The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 226: We're Not Making The Godfather

Episode Date: November 16, 2021

Mike's guest is a man called Lindsay Schnebly, an accomplished voiceover artist whose unusual name inspired a town, almost.

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We're not making the Godfather. My guest on today's podcast is a man called Schnebly. Lindsay Schnebley, to be specific. And he's here today because his name is awesome. How awesome? Well, a few years ago, Lindsay Schnebley sent me a draft of the story you're about to hear. It's a story about his family's name, a name that should be known around the world, but isn't for reasons almost too random to the story.

believe. I wanted to discuss with Lindsay Schnebley the power of a name and the randomness of the world we live in and of course the business of working in voiceovers. Because while you might not know the Schnebley name, I guarantee you've heard the Schnebly voice. From ESPN to Animal Planet to CNBC to every other network in between, Lindsay Schnebley has been telling you what to watch, when to watch it, what to buy and where to buy it for many years. Because, Because Chuck and I make a living doing the same thing from time to time, our conversation was bound to take a turn in this direction. So, if you or anyone you know has ever wondered about a career in voiceover, listen up. And if you've ever wondered what's in a name, consider the true story of the Schneebelies and the town that might have been.

This is the way I heard it. The Millers just knew that Loring Johnson would be a perfect son-in-law. Bright, handsome, ambitious, and best of all, Methodist. So when Loring proposed to their oldest daughter, the Millers rejoiced, because they knew they were getting more than a son-in-law. They were getting a Johnson. T.C. Schnebley, on the other hand, was another story. Like Loring Johnson, Schnebley had fallen for one of the Miller girls.

But unlike Johnson, Schnebley was not the kind of son-in-law, Phil and Amanda, had in mind. You simply can't marry a Schnebley, said Amanda. He's a Presbyterian. Indeed, said Philip. What will the townspeople say? Turns out, the townspeople said quite a bit, and none of it was very nice. Philip Miller's getting 100 son-in-laws, they said. Loring is a one and Schnebly a double zero.

Nowadays, true love might be non-denominational, but back in 1901, the Methodists of Goren, Missouri, found themselves surrounded by encroaching Lutherans, Baptist, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians. So even though their daughter said, I do, the Millers said, we don't. And young Mr. Schnebley found himself at odds with his new in-laws. For nearly four years, he tried to win them over, but nothing could assuage their disappointment or temper their disdain. Ultimately, Amanda Miller shunned her own daughter, and the pain and strife became too much to bear. With two small children, the Schnebleys yearned for a more peaceful existence.

They dreamed of a quiet place, a place of solitude and beauty. But where? One day, T.C. received a letter from his brother, raving about a faraway place of unsurpassed tranquility. Ellsworth Schnebley was a frail man and required a climate that suited his weak constitution. Apparently, he'd found it in a lush, verdant canyon in the high desert, with clean air, and a fast-running mountain brook, surrounded by breathtaking beutes and monoliths.

The Schnebleys fled Gorin with all due speed. After connecting with Ellsworth, T.C. homesteaded 80, pristine acres, and quickly fell in love. There was something magnetic about the place, something magical about the way the canyon glowed in the evening sun. The Schnebleys built a stone house nestled in a grove of cottonwoods, tucked into the gentle bend of a winding creek. And that's not all they built.

You see, the Schnebleys believe that others would be equally enchanted by the strange beauty of their new surroundings. So T.C. built a 10-room way station in the middle of nowhere. His neighbors might have called him crazy, but T.C. didn't have any. So he built a road that ran all the way to Flagstaff. And sure enough, the people started to come. They came for dinner and stayed for the night, luxuriating in the tranquility. of the quiet canyon and marveling at the serenity. One day, it occurred to TC that his guests might extend their stay if they could send and receive

mail from his little bed and breakfast. So TC applied for a post office permit. After many weeks, TC got a response from Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. Schnebley, we're happy to help you set up a post office in your home, but regret to inform you that Schnebley Station is too large to find. fit in the cancellation stamp. Please select the shorter name for consideration. T.C. read

the letter to Ellsworth. His brother said, why not name the post office after your wife? T.C. turned to his wife and said, how would you like a post office named after you, dear? Mrs. Schnebley smiled, as T.C. wrote her first name into the space provided

and a few weeks later, the tiny desert community and the middle of nowhere had its very own post office, named after the wife of Theodore Carlton Schnebley, a young woman ostracized by her own mother and driven from her home by the kind of discord and strife that can only result from marrying a Presbyterian. It's ironic because the town that eventually grew up

around Schnebley's little bed and breakfast would adopt that very same name, a name now synonymous with tranquility, peace, and spiritual healing. It's enough to make you wonder, If the U.S. Post Office had used a smaller font back in 1902, would the people be traveling from all over the world to experience the strange and abiding peace of Schnebley Station? Or if the Millers had welcomed T.C. into their family all those years ago, would people today be talking about the mystical wonders of magnetic vortexes that still surround the Schnebly home? We'll never know for sure, because today those who seek enlightenment,

and the metaphysical glow of those now-famous red rocks do so in a town whose name was concocted by a mother who pulled six letters from thin air and gave them to a daughter she would ultimately disown. A daughter named Sedona. Oh, and one more thing. On the subject of irony, remember Loring Johnson, the perfect son-in-law who pleased the Millers with every word indeed? Yeah, he went to Leavenworth. The details. of his incarceration are inconsequential, but he died in custody, bringing great shame to Miller's, Methodists, and Johnson's everywhere. And that's the way I heard it. If this doesn't turn out to be the best sounding podcast in the history of the way I heard it, then I want to be horse whipped with a horse whip.

Lindsay, what kind of microphone is that? That would be your studio standard Senheiser 416 shotgun done, Mike. My God, you really bring it to life. And Chuck, you're relying on the old standby with my old pink windsock on it. Is that right? Yeah, I inherited that. I lost my black one, and I was at your place, and you had a drawer full of them. It looked like a drawer full of clown noses of various colors. And I said, which one can I have? And you said, oh, no, you can only have the pink one. How do you lose a windsock, by the way? I was mine in my own business. an unexpected breeze kicked up out of the north and my windsock is gone just like that.

Somebody just was in desperate need of a windsock. I have been doing this for almost 30 years and I think I have never lost a windscreen in my entire career. Like, right. I travel. Under what circumstances does one, does a windscreen go missing? Yeah.

All right. Funny, fellas. Let me just say, I take my microphone with me when I travel because I work on the road as well, right? And I don't. I actually got stopped at the TSA airport check in Tucson years ago with this microphone because they thought it was a silencer. And I had to explain what was going on.

And I said offhandedly, you know, it's funny. I didn't have any trouble flying in here at the TSA check. And they said, well, where did you fly from? L-A-X? Yeah, LAX. Right. Here in Tucson, we know our security, pal. Skip your little rinky dink L-A-X airport.

This is where the big boys play. I hope you explain to them. Look, it's not a silencer. It's a shotgun, and then everything was okay. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's a shotgun. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah.

All right, right this way, sir. We upgraded you to first. The point is, for the first time in the history of this podcast, everybody has a professional or a semi-professional. microphone, which we're using, and all of us. We'll see if the content matches the technology. No guarantees. But aside from the technology, you are also listening to, dare I say, three professional voiceover artists who are prepared to have a wide-ranging conversation, not only on the origin of the Schnebby name. But what I want to do with you, Lindsay,

today, if time permits, I want you to help me answer the question I've been getting every single day for the last 20 years, which is not, believe it or not, what's your dirtiest job? It's, I've been told I have a nice voice and I'd like to work in voiceovers. Where do I sign? Yeah, and I would say don't. Yeah, don't do it. I would say just don't do it. It's ridiculously competitive and it's gone through so much metamorphosis in the past five years

alone that I would say. Save yourself. Yeah, think about almost any other thing you want. to do than get into voiceover. And in all seriousness, the whole idea of you have an announcer voice, which used to be sort of one of the first things you needed, that is so, so done. Pass a say, yeah. If I read 40 pieces of copy a week from auditions, 38 of them will say non-announcery,

no announce. Casual. Sound like the guy next door. Throw it away. Yeah. street. My favorite cliche is like you're talking to your best friend over the back fence.

But what if your best friend over the back fence is an announcer? Right? What if you live next to Gary Olson? That would be pretty cool, wouldn't it? Hey, Frank, how are you this morning? I'm well. How are you? Thanks, and you? Not so bad, all things considered. Hey, how about those

O's? Quite a game last night, no. I'll tell you what. Real nail biter. All right. So, before we we peel the onion back on all things voiceover. You have the greatest name in the history of names. I only say it because it's true. Chuck, you'll verify this in passing. It was almost a parenthetical one day. I was having lunch, he said, with my friend Lindsay Schnebley. And the waiter came over and I said, hey, stop. Who? Who?

Lindsay Schnebley. How long have you been owner? It's a boy. Huh? Called Lindsay. Yeah. And The last name is Schnebley. Really? Schnebly. Huh. And ever since, I've been kind of interested in your name, your family, your career. And when you wrote the original draft of the story we just listened to, my friend, I was tickled as pink as the windsock on Chuck's microphone. Well, I'll tell you who else is fascinated by my name to the point where he refers to me as Lindsay effing Schnebly.

And that is a dear friend of a dear friend named Jimmy Kimmel, who's apparently just fascinated by my name. So I'm one handshake away from Jimmy. Who's the friend in between? My good friend John Elliott worked in radio. John effing Elliot, sure. John Effing Elliott, you've heard of him. It's a very convoluted story,

but I turned down a job in radio with John in Tucson to stay at Disney. And in doing so, John ended up moving to other partners who ultimately included Jimmy Kimmel. So my standing joke is Jimmy Kimmel stole my career. I should have my own ABC Late Night Show and Jimmy Stolen. Well, it's not a joke, man. Thief by stealing is the underlying theme in this entire... Of broadcasting in general, right?

Good God. Great Kinnear stole my career first. And then Craig Kilkener. Borg stole it, son of a bitch. And then John Stewart came along, robbed me of that job, and so forth and so on. But Way leads on to Way. And none of them are joining us today in this riveting free-form conversation. Well, let's focus on the positive. It's the three of us. They were not invited, and we were. Let's go back to your grandmother. Sedona, that reveal was the first story we did, I think, where the reveal was not necessarily a person,

although obviously it was, she was your grandmom. It was a town. Great grandmother. Your great grandmother. Great grandmother. So you probably never met her. I did not. Again, I am one handshake away from Jimmy Kimmel and Sedona Schnebly.

And maybe the only person in America who can say that now that I think about it. Clearly. Clearly. A sentence, I dare say, has never been uttered. No doubt. Sedona died in 1950, so I did not meet her. But my father and both of my aunts grew up with her in Sedona and had many stories and memories and have photos from childhood. And, you know, it's interesting.

We would go there as kids on summer vacation to Sedona, Arizona. But it was nothing like it has become now. As big, as commercial as... Trippy. Artistic, trippy. There was none of that vortex stuff swirling around at all when we were. we were going there as kids. It was a very different experience. Interesting. Chuck, have you been? I have not. Been to Phoenix quite a few times. My dad used to live there. Yeah. And aside from the fact

that those two towns are in the same state, there's absolutely nothing in common. Sedona is... I like the word Phoenix. So I just like to say it whenever I can. Like a career rising from the ashes. A couple of years ago, I was in Sedona with my sister, Lisa, and my dad, Larry. Larry is Sedona's grandson. We go for a hike one morning and we're hiking along Highway 89A and there's a giant tour bus going down and they're explaining the, you know, this is a location where such and such was filmed and they're passing by us by like 15 feet. And I said to my dad and sister, it would be so much more interesting if the tour bus driver knew that Sedona's grandson is over there in the gray sweats on that bridge rather than, you know, this film was made in 1923. It was an odd sort of,

if you guys only knew the history, you just drove by. Yeah. The other reason I love this story so much, first and foremost, I just love the idea that families going back a couple generations have this kind of inevitable nexus of, you know, crossings and ironies and coincidences and all. of those things that nobody's aware of when they're happening. But years later, Sedona was the first town I ever shot in when I began to impersonate a host in earnest after being fired. Yeah. Well, you know, I didn't really put the pieces together either until I read your story.

But when I was fired for the final time from QVC, I embarked on this sort of quest to, like, try and be this host in nonfiction. And the first show I worked on was called Romantic Escapes. And the first place we went was Sedona. And I didn't know it existed. I'd never heard of it. I wasn't sure where it was. I knew the rocks were red.

But everybody I met there was there to sit in the springs and experience the vortexes or the voreses or whatever they were. And I just thought, man, if the country is as weird as this, I'm going to have a fun career bouncing around. And it seems to be working out. It's a cool little town. And when was the last time you went? Well, are you sick of it yet?

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It would be a challenging place to live. And I've actually contemplated looking at retirement homes there, but am really so. by the amount of traffic that it has to deal with. The amount of time it can take you to get from one place to the other can be hours. And you say this as a guy who lives in Los Angeles. I was going to say, and having lived in Los Angeles for 30 years now, if you go to Sedona and bitch about the traffic, you know, things have got to be pretty bad.

Well, I wish I was back on the 101 in Los Angeles. Now, there's a free one. Yeah. Give me a Thomas guide where a man can stretch out and be free. If it's hard to live in Sedona today, though, what must that have been like for your great-grandmother. That's what I want to get at. Your people left, what was it, Missouri, back in the early 1900s.

Goren, Missouri. Could not have been easy. Goren, right. Yeah. The stories that my dad has and that other people tell about the first place that Sedona and T.C. lived, Sedona going down to Oak Creek to do laundry, to launder the bed sheets in a creek lined with red dirt. and lie and soap and managing to get the laundry the whitest my dad ever saw growing up in that

kind of environment is just amazing to me. The cliche of pioneer spirit and no running water, outhouses, electricity is a luxury, to think that it began like that and is what it is now full of resorts and pink Jeep tours and that it's become the place. that it has is really amazing because what they started with with 80 acres on that creek, which would now be worth so much money that if they'd kept it, I probably wouldn't be talking to the likes of you to. Not with that crappy microphone, you wouldn't. And my missing windscreen. It's amazing to me that they had that kind of land and eventually it all got, you know, sold off. But that it turned into what it did, that it started as something so simple as let's build a bed and

breakfast. Hey, if we get a post office, people will stay here longer. And the name, as you pointed out in the podcast, was completely made up when people say, you know, Sedona is actually anodes spelled backward, and it's all part of this conspiracy. It's kind of comical. I haven't heard that. Sedona is anodes spelled backwards. That's the real reason. It's the vortex. You know, it's aliens set the whole thing up eons ago. And it's... I got to have a conversation with my father's aunt. So I guess that would be my great aunt, Clara, who was the youngest of Sedona and T.C.'s six. I'm sorry, she was the fifth of the sixth kids.

This would have been in 1993, just a few years before she died. And I asked her, what do you think Sedona and T.C. would have thought about the town of Sedona becoming known as such a spiritual center. And she said, I think Sedona would have just laughed at all. because it was always a beautiful place. And as you described, the sunsets and the red rocks, it is a surreal place to this date when you drive into it to see that red rock starting to crop up is really amazing.

I said, would she have been angered by it? And she said, no, not at all. She would have found it kind of laughable. Now, T.C., Sedona's husband, would have argued with people who argued for the spiritual vortex, not because he disagreed, but T.C. really loved an argument.

He would just love to take the other side of an argument. So he would probably have bantered with these strangers for a couple of hours, not because he cared, but because he loved taking the opposite point of view. It was probably desperate to talk to somebody. Because there weren't a lot of people there when they incorporated in 1902. It was nothing. It was absolutely nothing. I think my favorite part in this story,

if I can throw my arm out of whack, pat myself on the back for a moment, because I just listened to it again. it kind of comes down to the font size that the post office was using. Yeah. Right? Had they gone with like a Helvetica 10 instead of a Times New Roman 12 or 14, Schnebley station made a very well fit. And people would be coming from all over the world to bask in the healing mystical powers of Schnebly town or whatever, which would have been amazing.

Certainly, Sedona is a much prettier name than Schnebley. I'd be the first to say that. It was apparently Schnebley Station and Oak Creek Crossing were both rejected because they didn't fit in the cancellation stamp. And so, as you said, as the story goes, Ellsworth says to his brother, T.C., what if you named it after your wife? T.C. turns to Sedona and says, how'd you like a post office named after you? She kind of laughs like, oh, you two. You two on your cancellation stamps and walks out. and a few weeks later, they get the certificate for the, you know, congratulations.

You now have a post office named Sedona. That's just so awesome. On the one hand, it's a little tiny thing. On the other hand, I don't know why it tickles me to learn about the way a town becomes a town. I mean, Baltimore probably has its own story, and so does Cleveland that walk it back far enough. But here you sit, a descendant of the reason, millions of people from around the world, not only go to Sedona lens, but like Machapitia for the same reasons, right? These magnetic vortexes and so forth, whatever.

I mean, but I hope T.C.'s laughing from beyond the grave along with his wife. I find the whole thing is terrible. It's pretty interesting. And like you could say, I guess, about any kind of faith or organized religion, if it works for you, God bless. If you feel a spiritual energy in the Red Rocks of Sedona, then I wish you only the best. I want you to enjoy it. And who knows? Maybe Sedona and T.C. reacted when they got there because there was something there that they both felt a sense of inner peace that they'd never felt before because indeed there is a spiritual energy there that occurs only a few places on Earth. Who am I to say? Yeah. Who am I to disagree either? At some point, you need to draw a line between the ephemeral, spiritual energies that may or may not impact an individual and say something like gravity, which is going to draw a line between the ephemeral, spiritual energies that may or may not impact an individual and say something like gravity, which is going to draw a line between.

to affect you whether you believe it or not. Yeah. And, right? Inertia, centripical force, these sorts of things, they don't care if you believe in them. But I'm always amazed by the places and the ideas that are contingent on your own. As you said, maybe it's faith, maybe it's hope. You know, maybe it's open-mindedness or maybe it's just mind-numbing naivete. We don't know, but it sure is fun to talk about in ways that gravity doesn't allow.

Yeah, it's a fascinating. It's a very unpredictable outcome. And considering that the relationship itself between T.C. and Sedona was so frowned upon back in Goren, Missouri, that Sedona married the loser. She's not nearly as attractive as her sister, Lily, who ends up, Lily. Johnson, was it? Miller ends up marrying Loring Johnson. And Lily and Loring are the king and queen of Goren. They're the magic couple who can do.

no wrong. They're gorgeous. And Sedona marries this schlub T.C. And after a left time, it's like, you know, this isn't really a very hospitable place. And Ellsworth, T.C.'s brother, sends word from Oak Creek Canyon saying, you guys got to get out here. This place is unbelievable. And they figure what the heck, it's got to be better than this. And they move out and fall in love with it. and T.C. built this road that is to this day called Schnebley Hill Road. It was the first road from Sedona to the highway that leads to Flagstaff. The construction of that road allows you now to get to Flagstaff in one day instead of four days and really becomes a lifeline and improves the quality of life in Sedona. People can get to and from Sedona much faster now. And, you know,

and 25% of the time. Do you think there's anything to the theory? And I say the theory as if this is an actual established theory. This is just my personal belief that a person's name can affirmatively impact the, I don't want to say destiny, because that's a very Sedona type thing to say, but trajectory, right? Like my name for roughly 24 hours was Zach and my mother changed. her mind and I became Mike. And I wonder if we'd be sitting here having this conversation had I spent

the last 50-some years as a Zach, or if you weren't a Schnebley, or if Chuck weren't a Klausmeier. What do our names ultimately do to our futures? And I wonder if there's some similar query regarding places. That's a really interesting point. I think that names are certainly... I do. I think so. Hey, it was interesting. And it was posed in a crisp, well-modulated baritone. I'll be it not into a Sennheiser 416. I've heard people say the most attractive sound in the world is your own name,

that you react to your own name in the way you react to nothing else. And so I think it could very well be that one's name subconsciously impacts the way you think about yourself. So, yeah, I'd never thought about that, but that might be on to something. say I worked for many years when I was at Disney with a guy named Scott Swan, and I always admired the fact that Scott could meet somebody and shake their hand and say, hi, Scott Swan, and they got his name. And then it's, hi, I'm Lindsay Schnebley. What? Right. Leslie Schnellp, Lindsay. Come again? Linz, Linz, Schnebly. What? Can I talk to, yeah, but what if you get saddled with a name like Buster Hyman? That's got to be just.

Rusty pipes certainly sticks. Although in my line of work, Rusty Pipes might have actually been better than Lindsay Schnebley. I actually met a plumber called Rusty Pipes. I believe it or not. I forget there's a word when your name really lines up, either to where you live or what you do.

There's some word for that. I've got a videographer friend whose name is Trent Cameron, K-A-M-R-M-A-N. No joke. Sometimes your name is destiny. Yeah, no choice. Yeah, his mom said once upon a time, Trent, honey, what do you want to be when you grow up? He said, take a wild freaking guess, mom. It's not a plumber. I'll tell you that much.

I was thinking maybe, I don't know, a cameraman. We can go with Shakespeare or Rose by any other name. Shirley Smell is sweet. We can go with Johnny Cash and ruminate on a boy named Sue. You go with Bernstein and do a little dance around the most beautiful sound I ever heard, Maria. So it's like the most beautiful sound I ever heard, Esmeralda, not going to work. A boy named Frank, that's not a song. That's just a guy named Frank.

So are you the person you are today? And I say this, neither as an insult or a compliment, just an observation, because you're a shnebly. And I'm just talking about the name, the sound of the name. Did it make you stronger than you otherwise might have been? Did it make you more dogged? Are you more, I don't know, defensive, argumentative? Did it have any impact at all your destination? I'm amazed that at this point in my life,

this is the first time anyone has ever asked me that question, that I've never thought about that. Well, you know, as a fake journalist, part of my job, Lins, is to come at the hard-hitting topics. It's a fantastic question, though. And you really do sell it, too. He does, doesn't it? I really believe you're interested.

That's all I have. I am. Okay. I still wonder if I should have changed when I moved out here just for professional purposes. I had been in broadcasting in radio and television in Arizona where my father and my sister were already on air, and so there was a certain familiarity with the name when I was there.

But in hindsight, I don't know. I'll probably never know if I should have changed it when I moved out here. I'm the same way. There were a lot of people who wanted me to change my name, casting people. You did briefly, didn't you? Well, yeah, I took Fred King's last name for. the first film that I did. Charles King.

Yeah, but ultimately I felt too bad for my dad. I was like, I can't not have. I mean, it's just... That's so interesting, yeah, I would have too. Yeah, but it's a mouthful, Klaus Meyer. It is. There's the whole business of the stage name. We've talked around that a lot,

and I think most people understand that a lot of famous people change their name, but I'm still stuck on the idea as a vacation destination, as a mystical place on the globe, where certain things are happening within the rocks that many people truly believe is transformational, does Sedona, Arizona still get the same traffic as Snebly Station? Like if Machu Picchu, you know, we're called...

Tallahassee. A burble flock. Tallahassee. I don't know. I really just, I just don't know. I don't know either, but I suspect that Schnebley Station would not be nearly the tourist destination today that Sedona, Arizona is. Yeah.

This is the point. This is why your story was so interesting to me because while I can't prove any of it, it seems reasonable to assume that Marion Morrison would have had much tougher time in the pictures than John Wayne. And that Schnebley Station might have been a tougher sell for the Tourism Bureau. Yeah. Yeah. Even Oak Creek Crossing has a rustic, I mean, there's a visual to that. Oh, sure.

It would probably be as popular as Sedona. Schnebly is not at all an attractive name. I got to tell you, man, from the minute I met you, when you first told me your name, I was like, damn, that is a mighty fine name. I like it. Dude. Well, I did too. Really? But not because it's inherently beautiful, because it's indisputably unique.

It is. I'll give you that. we're talking now because of your name honestly we certainly wouldn't have had a story to write about but for your name but the first time your name came up in a VO conversation with Chuck like I said I had to go back it was the name that made me say say what yeah before we go to more VO crap did I get anything wrong in the story and what did your family say about it when it dropped was this basically a good thing it's interesting because I remember actually as a kid, my dad getting a phone call or a letter from Paul Harvey's son when Paul Harvey was still

doing the rest of the story. And his son was, as I remember it, I think I'm remembering it right, his son was kind of writing and producing for his dad at that point and wanted to clarify some things. And I remember listening with my dad to Paul Harvey tell essentially the same story about how Sedona came to be. So, yeah, I mean, people. People listened, they liked it. You were pretty spot on. It's surprisingly cut and dried story with just the oddest twist, particularly at the very end when you consider that the golden boy ends up dying in Leavenworth, having Bilt TC out of,

you know, T.C.'s money back in Goring. They leave Sedona after the death of their daughter, Pearl. Life is just awful. And the doctor in Sedona, family friend, says to T.C., you either have to take Sedona. the woman back to Missouri or you're going to lose her because there's just too many bad, there's too much pain here at the loss of their daughter. They end up going back to Gorin and Loring says to T.C., hey, let's go into business together. I'm starting this menswear store.

They become business partners. And after, I want to say, three, four months, Loring leaves with all the money and bilks T.C. out of his life savings. And then ends up, you know, call it karma, call it what you wish, ends up dying in Leavenworth. Then they moved to Colorado and ultimately moved back to Sedona in the 30s where they lived for another 20 years and really enjoyed the last 20 years of their life in the town that they had helped to build. There's so many remarkable things you just hit me with. First of all, sidebar. What did Loring Johnson, was he in jail because he built T. Or did he do some other?

No, I should know that and I don't know. Something tells me that there is something to do with some kind of tax thing, maybe tax evasion. I'm not sure. That's how they always get you. Sounds like a typical Johnson thing to do. Yeah. Johnson and Capone. Methodists.

Typical. He was no Presbyterian. Speaking of that, when my wife and I got married, she calls, I don't remember who it was, maybe like a credit card company. Her maiden name was Johnson. Nancy Johnson. So she calls the credit card companies and says, I need to change my credit card. I'm getting married next month.

The woman says, what's your new last name going to be? And she says, Schnebly, there's just a pause. And the woman just says, oh, honey, I'm so sorry. Nancy said, yeah, yeah, I know. It's a package deal. I really love him. You better. Saddle myself with this odd name for the rest of my life.

Well, she chose wisely, obviously. Enough with all of this. The story was good. I've officially thank you for bringing it to our attention. Oh, I can't believe Paul Harvey Jr. reached out about this. Chuck, you buried the lead if you knew that. I didn't know.

I did not know that. Yeah. I don't remember you ever told me that. You know what? I don't remember if I brought it up or not. It's not an everyday conversation kind of thing. I feel like I would have remembered it. Well, the reason he would have remembered it, Linz, is because this whole podcast was inspired by Paul Harvey Sr.

This entire, the way I heard it thing was my take on the rest of the story. And when it wound up becoming a podcast and then a book, I was nervous because, well, I'd been talking a lot about Paul Harvey's impact on it. And one day we got this letter, this registered mail letter from Paul Harvey Jr. And you thought, here's a cease and desist. And I'm like, oh. Yeah. That's exactly what I thought.

I mean, don't open it. I said, send it back. You know, this is awful. Tell them I'm not here. The whole thing's going to come crashing down. Nobody here by that name. Send it to Schnebley. Let him deal with it.

But I opened it. And inside was a very generous check to the Microwworks Foundation with a nice letter saying, Honestly, it took my breath away. To hear from the man who wrote most of the stories that his dad related, that was some high cotton. And to sit here now and hear you tell me that this very story was something that Junior had bounced around. I can't tell you how many times these weird little serendipitous connections have happened in the course of these conversations. But damn, Chuck, that's another one. Aren't you glad you hired Chuck?

Yeah. Yeah, we're still trying to get Paul Harvey Jr. Technically, I didn't hire him. He's working off an old debt. And there's no real end in sight. Yeah, they did away with debtors prison. He got sentenced to 20 years of the way I heard it. Talk about hard time.

You must use a pink windscreen for the rest of your professional life. Good Lord. Which brings us back to the vocation, Lindsay. I seriously do want to pick your brain a little bit because we all do this. Chuck does this for a living and has for over 30 years. He teaches voiceover. You've been at it for at least as long. Me too, in my own way. Something tells me you were being serious earlier when somebody does ask you for advice. Do you seriously look them in the eye as I so often do and say, don't do this. Save yourself. Yeah, that's always my first reaction. If it's somebody that has, quit their job in Wichita, move to L.A., and they've already made some inroads. They're taking classes. They're working on a demo, things like that. They've clearly committed to it.

I'm not going to say, boy, I think that was a pretty stupid mistake. I would say, oh, you know, good for you. Yeah, it takes a lot of work. I think it's very similar. I mean, I know, as you guys both do, a number of actors and actresses. and I think universally one of the biggest fears of said actors and actresses is that their kids are going to want to follow in their footsteps, that they so frequently say, really, really, you don't want to do this for a living. It's a tough way to make a living.

And that's true. It's true. But clearly, some people have a passion for it and are willing to put in the work. And I think it comes down to a lot of work. and let's all be honest, I think there's a great element of luck at times in getting cast, sitting next to somebody at a bar or running into somebody in an elevator or at church or wherever. Or just being at the right stage in your life for a particular part that's going to set you up. I particularly think of that with people in their early teens and the parts that come along is on the waterfront.

Barland. Brando is 10, 15 years old. older when that movie is written. He's not playing that role. I do work frequently with a woman out here named Maurice Tobias. Her nickname is the voice whisperer. And she's a legend. I just did a working weekend workshop with her a few months ago. And there were maybe 12, 14 of us. It was like a Zoom thing. And one of the exercises she did was to give all of us the same piece of copy ahead of time and have us record it and send it to her engineer. So one of the first things she does in this weekend get together is to play back all 16 of our spots.

They're the exact same pieces of copy. It's 16 guys reading the exact same piece of copy. This sounds boastful and I don't mean it to be. You could have put any one of those guys reads on the air and it would have been perfect. They were all fantastic. They were all different, but they were fantastic. So at the end of this playback of the 16 MP3 files, she says, I wanted you guys to hear this because this is what casting directors and producers

are up against every single day. Imagine if they've sent this audition out to 50 people. They're now sitting, listening to 50 people. What gives you the advantage? And I often think of something that Chuck said to me years ago when he was talking about teaching voiceover, that your voice might be the most unbelievable piece of pineapple upside down cake in the world. But that particular day, that creative director or producer is just looking for a little dish of vanilla soft serve. That's all he wants. And I think of that frequently because I hear

listening so closely to spots on TV, on radio, online, frequently find myself thinking, why did they go with that person? Or hearing something and thinking, yeah, I can see why he got that job, why she got that job. That was an amazing piece of copy and they did a great job with it. Chuck, do you remember, want to get away?

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Of course. First of all, that could have been you. That could have been any of us. That could have been any of thousands of people who have paid their dues and know what they're doing. But it wasn't. It was that guy. What's his name? Do you know who did that one? I don't. I know his name. It was Doug Ballard who was you are now free to move about the country. And that now he lives in Ireland in a castle, I believe. I'm not kidding. That was essentially early retirement for him. because it was on every single Southwest commercial. The money just ticks up so it's like dead. Yeah, the residuals. It just keeps, you know, rolling over. But Lindsay, you said something very interesting about that. When I taught, I do the same thing. I have everybody read the same copy.

But what I do is I have them pick someone, you know, like I will talk to them. I taught for over 20 plus years and I've done this exercise every single time. I don't say, you know, well, is it Lindsay? Is it Mike? Is it Chuck? because it obviously would be chucked. I'd cast you, damn it. Obviously.

But obviously, thanks buddy. I think I come in third out of these voices, honestly. But let me just say that what? I would say to them, just tell me, is it a male or a female? You've got to pick somebody, is it a male or a female? And I would go around. And even in the classes when I only had one female or one male, and there were classes that went like that,

a class of like 15, 20 people, I still got different answers for that. Because I tell the story of the home base campaign that I had where six weeks in or however long it was and the producer says, hey, did I ever tell you how you got this job? No. And he says, yeah, we played the final callback CD for the client. He said, they're all pretty good. Just go with the first guy. And I happened to be the first guy.

Wow. Yeah. This is why we tell people, this is part of the reason I tell people, look, don't do this. The main reason is if you take my. advice and don't do it, well, then you never should have done it in the first place. Don't take my advice. You've got to want it badly enough to ignore advice from the likes of me. But secondly, you really and truly need to realize that unlike, say, a skilled trade, you can master this craft. You can become as good at it as you can possibly get, which is good enough to prosper for real. And you can

still fall flat on your face and you can still spend 30 years on your face, right? It's not fair or just. It's fun. If you get your kicks with a little bit of risk, it's great. But it's not a fair or just vocation if you look at it through the lens of if you work hard, show up early, stay late and take all the classes. Nobody's promising you a rose garden. And in this day and age, you have got to understand. I feel like it's harder for people, Lindsay, than it's ever been before to get their heads around the, dare I say, the inequity of that proposition. I couldn't agree more. It's one of the reasons it's that way is that there's such a proliferation of non-union work and increasingly larger and larger production companies being willing to go with non-union work.

I think that's made it difficult. Technology with a decent microphone and even a free app on your laptop and some bed sheets in a linen closet, you can turn out a pretty darn good sounding piece of audio. And the number of jobs that I know the three of us have done in hotel rooms under the bed spread or in the closet between jackets, puffy jackets, the things we have jury-rigged in order to do a session or an audition. Tell me your best one. Best one would be my buddy, actually, who's been on the show, Paul Penelino, in his previous apart. in the Upper West Side of New York. I was doing a session for CNBC.

There was a fair bit of outside noise, but I went into his coat closet and shut the door. And I was in between his New York Yankees jacket and my blue blazer holding my iPad and a flashlight and my Apogee mic. I did the session, emailed it to the client at CNBC, Lisa Thaler, fantastic producer. And she calls back 10 minutes later,

and she said, this sounds really good. Where are you? And I said, I'm on 69th in Columbus. I'm in the closet. In my friend's coat closet. Is everything okay? And she said, yeah, no offense, this sounds better than your home studio. So I've done auditions in the back of rental cars, numerous hotel rooms.

Cars are good. I actually, one odd story that only VO people could relate to a friend of mine who was at a convention in Las Vegas. built a giant pillow fort with the extra mattress of his, the queen-sized bed in his room, goes down to work out at the gym, comes back. His key won't get him into the room. He goes down to the front desk and the woman says, oh, security wants to talk to you. And the manager brings him over to the head of security who says, let's go up to your room. Housekeeping had gone into his room, seeing the mattress against the window,

and bed sheets piled up and thought, is this like a mass shooting waiting to happen? And he pulls out his bag of gear and explains, I do this for a living. And there are quite a few other Vio guys in the hotels, so you might want to be on the lookout for this kind of thing. Plus, I'm taking kidneys out of drifters and selling them on the black market.

I'd appreciate a little private. Don't bathtub, whatever you do. But only until I get there. Chuck, do you remember, I pulled you into the Ford business years ago. Remember, you had to, I guess you had to audition or prove yourself to somebody. Didn't Lindsay somehow help in this whole thing? Yes.

Let me just say that, first of all, Lindsay's and my former agent, my former agent, I think he's still Lindsay's agent. I was a request, right, for you. The copy came to the agent, and I went there thinking, they're supposed to lay me down to audition for it, but I walk in and everybody who's within 20 years age on either side of me is reading this copy. My agent had handed it out to everybody,

and I'm like, oh, I've got to set myself apart. So I called you and said, let me know the next time you're in a voiceover booth and we'll do a demo of these, Connect via ISTN. And I knew Lindsay had one, so I asked Lindsay. And I believe the payment for said demo was getting a picture. of the new signed. And I have both of them right here. And what I love about it is that my name is

misspelled by Mike on both of them. The first one says, Lindsay, thanks for the use of your shitty studio, Mike. And the second one says, Lindsay, your studio blows, Mike Roe. Yeah, yeah. At least he's consistent. But I saved them because I'm a huge Mike Roe fan. Even though he can't spell your name and he uses your family to sell advertising on his podcast. Now he's actually exploiting you as a guess. Oh my God, is there no end to what this guy will do? It's all full circle. Hakuna Makata.

Macuna Matata, whatever that is. Yeah. Oh, that's funny. It was at Lindsay's home studio. You were at one union and we laid down like three or four of the demos we did. It was that radio campaign for Ford, right? And it was obvious. For the only good parts and service presents.

And you know, I remember I was one of the guys that got that piece of copy earlier in the day. And so there I am four hours later watching Chuck in my house record with you via ISDN thinking, wow, it must be nice to know Mike Rowe. Well, yeah, crap. I guess I should have done that with everybody in the interest of fairness. But you know, Mike, going back for just a second to what you were saying about how hard this is. I remember I was at Disney in attractions in marketing and on a pretty good career track. Things were going well. It was a great job. I was actually had an office at Disneyland over Main Street,

over the Lincoln Theater. This is before your VO career. Correct. And then realizing that I was on track to probably, if I was lucky, continue moving up within the Disney company. but also being aware of a passion for voiceover. And I think I was maybe 41 at the time and really wanting to do voiceover. And just in bed one morning, staring at the ceiling and having this realization of, I would rather try voiceover and fail miserably than wake up at age 60 as a vice president somewhere in Disney thinking, I wonder if I could have made that VO thing work. And I remember calling my mom and dad and saying, I'm leaving Disney to try this.

And my dad was just despondent. And I didn't know this till later. He didn't tell me till later. He said, I just thought that was one of the most stupid decisions anyone ever made in their life. I thought, why on earth? You know, my mom and dad grew up in the Depression. Why would anybody leave a good paying job with a good company? which I get, but I am forever grateful as difficult as it has been at times.

I'm forever grateful that I took the chance. So when somebody says, I really want to do this, I certainly relate to if it's your passion and you're willing to put in the work, that passion is going to be your biggest asset without question. That is what I wanted to say about this, that the best thing that I've heard anybody say in terms of advice when asked that question that you first asked, Mike, is that if you can do anything else and be happy with your life, do it. Do it. The only reason to get into voiceover or acting in general, the arts, you know, nowadays, is if you just couldn't possibly do anything.

If you can't not do it, it's like writing. I think the first time I heard that was from a pretty famous writer who said, look, there's only one reason to write that being the abject failure on your part to do anything else at all. That's it. It's not enough to love it. It's not enough to want to do it. It's not even enough to be really good at it. It has to be something else, a compulsion, an affliction, a sickness. You said it earlier, Lindsay. It's a very different thing to talk to somebody who's crossing the Rubicon, burning the bridge behind them, and saying goodbye to the kind of job you described. But tell me, did you do that or did you put a toe in the water? Did you hedge your bets for a time? Or did you actually just walk away from that gig,

get an agent, and go straight into the maelstrom? It was kind of a mix. I continued to do freelance work at Disney and other studios doing electronic press kits. you know, behind the scenes, making of for movies and TV shows. And that in itself was a good business. It was lucrative and it was a lot of fun to do. But it allowed me to take classes, to work on demos, to finally get an offer from Animal Planet. I don't know if you've ever worked with Discovery, Mike.

I've heard good things. But that led to getting an offer from an agent and then things took off. from there. Did you know Don Lafonte? I certainly knew of him. I met him several times because in fact the studio where I was doing, this was before I had a home studio, the studio at which I was doing all of the Animal Planet sessions, which was probably three, four days a week, was one of Don's favorite studios to record in Hollywood. Davis Glick, now DGE. And he was a fantastic guy. I remember He was doing a session, I think, for TBS. It was maybe 15 minutes before my animal planet session.

So I was just sitting with Scott, the engineer, listening. And this producer at TBS wanted Don to sound more conversational, but keep the announce. And I thought, oh, my God. This is Don LaFontaine. How is he going to react to that? And because he was Don LaFontaine, he had the power to say, hey, buddy, Those are two different things. Which do you want?

The kid said, well, I guess we'll just go with what you already laid down. I thought, yeah, good decision. Everybody that I knew that worked with him just sung his praises. He was a fantastic human being. I actually auditioned him once. Did you really? You're kidding. Yes.

When I was working at the voicecaster, he came in for a thing for Hardee's. And it was, you know, the typical inner world where it was the Don LaFontaine Reed. You know, he was the prototype. They brought him in. And I was like, I mean, I'm like almost embarrassed to say, you know, it's like, oh, you're the prototype for this. I didn't give him any direction. I just hit record. He read it once.

It was flawless. It could have gone on air right from that. And I said, is there anything else you want to do? And he said, nope. And I go, I think we're good. He's like, yep, great. Good to see it. And that was it.

Smart man. Yeah, we're good. Yeah. A buddy of mine is. Go ahead, Mike. No, no, no, good. You're the guest. I'll be back here next week no matter what happens.

A good friend of mine, Jim Brady, owns a studio in Tucson, and Gene Hackman was shooting, I think, was it the Quick and the Dead with Sharon Stone? He was the voice of United Airlines at the time. United Airlines come fly the friendly skies. So this is pre-ISDN, pre-Internet. This is recording to what was called Dat. DAT, remember digital audio tape? And the agency is in New York. Gene is in Tucson shooting. They call Jim. Gene's manager, we have to have him record this today. Well, he's filming till 6 o'clock, but we could do it tonight. Gene Hackman shows up at Jim's studio, 7 o'clock at night. Town car pulls up. Hackman comes in, says, let's get this over with. This is phone patch days, so he's listening to a producer in New York in his headset. He gives the read one time. The kids may be 20, 24 years old. It says, that's great,

Mr. Hackman. Could we do it another time? And this time, could you? Hackman takes the note, does a second take. Kid says, that's great. Could we do one more? And this time, could you? Hackman does a third take. And the kid says, that was great. If we could do one more, and Hackman takes off his headphones and says, no, you got what you need.

puts his headphones down on the copystand, goes out, town car zooms off. And the kid producers talking to my buddy, the studio owner, Jim, saying, is Mr. Hackman still there? No, Mr. Hackman is left a building. You got three to work with. I think you're good. I've never done that. People need to understand. I mean, look, if this all sounds crazy to you guys listening,

you just have to put yourself in the place of a traditional VO actor who has spent a lifetime taking direction. And I don't want to overstep or sound ungrateful, but taking poor direction, taking direction from people who don't really understand what they want, but believe they'll know it when they hear it. Don LaFontaine, who we've been talking about, probably influenced more voiceover reads than anybody else. He's a big part of the reason why I'm in the business.

And I only met him once, but I brought him up, Lindsay, because like you, he was an executive over at Paramount, I think. Right. He was producing promos. This is the kind of randomness I'm talking about, folks. This is why this business is such a goat rodeo. because the greatest voiceover artist of recent memory was an executive. And the guy he booked to come up and read the trailer for Paramount, this is back in the very early 80s, I think, didn't show.

So Don did it. And he did it the way Don did it in a world, one man, and so forth. And just like that, right, like your career. He's done doing what he was doing, and now he's doing this. and suddenly thousands are imitating. And even more are listening and saying to themselves, yeah, I could do that. Yeah. And the truth is, you probably could.

You probably could, but it doesn't matter. That's the hell of it. You think the fact that you can do it qualifies you. And it does to a degree, but it guarantees you a hat full of rain. Nothing. I got a nice voice. People tell me I should do voiceover. It's kind of like saying, you know, I'm seven foot two. People tell me I should play basketball. It's like, okay. I should play pro ball. I mean, you could. You could, but it's no guarantee. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. And Chuck, to his credit, Mike, I don't even know if you're aware of this. Chuck actually continued to do work with an entity that I stopped working with years ago because I could no longer have. handle the direction that I was getting during sessions. When my agent called to book me, I just said, you know what?

I just can't do this anymore. I'm sorry. Wow. So, Chuck, you picked up the scraps. I love it. You know who it is. I don't want to say because I still work for them. So, yeah, let's not say.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My buddy Paul Penelino likes to say, guys, we're not making the Godfather when they're doing production and the audio guys saying, could we go back? I think I could tweak those two frames and make that a little bit. Guys, we're not making the Godfather. We're fine.

This is Rip and Read. This will be on a satellite in 30 minutes. Let's get this done. And that mentality of we're making the Godfather when you're doing a promo for whomever where the line that you're being asked to do over and over is now available on iTunes. Yeah. You know, let's spend 15 minutes on that line. It's like, no, no.

But this is the thing, Lindsay. Look, Chuck and I fight about this all of the time because, well, because we both care deeply about what we do in different ways. And so what happens is Paul is right. The collective we are not making the godfather, but the individuals are. And this is why ultimately I wound up at discovery. This is why I wound up in nonfiction on a show like Dirty Jobs because on that show, I was able to eliminate the second take because it was up to me. And I was able to tell my director of photography and my audio guy and the field producer, all of whom I love, I was able to say to them,

guys, we're not making the Godfather. We're just following the action. And so anything that isn't take to is a performance. I don't want a performance. I want to somehow capture this. It doesn't have to be great. But it only works if everybody's on the same page. So on any given day, you know, Chuck might see something in this podcast that's not 100% right. And he's making the Godfather in that moment. And I'm not, right? So I've got a very modest organization filled with people who are very smart, who understand that collectively we're not making the Godfather, but individually, God help me. They're all Francis Ford Coppola, every one of them. And they're making the Godfather. Yeah, yeah. Good on you. Good on you. God help me. Well put.

So what's next? Your website, I'm trying to find a way to offer some shameless pluggery, but you are that v.O. guy.com. And this is how you're, I mean, you're not just paying the bills. This is how I'm paying the bills. I'm grateful to God. Grateful to God for the work. My wife, previously known as Nancy Johnson, does the same thing for a living. We're which our financial advisor, when we first started working with him years ago, said, I got to tell you this is a really stupid arrangement, that you are both in the same line of work that is so precarious. I don't see how this could possibly work.

Let's put all the key executives on their same plane. Everybody on. It's going to be fine. Yeah. So nanmachnamara.com. There's my shameless plug for my wife. We actually have gotten to the point where we have now not one but two studios with ISDN and Source Connect in the house, which when I first contemplated it thought, that's sort of like saying, hey, I know we've got one kitchen. I'm thinking of putting in a second kitchen in the house.

In case we both want to let him know you're serious. Right? In case you want to come. I'm going to add a second pool. A second built-in pool next to the pool in the backyard. But the number of times that we have ended up doing auditions or sessions simultaneously is remarkable to me. And I'm grateful to be able to do that. It's really a blessing. Well, I'm happy for you because, as you might recall, that first shitty studio kind of blew. That was Chuck's Reed, I would remind you. The audio quality itself was fine. It was excellent. Truly excellent. With your permission, I think I want to call this episode, we're not making the Godfather. And with that in mind, we can probably land the plane here safely. Let me just say, thank you. Thank you for being a

Schnebly. Thank you for sharing the history of your family with us and allowing me to do it here on the podcast and for suggesting one of my favorite episodes and for hanging out for an hour, saying whatever it was you've been saying in that distinctive yet credible, crisp, well-modulated baritone. Non-announcering. But not too casual. Not too casual. Like you're talking to Chuck and Mike over the back fence. Yeah, except Chuck and Mike are really famous now. and in love with the sound of their own voices. Yeah, like he's, talk to me like the world is wrapped in a pink wind sock. And then I think we'll be on to something.

Light with a little weight, up with a little down, in with a little out. Yeah. Yeah. Hired with a little fired. Shave off six seconds, but don't sound faster. That's great. Lindsay Schnebly, the name says it all. that v.O guy.com. Thank you, brother. Thank you, gentlemen. Be well. If you've ever wondered what

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