Welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today we're talking to kind of the the king of Christmas drumming and he does a ton of other stuff But we're talking to Jerry Grinnelli who was played on some of the biggest Vince Garaldi hits that are from Charlie Brown's Christmas So welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Thanks for asking me man I'm excited to hear about your entire career So maybe we we talk about how you got into drumming But then obviously we'll talk a lot about cuz this is kind of a Christmas episode. We'll talk about your time Playing with the Charlie Brown stuff. So so how did you tell us about you? How did you get into drumming? I just I was And my dad was Always loved to drum so there was drums around the house my uncle Both of them were did other things my dad so both were my uncle so Was a butcher, but there was you know, we lived right across the street and I grew up in a real Italian neighborhood with all the relatives in one block and There was just always music and there was Jerry who had this gift, you know There was a lot of learning involved later, but I Just loved the instrument. I just touched it. It's the first thing I remember the first thing I remember is you know, my grandmother's kitchen just dragging out the pots and pans and Having to put them in an order. They had to be an order So I made little drum sets and I just played I just banged away But there was always some logic to it. It wasn't just like, you know kid banging I was playing I played so I just loved to do it. It was very natural for And then, you know, they just went, oh took me to a teacher when I was very young and in those days there was the National Association of rudimental drummers, you know, and I Become like a little child whiz Was in like all the contests being everybody much older than me I just you know, I love to practice the drums. I love to sit at a practice pad I still do So it just I grew up and my dad of course and my uncle made so much music available to me And I was in San Francisco want a great music capitals of American music, you know, so I just got to hear everybody and got to meet people. I got to meet gene Krupp. He spent a day with You know when I was eight years old and just so many people shelly man and gene and you know, they Were all so You know encouraging and friendly gene and I have stayed friends his whole life and then Of course that continued with the other drummers I learned from Philly Joe Jones and elvin jones and All that music was in town and I was that's all I ever wanted to do I you know, never never had a day job and got to hear All of it from louis jordan to red nickels to you know all those people and It it just it just seems it just seems really natural to me, you know Yeah, I wanted to be the greatest drummer in the world. Yeah, you're you're up there I mean you you are I mean I've listened to a lot of your stuff and a lot of amazing videos and you have a very unique style too that stands out Takes time to find your voice, you know, you steal as much as you can because that's how you learn Yeah But yeah, I mean, you know, and I realize later you don't ever nobody gets to be the greatest But you get a seat at the table and I guess if I have any pride it's Being in that tribe all my friends are the great drummers and Yeah, it's just it's uh I go from thinking of it as a life wasted to just such a blessing That's a true musician who just like that constant like Like one day you're like, oh, this is going great and the next day you're like, man, I cannot play at all Like that's just all musicians have that kind of like interior. Yeah that in your head sort of like Struggle so yeah, and I that's fundamental and If you you know, I realize now at this about to be 80 years old You know, I fell in love with the practice pad the other night And of course there was the fame and wanting to perform and all that But it always comes down to this challenge of you and the instrument. I hate not being able to do something you know I hate it and so I'll work until I can accomplish it and that's That's what keeps you going because the fame comes and goes there's money. There's fame.  They love your record. You can't ride that wave No, and it all comes down to like for me it comes down to Peer group, you know, the people who know who respect you There's nothing like that Yeah, yeah, especially in our in our circle of drummers um I think it's we always talk about on the show, but it's kind of different than other instruments We're drumming drumming is kind of a family. The community is very like We love our legends like you and we we love our, um, you know the guys the stories and all that So just to have the respect of everyone is is huge Yeah, because and you know, we're the only ones who are competing because there's only one drum slot Only one drummer gets to play, you know, and so we're all competing but Those same guys we competed against we were rooting for you know And they're still your friends. I talked to billy heart You know, we're buddies. We're brothers so Yeah, it's a wonderful fraternity or To be a part of it's a wonderful tribe to be a part of Absolutely fraternity is a good way to put it because it like I mean it's this this like But I like it too because you could be I've seen it where there are guys Who are so knowledgeable about vintage drum gear and they're just oh god Passionate, but you hear them play and they're not they're not bad by any mean, but they're not viny caliuta They're not these amazing drummers But every we still love each other. You know what? I mean, it's not about how great you are. It's your passion Yeah, it's and my dad had that passion my dad That was the great passion of his life He you know, he became a really great italian Wedding drummer man You know and every night I remember him getting up from the dinner table and I try to encourage students to do this Rather than thinking about career my dad supported the family. He paid for my drum lessons But every night the man got up from the dinner table And he would vanish down to his drum set play along with records Play the drums for two hours. Wow Every night That's awesome And even when I was much much much better than him, he had no ego about saying show me how to do this That's awesome. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, and people are fanatics. There used to be drum shops real drum shops That's all they did man. No guitars. Oh, yeah There still are there's still plenty of them and and it's it's obviously a different time But but you know shout out to everyone who has a drum shop You know a drum shop not not a guitar center, but um There's it's so cool Yeah, so it was yeah, it is kind of this Brother sisterhood now and yeah Yeah, I'm just delighted to be a part of it. Well, let's move forward here. So you obviously have a very esteemed career how did you get into um the the professional world leading up to um You know the the gig that is You know, you've obviously done many things but I and I also want to talk about how Once we get to the the the peanuts stuff the charlie brown stuff. It's like That's something where I think a lot of people could fall into that That world of like I don't want to be defined by this one thing but A lot of drummers don't get that one thing. So I'd love to hear that too, but let's Eat up to that. That's a whole journey Uh Yeah, I I just you know I In those times and kids can't do it now young people can't do it now I always saw it as a living, you know, so I worked polka bands man. I played strip clubs I did anything to keep earning money. I earned money from the time I was 15 years old playing in tenor bands like, you know playing in You know ballroom dancer gigs anything 20 bucks 25 bucks I was in the union so But my passion was always the jazz, you know always jasmine, which That was that's what I wanted to do. I didn't understand it.  It sounds like magic sounds like chaos but I just Always made a living, you know playing the drums and it didn't matter to me As long as I could play I'd rather play that Oh Than anything else so that wound its way to hanging out. It's a lot of hanging out in the you know african-american parts of san francisco and going to after hours clubs and vince was older than me uh But and I was studying with joe morello And I think joe is the one who kept telling vince. Hey man, you know when colin bailey left who did cast your fate There was a slot and vince gave me a shot, you know, and I went The audition was he called me and said we're going to sacramento On the weekend this we're gonna do, you know playing this club So I just went up there and said man, I'm gonna go for it and I did played way over my head and Burned him to the ground and he just said okay come on and took me on and but it was a lot of It was a lot of never It was a lot of stubbornness Because It was a rough school to go to People judged you on your plane and so I just I just was uh I just was determined really I was really determined, you know as joe morello said one time.  That's great so, you know, and I met joe and then he took me under his wing and was my mentor and lifelong friend and But he never taught me he never wasn't interested in me playing like him You know he interested he wanted me to learn his technique Which is like yoga, which is the reason I could still play now. I don't hurt myself sure, uh, but You know, it was that it sounds oversimplified when I say it but it was a lot of hanging out a lot of tears Because I wanted to play so good and I couldn't you know, I didn't know how People stopped to tell you So I kind of do the same thing now But that that got me to Vince and that was the real beginning Uh for me in terms of I was a professional jazz musician man, 1962.  That was the shot. Yeah, that was it and I knew it And Vince taught me a lot.  They didn't have to bring a drummer Yeah, uh, so It's word of mouth, you know dying you're afraid the phone won't ring Yeah, I know that yeah, and by the time I was 30 You know, I'd been on the cover of downbeat magazine for Uh to work with charlie hayden and denny's eightland those records and You know winning the polls and all that stuff. It was fantastic But vince was the once and it was this important relationship with fred marshall the bassist And it really I can't underscore that you know and Of course when I left I didn't pay attention to that music for 40 or 50 years I didn't want to play it people wanted me to play it stupidly and I wouldn't do it Yeah, but I never and I was annoyed, you know, because I wasn't getting royalties man Everybody was making a million dollars Yeah That's but We'll back up a little bit. All right, so my my let's just like I mean obviously Calling this the the drum history christmas special. Let's and again I'm sure you had that those feelings of like like everyone does where like I know ginger baker had those feelings of like I'm not getting paid for this As much as eric clapton and stuff and it's similar to that but like all right, so Looking at that whole thing. How did And I'm sure this information is out there, but like with with vince graulty. How did he Become the the charlie brown guy. Do you know how that relationship started? It was all You know people think especially nowadays with social media people are thinking they if you big enough on social meetings Something happens, but this was all accidental It was purely lee mendelson This piece I do now every year Lots of lots of concerts thousands of people come It's called the tales of charlie brown's christmas because I and I talk and I answer these questions. Oh cool but Lee mendelson young producer had only produced one thing Um, and he had this brainstorm of doing something about charlie schultz And people don't realize it started before that.  He hears Vince graulty's music he hears the trio And the lights go off. He thinks it matches charlie schultz perfectly He you know, he just loves the lyricism. He loves the fact that it's jazz so He contacts vince, you know, he didn't even know vince lives in san francisco, man so and then charlie schultz and vince are We're the same kind of person very dark humor And charlie schultz thinks it's perfect.  There was no music And then starts putting you know, he says we're doing this thing And we can't see it because of no video So we rehearse it and then Then its next thing is wow charlie schultz was coming to hang out at the club and with it Friends and then we're rehearsing and then we were suddenly going in the studio to record this in three hours Wow That's the length you did a record in those days Unbelievable no overdubbing and you just didn't want to be the guy to screw up Yeah, god, sure. So We were in in vince insisted that they'd be kids and not a professional choir And we do it and lee mendelson He and i got to be friends and before he passed away last year We spent time together whenever i was in california and i would tease him about having a bigger house than me You know and he just said you know if there wasn't that collection of what you take one person out of that recording date How that whole process? It wouldn't have happened And it's really true. It was the right people in the right time Uh, even including coca-cola You know coca-cola paid for the time cbs refused to put it on the air They said when they saw it they said look we hated the jazz music on the last one you showed us jazz does not There was no jazz on television especially in prime time at christmas Oh, man, and they said well coca-cola Lord bless them. Well just said well, we paid for it. So we're putting it on And uh cbs said okay because we'll put it on because it'll never be seen again Boy, were they wrong? Oh, yeah, it's so great to have that kind of monstrous corporate wrong Yeah, and then People did it. There was no hype I've seen the postcards and Half the viewing audience in the united states watched it And People wrote in and people have demanded it ever since I mean it's the largest selling Not christmas record jazz record in history It beats kind of blue every year because kind of blue doesn't have the advantage of christmas miles became a great fan of the trio Wow You know and a lot of people a lot of jazz musicians Not to their credit thought we sold vincenzo loud, you know, they were like, oh man, you know but It wasn't it wasn't it was really as good a jazz trio record as you can find out there Yeah, I mean you take away some of the like Really christmasy Songs on the the album, you know what I mean like there's some that are just like you could listen to any time of the year but People do Oh, I do too and and it's so funny because um again, I was saying I just moved to a new um House and we were walking around the neighborhood They did a thing where there's like, you know, you you put those luminary things outside and people were walking up up and down the street and There was a little I say little because they were like in grade school Some kids who had drums and a bass and a keyboard set up And they were playing um, they were playing music from that album and it was just unbelievable. It's yeah, it's it's It's it's it's far out. I mean, it's just really You know, it's in It's in the library of congress For under the american classics, you know, it's a permanent collection uh It never changed my life it never changed Any because it took time to grow, you know vince did all the specials and Then they started doing hiring other people to do them But charlie schultz said please get vince to do them again use that music. I don't like all this new music Yeah, uh, so Yeah, and I you know, I mean it's countless emails and Phone calls from drummers. How how did you play that? You know, why did you play? How did you play that? Yeah, well, let's talk about that because like before we move on to like the the aftermath and all that stuff And then the rest of your career So what was the recording? You said I know you said it was kind of a three hour No overdubs probably like a four or eight track kind of we didn't have no eight tracks So four track four track basically, you know, yeah What was the setup like and what was your what were your drums you were using and your symbols? I mean you're talking to drum nerds here. So what was that all like? I it's funny because it's a side up there now people talking about campbell I was using one of the original Campgo drum sets cool the oak lawn. Yeah Morello said hey, man, there's this guy. He's got these great drums He hooked me up, you know, I flew to la did you know did the drum? All the dream, you know behind the drums with the sticks in your hand picture and So I was one of the original so was Collin Bailey the original Endorsers of campgo and I still have I still have a bass drum I still have some set or parts of sets, you know And then with campgo and it was like, you know, I liked I was using a zildred cymbals Uh, which I still wish I still had and Joe Morello gave me one of the first prototypes of the metal snare drum that Ludwig made for him. So that's the drum calf heads And we set up like the trio, you know the drums were a little bit isolated the piano was but we could see each other Uh, and we never used those kinds of visual cues, but it was pretty much set up like recording studios at that time, you know Um, and you didn't if you made a mistake you had to You had to do it over Yeah, so different now. We were pretty much one or two takes if you listen to the record, you'll notice there's So many fadeouts because we couldn't see the video So you just played. Yeah, well, there's the fadeouts are all along hardly anything it ends abruptly You know We've been playing the music in the club. That's how we rehearsed Vince put it in And we it went pretty fast man. It went pretty fast Just maybe two or three takes of anything Wow, that's amazing And so people know while we're talking that we in case someone doesn't know this because again There's people out there who are maybe, you know, just not familiar with it Which is pretty unlikely, but it's a charlie brown Christmas. Um, is the album that we're talking about which If you put it on you're gonna hear it. I mean, I'm pretty sure everyone knows Knows the music, but I just need to say that's the album. We're talking about if you don't know that music You don't go to restaurants airports Yeah, all those but it's in every new second Yeah, and I mean literally in the world Yeah, heard it in airports in europe and asia Heard it in china. I was in china last year and uh, there it was man But it was just And it was really I can't it was really honestly played and One of the great benefits of that besides all the joy that it brought generations literally Uh, it was a lot of people's first jazz concert first jazz record And even the one i'm doing and now it's a lot of people's first jazz concert You know, yeah, and that's really Maybe a really important important fact of this You know That it that it did that it opened those doors Yeah, it's very um, uh, it's very All albeit it's it's obviously the most like cheerful and uh I would say it just feels For me when you know, you're listening to like now. It's it's the week before Christmas right now when we're doing this You have Christmas music on and it feels you know It's cool. It's great the the standard stuff, but when that comes on it just feels more like True and uh, just like more there's more musicality to it then and I love all the other christmas songs the burlives and all that stuff, but um There's something about it. I mean obviously you know that and it's almost like the recording quality and the just the Atmosphere and the sound and the kids who came in and sang there's just like something so Like they captured you guys captured like lightening in a bottle every day. We just yeah, it's real That's all I could tell you. I think that's why people could feel that heart connection and they They made it happen, you know, I'm surprised I'll go go play a concert and Somewhere and there's a thousand people I mean just sold out. It's really cool No, they're all sold out before you get there, but it's and these people are generations. I'm meeting kids little kids Who are you know, they're grandparents people bring their parents you know, so It has that quality and it was uh Vince's melodies are everything he wrote are not dark And they're really complicated.  So It's very subtle. I'd say yeah That makes it hard. Yeah Very true. Now you mentioned before about and and I'm sure it's You know, it's a part of the story about how a lot of times with drummers like I mean this is to this day one of the most um Popular albums in in history. I mean it's it's one of those some of these songs are just They're everywhere. Like you said, but what happens with drummers, which we all fall in that category listening to this is like You know, he wrote the the melody. He did all that stuff. So so when it comes to the royalties and stuff I'm sure like you said where there was you were mad about that. I mean you had to be Right. Thank you Bernard Purdy and yep like that, you know those those composers quote Who wrote those songs? They didn't write the drum parts man Totally so the musicians union never protected us There's a there's an organization called Music rights organization And they found all the money for me. So I got some big checks good But yeah, I'm pretty caught up now, but good. I think that Over the years as drummers Nobody relates to us as composers and we are composing Yes, we're composing those drum parts. We're arranging that music by the how we play it 50 ways to leave you a lover without Steve Gad's drum Hook that tune is nothing. Yeah, a perfect example It without that forget it you know, yeah But I it's part of the nature of that instrument and that's that's why at some point I Do to the inspiration of max roach and a couple of people I I started I decided I wanted to be a leader and make my own band my own music, you know Which there's not that many of us who did that So I got, you know 28 records to my credit that are mine. Wow That's awesome Yeah, it's it's a nature of the instrument It's a it's a it's an instrument that controls it has so much energy And yet Is in a serving position Yeah, and I mean, did you hit a point where like I can tell you I have a one and a half year old we in the last week We have watched the charlie brown that the you know the original You know the the christmas special that we're talking about probably three times like in the last week Did you get sick of did you not want anything to do with it? Did you not want to hear it? Did you separate yourself from it for a while? What I left I left shortly after it was done I was 24 and then I went on to Why you know and of course when you that age and you have and you're out there fighting those battles You know not playing hi-hat on two and four Uh, which really disturbed people and the things we were trying to do with the drums at that time Yeah Trying to go forward and and imply time and understand how it works and Getting to see how the drums is another voice in the band, you know I could play on chord changes as good as any horn player. They forced me to learn that and uh So I let it be and I didn't like people always bringing it up or it was kind of a And then I just wouldn't touch it and then my manager Collin McKenzie Uh slowly Slowly would say hey these people Uh, you know pbs wants to do something about Charlie Brown's christmas. So I would do the interview and then I couldn't do it because I didn't want to be at play it as a character. Sure.  This is a great blessing in your life. Yeah, you're mature enough now to be able to Do it but I couldn't figure out how so One day at one night literally I uh, I just saw it as a piece and I call Collin. I said hey man It's going to be called Kales of Charlie Brown Christmas I had a great trio who I recorded with before and These guys could play it because every musician damn near every jazz musician I ever met grew up with this and uh I said it's going to really be for real. I'm not playing it just by road. We'll play the heads right The Scholes family was so great because they let me use uh Some clips so I have animation And the children's choir and I said it has to be a benefit for educating people for jazz great Yeah, and he said let me go with this man And all of a sudden we had 12 concerts and I said it has to be a good payday for me Of course. Yeah, you need you get what's coming to you.  It has to sound like a 50 60s trio But I could see it as a composer so I could come back To it and then on the new record with jamie saft New york trio record I did jamie who's a genius young Channel player if you don't know jamie you should go out and look at jamie saft And he We play cast your faith to the wind and we he said man. We got to play christmas time is here. Please for me So we recorded it and it's brand new So I think that's your As an artist, I think you finally grow up. Yeah Well, like I said before I mean a lot of people out there. I mean I think we always hear about it where like the big band who like like Um Led Zeppelin might not want to play stairway to heaven. You know what I mean and but like People don't get that opportunity to even have That problem. That's a that's a nice problem to have. It's a very wonderful problem to have And it's very rare for for us jazz musicians to have that kind of problem Uh, yeah, and I I just really Sounds corny but at this point in my life I I I don't view it as having anything to do with me You know, it's more about the people who comment And you know so many kids and I just did something on Canadian radio some 10 year old kid His mom sent me a video of him playing Linus and Lucy They happened to live near me. So I said come by and then cbc wanted to do an interview This little kid is trying to learn this music and it's really cool, man That's great. But that's I think that's Yeah, the history of jazz and the the drumming and you know, you realize We did have some pop heroes gene krupa Cozy Cole and then, you know, morello was like huge man. Oh, yeah God So I think some of that rubbed off on me that Possibility that you could that could happen, you know Yeah, yeah, really especially in gene comes up in a lot of episodes, but just how he has he sort of The drum set and it became something else which is kind of what this album did where it transcended just music and Yeah, and obviously it's a right place right time right animation right characters Yeah, everything was like perfect. Yes. It was just one of those things I have I have no idea how it happened So I'm glad part of it now Yeah, really now um you beyond You know this obvious your like Your your masterpiece here will call it You have other tons of other work and now you've done a lot of and I've posted some videos that I think you know people have seen Probably, you know, I think uh probably about six months ago. I found really some cool videos of you I mean, it's very It's it's not Christmas music. That's for sure Very cool different unique like we said quote-unquote avant-garde kind of more um Just I would their stuff. I just wanted to play it.  They were endless You know, I mean So, yeah, and and how they're used In the music we change that I'm proud to be a part of changing that Yeah pop records Uh, I wish you know my other hit records. I was you're right about Changing the sound because a lot of stuff you'll do is very like it's not just playing the drums the standard way it's like using things and Just experimenting. It's very I guess experimental Is the best way to kind of like put it all together but um That had to be that has to be freeing to kind of be like and I'm sure part of that Deep down you're probably still like okay. I'm not just the christmas guy. Here's some really cool different stuff, right? Yeah, at this point my greatest fear. I mean I was talking to someone it takes years to find your voice You know to find your voice in music is the greatest gift If a record comes on somebody knows it's me Because of the sound I get because of the way I phrase Things usually because I can't figure out what one is but you know, it's like That's that took years to find Took years to find it took years of of study To to listen to Kenny Clark to go back You know to thinking that actually you think you're like really have on guard and you go back and you listen to baby dodge A great drummer and Yeah, you know who was like an archetype and you listen to those guys and you go Oh my god, this was in there. He was doing that. He was playing melodically Yeah, that happens all the time now that I've seen with gear Where there's a lot of things where you'll be like, um Oh, man, there's this awesome new invention that happened and you know, things are really modern and different But then you look back at like I was looking at like a 40s gretch Catalog and there's like a hi-hat stand that has like two hi-hats connected and it's like a bar and it's like They were doing wild.  Yeah, baby dots Had one that got up to where he could play it You couldn't tune heads. It was a big deal when you had one the top head was tunable. The bottom head was still tacked on uh calf heads You know, and it's a very people forget that it's a very unique american instrument that in the electric guitar Yeah, and and We lived through When I learned to play there was only one way to learn to play rudimentally Which had no relationship to the drum set But now there's Tons of technique. I hear these drummers. I look online man, you know Don't drum clinics were Good god the things they can do are amazing. Yeah, it's it's a different world now That's for sure than what you what you were doing, but I don't think you can have one without the other I don't think there'd be let's call it chop chop city now without The very clean smooth earlier jazz stuff. It's kind of it's all just a part of the what makes drums great, you know Yeah, jazz drumming is still I mean, no The uh, I'll get too scientific the body that you acknowledge you have to have You have to understand chord change You have to know a form, you know You have to Be able to move a band Through a set of chord changes in odd time signatures I mean It's it's incredibly sophisticated It's considering it's an instrument that started out as all as a language instrument That's what it started out as as a ritual instrument Yeah, and it was a way to You know For people to communicate Yeah, exactly send messages and even with war and battles it'd be sending messages down the line and I mean, yeah Yeah, it's a wonderful Consider it was the first instrument that in voice Yeah, somebody banging on a log Uh and creating a beat that said danger You know, I'm sure that was the first one, right Of course, yeah They're gonna eat us Todd yeah run Play this beat, you know, yeah so We're really getting into drumhead stuff, but it's it's I think that's important to realize and what's being lost now as a if I could be a grumpy old guy is There's I watch people do technique, you know, but there's no music man They're not playing music. They're just It's it's uh sport Sure, that's a good way to put it. It's they've changed it into sport and Uh It's fantastic, but it it's separating it out and that's wonderful. I could never do that But And I'm not interested in that it in But then you have Vinny and you have other great Drummers in that then, you know in that form That are, you know incredible musicians Incredible musicians. Yeah, I can't think of my favorite one of my favorites is the guy with the sting Oh man, just that's there's Vinny. Who else has played with him? Uh, josh freese has played with him It's oh god. I can't remember omar hakeem. I think played with him Yeah, but the way if you listen to her copeland Yes, not here. It's the last I think it might be vinny actually Yeah, Vinny that snare drum sound where they have to put it But the way he'll he'll just play three Bells of the symbol in the right place in a song it makes the whole tune, you know, yeah Yeah, absolutely. That's genius, man Yeah, that's musicality and cleanness and I think and I always say this that I think if people are playing the drums, that's the best thing period play the drums, but But if you're if you're always playing alone Um, which I understand too like I've fallen on that again having a baby and like I I used to play in a band A bunch of different bands and then I started the podcast and had a baby and I was like Okay, now I'm just like playing alone and it's it's just a different thing But you got to do what you got to do, but it's very different When you sit down with other people and you're not like, okay, you don't go nuts all the time You that's bad for the music.  It's beautiful, but it's sport Yeah I did a big drum clinic somewhere. I just I could I was going out there and there's you know, all these drums and there's right in the middle of the stage is a regular old jazz drum set So the only thing I could do is I just walked out and started playing it backwards with my back to the audience It started the other way Yeah You know slowly moved around it, but I uh It's fascinating and because and drummers are more nervous than anybody else We are we love it.  What are you doing there? How'd you do that? Give No, yeah, people don't get it who aren't drummers. They'll go like I don't know. I mean, it's like it's not a hobby. It's a it's a life It's a life choice. Yeah you're holding on to like You know k-zildred symbols. I've got a 1943 k-zildred. It's like wow, man. Cool. You know That's so cool. No people go out. What kind of symbols I go whatever they were giving me at the time so You know got 40 symbols sitting downstairs and I give them to my students and but I A lot of my don't Well, you got to keep them, but hey on that note. That's a good kind of transition here as we kind of wrap up So you teach Why don't you tell people how they can like find you how they can take lessons from you know the master himself? And uh learn more about you. How do they do that? I'm not doing the zoom lessons. They can go to Gerrygrinelli.com And that'll lead you to a thing called creative music workshop website uh, because I like I Uh, I don't like to give private drum lessons. Okay, because it I you know, I can an all honesty just bores me and It's usually a solvable problem You know, I like to help people with their hands in the morello system and on practice paths If anybody wants to learn that I can teach you that But the rest I like to teach the instrument in context. I think it's very important to teach the musical instrument in a context, you know But creative music workshop is is I is done in Halifax. There's one online from january 17th, but it really uses Improvising and I'm interested in teaching that more than a drums at this point in my life I have a few students here, but anybody who wants to write to me grinelli drums, man, you know, and I'll answer questions about it I do love to talk about it as you can tell. Oh, yeah. Well, you're in the right place and I'll spell it's j e r r y g r a n e l li dot com jerry grinelli dot com Yeah Hey at the risk of getting weird emails grinelli Drums one word is at gmail is my email and I will answer questions. I'll I do love it, you know, I mean When I when I was studying morello, I drove him anywhere he wanted to go because he was going to talk about drums all the time Yeah, I've heard we've we've had um So steve fiddick who's a great drummer did a biography episode on joe and then I've uh, yeah, yeah So I've I've heard of his and I've I've been taking lessons with one of his friends and a student of stone Barry james who's become a good friend. Um And I've heard just joe morello.  Um, oh, yeah Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I love I love to talk about it and You know, uh, I love to teach it Sound of it I yeah, I'm a complete nerd man. I'm all in That's good. Well, I'm glad we had you on here and I should have done this at the beginning so, um I always say who kind of recommended the episode with the other morning Like I said on our probably third time in the week watching the charlie brown special. My wife said I think she was just googling and uh She recommended she was like, oh my god, you should talk to like she googled you and and I'd seen your stuff, obviously Before like I said, but and I I know you were great, but she said why don't you email Jerry Grinnelli about getting him on and talking about you know, this stuff for a christmas episode So my wife abby was the one who um, this was this was her idea. So um, we can we can all thank her for that But uh, we owe so much to our wives Yes, we do. We probably don't admit it enough. I know I don't but um That's the wives of drummers Yeah, exactly. I'm picking up an electronic set today because I moved and again having a baby. I'm trading I'm all about trading. I'm picking up a um, I traded a an old piece of audio gear that I don't use for this guy as a brand new electronic set. So I'm like it if I Playing is playing. I know it's preferred. I love the acoustic drums. I have multiple sets, but I'm like I just want to play and not wake the baby up at night Oh No, it doesn't matter. It's wonderful.  She'd say that paradiddle doesn't sound right You know, that's awesome. Mom That's great. Cool. Well, hey Jerry, I want to thank you for coming on the show and again people can find you at Jerry Grinnelli.com Yeah And just you're a super nice guy. So I'm sure people will reach out and just want to talk to you and And see your schedule and hopefully and check out videos, which I'll be sharing and I'll post Jerry's website in the kind of description of this episode. So again, um, Jerry Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Thank you for doing this. I mean, thank you for having the podcast and There's some great stuff up there. Thank you so much. Thanks, Jerry If you like this podcast find me on social media at drum history and please share rate and leave a review And let me know topics that you would like to learn about in the future Until next time keep on learning This is a Gwyn sound podcast


Hello everybody, Andrew Mayesca here with Dental Tutoring. So this video will be about what dental assisting students need to know before they start working in an office. And also things that are good to know to make you feel more confident and that you will realize you're not alone. I took dental assisting when I was in my early 20s. Actually, no, sorry. I took dental assisting when I was 19, I think maybe 18 and I was a dental assistant by the time I was in my early 20s. So 19 or 20 even. So, but it's funny, I remember it like it was yesterday. It does happen sometimes the offices where I work, I just have to quickly help out a dental assistant or they're looking for an instrument and I can kind of help them look because I know what all of the instruments are. And it just, it does help a lot to have previous dental assisting experience. Even if you're going through to be a dental hygienist, if you have previous dental assisting experience, it is so helpful, it is so helpful. It will help you in so many ways and it will make you a great asset to the office. But what I want to tell you number one is that and I don't know why this is, but in school, they don't really teach you guys the instruments and the procedures. I mean, they do a little bit, but I remember when I was a dental assistant, even a dental assisting student and I was doing my co-op, I remember just feeling so lost and hoping, I hope they don't want me to assist. I hope I can just watch because I feel like I don't know what anything is or you do know what things are, but you don't really know the steps that you will need them. But the good news is you will learn fast and it's very, very easy. Another thing to make notice, every dentist is different and every dentist will want different instruments. Their steps may be a little bit different and in the dental office, you won't all use the same materials, even something like the prime and the bond. Some have prime and bond mixed in, some have a separate primer, some have a separate bond, some you have to air dry the primer, some you don't. So just kind of little things like that, but your dentist will tell you what to do. Even talking about air drying, prime and bond, sometimes the dentist will want to do it themselves, sometimes the dentist will have you air dry for them. So all of that, you kind of learn on the job. So don't feel like you have to start day one and know all of that stuff. The good news is again too, is that when you're a new dental assistant, the office expects you to not know a lot, as silly as that sounds, but they expect to have to train you on a lot of things. So they're perfectly fine. If you're kind of sitting there like, okay, can you just tell me what instrument to pass you and I would be happy to pass it to you? So don't feel like you have to be two steps ahead yet. Eventually, yes, you will be and I am here to teach you guys all how to do that, but you will become so good and so valuable to that practice. It will be the easiest thing ever. The hard part will be dealing with crazy patients, okay? That's the hardest part, because I find as a dental assistant, you pretty much have to deal with those crazy patients, you know, that night guard impression that you have to take. Well, nobody else is going to take that impression except for the dental assistants. The dentist won't even do it. Sorry guys, I got something on my lip, don't I? I just put on lip gloss and I kind of feel like, there we go. Sorry, I'm only human. I didn't want to just leave it there because I'm sure all of you guys can see that too and that's probably very distracting. But okay, I'm back. But yeah, like honestly, things like taking impressions. As a dental hygienist, I hate taking them. So I will do whatever I can to not take those darn impressions. I will say, hey, the assistant's not doing anything. How about I move you into the assistant's chair? She would love to take those impressions for you. You know, the dentist will not be taking those alternate impressions. You have to take those impressions. So you will be the one having to do a lot. But that I would have to say is the big thing. Don't think you have to be two steps ahead. You know, think of all of the different procedures like the root canal, the composite, amalgam, a crown prep, a bridge prep, cementing a crown, even just something as simple as alginate impressions. Don't expect, don't think that they're expecting you to know everything right away. If you pass them the bond instead of the primer, they're not going to get upset.  But you will learn quite quickly. And it will probably take a week or two. Like, okay, this dentist likes to use the bulb vurnisher more than the condenser. Or, oh, this dentist uses the condenser for pretty much the whole filling, but the last part, they like to use the bulb vurnisher. You know, things like that you will learn. So don't think you have to be perfect. If you've never worked in a dental office before, that will be the hardest part, is to just kind of get a feel for how the office works. I have known many new dental assistants that I can tell they're nervous as heck, even something as simple as just getting the patient. You know, they're not used to having to go out into the waiting room. Everyone's staring at you, literally. You have to call out the patient's name, the patient comes with you. That may seem like a very simple thing, or maybe not. For me, that's just something that happens. It's very, very simple. But if you're new, even that simple task may seem very daunting to you. You're not alone. You will get used to it. You won't even think about it. Even something like, oh, I hope the patient doesn't ask me any questions because I don't know what I'm doing still. You know, they will ask you questions. You will come into difficult scenarios where let's say you're telling the patient, oh, you are due for your checkup x-rays today. I see that you didn't have them done at your last cleaning. We are doing a filling for you today, but the dentist did ask me to take those checkup x-rays for you first because he or she's worried there may be some extra cavities in between the teeth. What if the patient says to you, I don't want them? You might be thinking, uh, well, too bad. You have to have them. Or you may be thinking, oh, okay, never mind then. And then you go tell the dentist, well, the patient didn't want x-rays, so I didn't take them. You know, how do you deal with those situations? It may seem obvious to somebody who's been working in a dental office for months, years, but it's not so obvious if you've never worked in a dental office before. So I will teach you guys those situations too. But for the x-rays, you know, you will have patients say no. That's okay. What I do is I might say something like, oh, is there a reason why you don't want us to take them? They might say something like, oh, well, I don't really have time. Well, that's a lousy excuse. So I will say to them, well, it just takes about 20 seconds and this will help us diagnose to make sure that we're not missing anything. Then they might say, oh, okay, then who knows? Or they might tell you the real answer, like, well, actually, it's not about the time. I just don't want x-rays done because I don't like too many x-rays. You know, fair enough, that's okay, but I will still take it a step further and tell the patient, okay, I completely understand that is okay, but just so you know, we might be missing a cavity and we don't want that to get larger. We would only take the checkup x-rays if we need them. We don't take them every year, every six months. We do not do that. I see for you, we took the checkup x-rays three years ago. So that's just the main reason why she wanted us to take them today. If we don't see anything today, then we are probably okay to wait another three years. So you're not forcing them, but you're just letting them know why you want to take them. At that point, though, if they still say no, no means no, say, okay, you know what? I completely understand, you know, sign here saying that you understand we can't diagnose and that we might be missing some areas. Not all offices have them sign something.  So, but again, that depends on the office too. You will learn what your office does and office policies. Another example would be if the patient shows up 30 minutes late, you might not see them or the dentist might expect you to see them too bad, so sad, no matter what, and then you're like 40 minutes behind for the rest of the day, you will start to learn that over time. A little trick as a dental assistant, that just makes you look one step ahead, I think, and not all offices do that is to walk the patient out. So after their procedure, I do always say to them, oh, do you have any questions? Because the dentist is probably still in that room, and they might, they might have questions. So I sit them up, I take off the bib, I say, do you have any questions about anything? So you're not just sitting them up and saying, okay, bye, see you later. But if they don't have questions, walk them out into the waiting room. I always tell the patients to have a seat and that the receptionist will call them up when they have their chart to pay. It depends on the office. If there's only one receptionist, then yes, have the patient have a seat because perhaps they're seeing other patients or they're just not ready for that patient yet. Some offices though, if there's more than one receptionist, they want you to bring the patient to them so that they don't have to call the patient's name. So you will learn these things over time. As an assistant, you may be in charge of putting the codes through so that the receptionist doesn't have to look in the chart to see what you did that day, but you might be responsible for putting the codes through. As a new assistant, you might not know the codes. So the dentist will probably tell you what codes to put through and then you have to put them in the computer or in the chart. Again, you kind of learn those things depending on the office. So if you guys have questions, let me know. Comment below and if you haven't yet, make sure to hit subscribe to my channel because I just love seeing all of the different comments, all of the different questions and it helps me to know who's watching and what type of videos to upload because if you guys are like me, you always are thinking about dental, talking about it. I love it. But I'm going to upload a video shortly of going through some of the common dental assisting procedures and the step by step. So you guys can kind of be 10 steps ahead to begin with. I don't expect you guys to memorize all of the different steps, but it will help to see what things look like. So if the dentist says, oh, can you pass me the ball burnisher? A new assistant might forget what that is. So I'm going to show you guys what everything looks like. So that will be in another video. And if you guys need more help, if you're still a student in school, feel free to check out the Dental Assisting and Board Exam Prep Academy because I do offer full tutoring for the Dental Assisting Board Exam where we go through mock exams, case studies, modules. There is tutoring twice a month, so you will pass your exam. If you're still a student and not quite thinking about the office just yet. So thank you guys so much for watching. Make sure to comment if you have any questions because then that kind of helps me know what types of videos to upload. So thank you guys for watching. Make sure to hit subscribe to see when the new videos come out because I do do them at least once a week, if not more. Thank you guys, have a wonderful Sunday because it's Sunday today, it's getting dark out actually because it was raining all day, but I hope you guys have a nice weekend. Thank you, bye.


I think we're at the point in our evening where we should pause and give some attention, some appropriate attention to the Unitarian Universalists of Birmingham, who have one of the more amazing church histories from this continent. They are impressive people. A few years ago, a New York Times reporter named Diane McQuirter started researching Birmingham history. She's from Birmingham and actually it started out as a personal quest. She was worried that her father might actually have been a member of the Klan. She started digging and she's a reporter, she made notes and so on.  Confesses that the editors compelled her to leave some significant fraction of it on the cutting room floor, so it would actually be readable. And there are a few references in that to the Medical Center Liberals Unitarian Church and a couple of references to the Reverend Alfred Hobart. Now, it's sort of too bad that she didn't get more of that piece of the history in because the era she was talking about in the 1950s and 60s in particular was an era when this city, this metropolitan area, was still dominated by the steel industry. And the reality is those Medical Center Liberals and some other people changed this city. In 1950, 60, 70, the steel mills were inescapable here. You smelled when you were getting close to Birmingham. Today, they're gone. The largest employer in this area is the University of Alabama at Birmingham and its Medical Center. I believe the first president of the University of Alabama at Birmingham was Joe Volcker, who was also the first president of the Unitarian Fellowship here. So, anyhow, that's some environmental history. Birmingham was founded in the 1870s. Birmingham was not here during the Civil War, so maybe it had a chance at a fresh start. Well, no, not really, because northern industry, which founded the steel mills, did not pursue enlightened social policies. They wanted to keep the unions out or weak, and so they supported fairly repressive measures. By the Civil Rights Era, the laws were absurdly strict. For example, an interracial game of checkers was illegal in Birmingham. I don't think it was a felony, probably just a misdemeanor, but it was illegal. You can imagine what else would be illegal. Certainly it was not legally or socially favorable to have a non-segregated congregation, but they did. So, it was in that context that the later Unitarian Universalist congregation was founded in 1952. Now, those of you who've been registered for the Marching in the Ark of Justice conference have material in your packet, a brief one-page history of the Birmingham Church, and the reprint of a sermon, 16 Days of Crisis for a Group of Insiders, by Larry McGinty, who was minister of this congregation in March of 1965 when the Selma events occurred. I'm not going to repeat the material that's there. You need to read that for yourselves, particularly the McGinty sermon. But there are delicious stories that aren't there. One that has achieved legendary status involves church secretary Eve Gerard. We talked about this in a workshop yesterday. What do you do when the church phone rings?  I'm sure that Eve had gotten messages like this previously. On one occasion, I guess she'd just had it. And I've heard different wordings of her exact message. It was something to the effect, you're going to have to take a number. There are several people ahead of you. It was that kind of spirit that these people had. And Eve told me that when there were a lot of bombings here in Birmingham, Birmingham was known as bombing ham, there were so many mysterious unsolved bombings. But when there was a spate of bombings, Eve, when she got to work at the church, would do a circuit around the building just to see if there was anything strange. That's not in the usual church secretary job description. And something tied to the Selma events that we've alluded to yesterday. Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of that event. Today is the 50th anniversary to the day of Bloody Sunday. But the day before Bloody Sunday on Saturday, there was a group of Alabama citizens who were permitted to march to the courthouse. They were called the concerned white citizens of Alabama. There were 72 of them. Pastor Joe L. Wanger, who was with us briefly yesterday, organized and led that group. I have heard pretty consistently that of those 72, there were 36 unitarian universalists. I didn't know we had 50% of the Alabama population. Probably we had it only in that select segment of the population. But in a real sense, I'm, as a unitarian universalist, I'm prouder of that 36 out of 72 than I am of the hundreds of us who came from somewhere else where we faced few reprisals and showed up briefly, hi, here I am to save you. Those people did something very, very brave. And at least one of them is here with us tonight. I, too, with those of you who are here, who are among those 72, stand or at least wave. All right. All right. The other fact well-addressed in Larry McGinty's sermon is that when hundreds of us from elsewhere came to Alabama, several hundred of us, at least 200, maybe 250 or 300, were housed, fed and transported by this congregation which did not have that many members on the books. They rose to the challenge and met it gloriously. Larry's sermon, it's something we need to know. Now, we're curious, do we, by any stretch of good luck, have anyone here today who was hosted back then who was among those 200 or 300? I don't think so. Ken? Okay. You stopped here for the Montgomery March. Okay. Kenneth McLean came down from Knoxville and you were hosted here. Okay. Okay. We know Ken. Well, and I think our delegate from San Antonio couldn't make it travel impeded by ice in Dallas and that's too bad because 50 years ago this hat was left with the vultures by someone from San Antonio whose name they didn't get. So, if you know San Antonio Unitarian Universalists and this looks like their hat, Virginia still has it. There are a couple of passages that I want to share just to complete giving the flavor of what things were like here. One fuller was a young woman, a student from an activist family when her high school desegregated. She did what turned out to be unpardonable for most of her classmates. She actually spoke to the black student and became almost as isolated as he was. A few years ago she wrote me in an email about the role of the church in her life. It was an oasis. Even though members, former members who attended my public school would avoid me. The only people I considered real friends came from that church. I'm not sure I would have survived emotionally if it had not been for the church. We were under siege which caused us to draw together very tightly. Almost all of my positive childhood memories are from the church. The Sunday school class was the only place I felt intellectually stimulated and emotionally supported. That's how important this church was. Some years later a church member and DRE wrote a seminary history paper about this church reflecting on the church. She said, and this is Alice Silte who is now my ministerial colleague in Huntsville. Alice wrote, there is a special strength and a profound connection among these people. From this experience was born a commitment and a loyalty that continues to sustain the church in times of crisis. The deeply rooted understanding of what it means to work for justice under physically demanding and emotionally challenging conditions continues to touch the life of the congregation, their dedication and continued support of each other in the church through the easy and the hard times serves as an example to all. So that's the congregation that we thought it might be worthwhile to recognize this evening to whom we thought we might say a collective thank you. So would current members of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham stand as you were able? And could we add to that, former members who are present here tonight, will you please stand? And those who in other ways are part of this congregation, this religious community. To you, we give our thanks for being who you are and what you have been over the years. Thank you very much. And because thank yous spoken in rented space can be a little bit effervescent, we did prepare a token of what we're trying to express to you. So if the congregation's president and minister would come forward, Luna Jensen-Brusard, the Living Legacy Project and the Marching in the Ark of Justice conference, want to present this plaque to you. It reads, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham, born as issues of civil rights and basic justice, came to the fore, here and across America, came of age as it and its members and friends were among the necessary, but not always loved, justice seekers. It demonstrated its maturity and fortitude in the critical days and weeks around the events of the Selma voting rights campaign in 1965. Fed housed, transported and advised more than 200 Unitarian Universalists as they traveled to and from Selma and Montgomery. The Living Legacy Project and the Marching in the Ark of Justice conferees honor the Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham for its contributions over many years in bending the moral arc of the universe toward justice. My name is Ruth Van Lillian and it is a tremendous honor for me to serve as president of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham. I feel the need to say that I am standing here not as an elected president, but as someone who had to step in to the space when our dear friend Dory Fuchs became ill and then later passed away. She was our elected president and she would be so pleased to be here tonight. I wanted to first confess to you that I really have no right to be standing here because despite all this gray hair, in fact I was not born yet when this event took place. I was a gleam in my parents eye at that point. In fact, I'm a contemporary of the son of one of our folks whom you know well, Virginia Voker. My history with the Unitarian Church began with the Montessori School in the basement, which was the first integrated school in Birmingham by the way, and I was spinning around in the sanctuary doing creative dance lessons with another former member of ours, Laura Knox, after this event was part of history. But I felt that it would only be appropriate to recognize the few of our members who were members at that time and who were able to be here and sadly there are not many still with us and even fewer who were even able to attend. But I did want to recognize and I'm going to ask if they're able to stand, please. Janice Williams, Virginia Voker, Charles Cleveland, Jackie Mazzara. Is she here? No, she didn't make it. And Eileen Wahlbert was a member. We also have two children of members, Phyllis Bennington, the daughter of Bea and Fred Bennington, and Elise Pruitt-Mayer, who's the daughter of Ken Pruitt. I'm sorry, and Al Pruitt. Thank you. And I wanted to say one other thing. Please be seated. Thank you. Our wonderful minister here was living somewhere else in the world at the time. I was. I was born in Denmark, but at that point you were... I was in Baghdadi Rock. She was in Baghdadi Rock being a young married lady at that time. And so this was something distant, even if she'd heard of it. But she is a marvelous leader for our congregation and she is continuing to lead us in the tradition of fighting for civil rights. And while Alabama is being dragged kicking and screaming into the reality of letting all our citizens enjoy the privileges of being married legally, the day that it first became legal, and of course right now it's back in the courts, our minister was down there outside the city hall along with our intern minister, who was seated over there, Gail, and they were performing weddings as fast and furiously as they could. So I will end my remarks by saying there are some very tall shoulders that we are standing on.  Amen. Well after that it's hard to imagine what else I can say, but there is something I want to say. Yes, we stand on tall shoulders and yes I did hear about the civil rights movement, even in Baghdad. And I come of course from a whole different place and our prejudices were entirely different. I'm still somewhere in the U.S. listed as an other because I had no idea what to write down when they asked me what race I was. And I knew Calcasas Mountains were in Russia, so surely I better not put that down, right? So I was left with other. It has never made sense to me for us to be separate from one another. By color, by creed, by nationality, by strange accents. It never made sense and it still doesn't. I do want to say though that Selma has to be more than a memory. It cannot just remain a memory, as wonderful as it is and as important it is to remember. We have to make the difference today, here and now. And not in the past. Yes. And so let's do it. That's the voting him spirit.


One of the best things about collecting trading cards is the artwork and the rarity of the cards. Other trading card games like magic and Pokemon have implemented things like full art cards, while Yu-Gi-Oh has kept consistent borders and framework for their cards ever since its TCG inception in 2002. While Konami has been hesitant to move away from their classic card style, what has changed are Yu-Gi-Oh card rarities. Originally, super rares, ultra rares, and secret rares were the only rarities in this game, but many others have been introduced since such as Ultimate Rare, Ghost Rare, Gold Rare, and many more. One of the newest and most popular rarities to be added to Yu-Gi-Oh is Starlight Rare. This rarity was initially thought to be ugly, too shiny, and fake looking, but this rarity has risen in popularity over the last couple of years. I personally love the rarity and I'm always excited to pull these cards when a new set releases. I have decided to pursue the goal of pulling every Starlight Rare ever made. The journey begins now. What's up guys we are back with another video and as you guys saw in the intro we are attempting to pull every Starlight Rare. Obviously not in this video we're not going to open like a billion packs and try to pull all of them, but I do want to do an update. I have pulled in my like lifetime all my openings on YouTube we pulled 40 different Starlight Rears. When I calculated this up I was like that can't be right there's no way we pulled that many Starlight Rears. I counted them up we have in fact pulled that many. We pulled nine out of the battles legend Crystal Revenge so that was almost a quarter of them so that's kind of cheating because there's 10 in that one, but still 40 Starlight Rears have been pulled on this channel. So how much does that leave us with? I think there are 86 total at the moment if I counted correctly so we've pulled almost half of them so we have 46 to go which you're like hey that's halfway that's not too bad but you got to consider that a lot of those were open when that set was brand new and we bought like 10 cases at like the cheapest possible price and now all these boxes are worth way more and they're a lot harder to find and stuff like that so these next 46 are going to be really really hard. But before we get into what we're doing in today's video I have a giveaway. I'll be giving away these two cards we have a Trihorn Dragon Secret Rare reprint and then a summon skull this is from Dark Beginning 1 actually it kind of looks like a reprint but it's actually from Dark Beginning 1 so it's a really old card. All you have to do is like the video be subscribe turn on notifications and let me know which Starlight you want to see me pull next that we have not pulled already. Yo I'm back but Ruxin where are you back from? If you guys don't know I streamed on what not back in 2021 and I've made my return to what not. If you guys don't know what what not is what not is a streaming platform where you can sell stuff live and if your reviewer on what not you can show up to the live stream watch the stuff get open watch stuff get sold it's really fun to see the auction prices and people going back and forth trying to get different stuff and you might think I don't really want to spend any money right now well that's where I come in use my link down below and you'll get $15 for free when you sign up for what not it doesn't have to be on my stream it could be on Team Samurai stream it could be on Simply Unlucky stream it can be completely unrelated to Yu-Gi-Oh because this isn't just a TZG platform there's also a lot of other cool stuff like shoes and other collectibles like that that are being sold on what not and I will be streaming live Thursday March 30th at 5 p.m. central we'll be selling stuff like epic Yu-Gi-Oh singles and old school Yu-Gi-Oh packs and I will be giving away over $500 worth of Yu-Gi-Oh cards in this stream so you guys want to make sure you're there and some of these giveaways will not require a purchase at all you can simply be viewing the stream and win and don't forget to use that link down below to get that $15 off when you come to the stream so you can save yourself some money thanks again to what not for sponsoring this video alright so in today's video I grabbed a bunch of packs from sets that we have not pulled a lot of the starlights yet specifically a couple that I really want to pull first of all I have lightning overdrive packs which this is not a great set but do you know what is inside this set the starlight black rose dragon so if we could pull this out of here it would be huge because it's one of the cards that I really want as a starlight rare that I've never even owned then a second set that's not very good but inside has an amazing card this is Blazing Vortex blazing dumpster fire as House of Champs would call it inside is the pot of prosperity starlight rare which I actually need pot of prosperity is anyway so if I could pull the secret rare as well that'd be great but I haven't pulled like any of the starlights out of these I'm gonna pull like maybe one out of each one so there's like four different ones that we could pull so we are starting our journey to pull the next 46 starlights in this video I'm hoping that we also pull a pot of prosperity secret rare while we're at it because that would be pretty awesome so I'm pretty excited I think this is look we're also doing this for ghost shares we're trying to pull every single ghost share I haven't actually checked how many more I need but we've pulled a quite a few ghost shares but definitely not 40 I don't think because there's not as many ghost shares per set so there's probably only 40 total something like that well now I guess it goes in the past there's probably more than that seven cities of the gold way is this eldritch I don't know eldritch was in blazing vortex I've kind of forgot about that all right next pack what are we gonna pull let's pull something epic lightning overdrive I looked at this set the best card in here is diviner of the herald that's not a starlight it's only 14 bucks so not very expensive that's still a great card if we could pull it I'd be happy about that AI challenge you we have the paleozoic camber roaster the super sight we have the trap tricks versiculo now look this might be a great card because trap tricks have gotten really popular you've seen my TCG player update video yet might not have seen it yet but there's the trap trick stuff is doing pretty well all right I got the price guys up blazing vortex the pot is still 70 bucks for the secret rare so I think the starlight's like 600 something like that so it's a big one if we could pull that it'd be huge for multiple reasons not just because we need it but because it's really expensive at a desired card arm dragon lightning we had good luck pulling a pot the other day out of a mega tin so oh a live twin lila treat another nice card live twins are nice they got a reprint so I mean you guys know you've seen my videos if you saw my rise of the little video go check it out if you missed it talking about what happens to sets you know they last a couple years and everything gets reprinted it kills the value but then you know the seal die is still really expensive so that's kind of what's happened with these it's not really expensive like sealed yet for these because they weren't very good sets overall but they are still pretty rough in terms of the reprints anything that was decent out of it that's kind of gotten waxed okay let's keep it up lighting overdrive if we get any starlight in this video obviously it's gonna be a w even if something we've already pulled but we've only pulled I think two out of the 10 starlights in these sets so I think the ones that I pulled out of lightning overdrive I'm gonna have to double check and see what it was I was going through all the different ones ZW draconic halberd that I've pulled like ever and I couldn't even remember something like I think I pulled that one but I can't remember because it's been like two years oh now it's coming back to me these were the sets where I pulled the live twin every time so I got a live twin starlight out of both of these sets it was like three sets in a row I think burst of destiny as well I got a live twin so it was like every time there was a live twin that had a starlight I pulled it it was insane and it was the only one I could pull fabled we have the guitar and a one which wind which times I should say let's keep it up let's see what we can get lightning overdrive can you bless us with a black rose dragon it only comes in starlight rare which is if you guys don't know one in 25 boxes to pull a starlight rare not just the black rose specifically because if you go into the specifics you have to times it by five so it's one in 125 to pull the black rose so if you guys remember when I opened up for the stardust you guys could check out those live streams but we did an eight hour stream we did not pull it because we needed to open 13 cases to actually get it because that only barely went over ratio because 10 cases is the ratio to actually pull it because basically one every two there's five starlights so if you want to get a specific one you know on average you got to open like 10 which is insane white making hilarious super rare card there but it just shows you how hard it is to pull starlight rare as it's very difficult that's what makes them so valuable because you really just don't get them like unless you get really really lucky which some of you guys have messaged me or sent me tweets and stuff and you're like hey I pulled this in two packs was I lucky I'm like you were oh and speaking of black rose this is not a black rose it's already rose dragon reggae this is one of the best cards in the set used to be it's like a 25 dollar card but it got a reprint so it's probably only a couple bucks now but still a great secret rare we will take that it's still a good card and speaking of good cards doing at that pot of prosperity I do not remember because I didn't really like care if I got pot of prosperity last time and I also didn't do as many cases black when I opened blazing vortex I didn't keep up with like if it was short printed or not so I don't remember if this is a short printed secret rare I hope it's not because we would love to pull one it'd be great I remember we did pull one when we opened like a mystery box off eBay and somebody put gave us a blazing vortex box of course because it's like a terrible box but then we ended up pulling the pot of prosperity which was 140 bucks at the time that was before the reprint in the mega tens so it was a huge pulls like 145 or something like that motion right now it's like at 70 which is a lot better more affordable you can always get a play set for the same and 140 that was a that was a lot for one secret rare when you have to play them in three basically all right so far no star lights but we've had some okay pulls it hasn't been too bad let's see what we can get this time one two three four let's see if we can pull that black rose dragon that would be insane we did open three cases of this set trying to get the black rose which obviously as I said 10 cases is the average but still I did it's not like I only open one case I did open three cases which is 36 boxes to try and get the black rose and I had no luck I did only pull like one star light out of there so it was kind of a rough rough time for us on average you get one every two so we were a little bit a little bit over uh the average there but oh mark you know we have the spring and blast were rock skylar the giga claps the sk a ritual we have the em r super rare nothing too crazy there let's see what we can get out of lightning overdrive um actually that was that was blazing vortex and I was talking about the the wrong thing that's a uh black roses in the other set which is this set right here scrap rappers actually a crazy common I can't believe that was a common in that set I mean this set might not be great but it did have scrap rapper trap tricks wait trap tricks caloria that's probably good I don't remember if that one's in the trap tricks deck I've been putting that deck together just because I got some of the structure decks and a lot of the cards are in there and it's like actually a pretty decent deck so I figured I'd go for it I don't remember if that one's in there I can't remember I threw it together in like a second I haven't actually played it yet arm dragon blitz we got it rocks and special the war rocks my war rocks a thing man they're so bad nero we have reinforcement the army troops and the s force rapper kai umara that is a secret rare that is not a pot that's not what we're looking for that's okay let's keep it up lightning overdrive I guess we'll see I guess the trap trick stuff is probably what we do want to pull because trap tricks are burning up right now they're they're uh very popular because they're very very good screaming the brand and not like the best but they're very affordable so if you couldn't get a deck that's very affordable and actually somewhat competitive it's going to do pretty well in terms of like the casual player and stuff because imagine being able to buy three structured decks and actually compete so 30 bucks you know value versus like you know cash tier what was like a thousand dollar deck or something like that so a little bit cheaper you know it's like I what three percent of the value um in terms of what the money you have to invest into this the gig good god I don't know how to say that all right lightning overdrive I believe you're gonna have a starlight rare it's gonna happen let's go one two three four we're gonna get that lucky box 125 it's gonna happen for both can you imagine we pull two starlight rare as each box has a star light that would be insane booboo game dogmatica we got the branded in white that was before branded actually got good so they had some branded cards ready to go before they actually got popular one two three four here we go we have just a common stairway tri-brigade archfiend war rock skyler the jai kalam so you've got the armor dragon ritual dogmatica genesis and the meteor geractic uh gigaburro so I cannot say these names come on one two three four so far fine pulls nothing insane what can we get to turn that around all we need is one starlight rare it doesn't matter if it's the worst one in the entire set I don't think I pulled the worst one out of either of these so it'd be good laval vol x lords we've got some lavales come on blazing vortex give us that pot of prosperity give us that luck I'll have a mismatching set one with the prismatic secret one with the regular secret I won't be mad then we could just pull a starlight not three mismatched that'd be the way to play him right dogmatica genesis the giga clops we've got the army's troops and the dream mirror tormentor dream mirrors I feel like I've never seen anyone play them have they ever been good let me know in the comments all right more packs uh I feel like we have a lot of packs left I feel like I'm open a lot and we're still like only halfway through one two three four here we go let me know if you guys want to see maybe we should I should go through and try to after we do something like this try to calculate how many of each ultimate rare I've pulled s force chase that's an ultra rare imagine trying to like go through all my videos like have I ever pulled this ultimate rare from generation force something like that that would be a lot of work but it would be pretty fun to uh you know try and make that goal happen but I think ghosts and star lights is a better place to start because there's a lot less of them they're easier to chronicle they're also way harder to pull those so it might take a longer s force showdown virtual world oh the he may toto keep it up keep it up let's keep it going let's see what we can get one two three four can we pull something epic we have feronic guardian spanks that's I've never noticed that's a retrain you and I we got the binary blader the special shower one curry way where our generations the pegasus twin sabre ooh and a mysterious the dragon crown this is actually a pretty good card so it's probably one of the better cards in the set I think you use this in the dark magician deck every once in a while you know dark magician is not great but you could use it in there blazing vortex up next what shall we pull mysterious I think was actually somewhat valuable for a little bit I think it did get a reprint as well though one two three four might have even been an ultra reprint too so it was like the same rarity which is always rough on the original print when you print it in the exact same rarity so it's like ah why don't I even want the original we get the rocky we got the steel star regulator and the para manifolds a zort list that's a super rare okay send us some luck guys from the comments I need your luck to pull a starlight rare one by one black eyes a maze attraction it's always fun to like revisit some of these older sets even though they weren't like that great but at the time they were like really not that great so now it's like they're more interesting because they've kind of aged a little bit to see what is held up so like pot of prosperity even a couple years later is still absurd because with only one reprint it's still so hard to get and the megaton 2022's was great and it has the nice prismatic secret but starlight rare is still holding up pretty well as well and we have the para manifolds fusion guitar brangha and the meteor actor giga boros giga boros something like that i don't know not sure if i've been alternating correctly i've been trying to but these these sets always i get them mixed up in general because they have similar colors and then they're both not that great in terms of like like actual cards inside so i get them mixed up because they were close together as well as for its edge rager razor and now i'm trying to open them back to back that yeah i was like okay see i messed it up but i fixed it that time don't worry all we need is a pot of prosperity and we're gonna be happy guys well let's get that open there we go one two three four if we get a starlight rare we will really be happy archfiend staff war rock yet ordeal also if we do pull like a starlight out of one of these it's gonna be crazy because they've been sitting in my room for a really long time and it's like i've been sitting with the starlight rare this whole time we got a platina it's always interesting to think like if you have a bunch of boxes sealed you can be like huh i wonder if there's starlights in there you know it's like i wonder how many starlights see we got an error cases around here air boxes you know that's just sitting there and i have no idea if you're a sealed guy and you don't open stuff i bet you guys wonder that all the time because i keep some stuff sealed but then i end up opening it usually synavalon millius but i wonder that every time i'm like hmm i wonder what's in there imagine if there's like you know five collector rears instead of four maybe there's like two starlights in one of those cases or maybe it's like an error case they've got four in a pack like that no what was it dimension force where that happened we got archfiend staff icy breeze i cannot pull the card niroy war rock skyler professor and war rock force show okay war rocks add it again yeah making their making their presence known no thank you it's okay if you don't it's okay if you don't make your presence known we're okay with that we got the biki the arm sage fronigardian sphinx hidden springs sky scourge zexal alliance dark eye nightmare war rock generations and the super sovereign serpent of gokanda down to what appears to be the last 12 to 15 packs i'm just guessing because i always guess wrong 1 2 3 4 can we get i don't know if we've gotten a second start like see career here or not i hope we haven't i really can't remember to be honest i've gotten kind of mixed up we have niroy we have linear we have arm dragon thunder level five that's not a great card the arm dragons have been reprinted did anyone ever even try to play them i never saw it 1 2 3 4 maybe i'll try and master duel at some point on my twitch stream go check that out twitch.tv slash ruxin 34 stream monday wednesday friday for you guys we have war rock generations pegasus twin and a zexal construction another super rare from zexal feel like i have less lightning overdrive left maybe not maybe not okay 1 2 3 4 black rose dragon here we come starlight rare black eyes come on black eyes to black rose you and i let's go i'm talking to you black rose starlight rare let's do this we have a tribergade the rampate rampart rampant rampant rampager there we go i got it there's no rampart 2 3 4 we figured it out but what there is is a starlight prosperity here we go specimen arm dragon blitz branga de gamma that's a ruxin special we got the ingunar the lightning and a wind witch freeze bell not a bad card either ultra rare we'll take that how long has it been since we had pulled an ultra before that it feels like it was a long time okay a little bit of cold streak there let's see if we can redeem ourselves in the very end here we have the judge of the ice barrier star mine buzhin we have the sun vine zexal alliance ai meet you amazement special show scrap raptor and a ruddy rose witch so for hey look rose there's a rose in the name so maybe that's a good sign because we were looking for a rose a black rose a starlight black rose indeed sprint breath ojama pink sinker transmission arm dragon ritual angel warrior saga we have the knights of the armor dragon heavy metal foals emol gam and the metal foals vanishers so more metal foals okay i definitely need to do one of these somehow got one ahead here one two or two ahead actually we have a war rock orcas ordeal wind witch blizzard bell captain sargis spring and skull reinforcement of the army's troops spring and rocky the steel star regulator and underdog secret rare no it has alpha on it alpha the master beast but no not the right secret rare not what we're looking for it wasn't a pot it wasn't a pot but don't worry we can hold out for a starlight rare that is what can really help starlight not only help but that would be a big time when the starlight rare pot of prosperity one i've never pulled we have an arm dragon thunderbolt that is certainly not a starlight at all much less a pot of prosperity that's for sure eight packs to go guys two three four let's see what we shall get here war rock clock are come on war rock big blow screams of the branded dark eye nightmare war rock generations buzhin kandesans we got the merry go round and a war rock window oh my goodness seven packs this is not looking so good guys for our beginning of our starlight search but honestly this perfectly exemplifies why trying to pull every starlight rare is not going to be easy because they are very very very hard to pull i-spread refrain s-force or pro fist okay or a fist the or a fist interesting alright we're going back to back blazing vortexes we have hope that there's a starlight in here breath of acclimation ojama pink synchro transmission s-force fairy archer dogmatica genesis the giga clops we have reinforced in the army's troops and the mahogany light of heavens i forgot mahogany that's like a retrain that's very strange third to last lightning overdrive i mean we are into the fourth case of lighting overdrive boxes i've opened it's probably more than that because i've definitely opened more than those three that we open on stream but we've opened at least three cases trying to pull the black rose and have not pulled a judgment of the branded dog tag yanamori there's a secret rare it's the b-bing cleanser of the research i remember this being a not good card when it first came out so hopefully it's aged well it's plant so that's cool all right two packs left of each what can we get will it be a starlight rare here we go fairway oh that's a fairway stairway there's not playing golf here okay niroy we have the reinforced in the army's troops and the dragoonity knight dragoonities are literally in every set if you have not noticed that is drop the pack literally the most popular archetype in terms of number of cards there's just a million dragoonity cards you and i we have hensprings fronigrani sphinx the arm sage dogmatic calamity ai meet you yanamori we have the brothers and the rocks rose dragon all right two packs left blazing vortex what will we pull our final pack will it be the pot of prosperity starlight come on make it happen the fabled beaver guy we have the virtual gate the bufort the ritual curious path we have the knight of the armor that you have the metapholes and the psychic erasure laser i remember this actually being a kind of a good card in terms of value at the beginning okay lining overdrive final pack what can you pull for us in our hunt for every starlight rare ever made will we make it happen come on war rock mohammed rapid racing rose shoot we got the spring and brothers the judgment of the branded scrap raptor synavalon dafty and our final card is expendable die so guys no starlight rare is in our first attempt here but we've already pulled 40 so we can pat ourselves on the back for that 46 to go and they're constantly coming out so when the new sets come out we got to try and pull as many as possible if you guys have enjoyed the video make sure to subscribe to the channel for more epic content like this shout out to the home foe show daxer jtto puffins of doom or nesto dand dizzy hopis choice three through three my cycle james jane's tcd trusted cards america doitzer supreme stage 21 and on its high show ian lusa junior barding mimic echo and thomas beklane thank you guys for supporting the channel i'll see you guys in the next one peace