It’s going to be quite a trip ahead for Leonard Raskin and many Baltimore Ravens fans who are not only getting their passports stamped in Brazil this month, but also better have their visa! And their credit card and security for their phones. Nestor, who did the Copacabana, Ipanema and Corcovado run in 2006 with the Rolling Stones in the biggest concert in the history of the planet, asks our resident financial expert what he’s hoping to find in Rio de Janeiro – other than Dallas Cowboys fans.

Nestor and Leonard discussed using money intentionally for travel and live events, focusing on whether higher-cost trips are worth it when tied to personal goals.

Travel Plans

• Nestor compared possible Rush trips to Brazil, Scandinavia, and a possible Las Vegas Sphere run, using AI planning to weigh flight, hotel, and timing costs.
• Leonard confirmed he and Cath are going to Brazil with a Ravens travel group for the Ravens-Cowboys game, even though Brazil was not previously a top bucket-list destination.

Saving Strategy

• Leonard emphasized using premium credit cards and sign-up bonuses to earn and transfer points for major travel savings, especially on international flights.
• Both agreed they avoid overpaying for concerts or flights and prefer waiting for better prices through loyalty programs and resale apps like SeatGeek.

Open Questions

• Which trip will Nestor prioritize next: Brazil, a spring Europe run, or a possible Sphere show?
• Will Rush actually announce a Sphere engagement, and at what ticket price would it still feel worthwhile?

• Finalize and confirm the date and time for the kickoff of the Maryland Crab Cake Tour at Costas in Dundalk next week. (@Nestor Aparicio)
• Provide Nestor with a brief security lesson and written security tips before his upcoming South American trip, focusing on protecting phones and valuables.

Concert Travel and Bucket Lists

• Nestor described evaluating future Rush travel around Brazil, Europe, and Las Vegas.
• The discussion centered on whether saved money should be used on meaningful experiences.

Brazil Trip Planning

• Leonard shared plans to attend the Ravens-Cowboys game in Brazil through an organized group trip.
• Nestor offered practical travel and safety observations from prior South America travel, especially around phone theft and local conditions.

Saving and Spending Tactics

• Leonard recommended managing credit card sign-up bonuses, points transfers, and airline partnerships to reduce travel costs.
• Both discussed waiting for better ticket prices instead of paying premium face values for concerts.

Sports Wrap-Up

• The conversation briefly shifted to the Orioles, bullpen inconsistency, and recent player moments before closing.

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are WNST AM 1570 Tass and Baltimore. We’re Baltimore positive. We’re positively going to be doing the Maryland Crab Cake Tour to start football season. We’re going to start things at Costas and Dundalk the week of kickoff. I’m working at the date and the time on that. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland Lottery. I will have Ravens scratch offs to give away with the Kiss Face Bird, we’re all very optimistic about that. Even the baseball team getting back into things. Our partners are GBMC and Farnin and Dermer. And in our in our case here at now that WBAL is gone, all syndicated, the Bay is gone. We’re very appreciative to all of our local sponsors to keep us going here at AM 157, including this guy Leonard Raskin, who handles our money around. Here’s our financial insider, as well as our limelight spirit of radio rush insider. You know, I asked you before you came on the show how was was your weekend. You’re like really boring, and I’m like, you know, we’re getting to the end of summer. It’s a good. I feel the same way. I did a lot of cleaning, a lot of house cleaning. This AI is blowing my mind. You know, I’m doing this big music project, and I know you’re gonna love the music project more than anyone because, like, you love the old ticket stubs and the old pictures, and you have this Judas Priest Iron Maiden thing, and this Depeche Mode thing, and this Billy Joel thing, and this Rush thing. My good eclectic, this kooky dude. Like, hey, who are the bands that you hate? Who are

Leonard Raskin 1:24
the bands that I hate? I don’t really hate anything. I love. I went through

Nestor Aparicio 1:28
this with Rasig last week. Right. Like we’re talking. Like I’ve known Rasig. He’s one of my best friends. Give

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Leonard Raskin 1:32
me a band I could hate. So he

Nestor Aparicio 1:34
starts talking. He’s like, “Oh man, I love Jethro Tull. There you go. Oh no, no, no! It’s a flute, it’s a flute.

Leonard Raskin 1:43
It’s a, it’s one of the greatest albums ever.

Nestor Aparicio 1:46
No, no, no. I even had the belt buckle, but I, but I’m not. No, I’m

Leonard Raskin 1:52
all about it. Jefferson Airplane. Okay,

Nestor Aparicio 1:55
I’m good with, I’m good with Gracie Slick now.

Leonard Raskin 1:57
Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult. So you were Sabbath guy, were you? Oh man, back in the original days.

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Nestor Aparicio 2:04
See, when they

Leonard Raskin 2:04
made good music, not the not the end crap. Oh, you didn’t like the

Nestor Aparicio 2:09
Aussie? You didn’t like flying high again? It

Leonard Raskin 2:11
was okay. It was okay. I like the originals. You’re more

Nestor Aparicio 2:13
war pigs, more. Yeah,

Leonard Raskin 2:14
come on. All right, all right. Um, I I found so I I asked about a three weeks a month ago, I don’t know. I asked, was it Pandora? You know, I asked Pandora to find me a Rush channel.

Nestor Aparicio 2:27
Oh, so they found me

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Leonard Raskin 2:28
a Rush channel, which I thought would play a lot of Rush, but it plays everything 70s, 80s rock. So I’m listening to Kansas. I’m listening to AC/DC. I’m listening to Super Tramp! Oh my God! Well, you talk about

Nestor Aparicio 2:42
artificial intelligence. I mean, that’s really what Spotify or whatever is. You’re saying into it, I like this, that, and the other, and then it plays a playlist,

Leonard Raskin 2:51
and then it it asks you to check what you like, and then it plays more of it, and I’m you know all kinds of. You tell it you

Nestor Aparicio 2:57
like Rush, you’re going to hear Saga, you’re going to hear Aldo Nova. You’re going to hear a lot of Triumph. By the way, I had both the guys from Triumph on the show this week, Gilmore and Rick Emmett. Both by chance did the same hour on Friday. So one was done by like Premier Networks offered me Gilmore, and then the band offered me Rick Emmett. So I did them both, and they’re coming back november 21. If you haven’t been, I highly recommend the show. I would just tell you where they go. Where are they?

Leonard Raskin 3:25
Where are they strumming?

Nestor Aparicio 3:26
The Baltimore Civic Center.

Leonard Raskin 3:27
The Civic Center. How great is the Civic Center now for concerts? I saw. Oh, I’ve seen some bands there. We talked about it. That was the first place I ever saw saw sticks and almost got my head beat in by some big guy because I told him he was in my seats, but really I was in his seats. So I was-I think I was 14 or 15. It was pretty funny. Anyway, you learned

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Nestor Aparicio 3:51
tact. Yeah, really

Leonard Raskin 3:52
quick, really quick. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, sir. I’m sorry, sir. You’re in my seats.

Leonard Raskin 3:59
But you know, you talk about who hears who hears our show here, our little show, and I have gotten more texts and emails from friends that listen that are Rush fans that said I didn’t know you were a Rush fan. One of my buddies, you’ll you’ll appreciate this. You have to start your work. It’s gonna make you work. One of my buddies can’t say his name because he he swore me to secrecy. This is like the David Rubenstein. Do I know

Nestor Aparicio 4:28
this guy or no? No, you do

Leonard Raskin 4:30
not know this guy. You’ve never met him. You would know him from Adam. He and his son have been traveling rush. They’ve done three shows on the tour, and his son was jetting off to Detroit to see him again, and he said, “Word has it? Word has it from the producer’s father, the show producer’s father. I don’t know who this is, but this guy clearly is in the know. Supposedly, there’s going.” To be a showing next year at the Sphere,

Nestor Aparicio 5:07
of course. Yeah, that’s been it’s now. Do you know? I learned this recently. There’s a little tiny sphere that exists in Southern California. Like it’s it’s it’s coming to it’s in like Burbank, DC. No, no, no. What I’m telling you is, there’s a little tiny sphere that literally exists that’s been built. That is the test area. Oh, cool. Where and a friend of mine went. Where they do all the laser thing that they do to make sure. Right. Exactly. So you know, Dolan’s got this thing all figured out, as well as the AI to when I walk into Madison Square Garden, he facially recognizes me and makes sure that I’ve never disparaged him on the show because he didn’t let me in. Because that’s where we are in America these days. He let the Nazis in social

Leonard Raskin 5:51
credits. Yeah, he

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Nestor Aparicio 5:52
let Elon Musk in to do his thing, but but he

Leonard Raskin 5:54
social credits, man. Right, of course. But

Nestor Aparicio 5:56
nonetheless, I I’m wondering the Sphere Rush Show. Now that we’re into this,

Leonard Raskin 6:02
yeah. By

Nestor Aparicio 6:03
the way, I’m I might go out there to see Brian Adams do his solar thing. Metallica is playing the Sphere in late October. So like, but Rush has always had the moving car of Red Barchetta. They’ve always had the lasers in Red Sector A. They’ve always had video with Jerry Stiller and comedy, and all of them dressing up as trolls and gnomes and nuns and priests and bruisers. They they do all of this stuff. So the sphere part for Getty’s got to be outrageously interesting because. So you want to go to Vegas? You think they’re all going?

Leonard Raskin 6:39
If they’re there, I’m going. I had been to see the show.

Nestor Aparicio 6:42
So since last time you and I got together, by the way, Leonard Raskin is here. He is Raskin Global. He’s got to get me like a yellow shirt, like those Sacramento shirts were on Saturday nights. I can actually read Raskin Global. How weird was that Sacramento script on? Nothing screamed. We’re in the Fresno minor league penal system

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Leonard Raskin 7:01
than Sacramento. Las Vegas on the sleeve,

Nestor Aparicio 7:04
and Las Vegas behind home plate. Is it Vegas? Right on the

Leonard Raskin 7:07
sleeves. Las Vegas and 2,800

Nestor Aparicio 7:08
people in a minor league ballpark where they literally had tents camped up out in right field where Gunner Anderson’s over. Nonetheless, back to speaking of Vegas in the spirit. Yes, I the rush thing for me. You know how good it was. I’ve seen it three times. I’ve seen the first show in L.A. first show in New York, second show in Philly. They’re coming to D.C. in a couple of weeks. Yep. And I am a

Leonard Raskin 7:29
couple of months, but that’s okay. This

Nestor Aparicio 7:30
has to do with you and my money and the American dream and how much money. So I put into my clone because my clone helped me with South America. It did a lot of South America six months ago with me, and I said I I’m considering Brazil, and I could even read you the actual prompt that I put in. I’m considering Brazil for these shows. I don’t really want to go to Rio, even though you’re going to Rio next month. This month. This month now.

Leonard Raskin 7:53
This month, dude, you’re three

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Nestor Aparicio 7:54
weeks in. Did you get your visa?

Leonard Raskin 7:55
Everything’s good. Okay, eight. It’s $80 to get

Nestor Aparicio 7:59
the visa. I learned this on my face,

Leonard Raskin 8:01
right?

Nestor Aparicio 8:01
Okay, so

Leonard Raskin 8:02
I’m

Nestor Aparicio 8:04
looking at Curitiba, which is the first show in southern Brazil, which is away from the equator, more toward Uruguay. I’m looking at Brasilia, and I’m looking at Belo Horizonte. And the reason I know Belo Horizonte is because the Olympics were there, and the World Cup was there. You know, back when the World Cup happened, there, Rush is playing outdoor stadia in Brazil.

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Leonard Raskin 8:27
There you go. They are

Nestor Aparicio 8:28
playing 6080, 100,000 seat stadium,

Leonard Raskin 8:33
and clearly they’re going to rock it full.

Nestor Aparicio 8:35
Now, if I said to you, Curitiba, you don’t even know where that is, even though you’re going to be about six hours away in three weeks. Yeah, Rio. If I say Brasilia, that’s the capital of Brazil. It’s in the middle of the country. Belo Horizonte, also inland. They’re playing two shows in São Paulo. My buddy and former guest on the show, Brad Brad Gagnon, who lives in Toronto, has a Brazilian girlfriend who lives down in São Paulo. So he wants to go to the São Paulo show. So Brazil or the Toronto show, easy on the money.

Leonard Raskin 9:02
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 9:03
Toronto already happened. Toronto’s done. No, it’s over. They did four shows. By the way, for you, they videoed all four of the shows in Toronto with all of the set list. They brought Amy Mann in. They had special guests, and they videoed that. That’s going to be the DVD box set.

Leonard Raskin 9:16
There you go. That

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Nestor Aparicio 9:17
they did the Toronto show. I’m giving you a little rush inside since you gave me the sphere. Brazil is in January, dead of summer.

Leonard Raskin 9:24
Right,

Nestor Aparicio 9:25
my my clone said to me, “Be really careful with the Brasilia show on the fourth of February. It’s the night before Carnival kicks off.

Leonard Raskin 9:35
There you go in

Nestor Aparicio 9:36
Brazil. So it said you’re going to have a hard time getting rooms, stuff like that.

Leonard Raskin 9:40
Expensive that night.

Nestor Aparicio 9:41
So, it’s I then said weigh that financially against Copenhagen,

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Leonard Raskin 9:48
yeah, right,

Nestor Aparicio 9:49
Stockholm, Helsinki, Norway

Leonard Raskin 9:51
trip

Nestor Aparicio 9:51
in April,

Leonard Raskin 9:52
Scandinavia trip,

Nestor Aparicio 9:53
and and the last day of the tour,

Leonard Raskin 9:57
yep,

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Nestor Aparicio 9:57
announced that they’re going to play the Sphere. We know that. Place for you probably in May or June of next year, right?

Leonard Raskin 10:02
Something

Nestor Aparicio 10:02
just in time for me to go to the Maryland party and drag your ass out there with Billy Cole next year. So get to make you some money. Big real estate party at the end. You’d hate it. You’d hate it. I know. So they’re playing the the tulips. My bucket list. You know, look. Why do I save money if I’m not going to use it on my bucket list. No

Leonard Raskin 10:22
reason, no reason to worry. You’re

Nestor Aparicio 10:24
saving my money, and on the top of my bucket list is to do the tulip fields in the Netherlands, which bloom the second week of April,

Leonard Raskin 10:33
and then there’s Russia. And then,

Nestor Aparicio 10:35
but it also said to me, you can save a lot of money. Don’t worry about Europe. It said with the dollar and but but get there if you can get an $800 flight into Denmark, yeah, which exists.

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Leonard Raskin 10:49
Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 10:50
book it in November. It gave me the whole thing. Here’s when you want to do it. Here’s how you want to do it. It would be an equal financial investment.

Leonard Raskin 10:59
There you go. That if

Nestor Aparicio 10:59
I wanted to do Brazil for two weeks or Europe for like 10 days, that it would cost the same amount of money.

Leonard Raskin 11:06
So let’s go. Let’s go. Something I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this for our listeners and for you. You need you need to manage. We need to manage credit card points. If you don’t do that,

Nestor Aparicio 11:20
I do that. I’m a huge. I have a companion pass. Yes. No. Most of what I do, that’s cool.

Leonard Raskin 11:26
Big, big cards.

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Nestor Aparicio 11:29
What are you talking about?

Leonard Raskin 11:30
Like an Amex Platinum and a Chase Super Duper venture. Okay, so

Nestor Aparicio 11:36
you pay $400 a year to get that, or you pay a couple 100 bucks to get that card. Then what do

Leonard Raskin 11:41
you so you have to wait? Got to find it at the right time, meaning you don’t just get the card. You get the 100,000 points with it. Giving you 200,000 points. Okay. To spend X in a period of time.

Nestor Aparicio 11:54
Okay.

Leonard Raskin 11:54
And then you spend X, which we all do. So okay, you spend X. Well, maybe if you know

Nestor Aparicio 11:59
you’re about to do something and spend 10 grand on something, right? Okay, I got it.

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Leonard Raskin 12:03
So, so then you get all the points.

Nestor Aparicio 12:05
My wife did this this year, by the way, on Southwest. And then you got to

Leonard Raskin 12:08
manage the points to the flights because you can find some really incredible European flights with mix matched points.

Nestor Aparicio 12:22
$200.20 5000 points instead of $2,500, right? Like something like that, and

Leonard Raskin 12:26
things like that where you can use like when when we went to Italy, we used Korean Air to fly Air France because there’s a compa. There’s not a companion. There’s a crossover where you can use you know you use this airline to fly on that airline, and they’re running a special, and you can use it. So you manage getting the points, and then you manage using the points, and flying to Europe becomes lay flats for 50 bucks round trip. Yeah, my

Nestor Aparicio 12:58
son, my my son’s a point. I mean, you know. Now look, I mean, I manage my Marriott points. I manage my South Point. Like in my credit card, I have a companion business. I feel like I, I’m not a coupon clipper in that way. But I have become since the guy Trump screwed up the economy, and I go to the supermarket, and a and a pint of ice cream is now seven bucks when it used to be free. Joe Biden, but but nonetheless, the the the pint of ice cream. No, no, your guys in office. You’re going to hold this one. So when it’s 329 and I get to put my giant card in or my local

Leonard Raskin 13:34
guys, what’s the ice cream you like?

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Nestor Aparicio 13:36
Taharka.

Leonard Raskin 13:37
Yeah, they’re like ripping people off there. I mean, that’s just insane. I I can’t pay for that for ice cream when when Breyers is so much just fine. Well, but this

Nestor Aparicio 13:46
comes back to local versus Walmart.

Leonard Raskin 13:49
Yeah, well, this comes

Nestor Aparicio 13:50
down to: Are you going to buy it Amazon or are you going to buy it at Joe’s Auto get it?

Leonard Raskin 13:54
I get it. It only matters one purchase. I’m with you. One purchase is all that matters. It’s a local purchase.

Nestor Aparicio 14:00
I would just say I feel like in a money management way. Now let’s be honest. By the way, Leonard Raskin to your Raskin. We’ll talk some. Let’s make some Orioles into this, right? Yes. The Orioles’ whole idea for money and making money is to get you into the Birdland Club, to give you a free soda at the ballpark, to get you into the ballpark earlier with your free bobblehead, that like every brand is trying to get points, loyalty, keep you in, put your number in when you’re at the supermarket, and and I do get that $7 Haagen Dazs on sale for 329 or whatever.

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Leonard Raskin 14:37
Information to everybody and market the hell out, so that when the coupon comes

Nestor Aparicio 14:41
out, Breyers will try to get me over to them for $1. That’s right. The Ben and Jerry’s. There’s no question. There and and what’s going on digitally, all of that. But saving money, as you would see it, you would tell me, look, get rid of the apps that are ripping you off, which is something I need to do on my visa because I’m getting ripped off by. Several companies right now for $10, $20, right? You got to clean that up. But saving money when you’re enjoying yourself, and you know what a cheapskate I am. That I saw the Rush concert for half the price that everybody else saw it for last. That’s right. I don’t want to tell anybody that, but I have. I go see Brian Adams, but I don’t pay $300 to see it. I don’t pay $100 to sell. Right, you got to

Leonard Raskin 15:22
find find the deal. When look, the bigger the money, the bigger the deal matters.

Nestor Aparicio 15:27
House, car, mortgage. Because

Leonard Raskin 15:30
when you save money on big stuff, you save big money. So I said we traveled to Europe when it was 50 bucks, or it was close to that round trip lay flats to Europe. 50 bucks. I mean, my God, I I spend money on the business. I spend money personally. We put it all on a card, and then we flip miles all over the place. I would

Nestor Aparicio 15:49
not spend $9,000 to sleep overnight on a plane to Europe. I’m just not that guy. No, me neither. Even if I were bigger, even if I like whatever, I just I wouldn’t go to Europe if it was going to cost. I

Leonard Raskin 16:00
love doing it for 50 bucks. I get stupid sticker

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Nestor Aparicio 16:03
shocked by stuff, and when I get sticker shocked, look when Rush goes on at the Sphere and it’s $600 to get in, I ain’t going.

Leonard Raskin 16:09
I hear you. I

Nestor Aparicio 16:10
ain’t going.

Leonard Raskin 16:11
I hear you. I’ll watch

Nestor Aparicio 16:13
you go.

Leonard Raskin 16:13
Right, right. I’ll go now. When they start

Nestor Aparicio 16:16
talking two and a quarter, 250, maybe I’ll go.

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Leonard Raskin 16:18
And when somebody doesn’t have a seat next to them because their friend couldn’t go, and they’re selling that ticket at the last minute on tickets. I need to be standing outside of

Nestor Aparicio 16:28
outside of the sphere. How do you

Leonard Raskin 16:29
buy? How do you buy late tickets these days? When is it all digital? You got to walk up to somebody. He’s got to say, “I got. So you don’t even know.

Nestor Aparicio 16:36
See, if you don’t know, then you’re never. I could lie to you because now I’m going to get you competing with me because what I’ve seen is I got my Dundalk friends all competing with me now on SeatGeek at quarter to seven, trying to get the ticket for $38 to Barry Manilow, which I do every time.

Leonard Raskin 16:49
No, you have to watch it. You got to be ready. You know the difference with me is

Nestor Aparicio 16:52
like I should really talk to you about this because like you would be stunned if I sent you my SeatGeek and just my Ticketmaster, just those two apps this year for all the concerts I’ve seen, all of them. So three rush shows. I’ve seen Brian Adams eight times in the last calendar year. I’ve seen Brian Adams in Philadelphia, San Jose. Times

Leonard Raskin 17:14
in his kids. I’ve seen Brian Adams in

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Nestor Aparicio 17:17
San Jose, Philadelphia, Montevideo, Santiago, Bogota, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, and Baltimore. That’s eight. That’s a bro. I’m missing a finger. That’s seven and a half. So that’s eight times I’ve seen him. I have not paid more than $80 any time I’ve seen him.

Leonard Raskin 17:34
I hear you. That’s a crush. I mean, that’s that’s the

Nestor Aparicio 17:38
truth. And I was standing in front of the sphere of the second show, and tickets were $190, and I wasn’t going in. And I literally was sitting out in front, and a ticket dropped to $67, and I walked in.

Leonard Raskin 17:52
Right, right. Well, that’s it. I was

Nestor Aparicio 17:54
willing to not go in. I told you I didn’t go into the restaurant because it was $315, and I had a belly. There was

Leonard Raskin 18:00
a guy out there with tickets selling tickets. You know, oh, you got to watch your app. You got to watch the app and be ready.

Nestor Aparicio 18:06
And you know, I’m not the only one watching the app at a spring steel at the garden or whatever.

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Leonard Raskin 18:10
It’s how you get in. It’s what’s got. Yeah, yeah. I will not

Nestor Aparicio 18:14
pay $300 to see Rush. I love Rush, but I won’t pay $300 to see Rush.

Leonard Raskin 18:18
I hear you. But you got to be

Nestor Aparicio 18:20
willing to to walk away from a bad deal.

Leonard Raskin 18:22
Absolutely right with everything, anything. So that’s just right up there with what. And as you said earlier, what am I saving the money for? What am I doing this for? I’m doing it for myself, for my enjoyment, for my pleasure, for my kids, for my whatever. If you’re not using the money on things you you love and enjoy, then you’re wasting it. You know, leaving it sitting there till you’re 80, thinking you’re going to go to see Russia in Europe. All right, so let me. It’s crazy because let me bring you into this. You’re not going to. You’re going

Nestor Aparicio 18:51
to Brazil in three weeks.

Leonard Raskin 18:52
Yes.

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Nestor Aparicio 18:52
Why?

Leonard Raskin 18:55
Because the Ravens are playing over there against the Cowboys, and I haven’t been to Brazil, so it looked like a great opportunity, and it’s a big number. I mean, it’s

Nestor Aparicio 19:04
a it’s a 510 $1,000. It’s a serious. It’s it’s it’s a number.

Leonard Raskin 19:08
Yeah. Now you’ve never

Nestor Aparicio 19:10
dreamed of going to Brazil.

Leonard Raskin 19:11
No, not top, not anywhere on my list.

Nestor Aparicio 19:14
Okay, so it was at the top of my bucket list for a long time. Yeah, see, not

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Leonard Raskin 19:17
on my list, but but a place I would like to go. Like it’s not screaming at me. I never said, “Got to get to Brazil. Oh, we got a reason to go. If I had to get there, I would have gone there. But just like I think,

Nestor Aparicio 19:30
once you get to be our age and you’ve done everything that you’ve saved up to do,

Leonard Raskin 19:35
pretty much

Nestor Aparicio 19:36
Tahiti was on my bucket list. I went. You know, Tokyo was on my bucket list. I went out

Leonard Raskin 19:40
Rushmore. Australia was on my

Nestor Aparicio 19:42
bucket list in my 20s because of the guys in Air Supply. This is going to be part of my music story. I sat with the guys in Air Supply backstage at Pier Six, and Russell Hitchcock said to me in Australian, “Hey, you like girls, do you? You want to go? You want to go the Gold Coast? You want to go to Brisbane? You go to and I looked up.” Brisbane and I’m like I couldn’t even spell it. Brisbane, Brisbane. So like this is me at 23 looking at a globe in my fourth grade classroom, Miss Kelly at Colgate Elementary, and thinking, spinning the globe, and thinking it’s a big world. Brazil happened for me because I started eating at a restaurant in Greek Town. It used to be the Athenian. It became Rio Lispo, which was a Portuguese restaurant. My buddy Tony Liardo ran it. He was a chef for the the the Prime Minister of Brazil for a long time in the 70s. So he had this beautiful Brazilian restaurant in Greek Town. Nobody even knew what Brazilian food was, he had to flip the menu, and but he became Real Madrid because Tio Peppy’s caught on, and people knew where Spain was, but nobody in East Baltimore knew where Portugal was, and certainly not where Brazil was. And there was this painting on the wall of this Christ statue, this giant white statue on the wall in the restaurant, 1989. I didn’t know where Rio de Janeiro was. I didn’t know it was three words. I didn’t know where Brazil was, other than spinning it on a map. And I knew it was below Venezuela.

Leonard Raskin 21:10
See the the monument. We’re gonna go see it.

8

Nestor Aparicio 21:12
And that thing was on the wall. And he gave me that 18 foot by six foot mural that sits in my living room right now. It’s my fifth house, so I have Rio de Janeiro literally above my living room. It was the prime piece of art in my home when I lived downtown for 19 years. So you’ve seen the piece of art because you’ve been in my home. Yes. So it Rio de Janeiro hung for over my so

Leonard Raskin 21:41
I hear you

Nestor Aparicio 21:42
in 1989 and in 2005 I got scared to death to go to Rio because 60 Minutes did a piece about how dodgy Rio was. Yeah, right. That kids would dump ice cream on your shoe, and while you reach over, they took your wallet right on the beach. Right. So I’m telling you, it’s as dodgy a place as I’ve ever been, Rio de Janeiro, and I’ve been all over the world. So when the Ravens are playing there in 2006, we we wanted to go to Rio, and the Stones were touring in South America and playing on the beach, and we were with my buddy Julio in San Francisco, who’s fearless, tequila master. He said, “I’ll go with you, and I’m like, “Well, if Holyo’ go with us, we’ll go. So the only reason we really went is we felt like we were going with friends. Somebody

Leonard Raskin 22:26
safe,

Nestor Aparicio 22:27
and we went on the beach there, Copacabana and Ipanema. That’s and and it’s it’s beautiful, it’s lovely, it’s dodgy. I hope you’re going Americana. By the way, Rush is not playing Americana; they’re playing the other Olympic Stadium in in Rio. You’re going Americana. Americana is one of the most famous venues on earth.

Leonard Raskin 22:47
Yeah.

Nestor Aparicio 22:48
And when my my wife, there was a soccer match there, and the guys at my hotel, I stayed at the Sofitel right on the beach in in Rio. They told me, “Do not take your wife to a soccer match in Brazil. Oh, they told me you cannot take her there.

8

Leonard Raskin 23:02
Wow!

Nestor Aparicio 23:02
I had three men say no, no.

Leonard Raskin 23:06
Crazy!

Nestor Aparicio 23:07
They just said you cannot take your wife to a. This is 20 years ago. Yeah, you cannot take your wife to a soccer match. You won’t come home. So I’m telling you, this was my experience 20 years ago. I have not been back to Brazil. I wanted to go for World Cup. I wanted to go like the World Cup. Jen was fighting for her life during that World Cup. The 14 World Cup, she was that her transplant happened in the middle of that, so we didn’t get there. So the Brazil thing for me with Rush, but I know you’re going. What do you expect? Like you spend a lot of money to go to a football game in a dodgy place that’s not on your bucket list. I’m thinking you don’t speak any Portuguese. Here’s what you need to work on. Ready? Oh, brigado! Oh, brigado! That’s thank you. Oh, brigado! That’s all you need to know.

Leonard Raskin 23:51
I’ve got Google Translate. I’ve got the thing is we’re going with a tour, so I feel a little safer in that we’re going to be with masses. You know, we’re not going by ourselves. We’re going with a group, so like the trips you used to run, that has organized the whole thing. So we’ll be on busses and boats and in restaurants and and hotels and beach, and I assume it’ll be a large group. We’ll be pretty well insulated from the riffraff. I hope that’s that’s the plan, and then tour the stadium Saturday and see the Ravens Sunday, and hang out for a couple days and fly home and and have a great time. Look, it’s it’s where’s what’s his name? Streets of San Francisco. Where’s my guy? You know, you you know you got to have your American Express travelers checks. Don’t leave home, Carl Malden. Carl

Nestor Aparicio 24:43
Malden,

Leonard Raskin 24:43
don’t leave home without it. We’re old, man. We’re old. Do you remember? Do you remember that? Oh, absolutely. My honeymoon, we went to

8

Nestor Aparicio 24:52
Hawaii. You’ve told me this.

Leonard Raskin 24:54
Hawaii, Australia, and New Zealand, and and we had money pouches that you wore around your neck. And put under your shirt so they didn’t get taken, like you said, with your wallet, and had traveler’s checks in there, and you kept the originals in the hotel safe, so that if they got stolen, you could replace them. That was American Express travelers checks. Talk about a business that went the way of the buggy whip, right? So I’m gonna give you a little security card because because you have to have a credit card. That’s all you need. I’m gonna give you security lesson. If you have your phone,

Nestor Aparicio 25:27
your phone is the number one thing that you never want to pull out in South America. Yeah, my my my clone told me this in Santiago. Yeah, in Montevideo, Bogota’s very dodgy. Cartahain is the most dodgy place I’ve ever been in the world. Like Cartagena, don’t go to Cartagena. I’m not going. I have no. It’s a complete shithole. I mean, it’s awful. So nonetheless, but Medellin was beautiful, and Bogota was beautiful too. Like I like Bogota. I I would go back to Bogota. I would never go to Cartagena. And and I there are very few places in the world. If you ask me places in the world I’ve been that I would never go back, I would never go to Auckland, New Zealand.

Leonard Raskin 26:06
Been there.

Nestor Aparicio 26:07
I thought Auckland was awful. You know, I I haven’t been to Africa. I mean, I didn’t like Oslo, Norway very much. I mean, so I won’t go see Russia. I like Norway, but I didn’t love Oslo. Just as a like, I like Lillehammer. I like. I would go back to Norway, but I would have no purpose to hang in Oslo for three days. I just wouldn’t. So, but nonetheless, the Brazilian experience for me, I would never tell you not to go to Rio. I would absolutely tell you to go. I would tell you to go to the top. By the way, getting up to Corcovado is a thing. Yeah, there’s like a bus. It’s incredibly steep. It reminded me of Machu Picchu. Yep, Sugarloaf, which is the big rock out in the the thing. Ipanema, the girlfriend Ipanema. I would highly recommend that you take Cath up to a rooftop pool bar in Ipanema and get some drinks and watch the sunset. Phenomenal. Like so, I I loved Brazil. I would go back to I’m planning to go back to Brazil, right? But I’m telling you, man, with 2 million people, I was at the biggest concert in the history of the world. You can look it up, and it was the kickoff of Carnival in Rio with Mick Jagger and be. You’ve heard of Bianca Jagger, you know that his first wife,

Leonard Raskin 27:20
yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 27:20
Brazilian, yeah. So he married a Brazilian. The stones are outrageously huge in Brazil. There were 2 million people that played on Copacabana, where you’re going to be right in front of the restaurant you’re going to go to with the green and the red, where you turn the thing.

8

Leonard Raskin 27:36
Yep,

Nestor Aparicio 27:37
that’s a real thing. That’s a real Brazilian. They cut the meat. They do all that.

Leonard Raskin 27:41
Yeah, yeah.

Nestor Aparicio 27:41
There were 2 million people all on the beach. I told Tom Perlazzo from Ocean City this about the Ocean Callings concert and the Country Calling. There’s something about in Ocean City when you get what do they get? 100,000 to 150? How many people they get? They have to leave, and when they all leave from a beach area, no one leaves via the water. Everyone has to come back inland. Yeah, I have never seen anything like the 1000s of busses that were lined up with exhaust everywhere, waiting for the 2 million people to hear the last strums of satisfaction to then disperse. There were 2 million people on the beach dispersing at 11 o’clock at night.

Leonard Raskin 28:30
Wow! It

Nestor Aparicio 28:31
was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I mean, I I don’t know that I’ve ever been a part of anything quite like it because it was a free Rolling Stones concert that was televised live all over Brazil. Visa paid the Stones 10 million or whatever to come down and do it. Why

Speaker 1 28:47
not?

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Nestor Aparicio 28:48
You know. So this was 20 years ago. You can Google it. So I had a beautiful. I hope you have like the greatest experience ever. Yeah. But your phone. Here’s a little side note for phone. My AI kept telling me, “Don’t pull your phone out in Santiago. Don’t pull your phone out in Montevideo. Don’t pull your phone out. Make sure you’re inside somewhere. When if you’re lost, go inside. Go somewhere where you’re not on the street with your phone out and looking down because your phone’s going to get stolen. And the first thing they do is try to unload your phone at your your bank app, sure, right, right. In the first two minutes, they got your money, right. So every Uber I got into in South America, every Uber, everywhere I went, Medellin didn’t matter what town I was in, every Uber driver spoke Spanish. I was the only Spanish speaking place. I speak enough Spanish. They all told me I would want to roll the windows down because it’s nice. Don’t do it. They told me that rolling the window down and having your phone out is when the bikers,

Leonard Raskin 29:48
yep, the

Nestor Aparicio 29:48
bikes come by and grab your phone from the back seat of a car. Unbelievable. So what I’m telling you is phone, phone, phone, phone, phone. First thing I told my wife in Italy. It’s the first thing her clone told her about being in Venice and. Florence and Rome is phones. They don’t want your wallet. They don’t want to knife you. They’re not looking to pickpocket you on the subway. They’re looking to get your phone.

Leonard Raskin 30:09
Yep.

Nestor Aparicio 30:10
So anyway, there’s my public safety. Are you? Is Catholic sighted or she? Yeah, afraid so.

Leonard Raskin 30:16
No, not at all. No,

Nestor Aparicio 30:17
she’s good like that. Not

8

Leonard Raskin 30:18
hurt. I don’t think he’s paid any attention to this stuff. So there’s no reason to be. No reason to be. What

Nestor Aparicio 30:25
do you need to do in Brazil? Like, have you done no research on this at all?

Leonard Raskin 30:29
No, it’s all planned. The whole trip is just we’re hanging out with the group. You’re a weird

Nestor Aparicio 30:33
tourist, dude. To write a check of this magnitude to go, and you don’t. You haven’t even. Do you know what continent it’s on? Have you looked it up? Have you done any seriously? When are you going to research?

Leonard Raskin 30:45
I’m getting on a plane and I’m getting on a bus.

Nestor Aparicio 30:48
Have I just given you more information about Brazil than you’ve ever heard in your life? Just in the last five minutes?

Leonard Raskin 30:53
Yeah, sure. But we’ll we’ll be fine. It’ll be great. You correct the week before. The week before, I’ll be all set.

8

Nestor Aparicio 31:00
All right,

Leonard Raskin 31:01
I’m going. You don’t

Nestor Aparicio 31:02
research this though.

Leonard Raskin 31:03
I’ll do a little. Look, the first time I went to London, first trip to London was to see the the Ravens get. No, I that wasn’t. I was there. You speak English in

Nestor Aparicio 31:13
London. It’s easy. No, no,

Leonard Raskin 31:14
but I’m saying to watch the Ravens get smashed by the Jags, and and then you know started walking around. Just start walking around. See what’s there. I guess it’s different in Brazil. You can’t just walk around. But we’re we’re with a big trip, so be okay.

Nestor Aparicio 31:29
I hope you have the greatest time, man. That’s it. It’s three weeks out. I’m glad we talked about this. It was fun. Was it more fun to talk about the Orioles because you you watched the Orioles all week? Yeah, they did. They’re in a pit race.

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Leonard Raskin 31:38
Hey, Gunner Henderson hit a couple home runs. It was a good day. He Jackson Holiday actually hit the ball. It’s kind of stunning. I love when they pinch hit a guy who’s hitting 167. It’s kind of funny, but the guy hits a home run. Pitching is really wild. You never know what you’re going to get. The starters are actually pitching pretty good ball. The bullpen comes in. You never know what’s going to happen. Dude could strike out the side with nine pitches, the immaculate inning, or he could give up three home runs to the first three batters. You never know what you’re going to get. It’s like a box of chocolates. Boy, it’s it is interesting to watch. Pete Alonso got hit in the head. Did you see that? Was

Nestor Aparicio 32:19
unbelievable.

Leonard Raskin 32:20
I couldn’t believe he stood up.

Nestor Aparicio 32:21
I couldn’t believe they just don’t take him in and give him a head check right away. Right, right. Like in the NFL, we’re going to send you down to first base, and you might run. What?

Leonard Raskin 32:30
Hockey. They’re going right into the dark room. They have. They shot with that. What is up? He’s like standing in the dugout watching the rest of the game.

Nestor Aparicio 32:36
Tell everybody he’s okay.

Leonard Raskin 32:38
Yeah. Okay. Good. You say so.

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Nestor Aparicio 32:39
Okay. Let’s go find out.

Leonard Raskin 32:40
Right, it’s under $50

Nestor Aparicio 32:42
million asset. If I’m mr. Rubenstein, I’m like,

Leonard Raskin 32:45
you better check him out. Check him out. I don’t have that facility in in the stadium there. By

Nestor Aparicio 32:49
the way, while we’re at it, I don’t get envy much, right? I don’t like. I don’t. And as a younger person, and all the nasty Nestor would speak to this, and my ego and my like, I just bragged about my Brazilian trip to you while I name dropped Australia. So I’m I’m at a point where I’m I’m turning 60. I’m going to be name dropping and bragging about all sorts of musical

Leonard Raskin 33:12
experience the

Nestor Aparicio 33:12
next year over things I’ve actually done. But one of the things my clone is asking me is to list the regrets I have, concerts I didn’t go to, things I almost went to. I mean, Jen, I’ve never been to Italy. Jen, we’ve canceled two trips to Italy because of Jen’s cancer and the illness. So I still have never been to Italy. I was going to see Springsteen in Milan. So there’s things I was wanted to when I was younger. I had stadium envy, right? And I think you know this. You’ve known me long enough. I did the 30 ballparks in 30 days. I was ready to do 30 hockey rinks in 30 days, and then John got cancer again. But so I loved collecting stadia, and I still think me and Kevin Byrne, and maybe like John Madden and a few other people would Pat Summerall would be able to say we saw NFL games in more stadia than anyone because I saw all the old stadia. I’ve seen all the new stadia. I’ve been to weird places where they only played a handful of games. Memphis, you know the old Arizona State Stadium. There’s a lot of football stadiums I’ve been to, and a lot of baseball stadiums where I’ve seen Major League Baseball. Yeah, I was very envious back when the Blue Jays played five minutes in Buffalo. Okay, because seeing a big league game in Buffalo would have added that stadium.

8

Leonard Raskin 34:31
Right, sure.

Nestor Aparicio 34:31
Sacramento, San Juan would have been a thing with Montreal. I never saw the Expos play in Montreal, so I didn’t. I didn’t go to Olympic stadiums. I didn’t get to add that one,

Leonard Raskin 34:40
right?

Nestor Aparicio 34:41
I did see baseball in RFK Stadium and now Nats Park. So I mean, I’ve seen baseball in somewhere around 60 stadia, maybe more, maybe some places I’ve seen three, but nonetheless, Sacramento and I watched it this weekend, and I saw the. Cute little ballpark. They’ll

Leonard Raskin 35:01
be there for one more year.

Nestor Aparicio 35:02
One more. Well, they play next year. But my buddy Tom Cousins. See the

Leonard Raskin 35:06
Orioles.

8

Nestor Aparicio 35:07
Well, you know, all of my buddies that I worked with at the News American all made a life in Sacramento. Okay. So a lot of my old bosses have worked in Sacramento for the last four years. So my old buddy Tom Cousins, who’s from Ocean City, Maryland, he was at the games this weekend with his Oriole hat on. Like I said, you

Leonard Raskin 35:22
don’t have to see the Orioles.

Nestor Aparicio 35:24
Yeah, but yeah, if I’m gonna go, yeah, okay, I understand what you’re saying. Go right ahead in town,

Leonard Raskin 35:28
right? Go see the Dodgers play or see.

Nestor Aparicio 35:32
I don’t have that. Watch the

Leonard Raskin 35:33
Cubs.

Nestor Aparicio 35:34
Here’s my point. I don’t have that anymore. I don’t feel like

8

Leonard Raskin 35:39
I missed it.

Nestor Aparicio 35:39
Like I’ve been to 47 states,

Leonard Raskin 35:43
yeah.

Nestor Aparicio 35:43
And and Robert Plant is playing in South Dakota and North Dakota next month. Who

Leonard Raskin 35:48
are the three?

Nestor Aparicio 35:49
South Dakota, North Dakota, and Alaska.

Leonard Raskin 35:53
Oh well, I’ve been to Alaska. I got you there.

8

Nestor Aparicio 35:55
So Robert Plant is playing in Pierre, South Dakota. I’m not kidding you. Like, and I looked at going. It’s my birthday week. It’s next month. Okay, do it. And I keep thinking to myself, there’s no easy way to get there. Certainly not on Southwest Airlines. Driving up from Omaha’s like eight hours, right? No. So I’m thinking to myself, how? And I don’t want somewhere on real. I don’t want to spend $1,000 to get to Pierre. I’m not going to to see Robert Plant. I’m not going to see. Even though he’s beautiful and doing

Leonard Raskin 36:24
miles or points, I’m

Nestor Aparicio 36:25
working on it. But here’s the real rub: as I get older and I haven’t shaved, and I’ll leave you with this. This is where Sacramento is. This is where, if I went with you to Rio, I’d see an NFL game in one more stadium. I told you, me and Kevin, like going to Munich, going to London. They’re playing a game next Thursday in Melbourne, Australia, right? Opening day. So these NFL stadia that I could collect if I were a braggart, if I felt like it needed to be on my death card, like my passport got stamped in Cuba because it did, or Russia, because you know what? Like I don’t know that I need to go to the moon. You know what I mean? I don’t know that I need to go to South Dakota to say that I’ve been to 48 states and see Robert Plant, because I don’t know where I am at this point in life. Like literally chasing these things to say I went to Rio with the Ravens or whatever. Yeah, there is a point for me, like where I would rather say I went to Dewey Beach and saw the Bodines because I had a great time that night.

Leonard Raskin 37:25
See me, I like I said, Rio wasn’t on the bucket list. It was just ravens are there.

Nestor Aparicio 37:31
Yeah,

Leonard Raskin 37:32
timing’s right. I can take the week. It wasn’t too expensive, relative. Is

Nestor Aparicio 37:37
it doing something you’ve never done before?

8

Leonard Raskin 37:41
Meaning the place,

Nestor Aparicio 37:42
the variety party. Oh yeah,

Leonard Raskin 37:44
I definitely want to see places I haven’t been. There are places I would go back to, but when the opportunity of a Ravens game just happens to be, it took me to London. You know, if they play in Germany, dude, you spend a month running around

Nestor Aparicio 38:00
Europe. You’re a world traveler. You know what I mean. You see the northern lights off the coast of Iceland, but those are

Leonard Raskin 38:05
places I’ve wanted to go, so I go. If Brazil was, like I said, not on my list, but the Ravens gave me an opportunity to put it on the list. I

Nestor Aparicio 38:13
can’t say that Santiago or Montevideo or Bogota were totally on my list, or certainly not Machu Picchu. That was not on my list. My wife was stunned when I put Machu Picchu, and she’s like, “I’ve never heard you mention that. I’m like, “I have three days, and between Santiago and Bogota, I’m gonna do something. So why not that? How expensive is it? Can I do it? The altitude train to Bangkok.

Nestor Aparicio 38:38
Hey, hey, that’s on my bucket list because I’ve never heard Rush play Passage to Bangkok.

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Leonard Raskin 38:46
Right there, you go 20 by 12. Right, they got to play the gotta play the set. Do we know when? We don’t know when. How do we know?

Nestor Aparicio 38:53
You got to roll the dice. You got to roll the bones. Got to roll. You got to

Leonard Raskin 38:56
show up at many shows. And

Nestor Aparicio 38:58
why are we here? Because we’re here, roll the bones.

Leonard Raskin 39:01
There we go. Roll the bones. That’s exactly it. 25th, 27th October. I’ve been quoting Rush

Nestor Aparicio 39:06
so much lately.

Leonard Raskin 39:07
25th, 27th in D.C. I read an interesting thing. You’ve probably seen this or talked about this. The the guy who was who is Getty’s now voice coach.

8

Nestor Aparicio 39:19
I saw that for the tour, I saw him getting interviewed. Yeah, yeah.

Leonard Raskin 39:22
The dude has never taken a lesson, never had a coach, never had anything, and suddenly he wants to sing, and he couldn’t sing like enough. And this guy rolled out and said, you know, he found this guy who got him in shape. You got to get in shape. You got to have a coach. See, there we go. That’s what we do. Money coach, you’re the money coach. That’s what we do. With that’s what we do. We coach people about their money. You know, it’s it’s as good, it’s as sound an analogy as there is, because without a coach, you make mistakes. You screw up. You don’t know what you don’t know. I saw Michael Phelps. Whole another subject, right? Saw Michael Phelps talk one time. Did a presentation. He said, “If he hadn’t had his coach, he’d have never been an Olympian. That man made him do things he didn’t think he could do, and helped held him to a standard he didn’t think was attainable. So, you know, that’s it. That’s what we do with people’s money. We coach them about their money so they can do the things they want to do and and have the life they want to have, even

Nestor Aparicio 40:22
if it’s just go to Dewey Beach for a night and see the boatings. So everybody, I don’t care what

Leonard Raskin 40:25
it is, whatever it is. Got to spend it

Nestor Aparicio 40:28
wisely. Save it wisely. Do

Leonard Raskin 40:30
what you want to do in your life, and what are you saving it for? If not for something to do that you want to do that brings you that joy in your life. I have

Nestor Aparicio 40:39
nothing booked right now, and I’m living vicariously. A voice

8

Leonard Raskin 40:43
coach, and there we are.

Nestor Aparicio 40:45
All right. Well, you and I see Getty October 25th. Larry Raskin’s here. He saves money. He, you can find him at Raskin Global, and the the American dream is there. Even the Brazilian dream, if you wish. The American dream. And I can’t wait to talk to you more about this. Raven season starts next week. Artists are home this weekend. Luke’s around, and I have been telling. I’m glad I got to tell some music stories in this piece because that’s what I’m doing all week long. If you listen to AM 1570, we’re celebrating 28 years with 28 the 28 musical artists that have formed my life and my travels and all the crazy stuff I do, I have really had a good time putting this together, and I’m sure some of you are going to have a good time following it. And say, I was at that concert, I saw that show, or I did go to that show, I wanted to go to that show, or I saw that on video. Whatever it is, it is the the American dream of following concerts. As I cross my fingers and hope that Rush makes it to Brazil, if not the tulip fields of the Netherlands and Helsinki, Finland, and maybe the sphere in Vegas. Although I’ve been there, I’m on I’m on price check for that one. Back for more A R W N S D A in 15 70,000 Baltimore, and we never stop talking. Getty Lee, Alex Lyson, Annika Neels, and Baltimore Positive.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai