The Lion's Roundtable (Guest: Dr. Joe Burns)
Download MP3Good day. This is Amber Narro on KSLUs nine. Nine FM, The Lion. I am here at the Lion's Roundtable today with my dear friend, Joe Burns.
Joe Burns:Oh, I've raised it to dear.
Amber Narro:Doctor Joe Burns. You have been a dear friend for a long time. Know.
Joe Burns:Well, you're a doctor too.
Amber Narro:Yes, but we're going to be Amber and Joe today. Is that cool?
Joe Burns:Yeah, that's fine with me. I don't know that you've risen to deer yet. We've been we've been working at it. There's a committee. You know, we are taking applications for Deer but I haven't seen yours come across the desk.
Amber Narro:Maybe by the end of the show.
Joe Burns:Hopefully.
Amber Narro:Because I'm hoping that this thirty minutes is going to be a time that we can celebrate you and what you have done not only for the university but also for Rock School, for KSLU.
Joe Burns:Yeah, great.
Amber Narro:And just again, just being an awesome colleague.
Joe Burns:I see. There you go. I appreciate you. Yeah.
Amber Narro:Joe and I go way back. So, he was my first neighbor here at Southeastern when I first got hired, we shared an office suite for over a decade. Yeah. For a really long time.
Joe Burns:You really wouldn't keep it clean. It just really upset me.
Amber Narro:I'm sorry. And. Yeah. Some of the smells, I'm I'm sure.
Joe Burns:You know, wasn't going to get into that. It it wasn't like a Taco Bell lettuce thing. Uh-huh. But it was,
Amber Narro:yeah. Indeed. Yeah. Joe, thank you, first of all, for being such a great colleague at that time, mentoring me through becoming a professor here at a full professor here at Southeastern. I definitely leaned on a lot of those com that communication between you as well as Joe Miranda, our, our former colleague here at Southeastern who retired a couple of years ago.
Amber Narro:Mhmm. But I appreciate that, Number one.
Joe Burns:You know what's interesting when somebody calls you a mentor? And as a professor, you get this a lot. As a teacher, I'm sure you get it a lot. Oh, you are my mentor. I I really don't think because I never set out.
Joe Burns:I didn't get up in the morning and look in the mirror and go, today, I will be a mentor. You'd ask me what I thought, I'd tell you and to me, it was part of my day.
Amber Narro:Yeah, but you didn't have to. No. You know, you could've just been like, yeah, I'm I'm you were still working on your stuff at that time as well going on. You know, if for full professor and things like, you didn't have to help me but you did.
Joe Burns:I love the sound of my own voice.
Amber Narro:Yeah. Well, let me let me first say thank you for that. Sure. And and thank you for your friendship, and I think you have a lot of people here at Southeastern who would say the same thing just as as faculty members and colleagues, but also the number of students who you see Yeah. Commenting and saying how much you meant to their career.
Amber Narro:You're entertainment in the classroom for sure when Mhmm. I've I've had the pleasure of being a student in the classroom
Joe Burns:as well. Disc jockey.
Amber Narro:Indeed. And also had the the I've been your student. I've also been a colleague and and had a several different opportunities to get to see you at at what you do best. But I think that you would argue that some of the things that you do best are when you've got a microphone in front of you. Yeah.
Joe Burns:Yeah. I've never met a microphone. I didn't like. I I really believe since we, I know. Since I teach public speaking, so do you or so did you until you left us for honors.
Joe Burns:I love honors. I honors is great. If you you should rename it honors but the the thing about being frightened in front of audiences or not being frightened in front of audiences, I really believe there is as much nature as nurture in it. If you if you come out and for some reason you want to be the class clown and you want to entertain people, it it takes a hell of lot of guts to do it to begin with because it's so easy to be mocked and what have you. I remember telling my some of my college friends after I changed the communication.
Joe Burns:I want to be a funny morning man. Nobody looked at me and said, yeah, you'd be great. Everyone of them, oh yeah, you're really funny and and all of that and I I really believe that there is something to it physically because I am never more comfortable than when I'm in front of a crowd or I've got a microphone in front of me. I don't much care for having my picture taken because I look like Shrek. I'm I'm six four, two fifty pounds and there are pictures of you and me sitting next to each other and it it's like I should be, you know, this Saturday night.
Joe Burns:Watch me destroy the little woman. You know what I mean?
Amber Narro:You just try that, you.
Joe Burns:That's right. Tonight, flashing lights.
Amber Narro:I'm just fun sized. I come with a a lot of might though.
Joe Burns:Well, that's that's that's great and and people have said, wow, your wife's tall too and I say, yeah, it's the only pictures of myself I like is when I'm with her because I don't look like I should be at the top of a beanstalk, you know, protecting a goose. So.
Amber Narro:Hilarious. Yes. You're tall, beautiful, lovely, funny wife that you have actually been doing. This show that you are about to hit a thousand episodes.
Joe Burns:Yeah, the Rock School Radio Show.
Amber Narro:It has been around for ten years.
Joe Burns:Oh, ten. It's closer to twenty.
Amber Narro:Yes, twenty? Yeah. Okay. So, a thousand shows is twenty years then.
Joe Burns:Okay. Pretty close. Yeah. Think 52.
Amber Narro:Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Burns:Yeah.
Amber Narro:I'm thinking two a year. That's me. Though that's because I do two.
Joe Burns:You're doing two a
Amber Narro:week. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm thinking.
Joe Burns:Mine airs twice a week.
Amber Narro:Right.
Joe Burns:But it's just a new show each week. We haven't recorded the last show yet because what we've been doing is we've been sending out a phone number which I don't know off the top of my head to have listeners give us a call and leave nice words and we have the four we like for the last one. We'll record the final show the thousandth show this coming Saturday. It will go up live on Monday morning.
Amber Narro:And you've been recording that with Tammy for a while. Yes.
Joe Burns:She is my longest.
Amber Narro:How did that come into play? Because you used to do this by yourself.
Joe Burns:Oh, no. I've never done it by myself. Oh, Amber, I am a hideous single jock.
Amber Narro:Okay.
Joe Burns:I can't, I I know that for a fact. When you when you finally learn what works for you, you should never.
Amber Narro:I forgot. Yeah. I've.
Joe Burns:You should never fight what it is. Right.
Amber Narro:So, okay.
Joe Burns:It starts with Chad. I. Yes. I I there's a reason why I was a morning disc jockey because the midday, the afternoon, the night, the overnight is all by yourself and I am a terrible single disc jockey because I need to play off of your eyes. When I say something and you turn your head like, nerd, I I love, I want that.
Joe Burns:So, I know where I should go.
Amber Narro:And then you've got to also translate that over the mic.
Joe Burns:Oh,
Amber Narro:sure. Somebody just, so, that's the challenge with this whole thing.
Joe Burns:Absolutely. No, it started with Chad Pierce all the way back. He called himself Chad P. I am
Amber Narro:so sorry, Chad, that I forgot that you did this show with Joe. It's been so long. I've been listening to him and Tammy. I totally forgot that it started with Chad.
Joe Burns:Right and it started not as the Rock School Radio Show but what it started was they were raising money on KSLU and I had given up radio altogether. I was a computer programmer. I've written six.
Amber Narro:I remember that.
Joe Burns:Yeah, I've written six different books on HTML, JavaScript, DHTML, all these different methods of of making the computer sing, dance, you know, taller, better dancer and Todd Delaney who was in charge of the radio station at the time said, why don't you come back and do an hour? And I thought, I don't really want to do this so I said, okay, if I do the hour, I play whatever I want to play, I say whatever one I say and and I'm in charge for that hour and you don't have a say over it. Thinking he's going to look at me and go, no. I'm the general manager and he went, yes. Oh, I know he did
Amber Narro:me that too. When I came over with miss with miss Rosa's show which opposite of that. Yeah. I didn't make any demands. I was like, oh my gosh.
Amber Narro:Because I love miss Rosa Dunn so much who did point of view here at KSLU that I was like, oh, I'm ready to do whatever you want me to do. He goes, you can do whatever you want and I was like, really?
Joe Burns:Do a rock school show.
Amber Narro:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, and you do a rock school show.
Joe Burns:Yeah. That's and and I did it and the thing is, I'm I'm a different kind of jock than you teach. When you teach, it's two songs talk, two songs talk. Right. Read the card.
Joe Burns:That's not who I am. I have the gift of blather and I'm talking the songs up and I'm kissing posts and I'm I'm doing all these things that I used to do on the air and it turned out that we made more money than any other hour. Okay? And the thing is I didn't go, make sure you call this phone and go, look, you cheapskates. I'm putting on a show for you here.
Joe Burns:I know, I'm a I'm a monkey on a unicorn juggling. If you don't send in $5 right now, I can see you through the radio. I'm going to come to your house in the middle of the night and eat your pie and dumb stuff like just stupid stuff that comes out of my head and we made more
Amber Narro:money. In in the office, I can imagine that. So. Just stupid stuff. He is this way, 8AM from when I see him to 8PM at the event.
Amber Narro:So, it doesn't stop and I think that that's one of the brilliance. Brilliance. One of the things that you have that it just really makes you brilliant on the air is that you can really you care about it. Right? And you care about the people who are listening, that you want them to stay in tune with you, that you wanna make sure that they are that they feel like they're part of that conversation.
Joe Burns:Yeah. Be entertained.
Amber Narro:And you're brilliant at it, Joe. You truly are. And and people wanna listen to that and and hear just give me a smile while I'm just driving down the road and and listening. Right?
Joe Burns:Yeah. Just smile for me. It don't cost nothing.
Amber Narro:And I think that that's what radio still does. Right?
Joe Burns:Can way it's that done correctly. Mhmm. You know, the fact that radio and it's like chivalry. It ain't dead but it smells funny. Undiagnosed but something's wrong.
Joe Burns:So, they're even talking about taking radio frequencies now and handing them over to data in the same way they're handing over. Let's find the prettiest land in the state. God that is gorgeous. Okay, data center there. You know what I mean?
Joe Burns:It bothers me because the the two major radio ownership companies, iHeartMedia, it it's all one now but they're going bankrupt and it's their own gosh darn doing. Instead of having disc jockeys like me who would go on the air and be entertaining as heck and would do live appearances, you know, and be in the dunking booth and all that kind of silly stuff. They went to a computer programmed jukebox and honestly, why would I listen to your jukebox when my phone and Spotify can play my jukebox? And that's that's bothersome to me. I mean, I I really I really had fights with the people I worked for because I got, you know, you're going a little too far there.
Joe Burns:You're going a little too far and then the ratings would come out. Oh, you're second in the market. Oh, you're first in the market. Okay and then, you know, a week would go by and stop saying those things.
Amber Narro:And then they get a brain like Todd Delaney and go, okay, well, you can do whatever you want.
Joe Burns:Do whatever you want.
Amber Narro:Because people are gonna listen if you're on.
Joe Burns:I understand the rules. I really do.
Amber Narro:Yeah.
Joe Burns:I mean, I I tell I used to tell very, I thought, close to the line jokes but not over. I I got kicked off the air one time and I'm gonna say it real slow so people know I'm not I'm not cursing. Mount Pinatubo blew its top. This is when we were still sending up shuttles. And we always used to run the shuttle lift off.
Joe Burns:And so it was coming up today at 01:00 and they were I don't know if they were gonna do it or not. Then the wind changes and all the ash that is in the air gets sort of blown apart and it creates an opening. You already know where this is going. I do. So, I get on the air and I say, you're not going to believe this folks but congratulations to climate control.
Joe Burns:We have a launch later on today. All of the ash in the air has split so they're going to shoot it right up the hole. I thought that was uproariously funny.
Amber Narro:It is uproariously funny.
Joe Burns:Is. The problem is the idea of obscene, the idea of offense has nothing to do with the content. It has to do with the right person being offended. If Gwendolyn the bus driver was offended, who cares? But it was apparently the wife of some local what have you.
Joe Burns:So, that's what it is. You know, the this idea of when the PMRC was out there, nobody really cared what was on records. I mean, give me a break. I'm sure there were some, you know, people that that were like Dana Carvey's superior dance but the reason everybody cared was because it was Tipper Gore. The right person got offended.
Joe Burns:Uh-oh.
Amber Narro:So, you got in trouble from Temper Gore?
Joe Burns:Oh, not Temper Gore but from I've gotten in trouble for some other bigger people. We put on my rodeo radio guy and I. We put on a fake we put on a a fake gubernatorial campaign one time and some people didn't like it because we were calling the headquarters and saying, you know, is he still gaining weight? We're really interested if he's going to die in office. Can we take over for it?
Joe Burns:There was a guy who did the weather. I don't remember. Think his name was Lou Scally and he called himself Lou Scally, the voice that fills the valley and he was overweight so we called him loose galley, the body who fills the valley and they really got upset and people, these people really got upset at us and it's all a joke and it was it was fine with me. Oh and by the way, I received 34 votes for governor. I'm not kidding you.
Joe Burns:This is, I was working in Pennsylvania. I received 34 votes for apparently, there's a number. If you receive more than this number, you must be contacted by the registrar of voters.
Amber Narro:Okay.
Joe Burns:We received 34. In America, this is why we are where we are politically. 34 people in the state that they live in voted for a disc jockey over the politicians.
Amber Narro:You know, I was in class one time and I won't discuss who I'm voting for in class, right? I try to play both sides of the fence. Yeah. And I won't talk about it and one of my class, one of my classes, one of my students stood up and said, you voted for Kanye. I said, no, I did not.
Joe Burns:I would have loved to have voted for Kanye. Every so often, I just, politically, I just wanna see it happen. Everyone's losing their mind over mail in voting during COVID and all that. I'm like, let's go. I just want to see what's going to happen.
Joe Burns:What, I think it was Lincoln that said, no one can destroy it in one four year term. Let's try it. This idea of Mandami who is apparently a communist in New York City. I was all for it. Go.
Joe Burns:Not because I like socialism, not because I care about communism. Let's see it. Let's see what happens. I love that.
Amber Narro:Oh, I'm glad you're the only one.
Joe Burns:Let me
Amber Narro:just say that.
Joe Burns:When the AI revolution occurs, I'm just gonna sit back and go, let's watch this.
Amber Narro:Get you some popcorn.
Joe Burns:Yeah, I really wanna see it all.
Amber Narro:I guess maybe that's where you get to when you're in that in that retirement phase. You know, I've seen it all go
Joe Burns:that way.
Amber Narro:I've seen it all go right but maybe maybe let's see it go the different way now.
Joe Burns:No, right? I've I've I've always been this way. It's it's it's George Carlin esque. I'm not George Carlin. That's not what I'm saying before somebody.
Joe Burns:You're not that funny. Well, towards the end of his career. But I just want to I just want to watch it. Yeah. You know, if somebody, there's that old statement, that old thing that there's five people standing on a train track, here comes the train.
Joe Burns:If you throw the switch, it changes but one person dies. What do you do? I don't know. Let's watch it and see what happens. Oh gosh.
Joe Burns:That's my answer.
Amber Narro:Oh my word.
Joe Burns:What are you doing on train tracks? You don't hear the train coming?
Amber Narro:Get off the train track.
Joe Burns:What are you doing? You know, well, if you don't do this, they die. Wow. Are they tied up like an old snidely whiplash, silent film with a cow catcher on the front of the train? Help each other off.
Joe Burns:Yeah. They dumb dumb. You've heard the joke about the two disc jockeys who were walking through the woods and they come upon tracks and the one disc jockey looks at the other one and says, those are deer tracks And the other disc jockey goes, no, no, no, no, no. My my father's helped me hunting when I was growing up. But those those are those are wolf tracks.
Joe Burns:And they argued for about five more minutes and then they both got hit by a train. Thank you.
Amber Narro:Yep.
Joe Burns:Full bow at the waist.
Amber Narro:There you go. Absolutely. Good stuff there. Good stuff. Lots of things that you do here locally.
Amber Narro:Christmas parade is one of them as well. You've been doing Christmas parade for several years too. So, is that over for you? You're done. You can't do that this year.
Joe Burns:It depends on what date it is. So, look that up and find Yeah. We have we have very specific plans. I am just to to intro it all. I am retiring.
Joe Burns:I stepped down as department head last June or June two months ago and am now just a plain old full professor. I want to teach four more classes because I'm I'm doing this differently than I hear from other people. I hear about people who retiring and they are curmudgeons and I gotta get away from this place and that is absolutely not who I am. I love Southeastern. I really do.
Joe Burns:I really do. I mean, I never wanted to come here. The only reason I even took the interview is because I wanted a free trip to New Orleans. I'm not kidding because I'm pathetic and shallow and I got down here and I'm like, hey.
Amber Narro:You're pathetic and sad.
Joe Burns:I'm like, hey, I like this place. It's nice. I mean, I can I can point to the exact minute? I decided to stay here and it, do you remember Lynn Wellman?
Amber Narro:Yeah.
Joe Burns:Lynn Wellman made a statement to me. I'm not going to say it on the air because it was personal but that was the reason, That's the reason I've been here for now twenty six years. But I I love the place. I love my house. I love all of that stuff.
Joe Burns:And you say but why are you leaving? I I wish I had a solid answer for you. It's just this ethereal idea that I've done it. I can't, I really don't think I can contribute more. I think I need to get the heck out of the way.
Joe Burns:I'm the oldest person in the department. I almost feel like I've got me in a little office and the young people come by and go, that's what they used to look like right there. I I just feel like I need to get the heck out of the way. They're they're going to do a search to replace me and I think that's great. Get somebody young in here.
Joe Burns:I'm I feel like I'm in the way and when I talk about leaving, it's it's good in my soul but I want my last classes. I want my last graduation. I want my last ring ceremony. I want all of that because I, there's nothing more to win. I've won the Friendship Oak.
Joe Burns:I've won the President's Award. I've won literally 10 international communicator awards and a thousand little radio things. I've I've got six books and god knows how many book chapters and such public published. The Rock School Radio Show is in the library of congress for goodness sake. I got nothing else.
Joe Burns:You know, part of you know this, part of being a professor is you have to produce content. We call it publishing, but it's the production of content. Move the knowledge base forward. And I I it's not in me anymore. Yeah.
Joe Burns:If they just let me teach classes, you see, don't even think that would work. Because now Tammy and I both, we're we're done. Tammy's my wife by the way. We're done. I don't know how else to say it, but there's absolutely no animosity whatsoever.
Joe Burns:You know?
Amber Narro:Oh, pray for that.
Joe Burns:What's the old song? Let's just kiss and say goodbye.
Amber Narro:Yeah. You
Joe Burns:know, but I keep telling people. They come up to me like, oh, I'm really sorry. You're leaving us. I'm not gone till December. Don't make it weird.
Amber Narro:What are the last four classes for you?
Joe Burns:I am teaching a god bless my being department head so I could do this. I'm doing a special topics class.
Amber Narro:He could assign his own classes.
Joe Burns:Yes, I could. Special topics class which is the history of rock and roll and its impact on society but here's the thing and and this might be a little meh. Well, you know how many classes there are? I called everyone of my music friends and I said, come teach a class. So, I have 15 guests over the course of it.
Joe Burns:Law, first time law is now a required class. So, I'm teaching the first law class but I didn't pick a book. I didn't do any of that because I think whomever takes it over should indeed pick the book and all that kind of stuff. I'm teaching one fifty one, which is the introductory writing class. It was always one of my favorites and what was the last?
Joe Burns:Oh, film film history. Love it. Them's the four.
Amber Narro:Love it. Yeah. So, you're gonna do you kinda teased us with the 15 guest speakers for the class.
Joe Burns:Oh, yeah.
Amber Narro:Who, anything special in the other three that you've taught before?
Joe Burns:I'm trying something in the law class and I could only try this in the last class. I I said to them, we'll vote on this. It's not for sure. If you show up to every class on time, put your phone away and take notes on paper. You get a B.
Joe Burns:The only way to get an A is to do well on, is to do well on the tests. And some people go, they don't understand how much of a problem being late and all that kind of stuff is but I think in the last class, it would be neat to see if anybody does it and they're like, well, you know, they'll just not do the tests and all that kind of stuff and I'm like, well, that's kind of that's kind of walking on the high wire but if they don't, I have no trouble with that because they came to every class, no phone, and they were attentive. I could be fine with that. I don't know. Am I doing something stupid or what?
Amber Narro:I'm it is your class.
Joe Burns:Yeah. Less stuff to grade.
Amber Narro:Let me tell you one of the things that I have learned in my two decades of doing this now is that you don't mess with somebody else's cookies. You know? Oh,
Joe Burns:yeah. If it works. Because
Amber Narro:you don't know what else is going on in there, you know?
Joe Burns:Right.
Amber Narro:And and I'm gonna judge you for this little thing that you're doing in your class, but I'm not seeing that the conversations that are happening are are wonderful and plentiful and they're they did their homework and then they all of a sudden get real interested in this class because they're hearing the content, they're applying it, they're not allowed to look away for a minute. I can't wait to see how it works for you. Yeah. I really can.
Joe Burns:I'm interested.
Amber Narro:You know, one of the, things that's come up and obviously is is a big scare for all of us, who are in this area is the AI situation, right? And people are like, well, what is your AI policy? I don't have one. Well, what is your what what is your stand on it? I'm not going looking for it.
Amber Narro:Okay? Like, if I if I spend the rest of my career chasing down people who don't wanna be here
Joe Burns:Yeah.
Amber Narro:What am I doing for the people who do? Yeah.
Joe Burns:You know?
Amber Narro:Oh, I agree. I, if you want artificial intelligence, have artificial intelligence. Yeah. Is my statement in my classes. I'm not going
Joe Burns:to Only with honors, kids.
Amber Narro:Not, I haven't always though. Okay. I mean, there have been classes where I've taught this in where I've I've felt the same. I mean, I was in the graduate school less than a year ago. You know, so.
Amber Narro:Yeah. And trust me, some of the things that I've read. Now, if if it is blatant, it's obvious and I'm gonna, you know, obviously, we're gonna have a conversation about it. But I am not going to try to find
Joe Burns:k.
Amber Narro:All of the artificial intelligence that's out there and leave aside the people who aren't doing it, who would love my time
Joe Burns:Yeah.
Amber Narro:So that we can go and grow them as individual. That artificial intelligence is going to come out somewhere.
Joe Burns:Yes, it is.
Amber Narro:If it's not my class, it'll come out in your career. Somewhere, it'll happen. You will be exposed.
Joe Burns:I absolutely disagree with you. My my and it's fine. I would never, even if I was department head, my job isn't to tell you how to teach your classes. I learned that because don't tell me. My my policy is very simple.
Joe Burns:If I catch it, you fail the assignment. If I catch you again, you fail the class. That simple. So, hey, man. Yeah.
Joe Burns:If you wanna walk on the high wire, go for it.
Amber Narro:Oh, no. I'll fail you. If I find it, I'm gonna fail you. If it's obvious, we're gonna have a conversation. You'd Yeah.
Amber Narro:There will be consequences for sure. I don't say that there's no consequences for it. I don't appreciate AI in my class at all but but. Yeah. At the same time, I am not going to spend the rest of my career chasing it out of you.
Amber Narro:I can't. Do you? There's no way.
Joe Burns:You wanna hear some hellacious hypocrisy?
Amber Narro:What's that?
Joe Burns:I check for AI using, say it with me, AI. Yeah. And if they're like, well, that that's hypocritical. Well, sorry.
Amber Narro:Yeah. Absolutely.
Joe Burns:I don't have a good answer for you. For especially in the 100 level class. For goodness sake, at least try it. It's a writing class. It's ten one page written elements.
Joe Burns:For goodness sakes, at least try it.
Amber Narro:Right. And he's talking about communication one fifty one, the getting writing class. Yeah. And my gosh, if you can't get through there, please choose a different major.
Joe Burns:Absolutely. It's an introductory. We know it. We're not looking for, you know, Hemingway. Indeed.
Joe Burns:And and all my first, well, my writing really stinks. Fantastic. That's why by the end of the class, it won't.
Amber Narro:Yes. That's the point
Joe Burns:of it. I mean, if I don't know about you but I can't bowl unless the the things are up for the little kids. It's awful. I don't I can't remember ever breaking a 100. But I still like to go and give it a swing.
Joe Burns:That idea that oh I didn't do it perfectly. I can never do it again. Wow. Fun life you're leading.
Amber Narro:Indeed. Where's the bread?
Joe Burns:Yeah. Go try something. Yeah. That's, yeah, when I'm when I'm retired.
Amber Narro:The light bulb is great, isn't it? The light bulb is.
Joe Burns:Oh, absolutely. When I retire, I intend to, I mean, I can play the piano. I I mean, you've you've seen me. I've been in bands. I can play the piano but I can't, I hate when people use the same verb but intensely the second time.
Joe Burns:I can't play the piano but I I can play the piano but I can't play the piano. I've always hated that. The only thing I hate more is the phrase it is what it is. Thank you very much. Is green green?
Joe Burns:Is orange orange? You know?
Amber Narro:That said.
Joe Burns:Yeah. I just wanna see. Oh, I hate that. That's. Me too.
Amber Narro:Said.
Joe Burns:Yeah, 10AM. 10AM in the morning as opposed to what? 10AM at night? Yep. You know, mister Cow.
Joe Burns:What do you mean mister Cow? It's a woman. A cow is a female. Goodness. I get, you know, the criminal prosecution.
Joe Burns:Prosecution means criminal. Oh, okay.
Amber Narro:Alright. So, we digress.
Joe Burns:The avian bird flu. You mean the bird bird flu? What? When you do this for when you speak for a living, poor English drives you crazy. It needs to be broken down to its component parts.
Joe Burns:Component means parts. Thank you. I don't not sure where I was going. That's just one of my rants.
Amber Narro:In your classes and and ten fifty one, you need the AI and the writing and the whole So we're doing some special things in your classes this semester and
Joe Burns:kinda try.
Amber Narro:And and which class will be the one that you turn the lights off in?
Joe Burns:Thursday at eleven, law. So you'll It'll be law. Now, don't tell anybody this. This is gonna air on the radio. Right?
Amber Narro:Nah.
Joe Burns:Okay. Don't tell anybody this, but I'm thinking real seriously about having them study like crazy for the final and then just not give it. I don't wanna I don't wanna grade it. Just give them all the points.
Amber Narro:Well, you could, I mean,
Joe Burns:it's I probably glad. I probably won't do it because that would be, that would border unethical.
Amber Narro:Make em show up though and talk about it. You know, you could do a different final. It doesn't have to be a written final. Nobody assigns what that has to be. Yeah.
Amber Narro:But if you're doing this whole put your phone down situation. Yeah. You know, Why not let that final exam be the discussion?
Joe Burns:It's not a dumb idea.
Amber Narro:Full blown discussion.
Joe Burns:It's not a dumb idea. It's really a
Amber Narro:grade book in your lap and say, here's your final exam.
Joe Burns:Oh, do still do paper grade books? So, oh, no. No. Okay.
Amber Narro:No. No. But I have a notebook. Yeah. Yeah.
Amber Narro:You got your notebook. I'm I'm kinda saying that.
Joe Burns:I knew what you meant. Okay. You're you're using it as a metaphor.
Amber Narro:Yeah. But. Or. Yeah. Absolutely.
Amber Narro:Oh yeah. You gotta take notes when they're there because you can't, I mean, speaking of, you know, being hypocritical here, you can't tell them. Can't bring out your computers. You gotta take notes on a paper. Yes.
Joe Burns:I can.
Amber Narro:Grade it with your computer sitting on your lap.
Joe Burns:I don't grade it with my computer. That's what I'm saying. No. I don't do that. Notebook.
Joe Burns:Absolutely. I do. Well, it's it's part of an experiment. I understand completely that we are well past, you know, that. We also don't have outhouses anymore.
Joe Burns:But everybody who studies anything about how the brain works, it's blatantly obvious that writing things down is better than typing them. And I I'm thinking about just forcing that this one time. You know? And if they if the students get real upset, go complain. You know, oh, he's only here for the rest of the semester.
Joe Burns:Let him go. Let him go. I don't know. Maybe I'll get into trouble for some of this but it's all those things that as a professor, you you kinda wonder about. How far can I push this?
Joe Burns:And it's never to not do any more work. That's not what it's about. How can I force these kids to be more engaged? I will tell you, I I don't, you say you don't have an AI policy. I don't have an attendance policy.
Joe Burns:And and the reason I don't have an attendance policy is not because, well, they're adults and they're gonna it comes back on me. If I'm doing a class and I'm so boring and horrible that you don't wanna come. Then, that's on me. I really believe that because I mean, you've had me as a teacher. I'm I'm on stage.
Joe Burns:I'm telling jokes. I'm calling people out. Laura Dematia is one of our new, graduate, PhDs. She's also in the communication department. She's our graduate, coordinator.
Joe Burns:And I had her in class and and I made a a specific rule. If your phone rings, don't answer it. Well, her phone rang. So I answered it. And it was her work.
Joe Burns:And they said, oh, we're all shorthanded. Can she come work tonight? Absolutely, she can. Yeah, she went and did the the shift. Now, come on.
Joe Burns:That's the kind of stuff that people remember.
Amber Narro:Absolutely. I love that.
Joe Burns:Absolutely. You know, remember Paul Catalonado? He was so good. So good in the classes. It's just one of those students and I know you've had them.
Joe Burns:Why am I grading this? It is this is so good. His final in the the highest editing class, this is long before the the station and and the Satun showed up and such. I taught all the television classes and what he handed in was just so good. I just wrote 99 out of a 100 because nobody's perfect.
Joe Burns:To this day, he brings it up. That's the kind of stuff that people remember. I had a student one time. There's a in film history. Supposedly, the first movie is a question of, does a trotter horse have all of its hooves off the ground at the same time as it's running?
Joe Burns:And this guy, Edward Muybridge, figured out that, yes, they do. So, this woman, I wish I could remember her name, wrote on her test and she's now married with kids and the whole thing but she wrote on her test that he was trying to figure out whether all four feet were off the ground and I took a point and I rode horses have hose not feet. And to
Amber Narro:this day. I love that.
Joe Burns:She brings it up.
Amber Narro:That is fantastic.
Joe Burns:That's the kind of stuff you wanna leave behind. Indeed.
Amber Narro:Yeah. No. I have that memory for sure.
Joe Burns:I'm not being a curmudgeon. I'm not doing that. Mhmm. I wanna leave here and everybody to because I know for a fact. I mean, come on.
Joe Burns:I maybe in one semester, they'll say nice things but time marches on. No one's really gonna remember me in a year.
Amber Narro:I will.
Joe Burns:Well, I'd be a I'd be a a long ago person. Do you remember there was a woman named Betty? Mhmm. She passed away while we were here?
Amber Narro:Yeah. I unfortunately fortunately and unfortunately, because I had the beautiful gems that she left behind, I had her office.
Joe Burns:Yeah.
Amber Narro:When when I first came in, she was your neighbor.
Joe Burns:Right.
Amber Narro:In D Vickers in Old D Vick and I got her office and I left that office with her notes still taped to the
Joe Burns:Oh, did you?
Amber Narro:To the filing cabinets where she said, you know, I'll be right back BAF was Betty Attaway Fink was her name. And it was a little note on her thing. So I let that be my be right back note when I was leaving and I kept retaping it and retaping And
Joe Burns:So you did remember her?
Amber Narro:I did.
Joe Burns:Well, here's the thing. After she was gone, we really, for a semester or two, all kinds of, let's let's make a let's make a a small scholarship and all of that but after a year, you never heard anything because time marches on. When they made me graduate coordinator, I held the office for at least nine years, maybe even a decade. I found a picture of her and I put it up so I left every day seeing her. And the whole point of seeing her was to tell me they're not gonna remember you after you're gone but they do remember you while you're here.
Joe Burns:So, when you're out there, literally give it a 101%. You can't get more than a 100 but more dumb English but give it all you've got but no, it they're not gonna talk about you in a year and I never took that as, oh, you poor, poor thing. I never did. It was a push to do more now because you have now. You don't have a year after you leave.
Joe Burns:Do it now.
Amber Narro:Love that.
Joe Burns:And that was the whole point of putting up Betty. Yeah. And I would, as I was walking out, if there was no one in the room, I'd walk out and go, okay, I'm gonna go do it, Betty. Yeah.
Amber Narro:Love that. So, Joe, tell me about our last show. What's happening?
Joe Burns:Oh, the Rock School Show?
Amber Narro:Yes, our last Rock School Show. Yep. When does it air? What are we expecting and how do how do we tune in?
Joe Burns:We are recording it this coming Saturday. It will go live on Monday morning. It will air Thursdays at five. That's the new show and Sundays at seven. Now, it used to be Sundays at four, but now it's Sundays at seven.
Joe Burns:On, on The Lion, KSLU, your favorite radio station, just admit it. Apparently, that became some kind of a thing that the disc jockeys played around with. I just said it off top of my head and it got played around with your favorite radio station. Just admit it. However, the show will be available immediately Monday morning on the Rock School website which is southeastern.edu/rockschool.
Joe Burns:All one word. Southeastern.edu/rockschool. All one word. So the show will be up there. It will also be on the PRX network, but nobody knows what that is.
Joe Burns:What you should do is is simply search PRX and that will take you to the website then search Rock School and it will be the top show and what it was or what it will be is my top 10 favorite moments from the show And I'll just tell you the top three right now. The first number three at least was me talking to Bobby McDaniel. Does that name ring a bell? He was one of the first people to arrive at the Leonard Skinnerd plane crash. He was also the man who took the bodies of the musicians out and did everything he could.
Joe Burns:They're they're in the middle of a a creek in the woods. Did everything he could to show as much respect as he could to the bodies as they came out. He is also instrumental in having created the Leonard Skinner Memorial that's just over the Mississippi line. So if you haven't seen that, it's it's really something else. Number two, Austerlitz is the guy's name.
Joe Burns:He wrote a book on Altamont, the hideous Rolling Stones Festival Concert. Stones thought they could do their own Woodstock. He wrote a book on it and I read the book and everything I thought I knew or that was common knowledge about Altamont and the death of Meredith Hunter was wrong. Wrong. And when he laid it all out and you go back and look at the footage that's available and you look at and you go, he's right.
Joe Burns:That's, you know, it was kind of shocking. The number one thing and this is really self serving. Does the name Noel Monk ring a bell with you?
Amber Narro:Not at all.
Joe Burns:Noel Monk was the manager of the Sex Pistols. Then, he was the manager of, I can't remember the second band but the last band was Van Halen. He was the manager of Van Halen from their first album through their 1984 era. And when Sam Hagard comes into the band, he leaves. I I'm sure he was summarily fired.
Joe Burns:But he wrote a book and I thought, oh, gee, there's no way he's gonna talk to me and I got an interview with him but it gets better. In the and I let this go over the air and I I'm playing these clips. In the last break, he says to me, I really enjoyed. He has a real berries like this, you know. Kennedy esque.
Joe Burns:You know what I mean? He said, I had a real good time talking to you. It's amazing to me. So many people don't get it. They don't get the music.
Joe Burns:But you, you get it. I'm gonna give you my personal phone number so we can talk and all that and he dies very soon afterward. But to hear somebody say that, you know, because you slog.
Amber Narro:I'm that caliber.
Joe Burns:Yeah. For sure. You do this show twice a week. You understand the slog that producing a show can be and how sometimes you gotta slap yourself on the face a couple times. Okay, here we go.
Joe Burns:Entertain. Yeah. Because you know, my mom and dad died and I had to do a show. Katrina occurred. I had to do a show.
Joe Burns:There's that old belief system in the world of radio. You know, the audience doesn't care that you're having a bad day. They're trying to live their life. Your job is to entertain them and it's sort of something you have to accept. You know, there was another show.
Amber Narro:That moment.
Joe Burns:Yeah. Sure. There's another show I'm gonna talk about is when my mom and dad died And I have from the beginning of my career, it was always don't bring your personal life on the air or if you do it better be funny. And it wasn't funny. You know, I'm an only child.
Joe Burns:I kept them till I was 59. Who gets that? I'm 62 right now. And I'm on there. I'm on the verge of tears the whole time.
Joe Burns:And the whole time instead of doing this, this is really great. The whole time I'm going, this is awful. Why don't you just go on the air and cry and and make everybody sad which is the polar opposite of what you wanna do but that's funny. That's the one I got the most Email and comments about because there's after they both died, this is gonna sound dumb. Do I have time to tell like a thirty second story?
Amber Narro:You have all the
Joe Burns:Go ahead. Alright. I'm cutting the grass in the backyard. I've now buried them both. I'm cutting the grass in the backyard and these two egrets.
Joe Burns:I'm not sure they're egrets. They're little white or they're large white birds but instead of having a long thin snout like an egret does, they kind of have a a a bow pointing down. Somebody knows what they are. But the two of them showed up and they wouldn't leave. And I'm driving the driving the the little zero turn mower that I have over to and they won't leave.
Joe Burns:So I stopped it and I got out, got myself a drink, and I'm sitting under the porch looking out there with Tammy and I thought I'm gonna go walk out them. So I walked out to them. I got as far as me to you and they wouldn't leave. So, I came back and sat back down and finally, after fifteen minutes, they flew away. I'd I you can tell I don't go in for all the, you know, you know, I can talk to the day.
Joe Burns:You know, that kind of, I don't get in for all of that but I said to my said to Tammy out loud, I said, do you think that was mom and dad? And she goes, of course, it was. Sure. And I said, but they wouldn't leave. I couldn't scare them off.
Joe Burns:And she said something to the effect of, well, at when you were 16, you couldn't scare your parents off. So, I often wonder if that was them and that's not who I am. I don't go in for all of that.
Amber Narro:But that's okay. So, comfort yourself in that moment, right?
Joe Burns:I guess so. Yeah. Yeah, because there's a woman that was that lived on their road who studied meditation and had women over. I think it's just a reason for a bunch of women to get together and drink red wine, you know? But she came to me after the after my dad died, and she said, I was meditating last night, which meant she was high, you know?
Joe Burns:I was meditating last night, and I talked to your father. And I said, oh, did you? And she said, he's, you know, he wanted to let you know he's on a different plane. I said, a connecting flight? It it didn't bother her at all.
Joe Burns:She knew I was making fun of her And when it was over, I felt like a horrible person. Yeah, I'm like, you piece of She was trying to help you. How about you knock off the disc jockey and accept accept a little bit of help now and again because I I have only child syndrome. I will crash and burn before I ask for help. You know what I mean?
Joe Burns:I'll help anybody but I will crash and burn and that's where it I kinda yelled at myself. She was trying to help you, you
Amber Narro:jerk. And that's okay. Yeah. You know, and thank you for leaving us in this show. Yeah.
Amber Narro:With that statement because it's okay to accept help too. Right?
Joe Burns:Absolutely.
Amber Narro:And that's a gift for other people to help you.
Joe Burns:Absolutely.
Amber Narro:We often talk about on this show because we interview community leaders like yourself and, and others who volunteer and help people like yourself. And, we always talk about that it's not just the the value that other people get in your gift to them, but it's also what you receive out of it. Right? Yeah. So let other people help you be okay.
Joe Burns:As long as there's cash involved, absolutely.
Amber Narro:And there you go. We ended as the disc jockey as well. After my
Joe Burns:after my heart attack, people would come up and go, is there anything? If there's anything I can do? And I would always say, can I have $20?
Amber Narro:I'm gonna use that. For sure. There's nothing you can do. They're helping me at rehab. I'm going to my heart therapy.
Amber Narro:I'm doing my exercises and everything but $20 will be great.
Joe Burns:It'll be really what you can buy me a you can buy me a hamburger.
Amber Narro:You get a decaf hamburgers?
Joe Burns:I'll get
Amber Narro:a decaf coffee. Absolutely. Thank you, Joe.
Joe Burns:Oh, we're done?
Amber Narro:Thank you. Yeah. I mean, we have been talking for like forty five minutes. This is amazing. So, we don't have
Joe Burns:all the time in the world.
Amber Narro:Yeah. Well, at some point, we gotta end this. Yeah.
Joe Burns:Well, you gotta you gotta edit it though. It's gotta get you cut out some of the jokes.
Amber Narro:Not at all.
Joe Burns:Not. You're run the
Amber Narro:whole thing? I'm running
Joe Burns:it. What?
Amber Narro:We're going. If Damon Sunday will let me, we're we're running it. I have no doubt that he will. Yeah. You're brilliant.
Amber Narro:You have been an awesome gift to this university. Oh. An awesome, wonderful gift to KSLU. You are the reason, one of the reasons, one of the big reasons that KSLU still exists here at at Southeast as well as in this building.
Joe Burns:I remember that.
Amber Narro:And and because, I mean, it would have been easy to let it go after hurricane Ida. Right? It would have been very easy, but you were at the front of that with a big stick and going, nope. We're we're helping and moving this forward. So thank you for that.
Joe Burns:Oh, yeah.
Amber Narro:Thank you for for the dedication that it put to get to to have a show that lasted a thousand episodes. Like you said, sometimes it's a slog and you still gotta do it and you did it and and we appreciate that and nobody to have that dedication to something, you're gonna get some success out of it. And you have. And it's It's amazing. It is cataloged.
Amber Narro:It is recorded. It is podcasted. It is going to replay on this station for years to come, I'm sure.
Joe Burns:Yeah.
Amber Narro:And and we appreciate you and everything that you've given to Southeastern and KSLU and to us as people.
Joe Burns:Oh, that's very nice.
Amber Narro:Indeed. Can I have $20?
Joe Burns:Sure.
Amber Narro:Absolutely. I've been here today on the Lion's Roundtable or at the Lion's Roundtable talking to Doctor Joe Burns who is retiring this year in December from Southeastern but also please listen to his thousandth show for Rock School
Joe Burns:Yep.
Amber Narro:This week where you'll hear the final and last show for Rock School. That's right. But we're definitely gonna be talking to him again before he is out. I'm sure here at KSLU in some capacity.
Joe Burns:Gotcha. Hope so.
Amber Narro:Absolutely. Thanks, Joe.
Joe Burns:Alright. Thank you.
Amber Narro:Appreciate you and thank you for listening here at KSLU, which happens to be your favorite radio station.
Joe Burns:Just admit it.
Amber Narro:Just admit it. We appreciate you coming on Thursdays and Fridays at 09:00 to the Lion's Roundtable. I'm Amber Narro. Y'all have a great day.
