Santa Ynez Valley Stories - Chopping it up - with Keith Saarloos

Some people grow up here and leave.
Some people leave and never look back.
And then there are the rare ones who come home—and decide to carry the weight.

This episode is about one of those guys.

I sat down with Josh McClurg—born and raised in the Santa Ynez Valley, gone long enough to think he’d never come back… and now he’s back as San Ynez High School’s Head Football Coach and Athletic Director.

This is a conversation about why high school sports matter—not just for the kids on the field, but for the entire community that shows up behind them.

• 🏴‍☠️ Small Town, Big Heart
Why San Ynez feels like “small town Texas dropped into the Central Coast,” and how Friday nights, packed gyms, and local pride keep a town stitched together.

• 🧱 From Local Kid to Leader
Growing up riding bikes until dark, dreaming of wearing black and orange, and learning the hard way what responsibility really looks like.

• 🏈 The Long Road Back
Hancock → Chico State → football program cut → teaching in Sacramento → twins on the way → a leap of faith back to the Valley.

• 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦‍👦 Family + Faith + Grit
NICU twins, building a life from scratch, working weekends, laying floors, and doing whatever it takes to provide.

• 🧠 Why Sports Change Kids
How team culture pulls kids into structure, raises grades, creates belonging, and turns “lost” into “locked in.”

• 📈 The Golden Era of Participation
Josh shares that about 78% of San Ynez’s 750 students play a sport, plus why track and wrestling are exploding—and what great coaching really does.

• 🏟️ Rio Memorial Stadium
The story behind renaming the field to honor Jeff Rio and Carl Rio—and what legacy looks like when a community remembers its own.

• 🧱 Wall of Honor
Why Josh is pushing to recognize more of the “old guard” who earned it—and how pride and tradition get passed forward.

If you live in the Valley, this episode is a reminder:
these games aren’t just games.

They’re community.
They’re belonging.
They’re a training ground for becoming someone.

Go Pirates. 🏴‍☠️

This is a very special episode of Chopping It Up with Keith Saarloos.

Episode 34 is the audio companion to our 2026 Winter Allocation, shared here so the stories behind these wines can be heard in perpetuity. I’ve made more than 75 allocation videos over the years, and this episode lives as part of that permanent record.

Recorded live from Ballard Canyon, this episode isn’t just about wine — it’s about farming, family, risk, and legacy.

Inside, I walk you through the wines that define this allocation:

• Mayhem 🌊 — a carbonic Grenache moonshot, a farming flex, a prayer paddled into the unknown

• Purpose 🌱 — Syrah grown with intention on the high hill

• Resiliency 🛡️ — Syrah from one of the hardest vineyards to farm in Santa Barbara County

• Legacy 🦅 — Syrah from a steep, dangerous hillside that reminds us what we’re protecting

• GRIT 💪 — a Petit Verdot built like the people it honors, strong, patient, and earned over time

These wines are not manufactured.
They are not repeated.
They are one hillside, one year, one moment, bottled.

This episode also touches on:

• The Very Ambitious Group Project — one small act a day to push good back into the world

• Why farming and winemaking are not separate things

• Why stress, risk, and difficulty make better wine — and better people

• Honoring my father, Larry Saarloos, and the values that built everything we stand on

This is about giving our farming a shot at immortality in the bottles you open with people you love.

If you’ve ever wondered where wine really comes from —
not the winery,
but where the song is written —
this episode is for you.

Thank you for being part of our family.
We live to honor those who came before us.
And we prepare the way for those yet to come.

Stick with us.
We’ve got your back. 🍇➡️🍷

Shaun Cassidy | Teen Idol, Reinvention, and Creative Longevity

Some people become famous.
Some people become useful.
A very rare few become both—and then evolve.

This episode is about the evolution.

I sat down with my friend Shaun Cassidy for a conversation about growing up in the spotlight—and choosing not to stay there.

Shaun entered the public consciousness as a full-blown teen idol: The Hardy Boys, hit records, magazine covers, screaming crowds, and instant fame at 18. The kind of success most people never experience—and very few survive intact.

But instead of living off the past, Shaun transitioned.

What unfolds is not a comeback story.
It’s a reinvention story.

• 🎤 Teen Idol, Up Close
What early fame really feels like when you grow up inside it—and why seeing it firsthand can either break you or prepare you.

• ✍️ Writing His Way In
Falling in love with the writers’ room, learning how stories are actually built, and discovering that the real magic happens behind the camera.

• 📺 Building Modern Television
Creating American Gothic before antiheroes were fashionable. Discovering Heath Ledger on Roar. Working on The Agency, Cold Case, Invasion, Blue Bloods, and New Amsterdam.

• 🏛️ Walt Disney’s Office
What it’s like to work inside Walt Disney’s actual office—and how legacy can inspire you… or paralyze you.

• ⚖️ Art vs. Commerce
Network notes, creative conviction, and the moments when protecting the idea matters more than protecting the deal.

• 🎶 The Road to Us
Why Shaun returned to the stage after 40 years—not with nostalgia, but with songs, stories, and a mission to get people back in the same room again.

• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family, Grounding, Perspective
Why longevity only works if you know who you are when the noise fades.

This conversation is about identity, reinvention, creative longevity, and what it really means to grow up in public—and then grow beyond it.

This isn’t nostalgia.
It’s evolution.

Mark Herthel | Horses, Healing, Reagan, and Building Things That Matter

Some people build businesses.
Some people build institutions.
And a very rare few build the backbone of a community.

This episode is about the latter.

I sat down with one of my closest friends, Mark Herthel, for a conversation that explains—without exaggeration—how the Santa Ynez Valley became what it is… and why it hasn’t fallen apart.

What unfolds is not a highlight reel. It’s a blueprint.

• 🐎 The day it all started (1969)
  Mark’s parents crossed San Marcos Pass, pulled into Los Olivos, walked into a real estate office, and bought six acres for $18,000—land that would become Alamo Pintado Equine Clinic, now one of the most advanced equine hospitals in the world.

• 🏥 Performing horse surgeries on a front lawn
  Before the hospital existed, horses underwent abdominal surgery in downtown Los Olivos—on grass—while cars drove by. This wasn’t a story told for effect. It was standard operating procedure.

• 🧬 Revolutionary medicine done out of necessity, not ego
  First colic surgeries. First large-colon resections. Custom titanium implants fabricated mid-surgery. The first equine underwater treadmill built from a jet ski. Hyperbaric chambers. High-field MRI. Bone scans. Stem cells in the 1990s—because the horse needed it, not because it sounded impressive.

• 🔬 The donkey that changed modern regenerative medicine
  A paralyzed donkey named Eli stood up on its own after experimental stem-cell treatment—an event that quietly influenced spinal-cord research worldwide and later connected Mark to Mayo Clinic scientists.

• 🧪 From stem cells to the future of healing
  Why stem cells worked… why they’re complicated… and how today’s breakthrough—exosomes, the body’s healing signal—may finally deliver on decades of promise for both animals and humans.

• 🐴 Platinum Performance, built like a hospital—not a brand
  Started in a Los Olivos garage, grown one clinical solution at a time, obsessed with service, real results, and integrity. No trend-chasing. No marketing theater. Just fixing real problems until it became the Nike of animal health.

• 🇺🇸 Ronald Reagan as a neighbor, not a monument
  Mark’s father served as veterinarian to Ronald Reagan—which meant horses on the White House lawn, riding partners from the Secret Service, brush-clearing at the ranch, and a president who personally called to say thank you for the way a horse was euthanized.

• 📞 The phone call from the White House
  Reagan called Mark’s father directly—his only phone call that day—to express gratitude. The call before it? The Vice President. No fanfare. Just character.

• 🐍 “How’s the snake boy?”
  Reagan remembered Mark years later—not as a constituent, but as a kid whose science-project snake escaped the house. Leadership with a memory and a heart.

• 🪵 Why work matters
  A sitting president splitting wood, riding horses, and clearing brush because physical labor grounded him enough to carry the weight of the world.

• 🌄 Why this valley still works
  Zoning. Stewardship. Showing up. Fixing fences. Picking up trash. Protecting rural character because once it’s gone, it never comes back.

• 👨‍👩‍👦 Legacy without ego
  A family that taught openly, shared knowledge globally, trained hundreds of veterinarians from around the world, and believed the goal wasn’t to be the best—but to make everyone else better.

This isn’t nostalgia.
It’s structural integrity.

If you live here, this episode explains why.
If you don’t, it shows you what’s worth building.

You’re listening to Choppin’ It Up on Crazy Country 105.9.

Spend your money in the hood.
Wave to your neighbors 👋
Pick up litter 🧹
Take care of what you love ❤️

In this episode, we talk about:

This one mattered.

Not because of fame.
Not because of numbers.
But because some stories don’t get told very often—especially by the people who lived them.

Adam Firestone doesn’t do long interviews like this.
He doesn’t need to.
His work already speaks.

But in this conversation, he sits down and walks through the full arc—honestly, quietly, without polish.

We talk about growing up in the Santa Ynez Valley before it was a destination.
About how science, land, and patience brought the Firestone family here.
About building one of the first true estate wineries in Santa Barbara County—before anyone knew what that meant.

We talk about leaving all of that behind to serve in the United States Marines.
About being broken down on purpose.
About leadership, responsibility, and learning who you are when the title disappears.

And then we talk about beer.

Not the glossy version—but the real one.
Starting Firestone Walker with no money, no guarantees, borrowed equipment, and a lot of risk.
Almost losing everything.
The unlikely break that changed the trajectory.
And what it takes to build something that lasts 30 years without losing your soul.

This isn’t a press tour.
It’s not a highlight reel.
And no one is selling you anything.

It’s a conversation about:

• Legacy versus momentum

• Community versus convenience

• Why places only survive if people show up

• And why the best lives—and businesses—are built slowly, with intention

If you love the Santa Ynez Valley…
If you care about American craftsmanship…
If you believe service, risk, and patience still matter…

This episode is for you.

🎧 Chopping It Up — Adam Firestone
Listen. Stay awhile. Build something that lasts.

This one felt like stumbling into a living library… and realizing the book can talk back.

I met Chaplain Linda Palmer at Good Seed Coffee and within two minutes I knew I’d found one of those rare people who has lived ten different lives — and somehow woven them into one purpose.

Linda is a community chaplain, a preparedness teacher, a trolley storyteller, a Solvang historian… and an engineer who helped build oil platforms, worked on major infrastructure, and somehow still ended up being the “Grandma Geek” at Barnes & Noble after hacking a Nook in public.

And then she casually drops this:
Her dad was Mayor Ken Palmer — three-time Mayor of Solvang.
She helped write The Spirit of Solvang.
She knows the town down to the bricks… literally.

This wasn’t an interview.
It was a download.

We talk about:

• What a chaplain actually does (and why it matters more than ever)

• “Still points” — how to stop reacting and start thinking

• PTSD, resilience, and building inner purpose before outer preparedness

• How Solvang didn’t start looking Danish until 1947 (yep)

• Why Buellton changed everything when Highway 101 arrived

• The founders, the land purchase, the train line, and the business logic that built the town

• Windmills, haunted houses, mission bricks, and why Solvang’s “USP” is worth protecting

• And why this valley needs to record its elders before we lose the stories

Linda isn’t trying to be famous.
She’s trying to make people stronger.

And honestly… she might be the most useful human I’ve had on this show yet.

If you love the Santa Ynez Valley…
If you care about history…
If you want tools for calm, safety, and purpose…

This one’s for you.

🎧 Chopping It Up — Chaplain Linda Palmer
Listen. Share. Get ready.

This one felt hidden in plain sight.

Right here in Solvang, California, there’s a guy quietly shaping how the world sounds — and most people have no idea.

Chris Pelonis owns Lost Chord Guitars, an intimate room built for listening.
But that’s just the ground floor.

Chris grew up inside Chris & Pitts BBQ, helped shape how generations remember food, then climbed into music — early exposure to the Rolling Stones, the Sound Factory, one microphone, one room, one truth.

What followed was a life spent listening deeper than most:
Designing hundreds of world-class studios
Shaping sound for Sony PlayStation, Dolby, and beyond
Touring as a guitarist with Jeff Bridges
And always coming back to the same idea:
not louder — truer.

This wasn’t a résumé conversation.
It was about craft.
About patience.
About building rooms — and lives — that translate emotion.

We talk about:

• Growing up inside Chris & Pitts BBQ and the accidental lessons of entrepreneurship

• Early encounters with the Rolling Stones and the Sound Factory

• Why one microphone can beat ten

• Designing nearly a thousand listening spaces around the world

• Touring with Jeff Bridges and building a real band

• Why great sound is about honesty, not perfection

• And why slowing down might be the most advanced technology we have left

Chris isn’t selling anything.
Neither am I.

This is just a reminder that the best conversations still happen
when we listen long enough for the truth to show up.

If you love music…
If you care how things are made…
If you miss when craft mattered more than volume…

This one’s for you.

🎧 Chopping It Up — Chris Pelonis
Listen. Share. Slow down.

This one felt surreal.

Before Chopping It Up was ever a show, before there was a microphone or a Saturday morning slot, there was Northern Exposure — and a guy on the radio in Cicely, Alaska who made silence okay.

John Corbett played Chris Stevens, and without knowing it at the time, he helped shape how I think about conversation.
Not arguing.
Not winning.
Just sitting with an idea long enough for it to matter.

So having John sit across from me wasn’t a press tour or a list of credits.
It was just two guys talking — about luck, patience, saying yes, almost quitting, starting over, and choosing the long arc instead of the shortcut.

We talk about:

• Almost walking away from acting before Northern Exposure changed everything

• A Jack in the Box commercial that altered the course of his life

• Becoming famous overnight in Seattle during the birth of grunge

• Turning down Sex and the City… until one conversation changed his mind

• Music, touring, loading gear, and driving every mile himself

• Why routines you actually enjoy might be the real definition of success

• And why the cure for the last five years might be embarrassingly simple:
  stand in line, talk to people, say yes

John isn’t trying to sell anything.
Neither am I.

This is just a reminder that the best conversations still happen when we slow down and let them.

If you’ve ever loved Northern Exposure…
If you’ve ever felt the world speed up too fast…
If you miss when things felt more human…

This one’s for you.

🎧 Chopping It Up — John Corbett
Listen. Share. Say yes.

This week on Chopping It Up, Keith sits down with a true, behind-the-scenes legend of the Santa Ynez Valley: Pam Gnekow, CEO of San Ynez Valley Community Outreach—the woman quietly holding the safety net together while the rest of us go about our lives.

Pam doesn’t just talk about helping people—she does it.
From Meals on Wheels to veteran services, from domestic violence support to emergency food distribution, Pam and her team moved over 2.1 MILLION pounds of food into the hands and homes of people who needed it most—out of a tiny building, with massive heart.

You’ll hear:

• How a simple question at the food bank turned into 10+ tons of food distributed every single week

• Why people will stand in line for an hour for food—and why that matters

• How churches, volunteers, cities, veterans, and neighbors all lock arms when it counts

• The incredible story behind Cars & Cowboys, a sold-out fundraiser that proves charity and joy can coexist

• Why a pop-up Vintage Christmas Market in the old Mole Hole became a full-blown Hallmark movie moment 🎄

• And why this Valley isn’t just beautiful to look at—it’s beautiful because of the people in it

This episode is about fountains, not drains.
About building longer tables, not taller fences.
About reminding us that need exists—even in places that look affluent from the outside—and that community still works when we choose to show up.

If you’ve ever wondered:
“How can I help?”
“Does it even make a difference?”
“Is there still good happening?”

This one’s for you.

👉 Listen.
👉 Share it.
👉 Then go do one small good thing.

This week on Chopping It Up, Keith sits down with a man who should probably charge him rent for all the space he takes up in his head — his good friend Robbie Boyd, calling in from the opposite coast with a sharper wit than any TSA agent deserves to deal with at 3AM.

This is a special episode.
Not because Robbie grew up in Belfast during the Troubles.
Not because he once rewired a house with a fountain pen and Catholic guilt.
Not even because he flew across the country to sit in front of a microphone he absolutely did not want pointed at him.

It’s special because this conversation is what we used to do as a country — two people who disagree on almost everything… agreeing that none of it is worth losing a friendship over.

We go deep into:

• “Luxury has gotten cheap, but survival has gotten expensive.”
  Robbie drops the line that’s been haunting Keith for a year — and together they unpack smartphones, heated car seats, McDonald’s inflation, Cribs-level envy, and the weird comfort of knowing we all live better than kings but still feel worse.

• AI as tool, threat, and mirror.
  From fake videos that could ruin your life to kids who know how to swipe but not how to troubleshoot, we talk about what we’re gaining, what we’re losing, and what we’re absolutely sleepwalking through.

• Loneliness disguised as convenience.
  DoorDash instead of dinner. Netflix instead of date night. Banking instead of walking into town. When the easiest option becomes the default option, community quietly evaporates.
  (Spoiler: community doesn’t survive unless you show up.)

• Why comparison is killing our joy.
  Two pairs of shoes, one pair of wedding shoes, and a whole lot about Russian Czars.

• How friendships survive disagreement.
  The real heart of the episode — and the reason Keith refuses to hang up the phone when Robbie calls… even if he knows he’s about to lose an hour of his life.

We end where all good conversations should:
with Vonnegut, a walk to the post office, the joy found in the “in-between spaces,” and a reminder that the only thing anybody remembers about you is how you made them feel.

This one hits you where it matters — in the part of your soul that still wants to be known, still wants to be connected, and still believes we can build something better together.

Plug in.
Sit with it.
And maybe… call a friend.