you first have a meeting with ahmet ertegun. i will let you tell the story about how you got that first contract. >> well, the first meeting, i just went through the phone book, per the advice of allan freed, and got to atlantic, just walked in off the street, and jerry and ahmet in those days, jerry wexler and ahmet ertegun, were eager to see new talent anywhere they could find it. so a teenage girl off the street? okay, why not? they had a piano, and i played the piano, and they did not sign me. they liked what they heard, they said come back. tavis: [unintelligible]they did not sign you. i am just impressed, though, that you went to the phone book and got a meeting with jerry wexler and ahmet ertegun. >> oh. but they were -- it was their joy. tavis: i mean, who does that nowadays? >> well, nobody does, and everything's corporate. but this was a company that were these three or four people, and jerry and ahmet were seeing people, and it was their joy. they went -- i write about it in the book. they'd go to bars, they'd go to c

that is the essence, it people nervous and ahmet -- e pluribus unem. it is all of us working together. i just was it -- which the gentleman appreciated that. and i want to thank you, chairman bishop, for having this hearing about combat and wildfires. -- combating wildfires. we have a very serious problem. if you think storms and catastrophic wildfires, with random freak events, you are in deep, deep denial. when sigmund freud's study denial, he said when people are forced face unpleasant facts, they are prone to deny the reality of the fact, two, minimize the seriousness of the issue, or three, project the unpleasant situation on someone else. this is an apt analogy for howling before had to deal with it. now, the majority, we are facing a gospel-tight conditions, but they still denied the root cause. the environmental laws, -- land management, endangered species, and even others. if we are interested in reducing catastrophic wild fire, we must admit there is a link between in this. the undersecretary has admitted this link exists. there was a massive