Episode 64 is time for my annual Father's Day episode. Though I do this every year, it's not the same every year. Because of a few things going on with people around me and people I'm talking to, this episode kind of caught me by surprise with the direction it took.

Unscripted. You got that part of the title of the podcast, right?

I almost wrote out a script for this episode, believe it or not. I think if I had, and maybe even did that every day for a week, it would be quite different each time. So, this episode is almost like one of those really cool "long, single takes" that they talk about when you watch a Criterion Collection version of some film.

So, unscripted, I went into this episode... and, sure, it shows. But, maybe the pure honesty of it is beneficial because of that? That's what I will tell myself anyway.

I recorded this episode (just to document this here) the week that Big Papi (former major leaguer / future hall of famer David Ortiz) was shot in what was an alleged murder attempt. As I talked briefly about him, and how much this all affected me, it led me into a discussion about heroes. I quickly moved from "celebrity" type heroes to real life, (not-so-average) "average Joe" heroes.

This had me reminiscing about some of my very recent guests (Rob Gorski from Ep. 61, Bill Protzmann from Ep. 62 and Jon Bailey who will be on Ep. 65). This also dove-tailed into my thinking of some of the other issues and people that have been on my mind a lot for quite some time now.

Cancer has always been my "hot button disease", for a lack of a better way to say that. Obviously, I guess, since it took my Dad away from me nearly 29 years ago. But, for maybe two years or so now, I have really been puzzled by this disease I started hearing more and more about: ALS. I don't know anybody personally that has been stricken by this horrifically untethered disease. Yet. But, I have started to follow some of them on social media, and have started to feel more connected to people with ALS (or pALS) because of that. So, it has started to confuse and anger me all the more.

So, as I was talking about heroes, I mentioned Pete Frates, the man who the 2014 Ice Bucket Challenge was created because of. Remember that? I also mentioned Brian Wallach. Brian and his wife created iamals.org after Brian was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 37. I honestly cannot even tell you how I stumbled into Brian via Twitter some time ago, but it happened and I am so grateful that it did.

In the past few months I have really started to educate myself more and more on ALS and made a point to do what I can to help spread the word and hopefully get even more people active in the fight. I hope that others will get inspired to do whatever they can to help in the fight and the search for treatment and an eventual cure for ALS.

I went very kumbaya in this episode. I can't help it. When I start thinking about some of the things that ail this world and all of us living on it, I tend to go to this place. So, I talked about how easy it can be for us to be better. To be more kind. To be more loving. To make changes in the life of that guy over there... or that woman sitting there near you. Yes... that one. Oh, and that other one too. And, hey -- when you do something nice for that guy, guess what? The chances are he may do something nice for that other guy over there. And then both of those guys might be even extra cool while they are at work. And maybe they come into contact with anywhere from 5 to 105 people while they are working. So, all of those people might get an extra boost. Do you see where I'm going with this?

I hope you like this little episode. I really do feel like it may contain a little something for everyone. So, in that vein: won't you share it around? I feel like it's the end of Ghostbusters 2 and we're all covered in that slime and we just need to lock arms and sing "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher and Higher" to make the world better. Or maybe the end of Scrooged when they sing "Put A...

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