“Take your glasses off.” That’s the moment when a cowboy played by Michael Pare, a previously loving, respectful father and rancher in the Old West, signals that the previously restrained film, Traded, is about to get physical. He becomes a “crazy sumbitch” on his way to discovering that his 17-year-old daughter Lily has been taken against her will into an underground sex ring. MICHAEL PARE podcast excerpt: "The director of 'Eddie and the Cruisers' auditioned me and asked if I could sing. I said, 'Sure! I sing like Sinatra. And I play guitar like Jimi Hendrix. Anything you want, I can do it.'" In Traded, a smartly directed indie film that’s part High Noon and part “Deadwood” and which focuses on sex trafficking in Kansas, Pare dominates every scene he’s in – although Kris Kristofferson is pretty compelling himself as a philosophical bartender that Pare encounters in Wichita on the hunt for his kidnapped teen daughter. “I’m presently searching for my daughters,” he tells a man. “I believe she’s been imprisoned in town as a whore.” And now you know the plot of the movie, which co-stars Trace Adkins and Tom Sizemore. MICHAEL PARE podcast excerpt: "Trace Adkins has such tremendous presence and he's very professional. He's not one of these guys who doesn't know his dialogue on the set. And he's a big sonuvagun -- 6'6", 240 pounds. He's a big effin' guy! I would love to do another movie and spend more time with him in the story" Pare, an actor who made a huge splash on the silver screen in the mid-1980s as the star of Eddie and the Cruisers and Streets of Fire, has been busy ever since. For me, talking to Pare is the completion of a full circle cruise. In 1983, after Eddie and the Cruisers caused a sensation in theaters, I spent a full day chauffeuring the singing voice of Eddie Wilson around to Tampa Bay area radio stations in exchange for an extended interview. (Trivia: Michael Pare and Mr. Media share the same birthday: October 9.) Key interview moments: • 4:05 Michael Pare rode horses in movies before, but for the Western 'Traded,' he had special training and a truly great time; • 13:36 Pare calls country singer and 'Traded' co-star Trace Adkins "a tremendous presence" on screen -- "a big effing guy I would love to do another movie with"; • 21:36 Pare takes us behind the scenes of 'Eddie and the Cruisers,' a movie for which he clearly still has great fondness. Michael Pare • • • •