As the Maryland Crab Cake Tour gets back on the road for the holidays, Mac Campbell of the Baltimore Convention Center joins Nestor at Faidley’s to discuss future of downtown, its vibrancy and bringing folks to the Charm City in all sorts of creative ways.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
talking, baltimore, convention center, convention, city, harbor, work, years, building, downtown, walk, maryland, important, crab cake, lexington, state, thought, leave, pitching, live
SPEAKERS
Nestor J. Aparicio, Mac Campbell
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:00
Welcome back WNSG jassal Baltimore and Baltimore positive we are positively in one of the most Baltimore positive places I can think we are in the epicenter of all delicious seafood here in the old Lexington market since 1782. Is the sign says here the world famous Lexington market were fatally last chances are coming to be in this space to building out the stall. But 100 yards to the south of here so brought to you by the Maryland lottery. It is the Maryland crab cake tour. I have the the wacky wind donation hat out my friends at Jiffy Lube have not gotten me anything wacky to wear yet. They just change oil. They’re MultiCare you can get out see them and visit them. We are appreciative. We’re friends with the nation. 866 90 nation you buy two you get two free five years 0% financing. This guy’s got a lot of windows. Yeah, let’s take a little while to get him on the show work into this thing. He sits on panels. hostings had a thing last night is most importantly through all of this. I had Tom Kelso on last. We talk in stadium authority and all this and I’m like, let’s start in the first five minutes. Nobody my audience knows who this guy is. What’s the integrity? What have you done? Like all that? This guy is friends with Allah McCallum. So that immediately takes 30 years of relationship and makes you as Charlie Ekman would say a right guy, Matt Campbell is here he is the are you the executive directors? Why is it always executive director because I have the Baltimore Convention Center. By the way, just so everybody knows where he works. He’s made the walk up here in the rain. Just a little bit up Lombard a little right on packet. We’re here. Executive Director, I always love chiefs, you know, like fire chief. I always give those people a hard time. So I’m like, man, it’s it’s hard to be chief. Anybody can be a mayor. Anybody can be an executive director or CEO. But like there’s something about being cheap. But you are the chief. I guess executive officer of all things that convention, what does that mean this point? And how long have you been doing this? Because I feel like I’ve been going to the convention center since it was the old Convention Center. And then it got expanded. And I lived downtown for 19 years. So I would look out my window and see cars loading in see health food loading in see shows loading and see vendors loading in on weekends, motorcycles loading in. And I don’t know that everybody understands like, how functioning it is. When 1200 girls come into play volleyball for a weekend and take the city over or when the nerds would come. Nerd fest that was our favorite con. Not Comic Con, what do they call it? Roni
Mac Campbell 02:30
con Otakon Otakon
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:32
oh my god, we walked into harbor. So the convention center when you live downtown is like a heartbeat of the city. I don’t know if that everybody in Towson or Owings Mills unless they’re coming down for an event or for something they don’t have weddings, you know, I mean, the things that would bring people to a convention center, like a car show or whatnot, but I mean, I think the plate changed a lot of things for downtown and certainly the first industry I thought about was oh, we can’t get together. Oh, that’s gonna screw San Diego because their convention town right. We had to pivot a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So thanks for coming on. Man. You and I know each other in the real world a little bit. We’ve done our thing at the NASS but what’s give me some convention center. Because we hear stadium authority we hear Camden Yards we hear the Inner Harbor Bramble, like everyone’s got a plan. Brandon’s been doing his thing. Like, the convention center is in this sort of the middle of all of it, right? Like literally like anything good. That’s gonna happen. The city’s gonna happen to the convention center.
Mac Campbell 03:26
One would hope right. So thank you for having me. So, so the convention center has been open since 1979. Right. Like you said, the original building right there on Pratt Street,
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:37
right in the middle of where did we have conventions before that?
Mac Campbell 03:40
I mean, you had it at the Civic Center when you know what,
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:44
fair enough in the 70s Okay. I mean, they fill movies there because they opened
Mac Campbell 03:47
in the 60s, right? 60s. So Right. So they were there and then and that’s the way cities
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:53
did it. Yeah. Yeah. It’d be their invention in a city was like a political convention and went to an arena or a civic town hall or,
Mac Campbell 04:01
or like the fairgrounds, things like that. For each, you know, halls, things like that. They were they didn’t have you know, they didn’t have Microsoft conventions and large tech conventions and metal. Xerox
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:14
Can I mean, I’m just thinking like, if a convention Well, I guess the convention part of Las Vegas was probably, you know, adjacent to that Hilton were Elvis would play. Right. I’m thinking that would have been a convention destination in the 70s shirt where they put something up to say, for lack. I’m not looking to insult the convention center to put your wedding wedding function banquet hall on steroids, sure, into a space because it’s basically Martin’s but just bigger. You know what I mean? Like literally,
Mac Campbell 04:48
and we’re 1.2 million square feet, right. So so yeah, we’re pretty big. We’re about half the size of DC to put it in perspective, but we’re still significantly larger than a lot of other destin nation’s we have a great asset in downtown to help bring a ton of people a ton of economic impact that’s left here from out of town guys
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:08
I saw it all the time and those downtown restaurants and whatever David Bramble will put it the harbor the convention center would be part of feeding those restaurants feeding the harbor all the businesses like the places I love like ramen Ohtsuki which free plug there for them and by the way free plug for Howard share duct doctors I’m tricking my real farms coffee out of his mug today because I lost my real market accelerant last month long story but so I have my doctor. Thank you, Howard. I love you. Let me give you the number two 800-955-1275 duct this was my former DJ partner Howard shear humping Howie duct doctor he was he’s done the show down here. So I’m just happen to have his mug so when nobody sees it. This is where I am with the convention center because I’m a kid growing up here, right? So I remember the day the harbor place open. I was there I fell into the harbor chasing a crab on rash field I
Mac Campbell 05:58
learned so much.
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:01
Are you Are you making fun of the river water or the Patapsco River Basin in 1981? I would, I would probably the water is probably really polluted. And now that I’m thinking about what used to be there. So the harbor opens, whether it was the Science Center, the convention center, going to a Styx concert with my mom at the Civic Center, going up to Chinatown, here at the Lexington market to fade Lee’s literally to the Palmer house down the street where I parked my car around the corner here. I walked the streets in the 70s and 80s, the convention center, the dream of the convention center, and the vision of all of it I keep, I don’t want to credit Governor che for too much because he’s got a statue and he did the show. And I loved him and he loved me. And it was all good, because I’ve heard the detractors to the politics of where money was coming from and how it all got done and how it was sort of power struck through that. Not everybody agreed to harborplace right like it was a very controversial piece of land and what they were going to do with it you can go see the videos and follow governor’s but there was a vision and I keep saying whether it’s John Angelo’s I don’t think it’s Steve shotty because he doesn’t want to be but the stadiums, the money, the harbor, Bramble, what’s left of the Inner Harbor, the political system and all the people that work in the vested businesses in the city. There was a vision at that time in my life as a kid that I didn’t see it as Disney World. But I have a feeling that Governor Schaefer went down and saw Disney World and said, This guy built this in the middle of a swamp. We have like this beautiful river basin that they take advantage of in Europe, and in other places. And we clean it up. We have great business here we got bones here we got highways here. We got Philly there in New York did that. We have crabcakes, we have sort of kitsch, we’re provincial, we have history. Let’s dress it up. And the convention center in 1985. Alexei after all that went on here writes about all the bad stuff that we’re familiar with in the modern era, trying to clean up a reputation first city, that in the 80s, come to Baltimore for a convention, right became something that we competed favorably with Las Vegas, or with San Diego, Nashville wasn’t even on the radar Orlando was coming on because they have their Orlando that’s what, that’s what you’re trying to build, right. And I think about how big the convention center is and how grand it is. And you would always go underneath of it or through it at various points we so it took up a big part of downtown. But I have worked or lived downtown, every day of my life. And I want to be clear since 1984, I don’t think there’s been a day in my life that I’ve been in the city, three days in my life, because I live out in the county now where I’m not to say I was here last night I was down. I was at the American Cancer Society, at the Museum of industry, there’s so many assets to the city. And the reputation when it meets back up with getting it more modernized. And whatever this money is whether it’s John Angelo’s whether it’s David Brown, there’s an there needs to be an idea. And that’s what I keep coming back to that there was an idea here, it was a really grand idea. And we should all stand in awe of how it worked. And that it could work again, there needs to be a belief that it can work again. And I think that that’s what I’m trying to seed a little bit by saying it took money, it took vision, but there needs to be a vision of what it’s going to be sure and it needs to be sellable to everybody everybody has to be able to buy into it. Absolutely.
Mac Campbell 09:29
And I think you know, I’m not going to speak for any of the other other developers, you know, for Dave ramble for, for the time
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:37
on and they I mean, everybody, Jeff right now is going to be here later talking about downtown and development. So I’m trying to talk to as many people on all sides of the spectrum to say because there’s gonna be a lot of ideas and I’m sure there weren’t 1975 to here’s what
Mac Campbell 09:49
I can tell you. Sure. And and, you know, their Downtown Partnership released a report earlier this year. That said they’re 6.5 billion with a B million billion dollars being invested in downtown Baltimore a mile from the Kelvin Plaza between 2018 and 2028. That’s that’s an include CFG Bank Arena, right includes what the market space, okay? It includes the the new exchange that opened up at the Hippodrome. It includes a multitude of things. And not just public venues, it also includes the new new senator that opened up at the University of Maryland Medical, I mean,
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:26
but it’s not some dead place where there’s not being an investment made $6.5
Mac Campbell 10:29
billion is in the pipeline, either already online or in process. And that doesn’t even include anything that’s happening under my roof. That’s, and here’s the really cool thing, right? You wish you could think that and you’re like, Oh, that’s too big to fail. And just forget about it. The business community that are that are representative of that list, are in a room together on a regular basis, talking about how do we make sure this doesn’t look like a patchwork quilt? How do we make sure that we take the best ideas of each other’s concepts and make them work together? And I think I think obviously, the work that that MCB real estate has to do to make sure that harborplace functions the way it wants to see that it’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 11:13
a massive project. And it really is like, in 1980 When I saw anyone comes online, I’m in little boy, you know what I mean? And I saw, I always saw it as grand I mean, I have such amazing memories of going down there as a kid with my mother and eatin. No offense at Philips. I love trading Jamie’s looking at economic failings. But I mean as a harbor kid, I and then I dreamed of living at the harbor. I lived well, it was number 19 years on the 23rd floor, where the sunrise and the sunset every day of my life, right? Like I it was a dream of mine. I hoped that that I live to see the next thing to go down there, have a coffee, have a beer walk around and say, What would mare shaver think of this. And it needs to be grand. If Camden Yards was grand, the harbor it needs to it needs a lot of love. But it has all of the bones. You’re building, what’s the bones of your building,
Mac Campbell 12:11
so it’s 1.2 million square feet, right? It’s got 50 meeting rooms, it’s got 300,000 square feet of exhibit space, that big, big concrete slab that can be turned into anything anybody needs. It’s got the second biggest Ballroom in the state over 36,000 square feet. It’s got lots of public funds, function space, you know the our outdoor terraces and things of that nature. So we are here to help drive economic impact through all of the the ancillary expense. Expenditures people have when they come to town. The city owns the building. Yeah, we have a city employee, making sure that we have about 150 full time staff that work for the city. I think
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:51
I met most of when we did the nest Hey, man, you had your little idea for baseball, and I’ve lived here my whole life. I live three blocks away. I walk past that corner 1000s of times, and we’re going big, literally. And I walked upstairs, and I’m like, this is the most beautiful like I would get married here. You know what I mean? Like there’s glass and there’s Camden Yards and there’s light and you can see the football stadium and a cars are passing by it’s very busy intersection. So
Mac Campbell 13:17
I became executive director in January. And since I’ve been here we’ve had the inaugural the people’s ball for West Moore’s inauguration. We recently just had a big Greater Baltimore committee economic summit last night was downtown partnerships annual asking about so we we have a a, in my opinion, a responsibility to be a backdrop or be a platform for a lot of important Baltimore initiatives. Right? When everybody
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:44
who makes decisions is in your building a couple times a year I’d like just in general because they flow the flow of government and the flow of leadership runs through your building and one.
Mac Campbell 13:55
And even in ways you don’t think about like yesterday, we had a ribbon cutting for the Whitman coin show that comes three times a year for over 50 years. That’s our 51st year in Baltimore. The coin show three times. This is the stuff that
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:07
you should actually be coming down and talking to you Come on, and it’s interesting. This is interesting. So at
Mac Campbell 14:12
the ribbon cutting, we had comptroller Henry, we had Senator Antonio Hays, we had council president Nick Mosby talking about the importance of all of this stuff, and they get to see you’d be amazed when when when when an elected official comes in, walks the floor and sees something like the coin show where you have vendors from all over the country coming to Baltimore with millions of dollars of inventory. They just had no idea. So it’s really my my passion to put the Baltimore Convention Center, front and center to Baltimoreans and to the region, right because
Nestor J. Aparicio 14:48
we aren’t it’s not just for volleyball kids in New Jersey playing Brian Wright. We
Mac Campbell 14:52
talked about people coming off a plane, they go to the hilt and they walk across our skybridge they go to the crabcake or maybe not the precepts Chun is they just they eat the hotel, they eat at the center, they walk back and they leave. Well, that’s the thing. And it’s that res. It’s that residual impact, right? We’re more than just this contained ecosystem. People go to Lexington market, people go to cfg, or go it go down to harborplace, or go into Harbor East or Fells Point. So, so the, you know, there’s a lot of stats that I could spit off. But the thing that’s really important is we see over a half million attendees a year, and they all mostly are out of town, not all but a lot. They are leaving all of their hotel tax revenue here, they’re going to restaurants, because they’re in Baltimore, right? They’ve got to they’ve got to spend that money. Our return on investment for the state is four to one. Because the state subsidizes our deficit, because the sales tax that we generate in Baltimore City is seen at the state level. So the state is invested. So in my if
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:01
they’re not coming for the convention center, specifically, they’re not coming. And then all of its gone. Right. So the way I look at it is they’re going to Detroit or they’re going literally they’re doing an event. Right, right. So and more coming online ocean cities, everybody’s sort of competing in the way we’re seeing Maryland and Virginia yell at each other. This FBI thing, right? Yeah.
Mac Campbell 16:21
So they’re, they’re 18 convention centers that I could list right now that are either being built or being renovated. Because obviously, I have a vested interest in being a politician. Right? Oh, right. And right now, cities that have far less attractive bones than Baltimore, we have our, the bones of our city are second to none. But we have older assets, right? So we make up for it with our excellent customer service, our fabulous people, you know, that charm is what we rely on when our building is starting to get older. But bringing
Nestor J. Aparicio 16:55
5000 people to my city, we’re going to make sure not just rubbing shoulders, but make sure this, we all look good. So when everyone to look up when they come the ball, so
Mac Campbell 17:03
we’re the Baltimore City’s convention center. But as I was referring to before, so much of the economic impact is felt in the county. And in even in Garrett County, because of the sales tax is seen at the state level. It gets doled out all over the state. So we’re really the state’s Convention Center just as much as we are the cities. And that’s when we’re working about talking about getting a new convention center. We got to make sure that everybody understands that a win for Baltimore city and its convention center is a win for the entire state. This past session, Governor Moore gave us $25.7 million to stabilize a lot of our older systems and to help enhance some of the stuff that really needs a new a new
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:44
we’re not getting a new building, right? We’re
Mac Campbell 17:46
not Yeah, right. Not yet. But we’re making sure that there is clear signs that we’re not we’re not resting on our laurels. We’re not We’re not because you’re right, people can go elsewhere, they can take their convention business elsewhere, outside of this state, and we lose, right we have we have to be a venue of of record. Right. So it’s making sure that we bolster our city. You know, I worked very closely with our Hutchinson and his team. It was a Baltimore to make sure that we’re telling the story to folks of why they should pick Baltimore we traveled. Let
Nestor J. Aparicio 18:21
me let me let me ask you by the way, Matt Campbell is here where it fails. We’re doing the Marilyn crabcakes represented by the Maryland lottery, no one here yet is quiet but I’m gonna be given these way. I hope that there’s shrimp salad here at some point coming. I think he knows somebody Bill Coles come in. I promised him deviled eggs. I’m looking around we have deviled eggs. Gosh, thank God for that because he wasn’t coming if there’s no deviled eggs on a rainy day, our friends are weathernation are also here. 866 90 nation. I don’t wear the wacky hat when Cole gets here. Next segment, Amy Hans here as well. And we’re gonna talk about holiday shipping. We’re gonna talk about Thanksgiving. We’ll talk about having sauerkraut and kielbasa for Christmas. I love the holidays, man, you know, I mean, I got I’m gonna have pepper dad, peppermint and ginger bread. scented, I called them sniffers on the air John Martin got He’s the Executive Director of the marijuana. He’s a little offended. I call them sniffers. They’re sent a ticket.
Mac Campbell 19:10
Why do you make them smell them?
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:12
I don’t. I had John Waters on the show this week. Right? So it’s not to put you in that kind of company. But I did. Hey, you and the Pope Patrasche on the same airwaves that same week. And he’s doing his Christmas show over soundstage next month we’re doing a Valentine’s Day show as well and he was my bucket top of my bucket list you know to do that. And I was just wondering like you know what I can get away with to be wacky to have John Waters on this weekend. What I asked him what he loves about Baltimore what makes Baltimore unique and I guess that’s something that you’re selling every day your life you know like I am Baltimore people know like my deal with whatever they come to me but everybody you talk to somebody on the outside that’s heard crime, this Freddie Gray that bad blah, blah. But how about this? Got a great good baseball team if you’re pitching next summer that you want to come down and be a part of that there is certainly the bones of the city that never changes. crabcakes never change the water, pricing location, all of those things, but what when the options are us and name three of our competitors like what are the cities we have a convention where they’re like, I’m thinking, because they’re probably not thinking Baltimore, Orlando or Vegas, they probably have big city, big 30,000 People type of things. But if they’re, what kind of place? Typically
Mac Campbell 20:27
what a convention is going to do is look at, oh, well, we want a west coast. We want to, you know, somewhere in the middle of the country wanted to be in and we Oh, that’d be nice. Yeah. And then we cycle right. And so we’ll get a show, you know, on a route. So they’re looking for their East Coast destination for this particular you’re
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:42
really not competing with the Midwest, you’re competing with the CBOE sometimes,
Mac Campbell 20:46
but most of the time, it’s mostly we’re looking at a regional thing right, up and down the East Boston,
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:50
Philadelphia, New York, all awful. lumbus, Nashville,
Mac Campbell 20:53
Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh. And so so I was I was really gracious, graciously invited to ride on the bus with the governor’s cabinet and Lieutenant Governor and
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:05
sandwich with potatoes on it was drawn with his people.
Mac Campbell 21:07
Let me get to that. So So about about two weeks ago, I was able to go on a tour bus tour, led by the mayor with the mayor’s governors, cabinet, Lieutenant Governor. And we went around and we started talking and I got to be one of the stops where I got to talk about you know why the convention center is worth investing in and to my earlier point, why it’s the region’s convention center and drives economic impact for all lobbying
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:27
our audience, tell us what you just said, no
Mac Campbell 21:31
one knows about the convention center. So you got to start swag. unis? Well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:35
I’m embarrassed that I’ve been doing this five, six years, and I haven’t like talked more about it, because it impacted my life every day, because I could look out the window and see whether I’m having ComiCon or whether I’m gonna have motorcycles or whether it’s gonna be something we could sneak into, like some health conference, we get some cool samples. There you go. So we always knew it was going on there. Because it was a block from my house for 19 years. Yeah. I don’t even know who ran it for 19. Yeah.
Mac Campbell 22:00
So yeah. So, you know, the mayor and the governor both and myself, too, are incredibly competitive people, right. And when we see that we’re putting out responses to RFPs to places like Columbus or Pittsburgh, or Cleveland or Savannah. We’re like, wait, and we didn’t win that.
Nestor J. Aparicio 22:17
Oh, hey, do have the bananas down there. They got a thing. You know, I’m talking about vision. I mean, who would have thought that was the vision? I didn’t think discord zone at the Orioles thing was gonna catch on. But what the hell do I know? Yeah. So
Mac Campbell 22:27
so. So it’s our job to bundle all of these good stories that we that we know and take for granted. And a lot of cases
Nestor J. Aparicio 22:34
they don’t know the crabcakes in the harbor, they don’t know about things that are going on that they museum trails war trail, Fort McHenry. So
Mac Campbell 22:41
I was talking to the brand new owner of the coin show yesterday, they just recently got acquired, and he’s from Virginia Beach, and he has been coming as an exhibitor for years. But as an exhibitor, you’re just here, you’re here to do your commerce and leave and go to the next show. And when I started talking about everything that’s happening with harbor plays with with the arena with Lexington market, he was like, wait, what. So it’s our job to do a robust sell job of all of this stuff, it’s so easy to talk about that we’re so excited about. So that’s why I get so excited to come to work every day because I get to support my team by telling these narratives right and, and it’s it’s amazing. I was at Mako, I know you were there to talking to folks from the Eastern Shore, they don’t understand why the convention centers important they to them. And so then we get to talk about that regional story about why that’s important because all of the economic impact materializes at the state level. They feel that in Wicomico, but they don’t but
Nestor J. Aparicio 23:43
it’s different than like if the baseball team is good, I’ll come to the city to see a baseball game. The convention center doesn’t necessarily look to do events that gets everybody all the time because they’re like I said sometimes they can’t get in right but sometimes it’s a motorcycle show or car show that you would say we have Sammy Hagar is Ferrari here you know if you want to come see it, you live in Stevensville come across the bridge, you know, and it’s safe to do so and tight and win a ballgame on a Sunday or are tied in with a crab cake or some other reason to come to Baltimore. But that’s reason enough I mean, my wife loves cars and like all of that kind of stuff that and you see it whenever you have a show like that there that’s more open to the
Mac Campbell 24:23
public that regional drive in business absolutely wants to bundle stuff right so a trip to Fort McHenry a trip to the aquarium check out their new that another thing that they’re spinning up a brand new floating marshland that’s going to be millions of dollars that crabcake
Nestor J. Aparicio 24:36
us on the Food Network. Well, you know, well yeah, really? Yeah.
Mac Campbell 24:40
So no, there’s there’s so what do you pitch you get in front of people
Nestor J. Aparicio 24:44
giving your elevator Give me your you get five minutes to say what why am I coming? I mean, it’s almost embarrassing that I’m having Mac do this. Why come to Baltimore instead of Columbus or Pittsburgh or like it to me? It’s a no brainer. I’ve been to these places. It’s first okay. I mean, I’m I’m
Mac Campbell 25:02
Columbus. Yeah. Well, and that
Nestor J. Aparicio 25:05
Cleveland. I’ll Dennis Browns weekend I’ll leave in saying that was
Mac Campbell 25:08
a response of of our of our elected officials. Oh heck no, we are not losing to anyone but definitely not no events Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, anybody we’ve ever lost to in baseball. There you go. So So I mean, it really depends on who we’re talking to. Right. Nestor but But bottom line is, is we’ve got a large building that is ready and primed to to address anyone’s needs, whether it’s a local ComiCon show, whether it’s a national show for plastic surgeons, whoever we’re talking to, we’re making sure that we understand that customer and their patrons to make sure that we’re pitching very specifically we have
Nestor J. Aparicio 25:47
a bigger businesses already have, and they know what they’re doing have a system, right? Very few people are saying I’m doing my first convention ever, and I’m gonna call Mac, and we’re gonna figure it out in Baltimore. They’ve all done these seen other play no good ones from a bad one. They know good service from bad service. And they they get the feedback of their constituents Absolutely, as well. And that the most important thing that happens after 4200 People come to your building, you know, on a Saturday for a coin show is that they go home and say I do it again.
Mac Campbell 26:15
Right. So like last night, everybody at the Downtown Partnership meeting was talking about how great our food was, right? And that that that spreads out if a convention comes and they’re like, Oh, my God, that food and Baltimore’s fantastic. Or the adverse if if we missed it,
Nestor J. Aparicio 26:29
oh, we’ve all been to a party with bad food when we think about it and remembers the food and
Mac Campbell 26:34
the bath and how clean the bathrooms are, right? That’s like it’s a joke. But it’s it’s mostly true, right? It’s it’s how clean are the bathrooms? How good are the food? How welcoming are the people and we hit all those marks. But like you said, people do this for a living you right? They put out an RFP to all the all the cities in the in the country. And we we respond. And we like for instance, I flew out to Chicago, since I’ve been back to pitch the plastic surgeons for 2027 We have things on the on the books through 2030. Right 2032 Wow. So we’re looking real long lead to try to land these pieces of business. And so we went in there we did a game show with with their team to try to separate ourselves from just somebody who comes up and talks with the PowerPoint behind them. Give them prizes, talk about Baltimore. It’s like a Baltimore trivia kind of thing.
Nestor J. Aparicio 27:21
And so kitschy that I’d love to be involved in so that sounds like fun. So but then you figure
Mac Campbell 27:26
out oh, well, the plastic surgeons, you know, the guy who wrote the original textbook on plastic surgery, Hopkins. Wow. So the birth of Plexus, the plastic surgery, Baltimore,
Nestor J. Aparicio 27:39
I remember that if I ever get it because they’re, my friends are taking odds as to what I’m like. I don’t like any surgery. I’ll have jowls it’ll be okay. You don’t stay young and sexy long enough. At some point. I’m gonna go over the
Mac Campbell 27:51
hill. But you know, and you’ve got Maryland Medical Center who just has had, you know, just between shock trauma and all of their their their national worldwide firsts and surgeries. I mean, we’ve got these fantastic
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:05
as Dr. convention should be here. Well, in a lot, like, like I will, I would say that because I did the American Cancer Society. I was there. Esteemed emcee on I did a really good job until my notes got screwed up. And I started crying because I brought Michelle ngModel up and she did this thing to honor Dave and I’ll start crying about it if I talk about it right now. But so I did this thing with the doc came up. Dr. regime from proton, lead, proton leader, and he was just magnanimous beautiful and all things he said, But it reminded me of the man who saved my wife’s life. But when my wife is with the man who saved her life as we speak right now eating blackforest cake in cold right now and they’re going to the patriarchy. I can tell the secret. I had to keep quiet about it for six months.
Mac Campbell 28:48
blackforest cake at 10 o’clock in the morning. No, it’s it’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:51
it’s 40 afternoon there. Oh, here’s what happened to schnitzel one noon to five o’clock and I would have told him that but she sent me a text. She’s like she canceled on the five o’clock. I’m like I could the internet told me that I knew that the last. So nonetheless, I want these doctors and last night doctors union says that whatever the rating is of the alphabet soup that says that you are the best can’t and I not that I shouldn’t know this. They saved my wife’s life twice, right 155 nights in the hospital. We were there for the Hope Lodge. I want to give them a shout out to God, what a great organization. It’s a block from here, literally the Hope Lodge on this side of the city. It’s the place that if my wife had cancer, and I lived in Topeka, Kansas, and I had to fly here to keep her alive. And I’m gonna tell you why that’s important because everybody does that from all over the world right in that tower. Their family, they don’t have the means it’s $200 a night for a hotel. And that’s 155 nights and my wife was here. How many nights would I have wanted to not be there with her zero. I spent one night on the couch there with the night I thought she was gonna die. That was 154 but every other night I did come home. So I was 1.6 Miles But he said you weren’t 1.6 miles away from one hospital, you were 1.6 miles away from two of the top 30. The only 30 were take Mayo Clinic You know the ones you’ve heard of right? Baylor, you know that the 30 that are the 30 in the world where if you got cancer in Buenos Aires, you want to come to Baltimore, you’re gonna come to Baltimore, you’re gonna pick Baltimore out of the 30, right to save your life, there’s to a mile and a half apart. And I, you know, when I think about COVID, I said, this outlet, that was one of the reasons Brandon had to shut the city down, because like, if we get sick, you’re gonna lose hospitals. And when we saw what happened in New York, and in Seattle with overcrowding, that was why it was so important that our population stay healthy, because we have these really important arteries of of care for people. So when you talk about surgeons and doctors, I mean, that that’s something that you’re in pitching, how can they how can they? I can’t overlook Baltimore in Hopkins,
Mac Campbell 30:56
right? No, and I would even say that we even have that medical story now too, because during the pandemic, we served as the longest active field hospital in the country. Hey, man,
Nestor J. Aparicio 31:06
I roll roll my sleeves up. When I think of your building, yes, in times other than the nest, and I think I was a little macabre. When I met him like, yeah, Convention Center. I went in there. I got a shot. It was like war time. You know, everything was like it was just sort of dark and somber. There was no music playing there was just like, line move mask. Who are you iPad, Purell pure, I mean, dude, that I was in Ehrlich’s inaugural 20 years ago in that building, but I’ve been in that building for grand events and block events celebrity house crazy and Peyton Manning and I took a picture in that building.
Mac Campbell 31:42
You know Oriole Fan Fest to were about 10 million it does home at Tolman Expo coin shows the shock trauma Gallas. Now we’ve been a field hospital and a PPE storage site and a testing center, this building is an asset for the city, because it can be anything it needs to be. And that’s one of the stories that I think is really important.
Nestor J. Aparicio 32:04
And when the pregame party for Oreo Games is a really cool idea you have so when we sort of a no brainer,
Mac Campbell 32:09
we were standing on that terrace, and I was standing by the bar and a guy walks up, and he orders a drink and and I hear him you know, he and I weren’t talking. And he goes well about damn time. And I say Hey, sir, what what did you mean by that? And he goes, I’ve been walking past this building for the last 25 years. And always thought this was such a great idea. And
Nestor J. Aparicio 32:29
outside, it’s beautiful for baseball, right?
Mac Campbell 32:33
And people then know that the convention center is a place for them to write and write. So there’s a lot of different ways
Nestor J. Aparicio 32:38
that we’re working. I’m looking forward to working with you on that. Next year. We’re
Mac Campbell 32:41
gonna go big. I’ve got some great ideas with enough lead time to do a really kick a great we
Nestor J. Aparicio 32:46
know when the games are being played, which is a big upgrade over playoff games. Yeah. Yeah, that was tough. And the weather’s definitely more conducive to that Matt Campbell was here. He’s gonna stay do over time. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. I got these ravens scratch off their limited time on doing a lot of crabcake tours, man I am doing I’m going everywhere. I’m going everywhere in the city. We’re gonna be up at gertrudes I want to give a plug because Dan Rodricks was here nine months ago I begged him to do his show again.
Mac Campbell 33:14
If you’re I missed that podcast a lot. Okay, December 8,
Nestor J. Aparicio 33:17
you’re invited. Dame has already come in so you get to hang out with her people. There’s a rumor crabcakes are going to be served. So we’re gonna be doing the show up at gertrudes on the 38th to promote that and everything is going on with the BMA. So I’m excited about that. very appreciative for everything Maryland lottery does for us our friends at window nation, tis the season 866 90 nation and Jiffy Lube MultiCare. As we signed up sponsors, we’re taking a crabcake tour to a curio wellness as well. I toured the cannabis facility in Timonium for three hours I saw every single part of the operation and I just wish Billick would have gone when because he loves that’s the Billick loves operations like backstage at Amazon that’s so Brian out of stuff works. And I was just blown away. So I’m gonna be talking to Wendy about that this week. Let’s see what else we have this week, Maryland stadium authority Tom Kelso and I’m yelling and screaming in West Moore at some point is going to come on the show. He says by the end of the year, Brandon Scott, your boss the mayor’s were working on a date. Coco’s his side of town working on it. I’m not there yet, but I don’t have the date. And what Oh, John Waters. I mentioned that there did not you did John Waters was one program this week. It was at the top of my bucket list. 32 years on the radio. And here’s the thing about it. And this is a part of Baltimore positive I’m trying to grow, especially with the ravens and the Orioles and all the crap that’s going on trying to grow into something different, whether it’s just emceeing the cancer thing, which is fun, or sitting and doing this crazy thing with people we love crab cakes and shipping and like, but the John Waters thing. Apparently my staff tried to get him on at various points by producers. He’s never said no to me. I’ve never met him. I’ve never been in a room with John water while I’m lying. I went I went to the lyric Dame he says you’ll come here for crabcake he talked about softshell crabs on In this segment cuz we did talk crabs, but I’ve never talked to him. I’ve never known him. I’ve never been in a room I paid to see him at the Lyric five years ago do the Christmas thing we have masks off and thought be great to have him on whatever I was trying to get him for a crab cake and sit down and he’s a little more like on the road and whatever and they’re like zoom like zooms good. He put this URL Flynn background, he called it the David gray background or whatever. And we did 15 minutes. And the first thing I said is like, this is bucket list. I can’t believe you’re coming on. I got all fanboys, you know? And he’s like, Well, I never turned you down. And I’m like, this is a key thing in life that if I ask, they might say Yes, right. You know, they might say yes. So of course Ray, you know, is pitching from down to Pasadena. We try get him on your unit. And I’m like, but he never turned me. I’ve never asked him and I’ve Dave Grohl is next. Oh, well.
Mac Campbell 35:53
Let me be a fly on the wall for that one. All right, we’ll take a
Nestor J. Aparicio 35:56
break. We’re failing. I’ll tell you why they broke because it’s it has nothing to do with the Foo Fighters or nirvana. It really has nothing to do with that. It’s something way more personal than that. We’re failing these days here. Bill Cole is coming deviled eggs are here. Shrimp salads. I know where everything is. I can read this join. I did see the fish come in this morning. And the dude was really cool to me and stuff. I’m like, I What’s the best fish? He’s like, ask him he knows everything. And I’m like, No, you the guy that brings it. I just want to make sure that if you have flounder that I get flat that I don’t get rock fish if you brought you know what I mean? Like I want to make sure I got his fish. He’s like it’s all month. All right, man. I’m gonna leave here with some fish. So my wife’s out of town. It’s a little bit like the Prince song, Sinead O’Connor. I can eat whatever I want. You know, so I’m going to eat whatever I want today. So we’ll rock fish, maybe a little
Mac Campbell 36:44
lemon is your oyster or crabcake or whatever the wine sauce
Nestor J. Aparicio 36:47
on. Fate is I can do whatever I want. I can even have french fries. But I wanna I am Nestor. We are WNS T we’re doing the crabcakes we’re Max gonna stick around talking ventures. Dave Grohl in the next segment. What else we got to do?
Mac Campbell 36:58
Downtown Partnership. Oh, right. Okay, that’s big. Yeah. All right. We
Nestor J. Aparicio 37:03
got things talk about back for more on the Marilyn crabcake tour at fade these people are coming in so I gotta go give some some Maryland scratch offs away. Stay with us.
