CRABBY: Former St. Paul Mayor And Senator Norm Coleman Joins Kenny And Jay To Discuss Cheating Death

Summary

Garage Logic (Gamut Podcast Network) - CRABBY: Former St. Paul Mayor And Senator Norm Coleman Joins Kenny And Jay To Discuss Cheating Death
Date: December 4, 2025

---

Episode Overview

In this compelling episode of Garage Logic's "CRABBY" podcast, hosts Kenny Olson and Jay Kolls welcome former St. Paul Mayor and U.S. Senator Norm Coleman to share his profound journey of surviving cancer, staring down death, and facing life’s curveballs with resilience, humor, and gratitude. The conversation covers not only Coleman's multiple cancer battles, but also a harrowing boating accident, reflections on mortality, and tales from his days revitalizing St. Paul. The tone is candid, warm, occasionally irreverent, and frequently uplifting—a conversation between old friends about survival, gratitude, and the importance of community.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Norm Coleman’s Cancer Journey

• Initial Diagnosis (02:29–06:18)

  • Coleman recounts his diagnosis in September 2015 after persistent throat irritation, leading to the discovery of tonsil cancer that had spread to lymph nodes (stage four).
  • Quote: “I come back, and it’s a cancer in my tonsil area… They say, ‘Yeah, you have cancer in your tonsil, but it is now also traveled to the lymph nodes in your neck.’” — Norm Coleman [03:22]
  • He credits Mayo Clinic’s innovative protocols and team for early treatments that focused on reducing the side effects of chemo and radiation.

• Recurrence and Escalation (06:18–11:38)

  • Cancer returned in his lungs and then recurred a third time; each round involved more intensive treatments, surgeries, and eventually, partial lung removal.
  • Quote: “Third time’s not a charm.” — Coleman jokes [06:20]
  • Throughout, Coleman highlights the importance of reconnecting with friends and colleagues during his regular treatments. He describes these relationships as a “blessing” that emerged from his illness.

• Immunotherapy and a Miraculous Turn (11:04–17:33)

  • After multiple treatments, immunotherapy becomes available—nearly just in time for his specific cancer type.
  • With regular PET scans, another suspicious growth appears at the original site; doctors finally tell him there’s no further curative option, suggesting palliative care.
  • Quote: “They said we can’t do anything more. Go to the cabin and get ready to die, essentially.” — Coleman, recalling his doctors’ advice [12:57]
  • Days later, after a Yom Kippur of prayer and missed calls from Mayo, he learns the new growth is a rare benign tumor, not cancer—a true medical and spiritual miracle.
  • Quote: “If Mayo says you're going to die a week before and then come back the day after you’ve been praying... and then you find out you got a two in a million benign... this time.” — Norm Coleman [16:00]

2. Reflections on Facing Death

• Processing the ‘Death Sentence’ (18:03–23:19)

  • Jay and Kenny ask Norm to unpack his mindset when told to “get ready to die.”
  • Coleman describes deep reflection, practical considerations about family, and overwhelming gratitude rather than fear or self-pity.
  • Quote: “It wasn’t, oh, woe is me. This is so terrible. What am I going to do?... It was, wow...what a blessing—look at my whole life.” — Coleman [19:43]
  • He notes a profound shift: the initial diagnosis in 2015 was met with shock and fear, but years later he found peace and thankfulness for all he’d experienced.
  • Quote: “When I first found out, it was woe is me, I’m gonna die. I was in tears. And 10 years later: no, not at all.” — Norm Coleman [21:44]

• Discussion on Readiness for Death (22:02–27:23)

  • The group discusses what it means to be “ready” to die—both Kenny and Jay reflect on their own heart scares.
  • Living with daily gratitude and a new perspective, Norm says, “Every day, I start every day with gratitude. And so…this whole process has kind of brought me to a point of greater gratitude rather than greater…fear or greater anger.” [22:43]
  • Jay echoes how his own near-fatal heart attack mellowed him: “I’m much calmer… I’m so thankful for everything that’s in front of me… it just brings you to a whole other level of almost relaxation.” [26:39]

3. Brush With Death: The Boating Accident

• Detailed Account of the Lake Ada Incident (29:13–33:59)
  • Kenny prompts Norm to tell the story of almost drowning when another fishing boat rammed his on a nearly empty lake.
  • A sequence of one-in-a-million quirks—his back fish finder not working, his sitting at the bow—meant he could dive clear as the other boat struck. The automatic life jacket saved him.
  • Quote: “If my fish finder’s working that day, I’m dead.… But for whatever reason, God put me in the front of the boat.” — Coleman [32:34]
  • The group riffs about being rescued by “Republicans” on the lake, in typical Garage Logic fashion.

4. Coleman’s Mayoral Legacy & Revitalizing St. Paul

• On the XL Energy Center (36:39–38:33)
  • Jay recalls covering the building and expansion of the arena.
  • Coleman explains how it revitalized downtown, calls it the “sun” around which commerce and life revolved, and expresses optimism for St. Paul’s future—even with a mayor from the other party.
  • Quote: “It was like the sun and everything, all the planets that go around it... It’s critically important to the lifeblood of the capital city.” — Coleman [37:08]

5. Personal Reflections, Humor, and Camaraderie

• The episode is shot through with friendly ribbing, laughter, and nostalgia—from shaving heads after chemo to joking about political signs in northern Minnesota.
• The hosts underscore how rare and special it is to engage so openly with a U.S. Senator about “real life.”

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On gratitude and survival:
  “Every day I wake up and I am thankful, God, for giving me this day and then move on from there.” — Norm Coleman [02:29]

• On being told to prepare to die:
  “Go to the cabin and get ready to die, essentially, yeah. Is that right?” — Jay, summing up [12:49]
  “That’s what… they said we can’t do anything more.” — Coleman [12:57]

• On spiritual timing and miracles:
  “Monday is Yom Kippur... On that day, I turn off my electronics... Next morning, Mayo says... what you have this time is not squamous cell cancer... It’s a two in a million benign growth.” — Coleman [14:36 to 15:58]

• On acceptance and perspective:
  “My whole life...that period of seven days...of great reflection, but of great gratitude.” — Coleman [19:43]
  “When I first found out, it was woe is me, I’m gonna die.... 10 years later, no, not at all.” — Norm Coleman [21:44]

• On the boating accident:
  “If my fish finder is working that day, I’m dead.” — Norm Coleman [32:34]

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:29 — Norm recalls first cancer diagnosis
• 06:18 — Recurrence and treatment escalation
• 11:04 — Immunotherapy & the “furrowed brow” moment
• 12:57 — Doctors’ ‘palliative care’ verdict
• 15:14 — Yom Kippur, missed calls, and prayer
• 15:44 — Rare benign tumor revealed
• 18:34 — Reflections on mortality and gratitude
• 22:09 — Are you ready to die now?
• 29:13 — Boating accident story
• 36:39 — Revitalizing St. Paul & XL Energy Center

---

Tone & Style

• Conversational, candid, peppered with humor and humility.
• Strong themes of faith, resilience, gratitude, and friendship.
• Relatable stories of life-threatening moments, laced with the irreverence and warmth typical of Garage Logic.

---

Useful for New Listeners

This episode is a deeply human conversation about survival, perspective, and gratitude. Whether you tune in for Norm Coleman’s unlikely second (and third) chance at life, Minnesota history, or simply the camaraderie of three “old guys” swapping war stories about cheating death, the message is clear: every day is a gift.

---

Closing Thoughts

“It's fun being alive, isn't it?” — Kenny [38:59]

Norm Coleman’s story is not just about beating cancer or surviving a freak boating accident—it’s a testament to resilience, the power of medical innovation, the value of deep friendships, and the importance of finding humor and gratitude even at the edge of the unknown.

Transcript

[Norm Coleman]

Hey, Garage Logic fans. I do a podcast on the Garage Logic Network that comes out every Wednesday and Friday, now twice a week. But here's an important caveat. There is zero logic available in my show. In the formal definition of logic, of course, life is a yin and yang kind of thing. There's the logic side and then there's the what the hell side, which needs to get its exercise. So come for the what the hell and stay for the. You've got to be kidding me. Mishki. Now, Wednesdays and Fridays, twice a week.

[Kenny]

That's cool.

Coles. Yeah, Google can be cruel. When I search J. Coles on. On Google, the, the little section called people also search for. Yeah, the first thing that said is J. Cole's spouse. Oh, when you search for Kenny Olson on Google, yeah, you get who is the rookie on Garage Logic. When you search Norm Coleman.

People also search for is Norm Coleman still alive? Which is just cruel. That is not nice.

[Jay]

You know what? They, you know, on the Google, they would. So many. Kenny would wish I were dead. Is J. Coles dead? We're hoping. Trust me on that one. Yeah, it's a little bit different. And our guest, we're so lucky to have him, is Senator Norm Coleman, also former mayor of Salt Lake, or excuse me, Salt Lake is where I used to live. Former mayor of St. Paul. My apologies. And part of the reason. Kenny, I told you I wanted to talk. I had a conversation with Norm a while ago about his cancer diagnosis and overcoming it, beating it. And I don't want to give away too much of the story until we let Norm tell it. So, Norm, thanks for joining us. We do appreciate it. Happy Thanksgiving and happy Holidays and all that good stuff. And as you said to me, you're happy that you're. How are you doing? You tell people, how am I doing? I'm vertical, vertical, vertical. Well, take us back because I remember when you were diagnosed with cancer and I was guessing 10, 11, 12 years ago somewhere in there, and you said about a decade. What was the original diagnosis? Because later you were pretty much told this was the end and you weren't going to live much longer. And here you are 10 years later. What was the first diagnosis?

[Norm Coleman]

Well, first, Jay, it's great to be with you, Kenny. Great to be with you. And it's this Thanksgiving time of year. I'm somebody that gives thanks and I mean this sincerely, each and every day. Each and every day that I wake up and I am thankful, God, for giving me this day and then move on from there. And so I go back September 2015 for a couple weeks. I have, like, a scratch in my throat, a little dry, but one week, don't do anything. Two weeks, One month, Two months. And I finally go to my doctor and can you tell me kind of what this little kind of thing in my throat is? And she looks and says, hey, listen, I think you got to go get this checked out. I go get it checked out, and I come back, and it's a cancer in my tonsil area.

[Jay]

Wow.

[Norm Coleman]

That's originally okay and great. Dr.

Kazm. Fabulous doc. And she says, let's, you know, let's have Mayo check this out. So I go down to Mayo, and they say, yeah, you have cancer in your tonsil, but it is now also traveled to the lymph nodes in your neck.

[Robbie]

Okay?

[Norm Coleman]

So that's what they call stage four. It's gone from primary to secondary. But the good news is. It's a long story here, Jay. The good News is, yeah, Dr. Mod comes into me when he kind of checks. He says. He calls me senator. Senator. If you're going to have cancer, this is the kind to have, he said, because 97% of times we can cure this. It's not unusual. Throat cancer in men is caused by a virus. It happens. But they had a program at Mayo that it was chemo, radiation, and surgery, and they were actually doing a new protocol that they put me on where they were, because this is so curable. It was kind of a less the dosage of radiation and less the dosage of chemo with the surgery and, you know, go from there. And instead of, by the way, doing the radiation on both sides of your throat, which, by the way, causes you to lose saliva, which means you always have to go something to keep your throat moist. They did it on one side. Fabulous. And I have the chemo. I do. Excuse me. I do the surgery, do the radiation, do the chemo, and life is what it is, and I move on. And about a year, maybe a year and a half later, all of a sudden, it has come back. Okay. But it has come back in my lungs.

[Jay]

Wow.

[Norm Coleman]

So, I mean, docs away. 95. I've always been in the top 10% of whatever I do, so.

Top 10%. Yeah. There we go. I didn't want to be in this top 10%.

So. Okay, but. But by the way, it is. It is throat cancer, right? In. In. In.

[Kenny]

In.

[Norm Coleman]

In the lungs. So it's not lung cancer. So. So what happens is when cancer travels from one portion of your body and metastasizes into another portion is still the same original squamous cell cancer that, you know, is susceptible, they say, to treatment and to radiation. Okay, so then I undergo another round of treatment and radiation. And in fact, after the. After the radiation first round, excuse me, the chemo, the doc says, you know, we're going to do radiation just to kill it. We think we just want to kill this thing for good. Hallelujah. I'm all. And a little extra dose of radiation. I'll handle that. You know, that's a gift to 10 years down the road. You have to deal with the impact of it. But right then, I can handle it. And so go on my merry way. And I'm trying to remember time frames here, but let's say a year or two later, it comes back again in the same place.

[Jay]

Third time.

[Norm Coleman]

Third time's not a charm.

[Jay]

No.

[Norm Coleman]

So now we're going to do another kind of chemo, another reading. And they say, you know something, let's cut out the lung, the area where it has come back. And perhaps if it hasn't spread further than that, we'll see what happens here. So I go through another round. Chemo, radiation. You can only do so much radiation. By the way. There are limitations. And they cut out what they call lower lobectomy. They cut out. So I don't. And my doc said, by the way, unless you're an Olympic athlete, it's not going to impact your ability to swim and sports and do some other things. So, you know, you'll be able to handle this. And by the way, surgery at Mayo is just stunning. They literally coat through the rib. I mean, it's not like opening up your chest. I mean, right through you, there's like a little incision. I was up practicing my putting, like the day after the surgery because the doc told me to move. You got to be moving. So I'm moving. But that's. That's the nature of, you know, by the way, the beauty of Mayo. And I'm the huge fan. We are blessed in Minnesota to have the Mayo Clinic and my magnificent team of doctors there. Dr. Price, by the way, my doctors were. Dr. Price is my doctor for the chemo. Dr. Price, her husband was the surgeon. And so I had a husband and wife's team. Good St. Paul people, by the way. Wonderful folks. And they really took great.

[Jay]

So thanks. Sorry to interrupt you, but as much of as scary as all time, you know, you have three comes back three times. That's scary. And it's tough what you're going through. At this point, you're still feeling pretty good about it, right?

[Norm Coleman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, listen. And going down and doing chemo trips to Maggie. In fact, one of the things that I did is I had the radiation. I had friends drive me. I had people schedule. So Tim Poland, he drove me one time. Some of my staff members drove me, and it gave me a chance to reconnect with a lot of people. So in spite of, you know, I'm going down for chemo. I'm going down for. And by the way, every three months, I'm doing what they call PET scan, the kind of scanning to see what's, you know, what's happening. But really, there are a lot of, you know, to the audience, there are a lot of blessings in going through, you know, things like this. And I had the blessing of reconnecting with, you know, former staffers. Pam Wheelock, who was my invite. My director in city of St. Paul did the weill deal. She was in economic development, my chief of staff. I mean, these are like great people. I was able to reconnect with folks over the last 20 years that I worked with as mayor of St. Paul, as United States Senator, you know, relatives and others. It was really. It was not a. It was challenging just in terms. I got to drive down to Mayo on a regular basis for six weeks to do chemo. But. And I got to deal with the impact, you know, of chemo. My son Jake gets married and, you know, dad's bald. He's walking. He's walking down the aisle, you know, and he's got.

[Jay]

You've never had a hair problem.

[Norm Coleman]

You know, and I have never. God has.

[Kenny]

Bless me.

[Jay]

I have never had a hair problem.

[Norm Coleman]

Okay.

But, but, but I was. Yeah, I was like a cue ball there. Whatever. There you go. Yeah, Jay is flashing his shiny.

[Jay]

In any case. Sorry.

[Norm Coleman]

So. So now we kind of wrote down the road, okay, I'm a half lung less. You know, I've gone through mounts of chemo radiation, but I'm still working. I. I don't know if I missed many days of work. I mean, I would go and. And do the. The mayo, the chemo stuff in the morning to work in the afternoon. And they also then put me on immunotherapy, which was once. And I got to remember the time period, maybe every couple weeks, three weeks. But I could do immunotherapy when I was in Washington because I'm still working in D.C. four days a week. I have a place in Naples. In the winter, we go down there. I could do it there. I could do it in Minneapolis if I. St. Paul, if I was there, or I'd go down to Mayo. So I'm on this immunotherapy program. And it's interesting because literally, I got put on it maybe a week or two after they authorized it for the use for my kind of cancer. So this is all kind of new stuff.

[Kenny]

Oh, wow.

[Norm Coleman]

That's happening here, right? It wasn't the. Vicky Trudeau was not available to my lung, excuse me, my throat cancer, squamous cell, HPV plus, whatever kind of cancer, until maybe a week or two before they put me on it. And they usually put it on it to, like, to kill the tumor. In my case, it was, we're going to try something different, almost prophylactic, because now they think we've got it out, we've cut it out, we've done the chemo, radiation. Let's put it on and see what happens.

[Kenny]

Okay?

[Norm Coleman]

And I'm on it for a year, I'm on it for two years, and then all of a sudden, I go back and I'm getting these PET scans every three months. And by the way, you know, for those of you folks who have gone through the cancer program and they go through the PET scan where they kind of scan your body and see if there's anything, any activity there. You know, the docs come in. If they come in the room with a furrow on their brow, you're screwed.

[Jay]

I've been there with friends and family.

[Kenny]

Yeah, the long face.

[Norm Coleman]

Right. If there's any. And my docs would come in, literally, they'd open the door with a smile, typically. Okay. And I know. Okay. But this time, they came in with the. With the furrow brown. And they had seen it come back again in the exact same place where they had been twice before, where they had cut out, where the lung had been removed. And, you know, then we had a serious conversation.

Which my, you know, docs literally said, we think we should do palliative. Now, what that means is we can't do anything more for you.

[Jay]

Wow.

[Norm Coleman]

We can make you comfortable. Oh, you might. You know, you could go up to the lake.

[Jay]

That's what you told me.

[Norm Coleman]

And because we don't think it keeps coming back, and. And we could do another round of chemo radiation, but we don't think it's. It hasn't worked. You know, all these times, it keeps coming back. And my wife says I was. I grew up in Brooklyn. You know, we learned the Alphabet is F and A, F and B. F and C, I say, whatever my wife. Okay, we want another option.

[Jay]

And I mean, what you said to me on the phone, Norm, was you said, jay, I was told, go to the cabin and get ready to die. Essentially, yeah. Is that right?

[Norm Coleman]

Well, that's what. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They said we can't do anything more. And, you know, it's not worth doing more chemo, more radiation. Putting your body through that. You've already kind of had your limit of radiation. And so that was a Monday, by the way. And timing is important here. They say, well, you know, let's do a biopsy. And because we're doing some things in gene therapy that maybe will allow us to figure out the DNA of your cancer and maybe we could do something targeted to that. We'll just shot in the dark.

[Kenny]

Interesting.

[Norm Coleman]

Okay, I'm into plan B. Yeah. So this is Monday. We're going to start the now route. We said we're doing chemo and radiation. We're coming back. We're not check it. We're not going up to the lake. We're not doing palliative. We're going to go back. Even whatever it is, we're going to fight this thing. And we were supposed to start. That was Monday. A week from Wednesday would be when we were going to start the chemo radiation. But they said on Friday. Come in on Friday. We'll do a biopsy, we'll figure out, see what the DNA is before we start that last, last round of chemo radiation. Monday is Yom Kippur. Okay? Yom Kippur in the Jewish faith is the holiest day of the year. It is at a period starting 10 days before that is the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah. We believe over that period of time, you're supposed to pray. And we believe God writes your name in the book of life on that Monday. On that day, Yom Kippur. So you fast. I'm not the best Jew in the world. You know, it's like, you know, Catholics who go to, you know, church on Christmas and Easter or whatever.

[Jay]

Well, you know, Pat Rice, he calls them.

Chesters. Chesters Christmas.

[Norm Coleman]

They say, God, they keep playing the same music again and again. Right. In any case, on that day, though, I do fast. And that day I turn off my electronics. And that day I, you know, say my prayers and reflect and, you know, pray to God to write my name in the book of life and to pray for a lot of things in that day. I missed the, I don't know, maybe five calls from Mayo that day. Okay. Now, by the way, my wife is a very serious Catholic. She's more. She says she's practicing. She sure practices a lot. I have to tell you.

[Kenny]

They need practice. Yeah, yeah.

[Norm Coleman]

It doesn't miss a day of obligation. Whatever. You know, she had started her novena a while ago, so she's doing novenas. You know, I'm praying on Yom Kippur. I missed the calls from Mayo. Five calls. The very next morning, 8 o', clock, I called Mayo back right away. They call me Senator. Senator, we have to tell you that what you have this time is not squamous cell cancer in that space. We don't know what it is. Two days later, I get.

What is it? It's a, I think a two in a million none. What's the word? Benign. A benign growth, right? Not cancer. Two in a million people have this.

[Kenny]

Oh, hallelujah.

[Norm Coleman]

In the exact same place where the cancer had always been, in the ex. Place it had come back before. And I always tell people, David Ben Gurion was the first prime minister of Israel. He said, anybody who doesn't believe in miracles is not a realist. If Mayo says in the convention you're going to die a week before and then come back the day after, you've been praying to the good Lord, write your name in the book of life and your wife doing in the Venus, and then you find out you've got a two in a million, you know, benign, non cancerous. This is this time.

[Jay]

It's an incredible story. That's an incredible story.

[Norm Coleman]

And it's real.

[Kenny]

It is.

[Norm Coleman]

This is exactly how it happened. And you know, I go in and see my docs, we were doing the immunotherapy and I've still been on that. And I literally had a conversation with my docs after that saying you thought I was going to die. And they said, yeah. And by the way, with the immunotherapy issue, they were saying, you know, we've seen it maybe shrink cancer in 25% of the time, but for you, apparently it's gone now since that time. Now that was over maybe four years. That was a number of years ago. I have a blood for a while. I did, I did the PET scans every three months and now I do a blood scan. Because they said the last time I was there, they said, you know, you don't have to come back. We like to do long term studies. We'd like you to come back. And so I'm now part of a long term study. I get a Blood test every three months to see if it's a new thing, to see if there's tumor DNA in my blood. And that test has come back consistently negative.

[Kenny]

Nice.

[Norm Coleman]

And so here. Here I am. It's now been 10 years, I think five years since the, you know, since the death sentence, you know, and, you know, lots of prayers and. And good fortune and. And I'm here. And so all those listeners, you know, out there, there is hope. You know, Mayo does wonderful things. God does wonderful things. But I consider myself a walking miracle, and I'm thankful every day for it.

[Jay]

It's an incredible story. What's it like? I don't know, Kenny. Any of us have sat around and thought, at some point, I wonder what it'd be like if somebody told me I had a month to live, three months to live. You know what I mean? When you're told that at that moment, this is it, go to the cabin, get ready to basically die. How do you process that whole thing? What goes through your mind? Can you shut your mind off? I can't even imagine what that's like. Senator?

[Norm Coleman]

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, first, obviously, is in that week, from the time I had that conversation till the time I found out that it's. I mean, every day I thought, this is okay, so what are you going to do? And there's some practical stuff. You think about kids, family, as my wife know, you know, everything lined up for her kind of things. A lot of. A lot of reflection.

I don't know if anything this experience has given me magnified in a way that it's hard to express verbally, but just this deep appreciation for all the gifts that I've had, for all the joys that I've had, for all that I've been able to do. I've had a blessed life. I've, you know, 35 years of public service, United States senator, this mayor of St. Paul, Father, Grandfather. I know, married 45 years. God is. God has been so good to me and my family. So, at least for me, I went through a period of. A lot of reflection, of appreciation, saying, gosh, you know, it was not, oh, I'm going to mope. And.

I wasn't in that place. I don't know why. I'm just telling you, you know, what went through my head. It wasn't, oh, woe is, it was, wow, you know, if this is. I got. Do I have any regrets? Do I have any complaints? You know, how. Look, what a blessing like, I've had all these My whole life. And I could give you. Jane, I could give you a million stories where literally a door shut and a window to open, you know, on the political side, things that. That if it weren't, I mean, there's no way I should have been in that place. There's no way that should have happened. Right. And then all of a sudden, it just happened. So I've led a life where I have been blessed by things that I couldn't explain, but the right thing happened at that time that would otherwise have not have given me the gift that I received. And so for me, that period of seven days of thinking these are your time is short. A period of great reflection, but of great gratitude.

[Jay]

Were you afraid to die?

[Norm Coleman]

That's a great question. No, you know, because I don't think. I wasn't fearful. It's hard to explain. You know, your other listeners have been through this. I'd love to kind of. Kind of, you know, get hear what they have to say. But it wasn't an, oh, woe is me. This is so terrible. What am I going to do? I have to tell you. Let me step back. When I first found out I had cancer, that was my reaction. Okay. I was afraid to die. Going back 2015 when I came in and told my wife, when I found out cancer, I thought at that point it was woe is me. I'm going to die. I haven't taken care of my family. I haven't done the things that I need to do to set them up so that they're going to. That was 2015. But in 2021, 22. Okay. It wasn't that. It was, gosh, I'm really pretty. I've been blessed. Thank you, God, for all the blessings. Take care of. It was more that than anything else, which is. I hadn't thought about that, Kenny. But when I first found out, it was woe is me. I'm gonna die. I was in tears. And 10 years later, no, not at all.

[Kenny]

I'll take it further then. Are you ready to die now?

[Norm Coleman]

First of all, I don't want to die.

[Kenny]

No, no, no, no. But are you mentally in the right place where. Because I've had heart issues, and ever since then, I'm ready to die. And every day I wake up, I always say it's fun to wake up. I love waking up alive. But I'm also, if it's time, I'm ready. Yep.

[Norm Coleman]

Yeah. And that's when I said grateful. I mean, I'm very serious. I really am grateful. I wake Up. I say a prayer every morning. Thank you, God. Thanks for the blessing.

[Kenny]

Yeah, it's fun to wake up alive.

[Norm Coleman]

Yeah. You know, thank you. Well, you know, please watch over my family, watch over my wife, watch over my kids, and I always watch over my grandkids. You know, give me wisdom, Lord. Help me to be a better servant, a better husband, a better father, a better brother, a better leader. And. And so every day, I start every day with gratitude. And so, you know, whatever happens, happens. But. But I, I. This whole process has kind of brought me to a point of greater gratitude rather than greater, you know, fear or greater anger or greater whatever. I'm past the. The anger and denial stage. That was a long time ago.

[Jay]

I can relate. Kenny can relate because I had a heart attack in June of 2024. Just what is that?

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay]

A little over a year ago, I had a heart attack.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay]

And I. I had.

[Norm Coleman]

Yeah.

[Jay]

And I. I smoked two cigarettes on the way to the hospital, not even knowing I was having a heart attack.

[Kenny]

I thought I was having a panic attack when I was driving myself to the hospital.

[Jay]

I don't know what the hell it was. That's all I knew was it hurt, you know, And I was driving with one hand on the wheel, smoking a cigarette, going, I hope this pain would go away. Didn't work so fast, guys.

[Kenny]

Jay, do you have stance?

[Jay]

I have five, four stance. And I was going to share that story with you guys.

[Kenny]

Oh, I only have three.

[Jay]

Dang. I got four. Well, so. Because I can relate, the reason I wanted to ask him, were you afraid to die? And your follow up is great. Are you ready to die? Because once it started to get a little intense with my. My heart attack, I could tell the doctors were getting nervous. Norm.

[Kenny]

Yeah, that's.

[Norm Coleman]

Yeah.

[Jay]

When they couldn't fly me out, they needed to life flight me. And there was a thunderstorm coming, and they went from smiling. We got it under control. We're going to get you to Duluth because I live an hour and a half north now in the woods. All of a sudden, they got very, very nervous. We got to get you in an ambulance. We got to get you a code three lights and sirens. And I was like.

I wonder if I could die between now and then. This is more serious than I thought. And I had to have this. I was a little fearful of dying in that moment, but now, not so much. Partly because, Kenny, you'll relate to this. I wake up in the middle of my heart surgery. I woke up. The anesthesia keeps you just below. Doesn't knock you all the way out.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay]

And I didn't know I was. Woke up on the operating table, and I just said, guys, I'm in such incredible pain. Something is wrong. Like, I shouldn't be waking up in the middle of my heart surgery. Right? And they're like, oh, Jay, you're doing great. Just, you know, keep breathing. Keep. I was like, well, I'm. I intend to keep breathing. Thanks for the heads up. And turns out, doctor comes, sees me and sees me in the recovery room. He says, you had a rough day. This surgery should have. For four stents. Should have taken an hour and a half, took three hours. Oh, the lower stent was. The stent was so low in my heart, guys, that they were having a trouble getting it in there. So what they did was he was talking in medical terms, but as an old reporter, I was kind of deciphering. It was like one of Norm's press conferences. What's he really saying?

Kidding, of course, but. So he said, yeah, I said, so. It sounds like to me, if I'm hearing you correctly, you shut off one of my main arteries to get that last stent in. He goes, that's exactly what we did. We had to shut off one of your main arteries. I said, so you induced a heart attack on the table. And that's when I woke up. I woke up when they were inducing the heart attack. And it brings me full circle to what Norm has said, what you have said. I'm so calm now, Norm, that nothing, almost literally nothing, bothers me anymore. And if there is a crisis in front of me, I'm not thinking about the worst anymore. I'm thinking, oh, we're gonna get through this. It'll be all right. I don't have the same level of concern. Does that make any sense?

[Kenny]

Yeah, it mellows you out.

[Jay]

Mellows you right out.

[Kenny]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jay]

And I don't know if that's the same for you, Norm, or not, but I'm much calmer.

[Norm Coleman]

No, no.

[Jay]

And I'm very appreciative of everything I got in front of me. I'm so thankful for everything that's in front of me that nothing, hardly anything makes me angry at all. I'm appreciative. I'm more thankful for whatever time I get with my kids or interviews like this. It just brings you to a whole nother level of almost relaxation. And I'm okay with dying now, whereas before, I was a little afraid of it. Now after. Not that I was told to go to the cabin and Die like you. But it was, you know, touch and go a little bit, and all of a sudden I'm a different person. Do you consider yourself a different person now, Senator?

[Norm Coleman]

Again, I compared where I was when I first got a diagnosis and the anger and the fear, the anxiety.

Yeah, fear was probably the best word to describe. And then, you know, where I was now, where I am now, which was just totally, totally different. And where I was, Kenny, that week of, you know, when they say you're going to die and all of a sudden they say you're not going to die. And the world. But that week was not one. It was not one spent in tears. It was not one, you know, sackcloth and ashes. It was one spent in reflection of joy and gratitude. And, you know, some do I have things kind of figured out. There's a practical side that you have to go through. You know, start getting things in order. But always. Yeah, just a different. A whole different approach to death, not to life. A whole different approach to death.

[Jay]

100%.

[Kenny]

100% fantastic.

[Jay]

Good stuff. And that's holiday season, too.

[Kenny]

Do you have. Norm, do you have time for one? Yeah, one quick story. All the, all this personal stuff I know from you comes from Joe and Jennifer Suceray, opposite sides of the political, political aisle. They live in the same house and they've told me wonderful stories about you. But I saw something when I was researching you from Minnesota Public Radio. And like Joe would say, reporting is not what it used to be. I want to hear the story behind this. It says last month Coleman said a life jacket saved him from drowning when another fishing boat rammed his on a northern Minnesota lake, forcing him to jump overboard. What in the world? I want to know more.

[Norm Coleman]

Okay. So again, you know, we keep coming back to faith here. Okay. Does God's hand is that involved? So listen to this one. It's the early part of the season going out on the lake. It's 8 in the morning. It's a little chilly because it's early. It must have been shortly after, you know, Memorial Day. Shortly after. Shortly after. Fishing opener.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Norm Coleman]

Yeah. And so I'm out and I got my jacket on because it's cold. It was Lake Ada, Northern Minnesota, about 270 miles north of Twin Cities. My family, my wife's family has been there literally her whole life. We've been going up. We've married 45 years, but I've been going up there. Well, you know, 40, 40 something, 45 years. And so I'm out on the lake and it's Empty. And, and I get into my little, at that point, Alumacraft 16 footer, right? And I have a little fish finder in the back and I have a little trolling motor in the front and a little fish finder up there. Never use, ever, ever, ever use. Okay. I get in the back of my boat and, and I think I may have got a 50 horsepower or something, Yamaha something back, I can move it. But I'm sitting in the back and, and I go to put my fish finder on and, and it's not working. So. Gosh. So I head out to the lake, get in the middle lake, it's empty. And because my fish finder isn't working, I have to go up to the bow, up to the front where I have a fish finder, right? And I'm just fishing off the front of the boat. All of a sudden again, quiet early morning before 8am around, I hear an engine sound, okay. And I see a boat probably, I don't know, maybe 40, 50ft. I'm looking right at it. It's coming right at me. I see a guy standing in his boat standing up and he's got two kids on his side. He was obviously kind of undoing a fishing line. His, his boat is coming at me. Okay, now if I was in the, coming right to the side, right?

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Norm Coleman]

If I was in the back of the, and as it's coming, I'm watching it come, watching it come, watching it. And at first I yell, I yell, but, and he looks at, doesn't matter. It hits the side as it hits. This is like Tom Cruise, Mission impossible. Literally, as his boat hits my side, I jump over towards it like, like right where it was coming from, a little over to the side, hits my boat, boom. Goes over, boom. And, and I pop in the water. I had on one of those life jackets that, that, that inflate if they hit the water, right?

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Norm Coleman]

So I hadn't checked that thing for years. I've had that. Thank God. Remember I got boots on, a winter jacket. I, I, it, I, I get my head in the water and the first thing I say is what? And I realized, by the way, then I see two kids, I see kids in the water. So I know, okay. Oh yeah, kids got, and I, and I help them, you know, we get the kids in the boat, the guy. Now, now here's the story. I literally, I watched it come and I watched it boom, boom, boom. And as it hit my boat, I dove over. I dove right.

[Kenny]

Wow.

[Norm Coleman]

If I'd been in the Back of the boat. If my fishing, if my, if my fish finder had been working, I'm in the back of the boat, right? I can't jump to my right because he's coming in that direction. I can't jump to my left because he hits the boat and pushes it.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Norm Coleman]

I can't go over the back because I got the engine there. I'm dead.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[Norm Coleman]

If my fish finder is not, my fish finder is working that day. I'm dead. Wow. And yet, for whatever reason, never before my fish finder didn't work. God put me in the front of the boat. The only, first of all, one in a million to get hit by. In the middle of a thousand acre lake to be hit by another boat. But on the other hand, one in a million to say, if that fish finder is working and I'm sitting where I normally sit, I'm a dead man.

[Kenny]

You're dead.

[Norm Coleman]

Okay, so I didn't know. So you tell me, do I believe. Are you asking? Have I had in my life? And by the way, the guy was the nicest guy. He was. He was an army chaplain at Arlington Cemetery. Oh, you were his parents? His parents. His parents have a place up there. It was the first day on the lake. There was no one on the lake. He was just untying line for his kids. It was purely, you know, whatever. But again, literally, if I was in, if I was where I would normally have been, there's no way that I would have. I would have been crushed my engine afterwards, I looked at it. Other boats came out at that point, got me out of the water. They towed my boat back, but that whole back of my boat where I was sitting, I was crushed. And I would have had no, I had no, no exit anywhere else other than sitting in the front of the bow, you know, on a raised chair, being able to catapult myself off the boat as he hit my boat.

[Jay]

So.

I had heard the story, but not all that detail about how close you came to death. Literally. So my only question is, when the other boats arrived, did they realize who it was and were you thankful they were all Republicans in the other boats.

If it had been Democrats, he might not have got out of the water.

[Norm Coleman]

Democrats, they would have left me in the water.

Republicans up there. So they pulled me out.

[Jay]

That's what I'm saying. You were up in the red. You were up in the red counties. Yeah. Democrats would have said, oh, it's Coleman.

[Norm Coleman]

Minnesota. I was, was fine. I tell you, my northern Minnesota during the First Trump election. We're driving around and trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. And you know that part of the signs everywhere. And when my wife and I driving, all of a sudden we saw a Hillary sign way down. And I got to take. So we drove all the way around, you know, whatever. And then he comes and the sign said, in prison, Hillary. That was the only Hillary. Oh.

[Kenny]

Oh, that's hurtful. Poor thing.

[Norm Coleman]

That's hilarious.

Right, Lake?

[Jay]

You were on the. Right.

That's funny.

[Kenny]

Well, it's been a real pleasure, Norm.

[Jay]

Yeah. I got one little quick funny thing that goes way back with when he was mayor, Kenny.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay]

And I was full of piss and vinegar in my 30s in the investigative unit. He was an up and coming guy as a St. Paul mayor. And I can't remember what it was, Norm, I shared this with you on the phone. We had a good laugh about it. I don't think you remembered it. You had a news conference. Can't remember what it was about. But I had to ask you something that I was working on as an investigative reporter at the time. So it was off topic, as we would say in a news conference. Right. And you handled it fine. And I can't remember what I was pressing you about. Would you come walking by me after the news conference? And you shook my hand and smiled at me. You go, you always got an angle, don't you, Jay? You always got an angle.

[Norm Coleman]

Yeah.

[Kenny]

Always normal. Always, always.

[Norm Coleman]

By the way. By the way, Jay, you always had an angle.

[Jay]

And you were right. I couldn't argue. I just laughed and went, yeah, you're right. Sorry, Mayor.

[Kenny]

It affects his friends, too, Norm. It's all of us.

[Jay]

It was nothing personal, just doing my job. But thanks so much. I wish we had a little more time with you, because I did want to talk about how you brought the wild and the XL Energy center, which is now Hinckley Grand Casino Center. What do we call it now, by the way?

[Norm Coleman]

They're winning now. Okay, let's speak kindly of the Wild. They're winning now.

[Kenny]

How about that goalie?

[Jay]

The goalie's been on his head the.

[Norm Coleman]

Wall of St. Paul.

[Jay]

But I did a story with you back for television when.

[Norm Coleman]

I think I.

[Jay]

Broke the story that they were looking at expanding it. That's what it was. And I talked to you and I talked to Governor Carlson about what? I've got old footage of you, what it took to get that arena and how close it came to not happening. And if that had not happened, Senator, and if this expansion doesn't happen, that cannot be good for St. Paul. Downtown's already struggling. How important was that project, and how important is this next project?

[Norm Coleman]

They are really important. They're important for the vitality of a city. That project was about a lot of things, by the way. It was also about hope in St. Paul. We went through some tough times to go back when I first got elected mayor. But more than that, it kind of really revitalized downtown. Revitals, an area that was dying. Unfortunately, the city has not done well in the past number of years. By the way, I'm very excited about the new mayor. I'll say it publicly, she's not my party, whatever. But I am hopeful for her. I think she understands the importance of bringing economic development, growth. People used to ask Jay, mayor, what are you doing for kids today? I'd say the best thing I do for a kid today is make sure mom and dad has an opportunity for job job. That means it's got to be safe. Okay. It's got to be affordable. It's got to have a government that works with you, not against you. And we did those things, but the XL was kind of the center of that. It was like the sun and everything, all the planets that go around it, and I think it still is, and so I hope they figure out a way to kind of keep it going. It's now 25 years old. I got to drop a puck opening night 25 years ago in October. So 25 years old. It's still a magnificent arena. It's critically important to the lifeblood of the capital city. And I wish the new mayor all my best for her success, and hopefully that will be a part of her success. But I'm real optimistic. I'm real hopeful, and I think better days for St. Paul are yet to come. Kenny, give my best to Sush, please.

[Kenny]

Yeah, I will.

I'm supposed to say hi.

[Norm Coleman]

Yeah. Okay, well, say hi right back. Tell him I really deeply appreciate all the wisdom that he brings to the table.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Norm Coleman]

On so many. So many important issues. Gentlemen, thank you.

[Jay]

Don't puff them up too much. And I'm so lucky. Kenny, my favorite part of this is we got three old guys here who can all say they stared death in the face in one.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Norm Coleman]

Yeah.

[Kenny]

It's fun being alive, isn't it?

[Norm Coleman]

It's fun.

Every day. Senator, thank you so very much.

[Jay]

Thanks.

[Kenny]

Thank you.

[Norm Coleman]

Take care, gentlemen.

[Jay]

Yeah, take care. All right. Talk to you later.

[Kenny]

Jay, let's take a quick break and come back. I have some issues with you we need to talk about.

[Jay]

Course Everybody does.

[Robbie]

All right.

We'Ll get to some national, international stuff in a minute. Before we do, I gotta tell you about something. Boy, I just. I love it. We've had it in my house now for, I think about three months, and it makes a great Christmas gift. You might be one of those people. You put off your Christmas shopping to the last minute, end up maybe buying a gift card. Well, this year I can take care of that issue for you. Get yourself an aura frame. My wife and I took our favorite photos and videos, loaded them all into the new Aura frame. Right now, that's about 750 items. And I guarantee we're gonna have a lot of new pictures to add once this Christmas season is over. And it's really, really easy to use.

[Kenny]

John, can you download them from your phone?

[Robbie]

Just from your phone? Exactly. So I have. I had all those pictures on my phone. I got the Aura frame and I just started hitting boom, boom, boom.

[Jay]

After.

[Robbie]

All you have to do is download the Aura app and connect it to WI Fi and start adding pictures. It's really easy to use. Chris, if I may use your favorite word. It literally took just a couple of minutes to set it up.

[Jay]

I know someone that just recently purchased this and that person is so thrilled and really thinks that that person has. Has cheated Christmas because it's such a wonderful gift that there's. There's no more worry.

[Norm Coleman]

I've taken care of it.

[Jay]

Yes. I didn't name you, but okay.

[Robbie]

The other thing is it's, you know, we've all had picture frames in the past and they're kind of weird. Cloudy, not great. This is. It looks like the actual photos in front of you. The screen is gorgeous. It's perfect. It's easy to do. For a limited time, you can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get 35 bucks off of Aura's business Best selling Carver mat frames named number one by wire cutter. All you have to do is use the promo code GL at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code GL. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast. So order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. You can wrap togetherness, but you can't frame it. Aura frames.

For a limited time, you can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get 35 bucks off of Aura's best selling Carver mat frames named number one by wire cutter. All you have to do is use the promo code GL at checkout. That's a U R A frames dot com. Promo code gl. This deal is exclusive to listeners, and frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. You can wrap togetherness, but you can't frame it. Aura frames.

[Norm Coleman]

Hey.

[Kenny]

Okay, Are we clear?

[Jay]

We clear? We are clear.

[Robbie]

We're clear.

[Kenny]

That was good.

[Jay]

Yeah, it was great. I could tell he was really. He really wanted to tell the story.

[Kenny]

Yeah, both stories. I didn't think the boating thing was going to be as awesome as it was.

[Jay]

No good idea.

[Kenny]

He's really good at storytelling.

[Jay]

Yes. And you could tell he wanted to tell when you started to mention. I'm like, oh, I remember that. That's right. He wasn't some kind of a boat thing. But I didn't know all that great detail that he gave us.

[Norm Coleman]

So. Good.

[Jay]

Good on you for finding that and remembering it, because I'd forgotten about it. But I vaguely remember it because it got coverage, obviously, because it was a senator.

[Kenny]

Yeah, But.

[Jay]

But, yeah.

[Kenny]

So, Robbie, do you have our closing music? It's 30 seconds into the open music. It's just a bed.

[Jay]

Are you gonna ask me something on the air? Is that what you're talking about?

[Norm Coleman]

Yeah.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay]

Okay. He. He asked if.

[Kenny]

If.

[Jay]

If I have the closing music, which is 30 seconds into the bed. So it's not this. It's what? Yeah. I thought it was a fun interview. Good interview.

I mean, it's just something you don't hear a senator talk about often.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay]

Real life. You know what I mean?

[Norm Coleman]

Yep.

[Kenny]

Yep.

So.

Yeah, unless you want me to.

[Jay]

Take a break, it's all good.

[Kenny]

And then you'll be. Robbie, you'll be able to tell when we're wrapping it up and bring it up so we can hear it. So we know we have 30 seconds before the vocals start again.

[Jay]

No problem at all. Excuse me.

[Kenny]

All right. You still rolling?

[Jay]

Oh, hang on. Nope. Standby and rolling. All right, rolling.

[Kenny]

Jay, that was fun.

[Jay]

It was great.

[Kenny]

I've been. You know, I talked to you about you joining this show, I think three years ago. Yeah. If not longer. And that was the first thing you said when we started spitballing and talking about guests. And you told me that his story. And I had not heard this. I didn't know anything about it. And I've been bringing this up on Crabby for the last couple of years. I told Amy Daniels about it. I know I told John Haidt and Dawn about it. And so I've been looking forward to that last interview we just did for years.

[Jay]

Same here. I couldn't figure out a way to do it on tv.

[Kenny]

Yeah, it really paid off. Oh yeah, that was a lot of fun.

[Jay]

And you know how often, like I said to you earlier, how often do you get to sit down with a US Senator and just talk openly about life.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay]

Things other than politics of the day and you know.

[Kenny]

Right.

[Jay]

And, and great thing about Norm that I learned over the years getting to know him and covering him is when the camera was off and you could BS with him a little bit. He opened up. Then we'd talk about life and kids and this.

[Kenny]

That's what I noticed when I've met him at the fair. You know, he'd stop by and talk to Joe for 10 minutes.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[Kenny]

And he'd always hang out in the back room before he'd go out. And you realize he's just a normal dude. I mean, he's highly motivated.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[Kenny]

But he really did care and still does care about Minnesota and St. Paul.

[Jay]

You know, when you, when you see pictures of him back in his college days, he was a long haired hippie, wasn't he?

[Kenny]

A roadie. He was a roadie for. I can't remember the band, but such. Talks about it all the time. Like Three Dog Night or one of those 70s bands.

[Jay]

It was a 70s band. He was a roadie. He truly was. You know, parted down the middle. The peace sign, T shirts.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay]

He was a long haired hippie freak is what he was.

[Kenny]

He says we learned the Alphabet. F and A, F and B, F and C. That's so funny. I've never heard that.

[Jay]

He's a really. He's an interesting guy. And at 76, he's still working full time out in D.C. as a lobbyist. And, and I told you this too when I called him the second time to reschedule. No, the first time because we couldn't do it last week because of the weather.

[Kenny]

Well, we're going to get to that in a second.

[Jay]

Yeah, but he. I mean, how many guests do you get to call and say, hey, can you join us? Here's what we'd like to talk about. Chair. Jay, Let me check my schedule. You know what our schedule's like, yours and mine, right?

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay]

Wide open hardware store.

[Kenny]

Wide open. Yeah. I need to buy some minnows. Yeah, My bait's dead.

[Jay]

Bowel movement number two, whatever. Right. We've got that.

[Kenny]

Write that in 20 minutes. There.

[Jay]

I mean, that's our deal, right?

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay]

And he's kind of talking out loud. Well, I've got this at 9, I've got this congressional meeting. And then, oh, shoot, okay. At 11, I've got the White House at 11. I'm thinking, I haven't interrupted him on the phone. I go, you might be the only person I will call in my life and say, can you do something next week? And their response is, well, I got something at the White House.

[Kenny]

Isn't that. Let me ask you something. Isn't that weird? I've looked through my address and my contacts before, and I see some of these names in my contacts, and I'm like, what the hell am I doing with this person's phone number? I mean, this is a cherished private number.

[Jay]

Why do I have it, Kenny? I've done it all my life, and I don't understand why I have any of them. I have three former governors. I've got former senators, current senators, federal source. And I'm like, you. I'm like, why in the world do they want to talk to this goofball from Racine, son of a steelworker who doesn't have a brain? But it's crazy, because they're all interesting people, but for the most part, once you get to know them away from what they do, like you just said, they're about as regular as they come. And I've always had a fun time with Senator Coleman, more off camera than on, because on camera, wheels had to be serious. And this, that, and the other. And he was the one who offered up Kenny when we were. He and I were. I interviewed him about something. It might have been in the wild, going for the expansion. And that was the first time I heard him say I thought he'd had the cancer diagnosis and just beat it through radiation. I didn't know. He was told, go up to the cabin and die. I didn't know that. And I said, man, would you ever want to talk about that? And he, as you could see, more than be more than willing to talk about it. So I'd loved it. That was a great interview.

[Kenny]

Yeah. And right before we went on, we started at 3. You said, he's got 30 minutes.

[Jay]

He gave us 40, didn't he?

[Kenny]

3, 28. I'm like, God, I got to get this question in. And there's so many other things I want to ask them, and I want to tell them. I wanted to tell them the way to get serviced really quick in an emergency room is because both of you and I drove ourselves in, right? I walked in, and they look up, and I pointed to my heart and I said, I think I'm having a heart attack. And before I knew it, I was on the table, and there was a swarm. I've never been. I've walked into the emergency room with blood gushing out of my arm, and they say, take a seat, loser. We'll get to you in about two hours. But when you point to your heart and go, eh, boy, they serve you quick, quickly, front of the line.

[Jay]

And you know what? I never thought about that, but you're 100% right, because I finished the second heater pulling into the driveway, and I walked in, and they go, what's your deal? And I told him my symptoms.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay]

As soon as I told him my symptoms, Nurse Ratched started yelling at me, you go sit down now. Wheelchair came out. And I had two physicians and two nurses.

[Kenny]

It's Jay. It's almost like they get off on it. Oh, yeah, they get off on saving lives. Can you imagine that?

[Jay]

No.

[Kenny]

What a bunch of weirdos.

[Jay]

Because I'm only worried about mine, not theirs.

[Norm Coleman]

So.

[Jay]

Okay, I'm with you 100 on that.

[Norm Coleman]

If you.

[Jay]

If you just go in there and point to your chest, you'll get. You'll get. You'll cut to the front of the line.

[Kenny]

Folks, I want you to do all of us a favor. Now, at this point, I want you to open up the front of your pants, and I want you to look down there and tell me if you have man parts. Are you smooth down there?

What happened last week?

[Jay]

I have to tell you what happened last week. Apparently, I'm smooth.

[Kenny]

According to you, you don't have a snow plow, a snow blower, or a chainsaw.

[Jay]

I have. You know what I have? A Briggs and Stratton snow shovel.

[Norm Coleman]

What? Oh, yeah.

[Kenny]

Is that one of those sweeper things?

[Jay]

It's like a J. It's fantastic. It takes care of all my decks that I need. I got two decks that I deal with. Listen, listen. You want me driving around with a pickup with a blade on the front?

[Kenny]

Yeah. I want you to act. You have to be responsible. Act like a man and get to your job. It doesn't matter how far away you live.

[Jay]

Get there. Says the guy who dazzled studio.

[Kenny]

It's 100 yards. 100 yards from my house, and I drive that commute every day.

[Jay]

Can I say something disingenuous?

[Norm Coleman]

Ass.

[Jay]

Okay.

And I. I. Look out, Kenny. Look, you heard Senator Coleman. It's all about jobs. Yeah. Wimpy is my guy. Wimpy comes and plows.

[Kenny]

What's Wimpy's real name?

[Jay]

I don't know.

I truly don't know.

[Kenny]

That's so great about being in the country.

[Norm Coleman]

It's Shorty.

[Kenny]

I don' know what his name is.

[Norm Coleman]

It's Shorty.

[Jay]

I was at the Crowbar with a couple of buddies and they're like, when I first moved up there, like, I gotta get a plow guy. And they go, oh, Wimpy. Wimpy's your guy. You know, like, okay, give me Wimpy's number. So I don't. He's in my phone. Is Wimpy. Wimpy the plow guy. And that's all I know. Yeah, and he's great. I mean, he shows up like that and he took care of it that day and he got those trees out of there for me. So I got. As Joe would say, I got guys. So, Kenny, why do I gotta be ambitious?

[Norm Coleman]

Just.

[Kenny]

If I was, if I was an employer, you would have been called into my office the next day. I mean, it was so sad listening to your tale of, whoa, oh, it snows up to my ankles and there's a couple of branches bent over. And I actually said, why don't you go out there and shake the snow off those branches? They'll move out of the way.

[Jay]

It's a lot of ambition. You forget minimal effort, maximum glory, Low ambition. Very low ambition. So listen, I am. I'm with you. I should do more of that. But I'm just. It's not going to happen, Kenny. It's not going to happen. And now that I'm retired, it's going to get worse. It's going to get worse.

[Kenny]

We're going to. We. I am planning a show where you and I discuss. You're going to have to face reality. We're going to talk about self sufficiency and what you're going to do when the S goes down. Well, John Heights said, I'm just going to go to my front step with my guitar and play until, you know, the zombies or the ghouls or the Russians take me away. I'm a fighter myself.

[Jay]

Well, I've got guns, so I'm good on that end. I probably just go down to the Crowbar and just sit out with my friends at the Crowbar and wait for it to happen.

I have no ambition after the heart attack. I've told you guys, I told you and Norm, after the heart attack, I'm like, whatever. Whatever happens, happens. End of the world. Kenny. I don't care.

[Kenny]

Before we go. How'd you do, dear? Honey?

[Jay]

Didn't see a thing. Of course, I only did a couple of days. Not even two full days. But the group that I was with, Ken, even. They didn't hardly see anything, get anything. It was really bad.

[Kenny]

I don't know. What's their excuse? There's always a general excuse.

[Norm Coleman]

What.

[Kenny]

What was the group's excuse?

[Jay]

2. In the beginning, too. So I should check with them. They might have. Because ours goes over Thanksgiving. I didn't check with them over Thanksgiving. It was too warm and not enough. There was no snow.

[Kenny]

Okay.

[Jay]

So they were like, oh, with no snow and warm. The deer, after, they. The minute they know we're here, they're bedding down. They're not moving. You know, that. That. That. I have no idea. That. That.

[Kenny]

That's. You know, deer hunting excuses are the best excuses.

[Jay]

It's always something, man.

[Kenny]

Yeah, it's always.

[Jay]

Always something.

[Kenny]

Yeah.

[Jay]

With me, it's just because I was sleeping.

[Kenny]

Jesus.

[Jay]

Sleeping in the trees.

[Kenny]

Oh, well, at least you were out there. Okay.

[Robbie]

Oh, yeah.

[Jay]

No, no, but I. Oh, I nap hard.

[Kenny]

Do you really?

[Jay]

Oh, 100%. One time, Kenny. They took. One time, Kenny. The group said, we gotta get Jay a deer. Everybody was getting a deer, and I don't think I had one yet. And they're like, we had to get Jay a deer. So we're gonna do a. What do you call it?

[Kenny]

A drive.

[Jay]

A drive. A drive. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. So. All right, so you go down, and we're gonna put you there over the other side of the hill. Over there. The other side of the trees. And we're gonna push toward you. So it'll be like six, seven of.

[Kenny]

Us just pushing any deer towards you. I hate that. Yeah, go ahead.

[Jay]

Well, first of all, it made me nervous because I'm thinking, so you're gonna come over the hill.

[Kenny]

They're gonna. A deer's gonna go by you at 90 miles an hour.

[Jay]

That's okay. Thank you. Because I'm thinking eight drives, and then if I'm shooting at them, the deer tore. Like. I didn't like the whole idea. Well, I don't know what was going on. It was kind of a warm day, and I just was a little hungover. Imagine that. And I decided to lie down.

[Kenny]

Wait, lie down?

[Jay]

Yeah, because they were gonna push it toward me, and I wasn't in a stand.

[Kenny]

What?

[Jay]

Yeah, I was on, like, a little knob of a hill, if you will. Almost like on the other side of a little marsh. So I just found some leaves and I just laid back.

[Kenny]

No, we're not friends. We're now arch enemies.

[Jay]

Well, one of the guys came up the trail and got me sleeping and got me on camera to jump. He's got photos.

[Kenny]

I used to.

[Jay]

I was literally sleeping while they were driving the deer.

[Kenny]

I had a duck hunting buddy that he's passed now, but he was old AF at the time, and he would say, I'm going for a walk. And we all knew what he was doing. He'd go find a tree in the.

[Jay]

Sun, go take a nap.

[Kenny]

I would sneak up behind him, so I'm five feet behind him, and I'd fire off my shotgun into the air. God, it was so funny. So evil.

[Jay]

That is evil. Yeah. Dan Martin, my friend, he didn't. He didn't fire a gun, but he took photos. And there I am, just a big blob of orange, just snoring away. Just couldn't. I was so content because, well, you're.

[Kenny]

Horrible at deer hunting, but you're pretty good at your job. So thank you for booking Norm. I've been looking forward that for years.

[Jay]

Yeah, we'll get more like that.

[Kenny]

Yeah, let's wrap this thing up. We've got a few ideas for some upcoming guests, but nothing in concrete yet for next week. We'll see what happens.

[Jay]

All right, Kenny.

[Robbie]

Cool.

[Kenny]

Thanks. Thank you, Jay. And thank you for listening to the Krabby Coffee Shop.

[Jay]

Catch you next week.

I just realized I got to lose some weight.