The Karol Markowicz Show: Derek Hunter’s Wild Career Path, Media Journey & Life Lessons
2/18/202622 mincomplete
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0:55Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show.
0:57My guest today is Derek Hunter.
1:00Derek is a columnist for Town Hall, author of the book Outrage, Inc., podcaster and
1:05radio host at WMAL in D .C., and someone who has had 81 jobs and
1:11counting. Hi, Derek. So nice to have you on.
1:14Hey, Carol. Thanks for having me.
1:15I mean, 81? What's going on?
1:18You'd want to talk about lost souls.
1:20That's it. You flounder around.
1:22You start off when you're 15, keep a score of softball games and losing track
1:26of what's going on in those games and get fired for that.
1:29Then drawing lines on the softball field with a chalker.
1:32And they go like this because it's much easier to guess what a line looks
1:37like than to hammer in the chalk line.
1:41Okay. My entire teen years were looking for shortfalls.
1:44So wait, are those jobs one and two?
1:46They was job one and like four.
1:49There was a couple of jobs in between.
1:51I made sandwiches. I was a busboy.
1:53I worked at a sub shop.
1:54I was a busboy. I was a waiter.
1:57I worked maintenance at a trailer park.
2:00I was a maid for an hour.
2:03For an hour? I was hired by merry maids.
2:07I was desperate for a job.
2:08I was like 18 years old, aimless.
2:11Went and watched the training, filled out the paperwork, watched the training video.
2:15Came out about an hour after the paperwork and all.
2:18And there's my crew of nice, probably, old ladies sitting there.
2:23And I just looked at them and I said, I can't, I can't do this.
2:26And I walked out and they mailed me a check for like $5 and change.
2:30Nice. Yeah, pretty much everything I've done.
2:33What was the weirdest job you've had?
2:36Or is that it? The maid?
2:39This is a difficult one to even explain.
2:41When I was a, when I was in college, I found a job.
2:45I sent a message board somewhere online.
2:48Back when the internet was all dial up.
2:50That I drove around to 16 area hotels, five days a week, and read the
2:56events board into a micro cassette recorder.
2:59And then I, yeah, like, you know, breakout session, this room.
3:05It was just stupid. And then once a week, I would FedEx that out to
3:08a woman in Utah who transcribed it for, I assume, I never really found out.
3:14It might have been an elaborate money laundering scheme.
3:15But it was for a newsletter where hotels could subscribe and then steal business from
3:22each other because they would see that all these companies having their meetings at this
3:27particular hotel every three months or whatever.
3:30So they try and steal.
3:31That's the best I could do.
3:33I never literally spoke, I never spoke to anybody.
3:36You never asked, what is this all for?
3:38I answered that ad. I met the guy who was doing the job at a
3:42diner, had breakfast, drove around to the hotels.
3:47He said, do you want it?
3:48I said, sure. It was like two hours worth of work for $425 a week.
3:54Oh, there's something very suspicious going on here.
3:56And he slid me a folder with the hotels and everything and a bunch of
3:59micro cassettes and a bunch of labels for FedEx.
4:02I took it. I did it.
4:05I did it probably for two years.
4:06I got to the point, this is terrible.
4:09I would go and just go up to the desk.
4:11I'd get to know the people who work there and I'd get the entire week's
4:14worth of events on Monday and I would just be done.
4:17I'd work one day instead of five days.
4:20And then so much of it repeated and weddings, I just made it up sometimes.
4:27This is why my attitude was so bad.
4:30This is how you get 81 jobs is you get the easiest tap and putt
4:33of a job and you go, I bet I can do it even lazier than
4:36it actually is. And you do that.
4:38But I kept the job for about three or four months after I moved to
4:42Baltimore, after I graduated. I did it five miles away or 500 miles away, fake
4:48for a while. And then I just kind of quit.
4:50How do you know you weren't?
4:51I actually gave it to a friend of mine who was lazier than me and
4:53couldn't keep it. That's how bad it was.
4:55How do you know you weren't like sending this to like Chinese spies or Russian,
5:00you know, agents? I don't know what they could do with it.
5:04You know, you got the Horowitz bar mitzvah in the Salon 3 on Saturday at
5:09noon. Like if you need that information.
5:11They could crash that bar mitzvah.
5:12All that information, Carol, is online now.
5:14But it was in like a piece of paper that they would put out for
5:18guests to come out and figure out where things were.
5:20Well, I was thinking, is it online now?
5:22It's not really like hotels don't post like we're going to.
5:25Have this, you know, pharmaceutical company meeting in conference room.
5:29I'm sure you could get it by phone, especially if you talk to them.
5:33Yeah, I don't know. I think you could go back to them right now and
5:38say, I want my job back.
5:40I wouldn't even know. I don't remember what the company was called.
5:44I don't remember anything about it.
5:45I just did some old lady or some woman's name.
5:48God knows nowadays. Nobody knows what a woman is.
5:50I would FedEx it off to Utah.
5:53I never heard a complaint.
5:55The check was mailed. This was long before direct deposit.
5:58And I coordinated via email and I got a $75 a week raise.
6:06Maybe it was every two weeks.
6:07Maybe it was every two weeks.
6:08But I got a raise to $500 after like a year.
6:12It was because I asked for it.
6:14And it was just an email and they said, yes.
6:17And that was about the exchange.
6:18That was it. So how did you get into media from this?
6:23Well, it's a natural progression, obviously.
6:26The script writes itself. Actually, I was actually thinking you should write a movie about
6:30this, about what you think is actually happening on the other side of receiving those
6:34tapes in the mail. I could, my just professional story, not in private life too,
6:40would be just a very long cautionary tale.
6:43I've made the mistakes so you don't have to.
6:45But how I got into media, I don't know.
6:47I graduated college in December of 2000.
6:51I should have graduated in June or whatever of 2000.
6:54But I had to take, my college required two years of German, two years of
6:59a foreign language. I have pretty severe dyslexia.
7:03And I, German is awful.
7:05It sounds like somebody with pneumonia having a sneezing fit.
7:07Why did you choose German?
7:09I had a girlfriend at the time who spoke fluent German when I started taking
7:13German. And so she could help me cheat.
7:16I had taken a German in high school a little bit.
7:20And I, so I knew how to say the basics.
7:22But it just, the gender and all, it was just terrible.
7:26So I had to take German 202.
7:27I also had fantasies of junior year in Germany, which never happened.
7:31The girl and I broke up and I would have starved to death.
7:36But I had to take 202, German 202, three times.
7:41And so I set it up so it was my, yeah.
7:45It's like, there's no way I'm going to get a passing grade.
7:48And they're like, yeah, no, you're not.
7:49And I was taking it with a full load.
7:50So my last semester, that extra semester was just German.
7:55Like I figured I could handle it there.
7:57I'm pretty sure it was a pity grade.
7:59I don't even remember what it was.
8:01But they just said, all right, go ahead.
8:03You just promised never to speak.
8:04Enough of this. You never tell anybody where you learned your horrible German.
8:07And so I graduated. I got a job in the bookstore at the Heritage Foundation.
8:11Oh, wow. It was on the fourth floor.
8:12So there's nobody coming in.
8:14You're just answering phone calls in 2001.
8:16Yeah, 2001. From old people who don't know how to access the internet and get
8:21the backgrounders for free there.
8:23So you had to like mail them out.
8:24So that was my job.
8:25I started doing volunteer research for people in health care and education and ended up
8:31getting a research assistant position in that.
8:34And then Medicare Modernization Act came and it blew up.
8:37There was only two people doing health policy at the Heritage Foundation, and neither of
8:41them were doing prescription drugs.
8:43And that's what that bill was.
8:45And so I was sort of given that.
8:47One was Medicare, one was Medicaid, and I was the prescription drug guy.
8:51And so I started doing media hits from there.
8:54I'll tell you how sad it was.
8:56I was making such little money.
8:57I lived in Baltimore. I had to take a train.
8:59I don't know if the statute of limitations has run out.
9:02It's been 20 years. Is there a crime here?
9:05They can't prove it. There's definitely a lot of felonies there.
9:08A friend of mine would make my monthly pass train tickets on Photoshop because they
9:13were $143, and I didn't have $143.
9:18That's wild. I didn't have a phone.
9:21So when I had to do a radio interview any time outside of normal business
9:25hours, I had to stay around the Heritage Foundation to do it on their phones.
9:29I couldn't afford a phone.
9:30And eventually that led to somebody who was in the PR shop coming by one
9:35day. This was 2004, 2005.
9:39And I just go, hey, Derek Hunter, radio started.
9:41I'm like, what is that?
9:43I don't want to stay after.
9:44I don't want to do it.
9:45So I went to her office, and I was ready to get out of it.
9:49And there was something called RightTalk .com.
9:52I think I had a show on that.
9:54Like the first streaming thing.
9:56Yeah. Yeah. My friend Liz was one of the producers.
9:59Yes, that's right. I didn't know this at the time.
10:01But they said that senior management, they were offered the show one day a week
10:05for an hour. Nobody listened.
10:08But they - Well, we had listeners.
10:09We had very dedicated listeners.
10:11Senior management asked who could do it, who could speak for an hour without going
10:15um and uh, and my name kept coming up.
10:18So they gave it to me.
10:19It was great because I got basically Wednesdays off.
10:21Yeah. And we had a lot of fun with that.
10:24That led to podcasting. That led to, you know, some - It's weird.
10:28Neither one of my parents graduated high school.
10:30None of my siblings went to college.
10:32So nobody knew what a think tank - Everybody I knew in my world was,
10:36what do you do at a think tank?
10:37Sit around and think all day?
10:38Right. Yes. Kind of. But, you know, when they'd see you on TV or something,
10:44they'd go, at least he's doing something.
10:46He's alive. He's real. He's wearing a suit.
10:48Whatever. Right. And so from there, it just progressed to podcasting with a hat.
10:52hour that I'd started with a friend and then Saturday fill -ins at the UML
10:58just for fun and then a job in Baltimore and from there just I got
11:03taken to lunch by Jonathan Garthwaite at Town Hall and the then editor Kevin Glass
11:09they liked my Twitter feed the attitude of it and they wanted a column with
11:12that attitude so they asked me if I wanted to try that I said sure
11:17and I ended up I submitted for like the first two months I submitted 3
11:21,500 words like three four columns all in one thing on a Sunday and they
11:26said well that's great why don't we it's working why don't we just do more
11:30than one a week yeah and so from there it's just led to four columns
11:34a week and a book and all kinds of weird stuff that I would never
11:39you couldn't plan it I don't if somebody had said how do you get into
11:42radio like I don't know never stop talking and that's it but one of the
11:46weirdest that's a long strange trip you have to have experienced this when I started
11:52doing fill -in work like I was the last new fill -in for Rush Limbaugh
11:55before he passed away when I started doing fill -in work and being heard on
11:59the radio I'd go to I worked at Americans for Tax Reform for Grover Norquist
12:03and there's that big Wednesday meeting yeah 150 200 people and a bunch of them
12:07come up to you and go you should have them have me fill in right
12:12like first of all who are I don't think you could do that you're kind
12:15of dumb secondly what kind of juice do you think I have as the occasional
12:19fill -in guy and third screw you hey I met this stranger yeah hey there's
12:25this guy I know he really thinks a lot of himself and he loves to
12:28hear himself talk it's one of those things you know before you got into this
12:32you probably thought this was going to be one way and then you do it
12:36and you realize it's completely different there are some people who can and some people
12:40it's not brain surgery it's not saving lives or anything I'm not trying to congratulate
12:44myself but there are some people who have a three -hour show and 10 minutes
12:48in they're going here's the number please call somebody please call whereas there are I
12:53don't think I could do three hours I you know it's not that hard three
12:56hours in front of you is forever three hours behind you is like what just
13:00happened both of my shows are 30 minutes and I feel like that's a very
13:04sweet spot for me well it's not that hard especially once you do it it's
13:08you know not a lot changes one day to the next so there's repetition and
13:13then history is always the same so whatever you learned before is still valid and
13:17you can recall it and use it at any given time you just have to
13:21be willing to weirdly I hate public speaking I just turned down a speech in
13:26Maryland for a Republican club like hey we wanted to get you to come out
13:29I'm like no I don't think so I gave it to Larry O 'Connor I
13:33said contact Larry O 'Connor he loves talking in front of people he's great yeah
13:37I don't love talking in front of people but you do it for a living
13:40there's me and a microphone and that's right very good the cats are attentive listeners
13:45and they love my show and that's my audience so this job is going to
13:49take is what you're saying this this is this is I hope so yeah how
13:54long you've been doing this like specifically your radio show I've been I started in
14:00I don't know probably 10 years ago in Baltimore someone had a local legend had
14:05passed away that seems to be the only reason there's opening and I did that
14:09for a few years and then just wait for somebody to die yeah they wanted
14:13to go hyper local and I I just I'm not hyper local I didn't I
14:17don't even know I lived in Baltimore for 13 years I couldn't name the mayor
14:22most of that time it just wasn't my interest and then uh another the other
14:27station in Baltimore called after I was let go and I started doing filling and
14:31then there they had somebody pass away and so I'm here till I die so
14:35I got that job circle of life really then they wanted to go local and
14:39I just said I'm done I'm kind of done with radio I didn't want to
14:42do it uh I I wasn't willing to move to do it I just you
14:47know I I have a family you know and just it's too it's way too
14:51unstable to count on yeah and then this job opened up and I was like
14:57well I'm here my wife is the morning show executive producer like I know the
15:01people here I've filled in for every show on the station here so I'll do
15:06a try because it doesn't I don't have to move anywhere like you could be
15:09the king of Cleveland like yeah but you're in Cleveland exactly I was already here
15:13and you know possession is nine tenths of law and location is nine intense the
15:18battle to get a job in radio and so I was lucky enough to get
15:21it what are you most proud of in your life my kids just have if
15:26I could travel back in time aside from giving myself a lot of stock tips
15:30and you know like buy gold and buy silver and then I'd you know steal
15:35the money to get it it's I would just smack myself upside the head for
15:39the longest time kids were not they're gross they're disgusting I didn't enjoy white from
15:46my own but I sure didn't want to do it for somebody else right and
15:48I was the worst uncle I have seven nieces I had one time my sister
15:54had me babysit just once and she was like that's enough of that well she
15:58was the oldest and it was the oldest kid and then the news traveled and
16:02there was nothing it was one of those explosive my sister was about 10 minutes
16:07from being home and it was one of those explosive bowel movements that somehow defy
16:12gravity and go up like I don't know how this happens yeah and I saw
16:16it and it smelled and it was like I'd never changed the diaper and not
16:19start now And not start with that thing.
16:22Right. And so she was in her pajamas.
16:24I sprayed her butt with Lysol on the pajamas.
16:27No. Plausible deniability. I thought it was a perfect time.
16:32I kind of stuck her in you.
16:33How old were you for this?
16:34Don't tell me like 26.
16:35I was older than, I was old enough to know.
16:37I was, I was teens.
16:40I was old enough to know.
16:42Okay, okay. Late teens is.
16:42I think I was still in high school, but I was like 16, 17.
16:45Late teens is almost excusable.
16:46Teenagers are stupid. It didn't matter, but word got around.
16:48And I didn't get any better at the babysitting.
16:51So like there was never any babysitting.
16:53But with your own kids.
16:54With your own kids, it's different.
16:56Yeah. It's not all that different.
16:58It's just that there's nobody to spray the butt with Lysol and that's going to
17:02be coming home soon. I'll give my wife credit.
17:05With both kids, she was like super mom when she was on maternity leave.
17:09So I didn't, the first kid, I didn't change a diaper for like six weeks.
17:15Like what about the bonding?
17:17I don't need that kind of bonding.
17:18It's fine. Yeah. But every time the kid like coughed or she was up, my
17:22wife was up and running around like, I didn't have to do anything.
17:24Kids are easy. Then she went back to work and it's like.
17:28Yeah. Come get these kids.
17:29And then it's, it's not that bad.
17:31Still not, you know, an aspiration bucket list, but it's.
17:36How old are they now?
17:37Seven and eight. Okay. It's not that much butt wiping at this age.
17:41Not much. Still more than you'd like.
17:44It's still the occasional, you know, put cream on my butt.
17:47There's a lot of come look at my poop.
17:49Yes. Yes. There's some. Well, good job.
17:51Did you wipe? Did you wash?
17:53Did you? I don't need to see it, but congratulations.
17:56We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Markowitz
17:59show. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting.
18:04Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad supported streaming music from Spotify and
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18:23Think iHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting.
18:26Call 844 -844 -IHEART to get started.
18:30That's 844 -844 -IHEART. Give us a five year out prediction.
18:36Can be about anything at all.
18:38However, I don't know. In politics or?
18:43It could be really, it could be anything that if you find interesting that you
18:47want to lay a prediction on the line here and have us make fun of
18:50you in five years when it doesn't come true or herald you as a hero
18:54when it does. There's something you're holding on to right now that you will kick
18:59yourself for still having in five years because you will have missed the sweet spot
19:03for selling it, whether it's silver right now, whether it's Bitcoin, whatever it is, something
19:09that you have, you're like, this is my long -term get -rich -quick scheme.
19:14There will be a point where you should have sold it and you won't.
19:18Hmm. All of my son's Legos?
19:20No. What are you going to step on and curse existence in the middle of
19:23the night? He swears that he's going to be the wealthiest of all the three
19:26kids because of these Lego sets that he has.
19:29I feel like now - They're an investment?
19:31Yes. Look, I have a bunch of baseball cards in a safe deposit box.
19:36Oh, yeah. If I had sold during COVID, I would have had a ton of
19:40money. They're still worth more than I paid.
19:42But if you look back in just the last five years, during COVID, everything, everybody
19:48got nostalgic and nobody was buying gas.
19:50So they had disposable income and they went crazy and they sold it.
19:54I have, I will tell you this, Carol, I have, I think it's 56 ,000
19:59Shiba Inu coins, which you're looking at me like, what?
20:03I don't know what that is.
20:03Yeah, I don't know either.
20:04Yeah. It's like a Bitcoin thing or whatever they are.
20:08Oh, I vaguely remember this.
20:10Yes. That is worth like 0 .00004 cents or whatever.
20:15Maybe it comes back, you know?
20:17I dump like, no, it was never worth much of anything.
20:19I dumped like $300 into it because I knew I'd waste that $300 some other
20:22way. And like, well, if in 20 years this gets anywhere near a quarter, I'm
20:28rich. Right. And if it doesn't, it's $300 I've probably never thought about again.
20:33So I've got it. If it somehow fluky gets worth something, I will buy an
20:38island. So what is it worth now?
20:41I don't know. It's not worth anything.
20:43It's still fractions of a penny.
20:43So your $300 has now, I mean, but how much of your $300 is left?
20:48I think it's still right around this.
20:50It was up to like $800 at one point.
20:53And I thought, I'm on my way.
20:55But it's still like fractions of a penny.
20:57And then I called my broker.
20:59I was going to buy a guy, Jeff Epstein's, his head on an island.
21:03He had fire sale. He had to get rid of it.
21:05It was pretty cheap. But then it didn't pay off.
21:07So the deal fell off.
21:08I don't even know what happened to that guy.
21:10But I'm sure somebody thought.
21:11Yeah, well, let's find out.
21:12Yeah. Well, Derek, I have loved this conversation.
21:15You are hilarious. I kind of knew that, but I don't feel like I knew
21:18that on a bigger level.
21:21But you're very, very funny.
21:22I really loved talking to you and getting to know you.
21:25Leave us here with your best tip from my listeners on how they can improve
21:29their lives. Hang around with smart people and find someone like me who's already made
21:35all the mistakes and listen to them.
21:38We're not trying to screw you over.
21:39The stove is hot. It will burn your hand.
21:41You don't need to figure that.
21:43Not everybody needs to touch it and lose their fingerprints.
21:45Don't take advantage of the people.
21:48People who have done it right and learn from them and take advantage of the
21:52people who have done it wrong and learn from them, too.
21:55And sometimes you find that in the same person.
21:57But if you think you know everything, that's when you're at your dumbest.
22:02I love that. Learn from other people's mistakes.
22:05He is Derek Hunter. Check him out at Town Hall and at WMAL.
22:09Thank you so much for coming on, Derek.
22:11Thanks for having me. Let's eat human.