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- [00:00]
Jim Acosta
Hey, guys, I've got some personal news to share. I need a break. As much as I love you, I need a week off. So please enjoy some Jim Acosta show classics, and if you've already seen him once before, watch them again. Maybe. Maybe you'll enjoy it better the second time around. I hope so. But in the meantime, thanks everybody for all of your support. It has meant the world to me. And now I'm gonna go take a break and so is Duke, but we'll be back with you real soon.
- [00:29]
Chuck Rocha
Wait just a damn minute.
- [00:30]
Jim Acosta
Hang on.
- [00:30]
Chuck Rocha
I don't think like Jim Acosta Swag. What are you wearing? It is.
- [00:34]
Jim Acosta
Check it out.
- [00:35]
Chuck Rocha
Nice. You know, have one of them. We're coming up in the world in political, and we're going to talk a lot about politics today, but in political world, you should know that we call that the tchotchkes.
- [00:49]
Jim Acosta
The tchotchkes, absolutely. We got shirts, we got mugs, we got hats. Actually, I don't have that many, but, you know, I printed up some when.
- [01:00]
Chuck Rocha
You know who love again, you know who loved the tchotchkes was one Bernard Sanders.
- [01:06]
Jim Acosta
I bet he did. I bet he did.
- [01:09]
Chuck Rocha
The first time. I'm going to speak out of school here. This is why you joined the Rocha Revolutions. We pulled the curtain back on lots of things, but the first time Bernie ever cussed at me was to talk to me about bumper stickers. He said, chuck, Jeff said, you're in charge of the bumper stickers. And I want to know why we can't get the bumper stickers at every rally. Everybody should have a bumper sticker. If they come to my rally, they leave with a bumper sticker. And he used some choice words. And I said, bernie, you'll never, ever have to worry about running out of bumper stickers ever again. We will have bumper stickers and have more bumper stickers than you can ever deal with. So.
- [01:49]
Jim Acosta
And he ended up liking. I mean, he ended up needing a lot of bumper stickers. I mean, you know.
- [01:55]
Chuck Rocha
Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of bumper stickers went out the door. As I said, we did never run out of bumper stickers ever again. Now, for those of you who are joining, I know you probably watch Jim's show, you watch my show, and Jim has been going hell to the walls around holding this administration accountable. He was live this weekend at the monstrosity of a par that we had here in D.C. that run all of our streets, that mine and Jim's taxpayers pay for. But who cares? Let's have a parade where nobody goes, but we tear up our streets. So Jim's been holding all of the politicians accountable, mainly Donald Trump about all the crazy stuff. But today, yeah, I want y' all to get to know my good friend Jim Acosta. And so I've got a few. A couple questions. This is not Barbara Walters.
- [02:44]
Jim Acosta
I didn't.
- [02:45]
Chuck Rocha
You don't have to get your tissue.
- [02:45]
Jim Acosta
Out, but I think I got it handy just in case.
- [02:49]
Chuck Rocha
I think it's important because you're such a unique story in journalism. I'm a unique story in politics. I think we all have our own unique way in every way. Explain to the viewers how this Cuban kid who's got this father who came from Cuba ends up in Northern Virginia. And then you living here in the D.C. area. Most I know you traveled around with different jobs, but this is. Was home based, right?
- [03:17]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. No, I mean, I, I was born in Fairfax County Hospital in a lowly manger. No, I'm just kidding. Fairfax County, Fairfax County Hospital, which technically is right outside the beltway. I think it might be half a mile outside the Beltway. And the reason why I was born here is my dad came over in 1962, three weeks before the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was 11 years old when he left Cuba. My aunt, my Cuban aunt Annabelle, she, she had come over before my dad and my grandmother, and she saw that, okay, things are getting serious down there, so she went down to Cuba, she got my dad, she got my grandmother. They got on a Pan Am flight. My dad still has the passport. Actually, I think I still have the passport of his. When he was 11 years old, they stamped it, they gave it to him. Off he went with my grandmother. They landed in Miami. I've documented all of this through, you know, DHS records, immigration records and so on. And they stayed in Miami for I think a few weeks, maybe a month or two. And then they moved up to Northern Virginia where there was a small little Cuban enclave that was building in Northern Virginia. It was like Falls Church, Vienna, that kind of area of Northern Virginia. People who are locals know what I'm talking about.
- [04:31]
Chuck Rocha
Did they know people up here?
- [04:32]
Jim Acosta
They knew people up here, yeah. There were already some Cubans up here that had moved up here. And remember at that time, I mean, it was a very different time from an immigration standpoint. Cubans were fleeing communist dictatorship in Fidel Castro. The United States was welcoming Cuban refugees at that time. Now, you know, when they came here, obviously they saw some racism and anti immigrant attitudes here and there. But, you know, my dad tells the Story about how, you know, he and my grandmother, you know, they were here for their first winter in D.C. and there was a local Presbyterian church in Vienna, Virginia. They gave them coats and sweaters because it was the first time they'd ever been through something like that. And it was not Havana. This is not an Havana winter where it might get down in the low 60s, but they got through their first winter. And then my dad also tells me about how there was a local teacher at the Vienna Elementary School who would pull them out of class, help them learn how to read and write, that sort of thing. So my immigration story on my dad's side is one of the. Received a lot of, you know, compassionate, welcoming, you know, you know, kind of heartfelt support. When, when they came into the US and moved up here to the DC area, my mom was already here in the DC area. She was born in Washington. She was living in Northern Virginia. Her parents were kind of tied to the Pentagon. My, My grandfather died actually when she was 2 years old, but he had fought in World War II. And my grandmother, she was raising my mom and I think four other kids in that area at the time she met my dad. Lo and behold, they had me. So that's, that's why I grew up in the D.C. area. But, you know, as you mentioned, I, as a reporter, I moved all around the country, but D.C. has always been home for me.
- [06:20]
Chuck Rocha
And was your mother Cuban?
- [06:23]
Jim Acosta
No, my mom is Irish and Czech. So I'm a mutt. I'm an American mutt. Her name is Barbara Acosta, but her middle name, her, her maiden name is Rice. So when she married my dad, her last name was Rice. So it was kind of like black beans and rice, you know, when, when, when those two got together. But, you know, she, she raised me pretty much. My parents split up when I was very young. My mom raised me as, as basically a single mom. My dad stayed in the picture picture. He was in the D.C. area. I still hung out with my dad all the time. But my mom, you know, she's also. I talk about my dad a lot. One of my heroes, because she basically raised me on her own as a single mom. You know, back in the 70s and 80s in Virginia, that was not, you know, a picnic, you know what I mean? So she had to work hard. She worked in restaurants. My dad worked in Safeway grocery stores. So I'm just kind of a blue collar kid with a very, you know, immigrant background. My mom's side of the family came through Ellis island and, you know, a lot of a lot of New York roots. Her great grandparents were in New York. And so it. I see it as a, you know, as an all American kind of story. I mean, to me, that's what America's all about.
- [07:42]
Chuck Rocha
I could not agree more, and I appreciate you sharing that. You know, My mother was 15 when I was born, and she was Irish, Welch, Scottish. And my father was Mexican, his people from Guanajuato. And my dad left when I was five, and my mama raised me and my little sister, and she said she had two kids and was divorced or wasn't old enough to get in a nightclub and in rural East Texas. I think these strong women. And she would have been raising me in the 70s. I was born in December of 68. That's right. All this white hair on my face is real. And I think these women back in the day. Two things stick out to me when you tell that story. One is the amazing lives that we get to live now on behalf of the things that our mothers built us into. My father was around growing up like yours was, but my mother really raised me and my grandparents. But then also the story you told, and I think it dovetails into what you're fighting now, which is the WAY Immigrants, even U.S. citizens, people that are on temporary status, who have papers, quote, unquote, that are getting treated like shit. Just to be honest, when my grandparents, your father, your grandmother came here and it was a different time. When you say. When people say to us and say to me and you, Jim, well, my family came the right way. Well, back then, it was only one way.
- [08:56]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [08:57]
Chuck Rocha
And it wasn't that complicated. Right. And we've made it very complicated to where people who wanted to have the same dream that my grandparents and your father had, which was to come to a country and one day be able to see their son, Jim Acosta, at the White House holding a president accountable, asking him questions on behalf of all the people. Chuck wrote you getting to be on TV and be a political consultant. And we're on presidential campaigns like we're living the greatest dreams of our ancestors because people welcomed us in. But now we're trying to make all immigrants into what just one hundredth of 1% of troublemakers may be because it's politically expedient to win some kind of political victory. Jim, is that what they're doing? Like, it's just disgusting. What I see in comparison to how this church welcomed your. Your father as just one example.
- [09:47]
Jim Acosta
Yeah. No, I mean, you know, obviously, Trump and, you know, people on the far right There demonizing immigrants for political gain. You know, when he gets into political hot water, he always goes back to immigration. That's what he does. It's one of his tells. And he has some people, you know, inside the administration working for him, inside the White House, people like Stephen Miller, who are absolutely white nationalist zealots. And, you know, I think to some extent this is personal for Trump. I don't know what his deal is. He seems to not like the idea of what America's becoming. You know, for as much as he likes to hug the American flag, you have to wonder, would he hug the American flag 50 years from now when this is a more diverse country? He's not gonna be able to stem that tie. There's just no, there's just no way to do that. And so, you know, some of it's politics, Chuck, but I think some of it's personal, you know, to go out there and say we're gonna deny people due process rights, to go out there and order ICE to get 3,000, you know, deportations going or raids going, or detentions going. What every, was every day, every week, something like that. I think every day, you know, just these insane quotas that they're setting, you know, deporting mixed status families. Sometimes the mother's undocumented, but the kid is a US citizen. And a couple of cases, I think they've had cancer. I mean, at some point, do you have a heart? You know, do you have a soul? Are you a human being? Or are these brown faced people with Hispanic last names just pawns in your little game? I mean, and I think, you know, to me, it's one of the real tragic things that's been happening over the last 10 or so years. And keep in mind, you were just saying a few moments ago, Chuck, that, you know, when our folks came over, it wasn't as complicated, it wasn't as difficult. That's true. My dad came over, had refugee status. Look what the Trump administration is doing now to the Cubans and the Venezuelans, taking away their temporary protective status, deporting Cubans, deporting Venezuelans. Some notable Cubans are getting rounded up, kicked out of the country. That's not the environment that my dad came into. And we had a bill that was making its way through Congress in 2024 that would have fixed a lot of these issues, would have streamlined the immigration process so you would have more people trying to get into the country legally, not illegally. And Trump, you know, got rid of that because he knew it was not going to be to his advantage, politically speaking. So, you know, my attitude is when they're starting to wrestle to the ground Hispanic senators, when they are roughing up Democratic lawmakers and politicians and they're smashing car windows and pulling abuelas out of their cars and stuff like that, when they're doing nasty, mean, awful shit like that, it needs to be called out. And I think it needs to be called out for what it is. And I think it's. I think it's a very racist policy that the government has embarked on. And I think it is. It really calls into question, you know, what. What's in their hearts. And I, you know, there have been other folks who have been, you know, criticized for this. Tara Moran's been criticized for this. But I think it's the right question. What is it with these guys? Why do they have this thing? I don't get it.
- [13:15]
Chuck Rocha
Yeah. And I think that they play off of the worst fears of many Americans that aren't, you know, that it's this. It's politically expedient to blame others. And let's be clear.
- [13:25]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [13:26]
Chuck Rocha
That throughout our country's history, there were always others. But there wasn't the Internet. There wasn't fake things out there. There wasn't AI. There wasn't all this other stuff. Even when the Irish came, I would remind folks, you know, the Irish are not welcome here or the Italians, because they were kind of dark skinned. And so the history of this goes back a long way. But what you see it now is on steroids. But it's very refreshing to know that. You know, when I tell my dad and my mother's immigration story, they met at a Baptist church. My mother was teaching preschool Bible study to. She more or less was running the daycare for little kids, but they called it Bible study for little kids. And my daddy was there cause his brother was the choir director. So you have this immigrant kid and this white woman and they meet at a Baptist church and they start a festival. It don't work out. It don't always work out for young couples in their teens, for God's sakes. But, you know, I got to live the dream and you've got to live the dream. And now I think that more people that are like us. So when I say like us, we represent different groups of Americans, but we are mixed race. We come from all different sectors of the world. Our mothers are probably closer connected than our fathers because you have one from Cuba, one from Mexico, but both of our mothers come from Europe. And so I think this melting pot that you described of who we choose as partners and who we love. Like, love who you want to love, no matter the color of their skin. You know, my beautiful wife is a Black woman from D.C. who's fifth generation, who gets to teach me things about what it's like to be a Black woman in D.C. every single day. And I grow as a person. It makes me bigger. It makes me understand things. And not just bad, racist things. Of course there's race, but wonderful history that if I lived in my little cocoon, I would never know that, right?
- [15:17]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [15:18]
Chuck Rocha
And speaking of the cocoons and the Cancuns and the cocoons, tell me about high school in Virginia. Did you play sports or were you a nerd in a debate class?
- [15:28]
Jim Acosta
Oh, man. A little bit of both, honestly. I did play high school football, but I didn't play a lot. I don't think I was just that good enough. And I wasn't big enough. I kind of got my. I kind of got taller and bigger when I got into college. It might have been all the beer I was drinking, but, see, now we're.
- [15:45]
Chuck Rocha
Getting to the truth.
- [15:46]
Jim Acosta
But I was also on the high school newspaper, and I think that's where I caught the journalism bug. And growing up in the D.C. area, you do catch the journalism bug. My mom got the Washington Post delivered to her doorstep every morning. She would read it cover to cover. And I think that's kind of where I started to get my news bug. And I got on the high school newspaper. It was at Annandale High School in Northern Virginia. And the name of the high school was. Or the name of the newspaper was the A Blast. Because we were the Annandale atoms with all those nuclear stuff in the news. I guess I don't know if that ties back to anything, but. Anyway, so.
- [16:23]
Chuck Rocha
But.
- [16:23]
Jim Acosta
But one of the very first stories that I did on the high school newspaper was about this mural of the Statue of Liberty, of all things. No, it was over my shoulder. That had been painted over. Oh, no, wait a minute. I'm telling the story wrong. It was a. It was a. It was a Pink Floyd mural. Excuse me. A Pink Floyd mural that was painted over. And everybody wanted to know what happened to the Pink Floyd mural. And as it turns out, the French teacher had it removed, and they painted the Statue of Liberty over it. That's what. That's the story I was trying to tell. And. And so I always thought, you know, that's kind of a funny story to think back on in that. You know, I've Kind of like try to be an advocate for immigrants. And, you know, I bring up the Statue of Liberty quite a bit. But anyway, I wrote a story about it during that time at the high school newspaper, and it was my first big investigative story. I tried to get to the bottom of what happened to the Pink Floyd mural, because at Annandale High School, we had a Billy Idol mural. We had a Pink Floyd mural. They let the kids put up these rock and roll bands as murals, I guess, to make the high school more cool. So you'd want to go to high school, but the French teacher wanted to paint over the Pink Floyd one so they could put up the Statue of Liberty, which I guess, at the end of the day, is a good idea.
- [17:34]
Chuck Rocha
What year was this in the late 80s?
- [17:36]
Jim Acosta
This was 80s. 89, 1989. And I still have some of those copies of the A Blast around. So I don't know. I have to go dig them up one of these days. But that's. I think that's where I did my first, you know, got my. Cut my teeth for the first time.
- [17:50]
Chuck Rocha
I was thinking about when Pink Floyd, another brick in the wall came out. It was earlier than that, when it was, teacher, leave those kids alone.
- [17:57]
Jim Acosta
That's probably, hey, teacher, leave those kids alone. Absolutely. Another brick on the wall, and I think that might have been the mural. Was it another brick in the wall? That might have been the mural, but. But, yeah, that was painted over. The kids. All the kids were pissed. Yeah. Somebody's asking, still Floyd in 89? Yes. Come on. Classic rock back then. Absolutely.
- [18:20]
Chuck Rocha
Did you only play one sport, which was football?
- [18:23]
Jim Acosta
I played Little League baseball. I played a little soccer, a little basketball. I just, you know, I. I played tennis. I still play tennis to this day. I just was not much of an athlete I wanted to be. I was a huge. I grew up a huge Washington Redskins fan. And we didn't have the Nationals back then. You had to drive up to Baltimore to see the Orioles. But we were. We were huge Redskins fans. And to this day, my mom still puts out all of her OG Redskins paraphernalia in the living room. And it's got to be set up specifically in just the right spot, where she feels like it messes up the juju. You know, like from the movie Silver Silver Linings Playbook, where De Niro, the Eagles fan, has to have all the Eagle stuff in just the right spots. My mom is basically the same way. She's superstitious in that the Redskin stuff has to be laid out in a certain way or she worries that the Redskins are going to lose. Now we call them the Commanders. But so that's. That is, that is my. The sick, demented passion that I have is for NFL football. When NFL preseason gets going, I turn into a nut and I. All I do is worry about NFL football and the Commanders. So.
- [19:31]
Chuck Rocha
So two questions about the NFL. First, tell me if you can remember the first time you ever went to a Washington Redskins football game.
- [19:41]
Jim Acosta
Oh, God, I remember my dad taking me to some preseason games when I was a kid. My mom took me to a Redskins and Cowboys game. That was in the early 90s, I think. But my God, we used to watch them all the time. When they were winning those Super Bowls. It was an 83, 88 or 89, I think, and then 93. I don't have the numbers in front of me. Some football fan out there will correct me, but that was when they won those three Super Bowls was the 82 season, the 88 season, and the 92 season, I believe might have been the 87 season. But anyway, I remember school would close and you would go down to the National Mall and they would have the Washington Redskins victory Super bowl parade, go down Constitution Avenue and people would be climbing the trees. And so that was the perfect time to be a Redskins. I feel bad because my kids became. I made my kids become Redskins fans. And I felt so terrible for them for years and years because they were so shitty during the 2000s and the 2000s, I guess, except for that year when RG3 was lighting up. But now they're finally good again with Jaden Daniels. So I'm very excited about that.
- [20:55]
Chuck Rocha
And for those of you who want to know, they all played those games back in the day at the old RFK Stadium.
- [21:02]
Jim Acosta
The old RFK stadium that is in.
- [21:04]
Chuck Rocha
The city of D.C. and it may or may not be a few blocks behind the home that I'm reporting from live here. I live in that neighborhood.
- [21:13]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, your real estate value is about to shoot through the roof here any day now.
- [21:17]
Chuck Rocha
My wife, who is elected here in Washington D.C. as an ANC commissioner, represents Jim the RFK campus.
- [21:24]
Jim Acosta
Oh my goodness.
- [21:25]
Chuck Rocha
So it's in her single member district for the area neighbors. So she's been dealing with the team on if they come back, what does that look like and what does the neighborhood get in return? There's a lot of anti stadium folks and some pro stadium folks directly in the shadows of the stadium. But I just told her when she cut her deal with them to make sure that me and Jim gets a box.
- [21:47]
Jim Acosta
Well, exactly. And I'm going to say right now I'm throwing objectivity out the window. I am very pro RFK being remade into the new commander's football stadium. Because honestly, where it is right now out in Maryland, it is, it is such a pain in the ass to get to that stadium. And I hope and pray that they, they need to do what's right, put things right and, and blow up the old RFK stadium, build it a brand new one. I think it would just be a great thing for the nation's capital.
- [22:17]
Chuck Rocha
Who, if you said to put you on the spot, who is the all time one player, the all time best Washington Redskin ever to play touch the.
- [22:27]
Jim Acosta
Ooh. Oh, my gosh, I'd have to say John Riggins. It's gotta be Rigo. He was the running back who had that classic run for, for touchdown in, I think it. Well, God, you know, whatever the super bowl was when they beat the Miami Dolphins and there's, you know, an iconic photograph of, of Riggins running down the field and this Dolphins player just kind of falling by the wayside as he galloped for a touchdown, I, I believe it was number 44. I'm almost positive he was number 44. Anyway, he was my favorite Redskin growing up. I mean, obviously I love Joe Theisman. I love Art Monk, I love the Hogs. I mean Dexter Manley, the fun bunch. I mean, all of those guys. I loved him back in the day. Joe Gibbs was when they won those Super Bowls. And you know, I, I used to have all this Riggo stuff. Riggo used to have all this. He used to wear camo all the time. So I would dress up in camo and I think I had a shirt that said like Rigos Rangers or something like that. I was, you know, it was, it was a big deal back in the day. I cannot tell you what it was like growing up in D.C. when the, when the Redskins were just winning those Super Bowls and lighting it up.
- [23:35]
Chuck Rocha
So if I was back in that day, we had a sort of enemies. Cause back then in the 70s, 80s and part of the 90s, I was Texas boy and I like the Cowboys.
- [23:43]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, yeah.
- [23:44]
Chuck Rocha
But if you were to ask me who was my favorite Redskin player, it would have been Riggins. Because I played football and unlike you, I was a natural athlete and real smart. So I played high school football at £300 and was an all state lineman.
- [23:57]
Jim Acosta
£300?
- [23:58]
Chuck Rocha
Yes.
- [23:59]
Jim Acosta
Oh, my God.
- [24:00]
Chuck Rocha
I used to say £300 of twisted steel and sex appeal.
- [24:04]
Jim Acosta
And you were like Friday Night Lights.
- [24:06]
Chuck Rocha
Yes, I watched. I loved Ed Tutor Jones. I wore 72 my whole career because.
- [24:12]
Jim Acosta
He was the best.
- [24:14]
Chuck Rocha
And, you know, it's funny about Riggins and my wife Ebony, when you see her next, and I know we get to hang out some. Her favorite number is 44. So you can tell her, say, hey.
- [24:22]
Jim Acosta
There you go, Riggins.
- [24:23]
Chuck Rocha
That was his thing. Because. And actually, the Commanders now are going to be playing the Dolphins in Madrid. And me and you should go.
- [24:31]
Jim Acosta
We should go. I'm. I'm in. I'm in on this. We'll do the shows from. We'll do our podcast from the grid over there.
- [24:37]
Chuck Rocha
We can do a sub stack from over there.
- [24:39]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, absolutely.
- [24:40]
Chuck Rocha
I know we're running short on time, so now I'm going to ask you some questions about. I know you liked music, and I knew you were a rock and roll guy in high school. So my next question for you, moving from sports so folks and the folks on the substack can get to know the part of you you don't talk about on these fancy shows, is.
- [25:00]
Jim Acosta
Oh, man.
- [25:01]
Chuck Rocha
Tell me the first concert you ever went to.
- [25:05]
Jim Acosta
I believe it was Genesis at RFK Stadium. Yeah, yeah, it was Genesis. This was way back in the day. These are the days of the cassettes. Yeah. Yeah. I was definitely a big Genesis fan back in the day. I think they're. Yeah, Phil Collins and I think there was a. Might have been a Van Halen concert in there. Anyway, I mean, I really became much more of a rock fan. Like when U2 came along in the 90s, I definitely got into the grunge stuff. But, yeah, I think. I believe Genesis was the first concert. Unless my mom. My mom was a huge rock and roll. She was a child of the 70s, 60s and 70s, and she. I mean, I've got all of her old albums behind me. Like, I've got. She just. She recently gave me all her old albums. This Elton John.
- [25:57]
Chuck Rocha
I love that Elton John album.
- [25:58]
Jim Acosta
I've got. I've got so much stuff. The Eagles, she gave me a bunch of these. If you ever want to come over, you just listen to records. But I've got all of her old record. I've got about 2 or 300 of her old records. So I grew up a big classic rock. She was a huge Jimmy Buffett fan. I grew up on Jimmy Buffett. I can almost sing every Jimmy Buffett song by heart because, like, the song comes on, if Margaritaville comes on, I have to start, you know, singing Margaritaville. But honestly, like, I mean, I. I grew up, like, just immersed in rock and roll in that kind of era of music.
- [26:39]
Chuck Rocha
My mother loved the Eagles. My mother loved Linda Ronstadt.
- [26:43]
Jim Acosta
Oh, yeah, my mom, too. Yep.
- [26:45]
Chuck Rocha
And, you know, Linda Rostadt was Latina. People don't know that.
- [26:47]
Jim Acosta
That's right.
- [26:49]
Chuck Rocha
Linda Ronstadt. And if you were to say to me, you only have one album to listen to the rest of your life, it's probably the Eagles greatest hits album.
- [26:58]
Jim Acosta
That's a good one. That's a really good one. Honestly, that's a good one. I would have to say U2. Joshua Tree for me.
- [27:04]
Chuck Rocha
Ah, that's a great one. It's in that top five.
- [27:08]
Jim Acosta
That's one for me, for sure. I got to see U2 at the sphere, what was it, two Decembers ago? And that changed my life. That was the best concert I've ever seen. And not to do a commercial for the Sphere or anything. I'm not endorsing it or anything like that, but it was a fantastic music experience. It was unreal. And I heard the Eagles did the Sphere, too. I didn't get to see that. That would have been cool, too.
- [27:31]
Chuck Rocha
The guy, the country singer who does the big stadium tours, that does a lot of the Buffett stuff, is in, doing a residency at the Spear right now. My sister just went this week. I'm just. I'm just drawing a blank. I'm gonna. I'm gonna play the song from the first concert I ever went to, and I'm gonna ask. I'm gonna see if you can hear it and see if you can tell me if you know. Remember this song from high school? Because I think I'm a little older.
- [27:55]
Jim Acosta
Than you a little bit.
- [28:01]
Chuck Rocha
Sister Christian has come. Sister Christian from.
- [28:08]
Jim Acosta
That's a great song. Night Ranger. Oh, my God.
- [28:12]
Chuck Rocha
First concert in the.
- [28:13]
Jim Acosta
That was your first concert.
- [28:15]
Chuck Rocha
Oh, my Texas.
- [28:17]
Jim Acosta
That's a classic, man. Night Ranger. That's going back a ways. That's like.
- [28:22]
Chuck Rocha
It was a big controversy in Tyler because a naked woman ran out on stage. Now, keep in mind, I was in the heart of the Bible Belt. It was literally our Coliseum. Our little venue was called the Oil Palace. Let's start there. The Oil Palace. And they had a naked woman run out on stage, and it was all over the front page of the newspaper. So when you. I knew you liked rock, but I didn't know if it was, like, the 70s, I mean, the 80s, 90s rock, or if it was old school rock, but that. I'm starting to get a picture now, this would have been another standard when I was in high school. That also, when I think about rock and roll, this is one of those songs, okay.
- [29:08]
Jim Acosta
Oh, slash Little Gnr.
- [29:16]
Chuck Rocha
Because when I think about having hair and I think about being in high school, I'm like. It was those bands where I think the kids today who are just like, down.
- [29:25]
Jim Acosta
I love that shit.
- [29:26]
Chuck Rocha
Yeah. I think that those records and those cassettes where you would sit there and wait for the radio to record it on your cassette thing.
- [29:34]
Jim Acosta
I used to love it. No, and we used to make the mixtapes. Remember if you had a girlfriend and you really liked her a lot, and you'd make her a mixtape and you have to hit play and then play record, and then you'd have to like, pause and then put a new song in, and it was like. You had to be kind of a surgeon back in those days. This is the shit that we used to do when we didn't have cell phones. Thank God. Can you imagine if we had iPhones back in the day?
- [29:57]
Chuck Rocha
Me and you would have never. I'd have never been able to run a campaign and you'd have never been on tv.
- [30:01]
Jim Acosta
No, no.
- [30:03]
Chuck Rocha
The stupid shit you do when you're a kid now kids just record it. I. Thank God nobody recorded me when I was doing that stuff.
- [30:09]
Jim Acosta
I got some photo albums with a bunch of crazy shit in it, but that's. Those are in my possession, so it's not like it's on the Internet, you know? Yes.
- [30:17]
Chuck Rocha
If. When you work out, when you run, when you. What's the rock and roll song? And this is the last music question, like, what is your go to motivation song?
- [30:27]
Jim Acosta
Oh, gosh.
- [30:29]
Chuck Rocha
I know you like the Joshua Tree, but I don't know if that's a workout song.
- [30:32]
Jim Acosta
No, it's not. I mean, sometimes, you know, Beautiful Day, you know, by you two is a good. That's a good one. But, man, oh, man, I kind of bounce around quite a bit. I. I do a lot of, like, poppy, modern stuff. I go like. I like early 2000s, death cab for Cutie. I like. I mean, I do put on Pearl Jam sometimes when I'm working out. I. There's a. I. I get very eclectic. I sometimes, you know, I. I'll put on, you know, Little House of Pain, jump around, you know, like, I go back in those days. Beastie Boys.
- [31:15]
Chuck Rocha
I love how everybody in the comments right now are dropping in their go to music. This is awesome. Run dmc.
- [31:21]
Jim Acosta
Run DMC for sure. But like, BC Boys, Intergalactic Planetary, you Know that. That I used. I used to play that all the time when I would work out all the time. Now. What am I playing now? I guess now it's like Silver Sun Pickups. And, like. I mean, I have so much crazy in my iPhone. I. I don't really have a genre, I have to say. I don't have a genre. My genre is, like, everything.
- [31:47]
Chuck Rocha
I love that. You know, my mother. I grew up listening to old black soul music. My mother loved Linda Ross, the Eagles, but she loved her Now Phone down.
- [32:03]
Jim Acosta
Yeah.
- [32:04]
Chuck Rocha
She loved Al Green. She loved that. All of that stuff.
- [32:09]
Jim Acosta
But.
- [32:09]
Chuck Rocha
And then I love country music, so I'm as eclectic as you. But if you said, what was the one, like, the rock song that gets you up? I'm gonna play the one I like.
- [32:18]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, let me hear that. Oh, yeah, that's AC DC Back in black, of course.
- [32:27]
Chuck Rocha
So with your football game on the football bus with the guys, and you've literally got the old school, like, big jam box. Y' all kids don't understand what a jam box is. But we had this big thing that we would haul with us, and we would play this music on the bus to the football games. I played football for nine years. Yeah, I played. I was. Again, I was an athlete, so I did track and field. So I was a. Through the discus and the shot put. Cause I weighed 300 pounds.
- [32:56]
Jim Acosta
Oh, man.
- [32:56]
Chuck Rocha
Played Churchley basketball. And so, like, I was a big old boy. And so I think music and culture, we forget about that. Cause we get so caught up in all of the politics and all the horrible stuff in the world. I like to get away from music. Helps me get away from all the shit coming at me all day.
- [33:12]
Jim Acosta
Totally. Totally. I'm a big music guy, too. I play it all the time and recently got a turntable because my mom gave me her whole record collection. I was like, oh, shit. There's, like, Led Zeppelin in there. There's. I mean, there's, like, Stevie Wonder. She had great musical taste, too. She was all over the place, too, with her musical taste. So I think I might have gotten that from her. But as we all. We try to get our good trades from our moms, right? That's what we try to do.
- [33:38]
Chuck Rocha
Absolutely. And me and Ebony are definitely coming over. I want to listen to the music.
- [33:41]
Jim Acosta
Let's do it.
- [33:42]
Chuck Rocha
Jim, I want to thank you for taking the time. And y' all look forward in November with me and Jim going to reunite on the sub stack in Madrid.
- [33:49]
Jim Acosta
Oh, yeah.
- [33:50]
Chuck Rocha
For the Commanders and Dolphins game.
- [33:52]
Jim Acosta
Love it.
- [33:53]
Chuck Rocha
And we'll get together way before then. But, Jim, I appreciate you and follow you out there. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Not only Jim's Substack, but the Roacher Revolution and my substack. We're going to do this as much as we can. I wanted to create a space where we wasn't always just talking about politics. Or all the bad shit going on in the world. To kind of get to know each other a little bit better. And I really appreciate you all listening.
- [34:14]
Jim Acosta
See you, Chuck. Thanks a lot, man.