the world we live in nowadays, you don’t get a live person. When you call the number, you get a AI, automated voice that you know you gotta. Like, I’m always hitting 000, give me a live operator. I want a live operator, and people get frustrated with that, so they’ll call us. And fortunately, you know, my office, we’re able to, we know the back channels with agencies, to be able to get through it and say, Okay, well,
Nestor Aparicio 36:13
that’s how you get reelected. Is taking care of people, you know, and that’s what we do.
J.B. Jennings 36:16
And we have, I think my office excels so well at it. We have people in other districts call us because other members can’t get it done. Where I could tell you, and I’m not gonna name with districts or with senators, it is. But there’s other districts where they’ll call us and say, well, they couldn’t help us. Can you help us? And Lauren will call me and say, What do you want me to do? I said handle it, because in the end, we’re here to help people. And you know, I’ll have people that are very rude to me, and I like, I’ve had one guy right now who’s extremely rude and to the point where he is 100% wrong. In his case, I’ve tried to talk to him, and he wrote this nasty letter to us, and I’ve said to him, I’ll meet you. Let’s meet somewhere in public. I’ll meet you at a Panera. I’ll meet you to Starbucks, and I’ll sit down with you and explain the situation. But instead, he just keeps hiding behind his computer, sending me these nasty emails, and then he’ll hit me on facebook once you know when I post something about how I’m not helping him, and it’s like I’ve offered to meet you. What more do you want from me and in the way I’ve always, and I learned this years ago, is any email I send, anytime I hit Enter, I always want to make sure. And I used to always think about Jane Miller from WBAL. Remember the investigative reporter I know Jane, that if she were to walk in my office with a news camera and say, did you send this email? How would I respond to Yes, I sent that. That’s why I’ve always want to be is anytime I have a live microphone
Nestor Aparicio 37:49
for 35
J.B. Jennings 37:50
years, you know, how am I going to respond
Nestor Aparicio 37:52
people standing by ready to make things up that I did like
J.B. Jennings 37:57
the one time I got it? You know? Usually, you know, I’ll write something. I’ll be like, and I’ll hold off hitting enter. The one time I did send one where I’m like, You know what? I don’t care. And I hit the enter button. Ironically, over here at Martin state, it was during the War of 1812 celebration. I remember that we had the Blue Angels over here.
Nestor Aparicio 38:15
My father in law came in for that,
J.B. Jennings 38:17
and they blew, blew the flew the Blue Angels in. They were flying in and out all weekend long, a woman who had just moved in was complaining and wrote me this nasty email that these jets are flying in and out, and how this is wrong. And I’m like, really. So I write her this email saying, ma’am, the airport’s been there since 1929 and I looked up her, you know, the property, and I saw when it was purchased, and she’d been living there for literally eight months. And I wrote her, I said, you know, the airport’s been there since 1929 I said, it was, you know,
Nestor Aparicio 38:51
it’s what got my family here. My dad came here to work on the fighters.
J.B. Jennings 38:55
My grandfather, Pennsylvania, got my grandfather from Jim Jennings, from North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, came up here delivering Christmas trees and got a job there in 1953
Nestor Aparicio 39:04
my parents were married 1945 at Mount Carmel, right around the corner from here, Mount Carmel church, yep, and their first home was literally four blocks from here in Mars estates, what became the Mars estates apartments, if you remember, they were first in there, and then they moved to Taylor Avenue and the East Point Mall. That’s the whole trajectory of my family’s life. My parents, yeah, they died there. Yeah. But anyway, the email six to Dundalk, there you
J.B. Jennings 39:28
go. The email I sent her said that, you know, the airport’s been there since 1929 and I don’t know how long you’ve lived here, but it’s been here longer than you I believe, even though I knew how long she’s lived here, and that the Jets you hear the A 10s from the Maryland Air National Guard. And right now, the the Jets you hear, which are the Blue Angels, are flying here for the War of 1812 those I consider to be the sound of freedom. And I’m sorry you do not like them, but I do, and I hit Enter, thinking, you know, Oh, she’ll be up. Nope. She never responded back. But yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 39:58
well, I mean, it’s. Point. Do you hope somebody drops their sword right whatever their sword happens to be? JP, Jennings is here. He’s representing the good people right up the road here Baltimore County and into Harford County. He represents me every year with an Ice Cold Crush, even upon rainy conditions down in Ocean City, Maryland’s part of Mako also acted as my roadie at the wind in Las Vegas, when you had this sexy old board looking at disco party, and I it took a surge, and Jamie was like, up trying to help me out, get on. And I’ll have you know, my old school hard wired. It’s not analog, it’s not that old, but it’s it’s hardwired, and it’s functioning. So sometimes, you know, put an old dog in there, get it done, you know. So you’ve been eating cheese steaks here your whole life,
J.B. Jennings 40:47
pretty much. I mean, this is, like I said, this is where my family had its business since 1958
Nestor Aparicio 40:55
I was this is the place you came. Just ordered some to go pizza,
J.B. Jennings 40:57
yeah, well, you had Captain Harvey’s, Captain Harvey’s, but I think they’re gone. They’re gone. So Captain Harvey’s is gone. So you know this, this carries the torch now, but this was the place to come always, either pizza or but
Nestor Aparicio 41:12
you gave me a place up marford County, tambourines, okay? Tambourinos
J.B. Jennings 41:16
is, I think that you know what you do, your crab cake tour, you should do a pizza tour, I mean, cheesesteak tour. So cheesesteak tour, I’m gonna give you the whole
Nestor Aparicio 41:22
lowdown on had this whole thing happen, because it’s our 27th anniversary, and I probably would have told you about this out in Vegas had I had you on. But so this is our month to, like, go to places and feature the things that I really eat. And I’m taking into consideration my sponsors of which Pizza John is is very proudly one of I might add, even bringing the Dundalk guy over to Essex and eat the pizza over here. But this whole idea was his feature, small businesses feature the things that I like, and I’m heartened that when I say something like pizza, John’s Wendy bronfen from curious coming over today, she’s like, I’m west side of town. I hear people talk about it all the time, but I don’t come over there. And as much as we are small tomorrow, and as much as I took your cousin to my ninth grade prom, and she was a lovely date, hi, Steph, hope things are good, that we’re small tomorrow, I was amazed. Like even when the Key Bridge went down, there are a lot of people that had never been over to Key Bridge because they didn’t have a purpose to do that, because they weren’t going to cost this from Pasadena or to the airport from, let’s say, North Point village, right? So it is amazing with geography, how we get stuck in our ways, and we go to the same places, and then we go to same places, we get the same thing. So now I’ve already told you, you like pineapple, you said you like ham. You’ve already bragged on the pepperoni and how you breathe the right way. We call the grease cups here. Call them that over here, maybe Harford County. Well, no, it’s just, it’s just pizza John’s. I would love
J.B. Jennings 42:59
it. I would
Nestor Aparicio 43:00
implore you to try the, what I’m calling the Venezuelan Dundalk Venezuelan special. They don’t like that here in Essex. They don’t want to hear about that. But because I’m the Dundalk Venezuelan over here, that I would take a Hawaiian pizza, add some old fashioned East Side pepperoni on there, and that’s good. That’s the way I get it. That’s the way I enjoyed now, I like you supreme. I like the mushrooms here, I like the green Pat. I like everything here. I like the onions, even though they always like me, but I like the onions, and I’ll get them on a cheesesteak, but I want to do something off the grid. Anybody can come over here get a pepperoni pizza. It’s delicious, I agree, but you got to get a little more be a little more bougie than that. Be a little more creative. That’s all, yeah, what’s on your Cheesesteak?
J.B. Jennings 43:45
I am fried onions. Or, well, here’s, here’s a question.
Nestor Aparicio 43:48
Do whatever you want. I want you to be happy. It’s the what
J.B. Jennings 43:51
is the cheese? Are you a provolone? I’m 100%
Nestor Aparicio 43:54
provolone. I’m 100% putting that Cheese Whiz on there. Or,
J.B. Jennings 43:58
American, American? No, no, I’m 100% Cheesesteak. Prevalent cheese, fried onions, mushroom, mayo and hots,
Nestor Aparicio 44:04
no lettuce, tomato, no. So I was up in Philadelphia. I ordered mine with lettuce and tomato, and a guy looked at me like I was a tourist. You know what? I mean, like, what? But yeah, my mom always ate lettuce, tomato. Now I’m old school, so I mean, I have full ladies and Ross’s crab house. Zani knows all my places in Dundalk, sub shops everywhere that did a cheese steak. And they all did a little differently. I would agree that Captain Harvey’s was the cheese steak for which all others were measured against. But my mom would go to the sub Haven up here in Essex, right by Jim Jennings. I mean three blocks away that you would take the step down there, and they made the subs along the wall. Kind of Woolworth style, kind of dime store style. It had the counter in there. Yeah, they were really, I mean, they were nothing like what I get here. This is chop meat, ribeye, every scratch kitchen. So when I invite somebody from the west side. Of town over here. They know the legend of pizza John’s, but they don’t frequent they don’t know it. So,
J.B. Jennings 45:07
so I have a lot I do business development in the private sector. I have my own little company, and I’ll have people that’ll come in from the east, from the West Coast, or even international to come in. I’m like, hey, I want a cheese steak. Let’s go to Philly. I’ll say, No, you don’t, right? Like, no, no, I want to go to Philly. I’m like, All right, because you know where I live, Philly’s 45 minutes away. We’ll drive up 45 to an hour. I’ll say, where do you want to go? They always say the same thing, pats, you better. Genos. I’m like, they’re horrible. They are horrible. I’m like, I’ll tell you what. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll drive up there because we have work up there, we’ll do and then I’m going to take you somewhere else. So we’ll do that. We’ll go up there, we’ll do pats and Genos, and they’ll say, these are terrible. I’m like, All right. And then before we leave, we come pizza, John’s well, and then they’re like, they’re like, you’re right. I said, told you, or you do
Nestor Aparicio 45:54
know this is your district. They can’t vote for you over here. I know. I know. Well, this should be an honest I mean, you really, you, you come at this as an honest man. JB, from the beginning, I said, you, you know, what are you getting? And first it was sub. And I clarified, because I’m thinking, Is he a cold cut guys? He because, you know, to do the meatballs over here, where they stuff them in there, you know what? I mean, nope, stuff it down into the
J.B. Jennings 46:18
roll. Cheese, steak, provolone, fried onions, mushroom, mayo and hot I’m real
Nestor Aparicio 46:22
close, and I’m with the hots, but I’m down with the lettuce and tomato. All right. Well, go get yourself a cheese steak. You got thanks for coming on. Anything you want to say about state politics or budget or do all the controversial stuff here? Now we’re gonna ask you. Ask you a gotcha question. I’ll ask you. So here’s your gotcha question. What? What should citizens know? Because I think there’s a lot of consternation about budget and money and just, you know, times being tough, and you and I consider an argument Trump all day, not solve anything. But as it goes, we are where we are right now, especially in this state. Our
J.B. Jennings 46:53
budget is going to get tougher this year. I will tell you last session was, was one of the toughest sessions I’ve been in dealing with a budget. I’m on the budget Tax Committee. It normally in budget years, even when, in the tough times, we can always find money somewhere. We know we can move things around. We
Nestor Aparicio 47:16
wrote the lottery. And, you know, I talk about the cannabis industry, things that are creating revenue for the state, right?
J.B. Jennings 47:21
Well, you know, one of the best things for the state is when you see the like, I was actually coming back from a meeting this morning, and I came coming out of the tunnel. There’s a billboard that Maryland lottery. It’s got the 700 million. The big was it Powerball and Mega Millions. And I saw 700 million, and I forgot the owner. When you get up over 700 million to the billion dollar mark. We make a lot of money in the state because people start playing. I don’t, I don’t play the those games. I’m gonna
Nestor Aparicio 47:48
pass it on to John Martin next week, when I have more, he’ll tell you, Well, I know we did, did a whole segment at Mako showing at me go to Baltimore. Pauses. What I do is explain that this is helping education. It’s helping the fund. It’s helping. Oh, it is. But what I’m saying is pressure for Republicans and Democrats in Annapolis, that’s
J.B. Jennings 48:06
when they sell those tickets. Is when you have jackpots close to a billion dollars, is when people start buying that like, that’s when I’ll go buy a ticket. My wife, ditto. I’m not going to buy a ticket now, when it’s two, when it’s what do you do with it? If you win 40 million, um,
Nestor Aparicio 48:19
you’re already a man of the people, you got farm if I, if I want to land a pleasant living, I mean, I’m saying screw Maryland and going to LA I’m telling you right now I’m in will
J.B. Jennings 48:29
a Maui. I would keep my farm
Nestor Aparicio 48:33
right underneath the wind farm on the hill. That doesn’t look so good. But, yeah, I’d keep my farm,
J.B. Jennings 48:39
you know, I’d buy some toy. I buy a, you know, the old box Chevy, you know, the pickup truck, the old 1980s versions. Fix one of those up. And, you know, I’m a car guy, you know, get a couple cars I’ve always wanted that never had the money to upkeep.
Nestor Aparicio 48:54
I’m thinking is super bowl to Superman to right now, I’m a very humble man Australia. All you wants a truck? Yeah, no. I’ve always been 100 million dollars. Well, seven,
J.B. Jennings 49:06
if I, if you win 700 million, you’re taking home after tax is what, 350
Nestor Aparicio 49:11
million. All right? It’s a lot of cheesesteaks here. Pizza John, it
J.B. Jennings 49:14
is, you know, I’d set my kids up so but, you know, I wouldn’t give them money and make them earn it. You know, they they’re not getting the money right away. They’d have to earn it. They’d have to hit thresholds in order to get it. Because I don’t want him to be lazy. I don’t want him to be you know, I take lessons for people like, you know, Warren Buffett, what he did for his kids. You know,
Nestor Aparicio 49:35
see my kids, 41 right now, and lives here, you know, in the community, if I hit 700 million, I want him to be lazy. I want us all. I want my
J.B. Jennings 49:43
kids have a great, great life, but I don’t want him to be lazy and pompous, like I see some people where they give their kids everything, no, like my my son, actually, I’ll show a video. He plays ice hockey.
Nestor Aparicio 49:56
I know this, you know, go back, right? He’s going, you saw the video? Yeah, I saw this. Do.
J.B. Jennings 50:00
He earned that. He worked his tail off, and he knows if he doesn’t get the grades, he’s not gonna go, because he he actually, the last year he didn’t make the team because he was, he was they only took what are called so it’s the Quebec tournament was only for 11 and 12 year olds. So he was 11. They said, we’re only taking 12 year olds. But he was an alternate. But the coach said, Hey, I have another tournament I want him to try out for. So he went. He tried out. Guess where he went? He went to Austria. That’s better than Quebec. That’s exactly what I said. I’m like, Quebec. Quebec’s Great. I’m like, Dude, we’re going to Austria. So the entire family, my wife, all the pictures, yeah. We all went to his both sets of grandparents, we all went. We all flew to Austria. I’m like, You’re never gonna go to Austria. It was incredible trip. But he knew if he knew if he didn’t get his grades up, he wasn’t going. And, you know, we talked to the teachers said if he doesn’t hit grades, he’s not going. And so he had to earn that trip. And that’s how I am. Is, is, you know, I love my kids to death. I pay everything for him. They They have incredible sports that they play. My my son plays ice hockey. My daughter plays, but she’s not competitive.
Nestor Aparicio 51:02
She loves she has live long enough for the caps to want to cough, right?
J.B. Jennings 51:06
Yes, yes, we do. They did. They did. My love. My son loves next. I want to tell you the story about Sonny Milano and Frank Milano. His dad’s incredible guy is Sonny’s my my son’s favorite players not playing right
Nestor Aparicio 51:21
now. He’s people that have the niche sports you know, like, like, you know Emily Keller for a former mayor of Hagerstown now her, well, she’s runs a West Moore’s opioid hopefully you don’t need her in your district. But her daughter’s a roller roller derby girl. I’m like, roller derby, you know, ice hockey. That’s not normal here, lacrosse, you know, basketball, baseball, but playing ice hockey takes a little extra commitment. I think, Oh, it’s a lot. Yeah, I know cold. I’ve had a lot of hockey. Dad
J.B. Jennings 51:53
and I tell people, you know, tournaments for us, not like baseball, where there’s a baseball diamond around every corner, where there’s a basketball everywhere it’s there’s only so many ice rinks. Yeah, and you know, for the tryouts, my wife was driving him up to upstate New Jersey, right, just south of the New York
Nestor Aparicio 52:11
next time I get together with you, after I feed you a cheesesteak, you can explain to me how the world your kid got involved in hockey. JB, Jennings is here wherever Pizza John brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery, in conjunction with friends at Liberty pure solutions, making sure we’re keeping all that happening and my newest sponsors at GBMC. JB, I’m 56 and I haven’t had my colonoscopy, and the friends at GBMC have decided to guinea pig me out like Milhouse back in the day, and I’m gonna make sure that I get tested and make sure that I’m only up
J.B. Jennings 52:41
and up. That’s the one cancer that’s preventable. Get it done. I’ve had mine done. It’s painless. Trust me. I’ve lost friends who haven’t who are too bullheaded to get
Nestor Aparicio 52:53
it done. If I could, you’re on it all right. PSA, get the number. Check the whole thing. Get it done. Gbmcs, take good care of me. They will. They’re taking good care of me. The worst part of it is the prep. The worst parts the prep, I’ve already, I’ve already done one segment on this. We’re gonna do one more just to try to get me out of the tree. The first one scared me straight. The second one’s gonna scare me in
J.B. Jennings 53:17
trust me, it’s not bad at all. I know
Nestor Aparicio 53:19
he explained it all to me. Speaking of that we’re gonna eat our faces off is the tastiness store. It is all brought to you by friends at Curia wellness and foreign daughter, Wendy’s gonna come by and get her first ever pizza, John’s pizza. I’m sending her family home with delicious cheese steaks, meatball subs, anything they want. Her kids are into the bananas. You know, the baseball bananas, you know? So I was out at the golf thing talking about bananas. So I’ll send them home with some banana ice cream. Here they got a beautiful ice cream stand at Pizza John’s as well. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, crab cake tour continues in Essex for our 27th anniversary. Stay with us.
