An Army of Normal Folks - Chris Ullman: Whistling Happy Birthday To 700 People (Pt 2)

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

Chris is a 4-time international whistling champion who’s whistled for Presidents and 60,000 people. But what makes him an Army member is how he whistles happy birthday to 700 people every year!Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with An Army of Normal Folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Chris Hulman right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. I'm ready to fight. Oh, this is fighting words. Okay. I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a bestselling author with the second most banned book in America.

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This is fun. You can get your daily puzzle nuggets delivered straight to your ears. Listen to The Puzzler every day on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Brendan Patrick Hughes, host of Divine Intervention. This is a story about radical nuns in combat boots and wild-haired priests trading blows with J. Edgar Hoover in a hell-bent effort to sabotage a war. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. He was out of his mind, and he wanted to bring the Catholic

left to its knees. Listen to Divine Intervention on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My brother-in-law, who has been in my life since he was eight because that's when I met his sister and subsequently married her, has been in my life for a long time. Ben is third grade level probably, special needs. My life has been so deeply enriched by my experience understanding that people that suffer with intellectual disabilities have an enormous amount going on inside of there that they may not can verbalize,

but it's just as real and just as 100% intact in terms of feelings and emotions as they are in what we would call normal people. I was so touched by a story that you told that I read about and I don't know where it was about an interaction you had with a special needs person. Would you tell that story? Yeah, yeah. It's a really wonderful friendship with his name's Preston, same last name, Ullman. We call him the 1L Ullmans, and we're the 2L Ullmans, so it's U-L-M-A-N. So I was preparing for one of the whistling competitions, and the Washington Post wrote an article saying,

Chris is going back to try to win the fifth prize, which I didn't. But someone saw that article, and then called me up cold and said I read this article my son loves to whistle but he is pretty severely intellectually challenged and his special needs right yes was he was he a person suffering from downs not downs but other kind of cognitive and physical challenges. He can't speak, but he could whistle and she said will you call him on his birthday and whistle for him? And it was I think a few months down the road. So I said sure I'd be honored to do that. So I called Preston on his birthday and it was a challenge for me at first

because you know I am a professional communicator. I communicate by speaking to people and listening of course but like that's my primary form of interaction and writing. So here I'm on the phone with the mom on speakerphone with her son who can't speak but can whistle. So I'm trying to think, how do I connect with him? How does he connect with me? So his mom said, Preston, this is Chris and he's gonna whistle. I said, Preston, can you whistle for me? I just heard his very sweet whistle. You know, it still

just gives me a shiver, you know, that initial moment. And so I said, Preston, it's so nice to meet you, and I look forward to getting to know you. I whistled happy birthday, and it was just kind of pleasantries because we really didn't know each other. Said goodbye. All right. A year goes by.

I call them, and she's completely surprised this time because she didn't think I was going to do it again. And she's like, oh my gosh, you know, let me get him. So she gets Preston and, you know, he whistles for me. I whistle happy birthday. We say a few more pleasantries. And then like midway or like three quarters of the way through the next year, her name's Kathy. Kathy calls me up and said, will you come to Preston's, you know, graduation from his school, the School for Special Needs Kids, until we

can meet and you can whistle for him and his friends? And I said, that would be amazing. So it was like a homecoming. So I show up, I've never met these people. There's hugs all around, I whistle some songs, and when Preston saw me, and then when I whistled, he lightens up, and it's all excited, and he whistles some notes from me. And that was, that was like 20, no, what was that? It was, yeah, it was 22 years ago, and we've been friends ever since. Preston and his parents come to our house every year. We have a New Year's Eve party. And we're like bona fide friends now.

And it's really helped me learn not everyone's a billionaire, and not everyone communicates the way I do But that doesn't mean you can't communicate and it it had to you know test me and push me You know out of my comfort zone, and I've learned a lot. It's a very good And a humbling experience in a good way. It's not like I'm better than him it's just that we're different and but I was Thankfully able to figure out how to connect with each other. When if anybody spent a lot of time around

people with intellectual disabilities you'll find out that many of them are not. Human interaction and touch is somehow oftentimes difficult and I read about a time where your hand was held, right? Oh my gosh Yeah, I haven't thought about this in a while. Yeah, we went my wife and I went to a fundraiser for The the school and the program that Preston is involved with and it was a very big Like black tie type event and it's a lot of people all around and there was a little reception beforehand So I show up I see his parents, I see Preston, I give him a hug, and I'm just standing there and suddenly like someone's holding my hand and it was Preston and

you know at first I was like, well, you know, what's the deal with that? And I thought and I thought oh my gosh, well, this is his way of communicating. I mean, it's a way for any human to communicate, is to, you know, human touch, but to show that I'm comfortable with you and that touch of flesh on flesh is very special. And it was a real special bonding moment. And then, you know, we just stood there for like 10 minutes

just holding hands and little whistles to each other and watching all the hustle bustle of people coming and going and and the like and You know that doesn't happen in fancy billionaire land You know, but it should You know, I will tell you as It pertains to an army of normal folks. I don't know Preston, but I know simply through billing willing to listen, if that kid reaches out and grabs your hand, you have changed

his life. Again, a passion and a discipline intersecting an opportunity making massive change for another person. You don't have to have a 501C3 to do that. You just have to have a passion and a heart, and you have to, in your words, find your whistle. Yeah, and now, you know, we, my wife and I, have raised money for this organization

that Preston's a part of, and, you know, it's important, I think, to just be aware of the different communities that are around us. And the special needs community is very existent, but it's so easy to avoid people with those types of challenges. And I think it's good for the soul, and it's good for the ego,

keep it in check, to make sure you're not just with your fancy able-bodied people, but people of all types have intrinsic and deep worth. He's as much a child of God as I am, he just communicates differently. I'm gonna ask you a question that's gonna be obvious but I think I know what your answer is gonna be but I think the question and the obvious answer make a point you know you've whistled for a president you've whistled on national TV but I would say you probably get more

out of your relationship or Preston than any of those. Absolutely. Yeah, it's a, well whistling for presidents is pretty cool. I'm not gonna deny that. And it's president, I met Bill Clinton not long ago. Can I tell you that real quick? Yeah, well hold on. Did you whistle for Bill Clinton? I did, post presidency.

I have some funny thoughts, but I will keep them to myself. Go ahead, what was I like? I was at an event where my client was interviewing him and the events over and then The president and my client went to the green room to say goodbye to each other and I was there and then an aid To Clinton looks at me and he said hey, you're that champion whistler You don't want to whistle for the president. I feel like a monkey. It was like hey you And I said sure I Introduced myself to the president. He's like how'd you learn how to whistle?

So I whistle for he's like that's amazing Amazing then he walks away, and he comes back and said you got to do more of that for me. That's really good So he was very gracious and fun anyways, but in terms of impact You know whether they're a former president or a current president or you know, just a regular regular folk, you know They're all fun to whistle for and but the like that emotional impact is much more powerful Um, because it's just like i'm a firm believer in

It's important to stay humble and Uh, if you get too big for your britches, that's a bad State if you're ever in a state where you don't need anything in life, like say you're financially comfortable, that's a dangerous state to be in because there's a lot of hurt in the world and a lot of people do need a lot. And so anything that can keep me humble is a good thing. We'll be right back. So, I welcomed you to Memphis at the top of the show, but I understand this is not your first trip to Memphis, and one time you visited Graceland and found yourself on Bill Street.

Yes. Tell me about that Well, I'm also an opportunistic Whistler and so And this gets to the heart of if you have a gift, what do you do with it? So as you noted I've whistled with a bunch of symphony orchestras. Well for the most part they didn't call me up I called them up and said hey you want to have a champion whistler perform with you now most of them say You're a freak get away from me. But some of them say hey, that's to have a champion whistler perform with you. Now, most of them say, you're a freak, get away from me. But some of them say, hey, that's really cool, let's do it.

So there I am, I was preparing for, get my years right, the 1996 International Whistling Competition. And I said, you know, I need to just be with myself for a straight week and whistle for five hours a day. And I said, what's the best way to do that? I said I need a trip. So I said I'm gonna do a Graceland pilgrimage. So I'm in Alexandria, Virginia and I say I'm gonna go circumnavigate the state of Tennessee. I'm gonna go there and commune with Elvis. And I did whistle at his grave and people around it thought it was a little weird,

but everything about Graceland is weird. And so I whistled for five hours every day for a week. And then I come back and I won every prize in the competition that year. It was a great year. My lips were on fire. It was amazing. Anyhow, so one of the evenings, so I hear I'm in Memphis and I say, oh, I got to go to, I'm a BB King, you know, BB King fan.

So I said, I'm just gonna go to BB King's Blues Club and see what's going on. And so I go there and there's a really good house band. It wasn't BB King himself, but it was a just fantastic band doing the blues. And I thought, you know, I need to jam with these people. And so at the break, I thought you know I need to jam with these people and so at the break I went up to the is either the singer or the guitarist and I said you

guys are amazing I said do you ever let people sit in with you he looks at me he's like what do you play I said I whistle and he's like, yeah, right. Okay. And he just walks away. And midway through the next set, I'm standing in the back, just, I don't drink alcohol, I was just nursing my glass of water. And then there's quiet for a moment and suddenly I hear, there's a whistler in the audience. Come on up here. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's me. There's a whistler in the audience. Come on up here. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's me. And so I went up to the stage and they,

but I was three feet away. They start playing a song. I get up there, they throw me the mic and then you just gotta jump in there and start jamming with a seriously professional blues band. And a crowd went wild. I mean, it was really an awesome experience. You've whistled the blues on historic

Bill Street. I have. That's the greatest thing in the world. Yeah you know it's so much of life is like this is that you know as my my late father said many many many times when I was growing up is that this is not a dress rehearsal. One shot. And every day that passes is in the history books. You can't revisit it, at least physically. So what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do today? You know, my daily refrain is, this is the day the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad. So every day there's opportunity to touch another heart, to go whistle with a blues band,

to do all these things and to revel in the wonderment of our fellow humans, all the gifts that people have. And are we discovering them and just learning little tidbits about them and what they've done in their lives? I mean, I tell my 20-year-old children, I said, you live in an awesome time in American, in world human history, in terms of healthcare and educational opportunities and generally strong economy

and freedom and freedom of speech and all that. I said, you should be reveling every day in that gift. And when I see people who are kind of young people who I mentor or just kind of sullen, like, what are you excited about? Oh, I don't know. Like, come on. Like, what a time to be alive. You know, just get out there and just be in the game.

Get your head in the game and just revel in the opportunity. So the Washington Post asked a question, the game and just revel in the opportunity. So the Washington Post asked a question, where have all the Whistlers gone? People don't whistle much anymore. It used to be so American, so equivalent of our rugged individualism and independence of a certain Johnny happy go luckiness. A fellow whistled why he worked, whistled a happy tune, then whetted his whistle with a cold one, and whistled at the girls gone by. Jimmy Cricket whistled,

Seven Dwarfs, Gene Kelly, Santa Claus, Woodrow Wilson, Charles Lindbergh, Albert Einstein. Musical whistling went with the the dancing in the rain and the sauntering down the street. Hands in Shove Pockets, Hat Brim, the whistled theme and the sauntering down the street, hands in shoved pockets, hat brim, the whistle theme of the Andy Griffith show conjured up small town coziness that has vanished if ever existed at all. Now people march to a different tune and the street is a horrible raucous mess of jackhammers and sirens and the beep, beep,

beep of big trucks backing up and piercing trill or two could sound in protest. Instead, people lower their voices and mutter into things like cell phones or silence themselves trudging along. Whistling is too weird like polka music, too idiosynchronic, like addressing envelopes on a manual typewriter, two stubbornly non-conformists like the mom at the awards banquet in fry boots and a fringe jacket, whistling as a relic from a less technological time when folks had to amuse themselves. It's a front porch culture, it's loner art, it used to float around the school janitor who pushed a broom down empty halls

Yet kids still try to whistle buckering and huffing to no effect One day something comes out and the joy is profound until they are silenced by modern wars and music videos That's very well written Yeah, I have And it's very well written. Yeah, I have wrestled with the why. What has happened? My main theory is that we went from a society where you had to entertain yourselves.

You didn't have the TV on all the time. You didn't have transistor radios. You certainly didn't have iPhones and things like that. So you were more inclined to either read or do knitting or have a craft or have a piano and people sitting around maybe listening to FDR do his fireside chats, but it was an almost like more collectivist, self-initiated way of entertaining ourselves. And then technology, which has lots of pluses, I think there are lots of minuses, but technology has forced us into more of a kind of passive entertainment versus active entertainment.

So once we could go into our own world with a transistor radio with headphones on it or the Walkman and the way things are now, you're just in your own world rather than feeling you have to be able to make something happen. And this really knocked me over the head when I performed with an orchestra in Minneapolis, and each day I was either going, so I was on the campus of the University of Minneapolis, and as I go from my hotel to the performance

venue and I went by hundreds and hundreds of students, and here I am whistling along the way, of course, and every kid had headphones in, staring straight ahead, no eye contact, in their own world. I think that's bad. It's really bad. And I'm not saying I'm perfect at it. I had headphones in on the plane today. I probably should have talked to the young lady next to me.

I did say hi, okay. So I think that's part of it. My secondary theory is that the Cold War of the 50s, 60s, 70s just almost put like a wet blanket over our national personality and that more happy-go-lucky feeling kind of got dampened a bit. I have no proof for either of these, but as a serious whistler and try to be observer of human nature, those are kind of my two theories. When you were five, you found your whistle hanging around Bob. you found your whistle hanging around Bob. You wrote a book on finding your whistle clearly not encouraging everybody to learn to whistle but to find

their personal whistle metaphorically their talent. What do you say to the to the 18 19 25 16 29 year old who is going through life but hadn't found their whistle. Where's their bub? Well, hopefully they're blessed with, you know, loving parents who encourage them just in whatever area they either have a like a nascent interest in which is what happened with me you know I wasn't good whistler at first but my parents encouraged it you know if they don't have a bub or you know a Fran that's my mom's name then look to people around they There are just so many, I think, encouraging people out there.

You've got to find them. But I think there's also great merit in what I call kind of a journey of discernment, that when I meet, and I do a ton of mentoring with like 19 to 23-year-olds through this intern program that I'm involved with, and I've met hundreds and hundreds of students in the past 25 years and and I kinda give them a charge and the charge is you need to find your gift

and your skill set and what touches your heart as well and you know sometimes it hits you like a lightning bolt maybe maybe like the whistling did, but a lot of times it doesn't. But so then you have to go proactively find it. And so discernment is a journey. It's not something that happens over a weekend where you say, oh, I'm going to go figure out my career, and I'm going to do it this weekend. That's not how it works. But for a 20 year old, especially if they feel a bit adrift, I will say to them,

remember your life is a quarter over already. And they're like stunned by that because they haven't been thinking along those lines. And then I say, listen, my life is three quarters over so you should consider yourself blessed. And I say, well, survey what you have done up to that point. Where did you struggle? Where did you thrive?

What excites you? What tickles your heart and your brain as well, from a skill standpoint? And explore and then find things that interest you and then go out there and find people who do those things. And you interview them casually, like have coffees and things like that. And it's a way to learn about what's out there

and then see how it meshes with what's kind of coming up in your own heart or brain. And it's not an accident. Like this is a process in life where you're discerning and you're growing and you're gathering. Because then that's the whole point of having your head in the game and learning from the people around you, is that there's so much wisdom and knowledge out there. And are we going to stay in our own little bubbles or are we going to engage?

And it's that engagement, I think, that can set the fire and like turn up the heat on a burgeoning skill or direction And then when you found that whistle You can join the ranks of the army and normal folks and influence the world Yes, but you know it takes courage. It does that I think is super super important I tell young people all the time, is that engagement can be scary. You know, reaching out to people you don't know and sharing what's special to you with others, you know, you probably worry about rejection or something like that.

And that's natural. But the more you do it, the more comfortable you will be and ultimately more confident as well. So that's why I say get your head in the game because this is not a dress rehearsal. We'll be right back. So, crazy story. A kid learns how to whistle and has an alternate life outside of his professional life where he makes 700 people a year smile for just a little bit and has used this town to write a book and has had his aha moment where it is I need to help encourage other

people to find their whistle what a cool cool story I got to ask, what is your favorite thing to whistle? Let's see, if it's for younger people, I tend to do Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Go. Okay. ["Beauty and the Beast"] I'm going to be a little bit more creative. I'm going to be a little bit more creative. I'm going to be a little bit more creative.

I'm going to be a little bit more creative. I'm going to be a little bit more creative. I'm going to be a little bit more creative. I'm going to be a little bit more creative. Oh, That's awesome. All right. What about older people? You said if you could answer your favorites.

Everyone's young at heart. Older, I love to do A Train by Duke Ellington. Oh, let's hear a little of that. It's a really wonderful song. Yeah. ["A Train by Duke Ellington"] Oh, yeah. That's very cool. That's the, all right, I asked you earlier and it's just because I love it and I think

it would sound cool whistled. Can you do Freebird? All right. I don't think I've ever whistled this publicly. Oh boy, here we go. I feel like I'm back in the Oval Office here. Yeah, do it. Ooh, that's it. I'm trying to'm back in the oval office. Yeah, do it whoo

That's awesome. That's pretty crazy that you can do it. All right. We, uh, uh, Alex, the producer who is, uh, my friend in the vein of my existence half the time, all the stuff he's got me doing. Um, we've got about 10 minutes left before you got to go off to an interview on some radio or TV show around Memphis because everybody's excited you're here. I want to thank everybody for showing. And if any of you have any questions or now listen, the man didn't show up here with 7,000 tunes in his head, but are you open to taking a request or two if it's something you can do?

If it's something I can do. Okay, so does anybody have any questions for Chris? And then if you have a request, we'll do it. And I do have a sign-off. I have a walk-off song for the end of the show in about 10 minutes, so we got it. Yes, ma'am. I have both a-off song for the end of the show in about 10 minutes. So we got it. Yes, ma'am Have both a question and a request the question is have you ever whistled to

Help someone in mourning And the now that's a great question. I wish I had thought that never here you sit here. I'll move over there That's a great question. The request is amazing grace I can do both of those those Wow. All right, so I Alright the first one about in the morning. So at my wife's aunt's funeral My mother-in-law asked me to whistle a song for her and I whistled on Eagles wings, which was You know very very touching. And then it's a beautiful, beautiful song.

There's a kind of a funny twist to it, if I may. So here I whistle, so that song, and this is the challenge of being a whistler and not a singer, is that that song has four verses to it. And each verse is different. Now the tune is the same. So I whistle the first verse. Then I whistle the first verse, then I whistle the second verse, and then I'm up in the choir loft with the organ,

you know, someone's playing the organ, I'm whistling, and I see my mother-in-law in like the second row and she turns around as I was about to whistle the third verse and she's like, it's like two verses, enough. Okay, the eagle has landed So Yeah, that was very special I really love that I've whistled at probably 20 weddings and I've done a bar mitzvah Chris tell him who you met at one of the weddings who saw you whistle. Oh This is a very this is very funny and I will whistle Amazing Grace. So I was at a friend's wedding, so I whistled the processional, I whistled Ave Maria and the recessional at the

ceremony. Then we're at the reception and Bill Gates is at to me and says, do you have a real job? You know what your spot should have been? Yes sir, I do. What about you? Oh, alright. Anyway, that was that was pretty wild. I said I do have a day job. I said and and he's like okay just walked away. Yeah, he's a unique kind of guy. All right. Amazing. I could listen to that all day long. Thank you. Okay. Someone back here I think had a question.

Yeah, whoever. Alex, fine. I was just wondering in your competitions, what the percentage of, if you could guess, of women? Yeah. of, if you could guess, of women. Yeah, there were, I would say it was probably like one third, two thirds. One third women, two thirds men or so. And there's no, best I can tell, I have no formal data,

but I don't see any physiological reason why one would necessarily be better or worse than the other. And so there are lots of wonderful female whistlers. And I think the best whistler today is a man named Geert Chatroux, who's in the Netherlands. And he and I competed, and he beat me in the classical division. I beat him in the pop division, and he just edged me out for first. You should look him up on YouTube, Geert Chattroux. He's a fantastic Whistler. I'm on all over YouTube. I've whistled the national anthem at lots of major league major league sporting events and which is a lot of

fun. I'm hoping we can get Chris to come back here and do the Grizzlies. Yeah that would be a great honor. Hi Chris, your pursuit of excellence is truly amazing. After 50 years of whistling, what keeps you going and elevates you to keep working on your craft day in, month after month, year after year, and not just saying, you know, I want to do something else. What motivates you to keep going? Well, thank you. I'd say, well, it brings me a lot of joy. I mean, I enjoy whistling for other people and that when they're happy, that makes me happy. But I just love walking down the street. And if I want to whistle Brahms' Fourth Symphony, I can. If I want to whistle some a train I can and just the creation of music brings me joy and then developing kind of new techniques I

learned this is like easily the freakiest thing I can whistle with my mouth closed I can whistle underwater I try to get in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the first person to whistle underwater but they were uninterested, which I thought was unfortunate. Okay, so and then I'm fairly competitive person so when I hear Geert Shatrew whistle I'm saying that guy's got some techniques I don't know yet so you try to then figure out. And the great challenge with being a whistler versus a violinist, for example,

is that I can't see inside Geert's mouth. So when he makes a sound, I have to figure out, all right, I know the mechanics of whistling, so then I have to kind of deconstruct by experimenting, how is he doing that. But if I were playing the violin, you know, the instructor would say oh your elbow is a little this way and your wrist is the wrong position, but they you can't do that with a whistler. It's you just see puffing cheeks and

puckered lips. So it takes a fair amount of deconstruction to be able to learn from another whistler. I have taught people how to whistle by telling them, explaining the lips, tongue, air, and how the pieces fit together. I do have to deliver bad news for people who are older who've tried to whistle their whole lives and can't, and I just have to say there's no hope for you. But that doesn't mean you're not a good person. Can you do the close-up of the mic? I don't know if the mic will pick it up, but we can try. If you were right next to me, you could hear it.

I heard it. Oh, really? Oh, wow. Is it picking it up? The way it works is that it's the tongue whistle and since it doesn't require lips, if you shut your mouth and do the tongue whistle with tiny bursts, you can whistle without your mouth open. So I'm a firm believer in freaky things and that's at the top of the list actually. Chris, the 700 people that you reach every year with your birthday whistle. 701.

701. And. So, does that list change every year? Do you add people to it? Delete people from it? Ooh, that's it Very controversial question very alright alright, so in all these years I've only taken two people off. I will not say who they are, but they were just turned out to be mean bad people So if if you're out there listening, and he used to whistle for you know you are a mean bad person We're gonna put that on the website. And then if you die,

but for people who I... So I would... there's another like thing that makes me tear up when I talk about it. So I have a friend whose son had Down syndrome and leukemia. I whistled for him for years and then he passed away from leukemia. I did not know he had died and the friend and I sort of lost touch. I kept whistling for him and then I found out he and I'm whistling for someone's dead child and I'm about to cry but I felt so bad. Oh my gosh I felt so bad and I then ran into that person and he felt bad I didn't know and then he said will you keep whistling for him?

Sorry. So I was on his birthday every year now. It's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Yes, sir. This is great. Do you whistle your own compositions? You put a lot of imagination in the ones you whistle, so do you have your own compositions that you whistle for? Yeah, I just cover other people's tunes.

So I'm definitely not a composer. I did whistle with a symphony, and I had to, for those who know concertos, so Mozart's oboe concerto has, they have solos in them called cadenzas. And I did make up my own cadenzas for those. I don't think they are gonna win any awards but they were fun. So that's probably in terms of like creating a tune. I do do lots of you know improvisational whistling like with

blues and jazz and if I'm jamming with the Grateful Dead I will do that you know because that's just if you can stay in the right key and you can kind of go with the flow, you can do all sorts of creative things. Chris, thank you for being here. Thank you for coming to Memphis. Thank you for sharing. You know, a kid that learned to whistle from his dad who has a wife and

just uses your special talent to try to put touch people in the way you've touched everybody in this room. Um, you've touched people on a daily basis with your, your talent and what a blessing it is to others. And I know it's a blessing to you. And, uh, uh, I want everybody listening to me, go get the book, find your whistle, simple gifts, touch hearts and change lives. And we don't use the show to plug books or movies, but oftentimes we have people on that are

involved in different forms of media. But we all need to find our whistle and we all need to develop extra whistles and we all need to use our talents and our discipline to plug holes in society where we can. And we don't have to be part of some big organization to do it. And Chris, you're walking living proof of how you can affect lives with some of the simplest passions and talents you have. And that's the call of an army of normal folk millions of us

seeing areas in need, putting our passion and our discipline to work to simply help someone who maybe has a bad day or not be as blessed as us. We're gonna end this way. You said something really cool which as as you mentoring, you say, get your head in the game. Get your head in the game. That's what we gotta do. Find your passion.

Get your head in the game. So something that I think puts smiles on everybody's faces and metaphorically maybe can send us off thinking about today, getting our head in the game. How about take us out to the ballgame? That's great. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and I'm really blessed by everyone's presence so thank you. Are we supposed to whistle too? Thank you Chris. And thank you for joining us this week. If Chris Ullman has inspired you in general or better yet to take action by finding your own whistle and using it

more often by buying his book, find your whistle or something else entirely. Please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at normal folks dot us and I promise you I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and on social subscribe to the podcast rate and review it. Join the army at normal folks dot us. Consider becoming a premium member there. All of these things that will help us grow an army of normal folks.

I'm Bill to fight. Oh, this is fighting words. Okay. I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a bestselling author with the second most banned book in America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back. Part of the power of Black queer creativity is the fact that we got us, you know?

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