When you look at hiring today, do you ever sit back and think, hey, we saw one problem back then, but somehow created a whole new set of problems? What do you see when you look at the system today?

You know.

It's a hard question because I started working as a technical recruiter in the kind of 80s and then owned an ad agency that specialized in human resource communications.

And I did help wanted advertising, traditional print help wanted, got very familiar with that and work with some of the biggest employers in the New England area, both in biotech and in health care and high tech areas.

and then had the opportunity to see this new innovation, the internet starting to evolve.

And right at the dawn of the World Wide Web, I actually was trying to build a bulletin board system and ended up building a website, the 454th.com. And so at the beginning of this process, everything was sort of like it is right now in 2026, where you have AI coming in.

It's a scattered, exciting, anxiety-provoking marketplace.

Is that, is that what we're seeing?

Jeff, paint a picture for us that describes what we would see, say, tonight if we were going to visit your show at Country Tonight.

Well, Rudy, I'll tell you what.

It's a fast-moving show, and there's never a dull moment.

Over the years, I've always thought if I can have a show where nobody looks at their watch during the show, it grabs your attention.

And once you're seated, it's a rollercoaster ride because we have... traditional country, new country, singing gospel, and a huge patriotic finale.

And if you look at the entertainer spaces on our stage, you can tell that there is no place that they would rather be at that moment than performing on our stage.

and then the holiday shows are apparently big stuff right

yeah we um we have our christmas show and what we do typically is we'll open up about the first part of november we'll open up november 3rd with our christmas season show and um what we do it's kind of unusual but Sometimes Christmas, if you're sitting in a two-hour Christmas show, that can be a bit long.

Your thoughts?

Well, yes.

So I saw what you wrote and it was so eloquent and so well-worded.

I thought, I don't usually repost, you know, like a lot of political commentary kinds of things on my state Senate Facebook page.

I usually reserve that to either, you know, kind of feel good things of what I'm doing with my family or out with my dog or something like that.

Or in my role as a Senator, if I'm meeting with different groups of people and things like that.

So I wasn't going to repost it, but I felt compelled to do something other than just a thumbs up on your post because it was so good.

Just I'll hold your response to

Okay, okay.

That was the other thing too.

She grew up in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina.

And she was one of eight.

So if there's eight siblings, you know, there's only a certain amount of food.

She grew up in Grassy Creek, North Carolina, which we as a family would go back to pretty much every summer, usually around 4th of July.

And that's where I got to meet her family, which was Aunt Iona and Uncle Bill were at a farm and that's where we stayed.

Avoid awkward moments like this.

the elephant still

in exhibit? The elephant is in the barn.

So Tony cleans out the pool real good.

So all these guys in the three wheelers go zipping over to the pool.

They're all out there.

They got to get ready to go in.

And I said to Joe, I said, Joe, I don't know, man.

Tell us more about that.

and the tech did not implode by the way uh

no we actually we built for it uh we had very good tech uh and uh so decided to go in the super bowl it's really interesting it's the only uh show of the entire year where people say the game is on and then people say the ads are on it's it's really the only show that you watch the ads and we'll come back to this but you want to laugh And so you don't know when to pee when you're watching the Super Bowl.

It's really what it comes down to.

And so the thing for me was, okay, we have to do an ad, and I want to be there.

What I completely underestimated was we probably got $10 million worth of coverage because we were a first.com that was going on the Super Bowl.

Yeah.

And so even before the game, I probably already paid for it.

What are your thoughts around that? Especially getting into the space in building as a startup.