33. AJ King of KIA of LaGrange

So Florrie and I have purchased 2 cars in the 10+ years we’ve lived in LaGrange. A Kia Soul from the local Toyota dealership and, because that car was so reliable, we went to the local KIA dealership for our second car when we decided that driving with a car seat in my pickup truck wasn’t a wise idea.

In the purchasing process, we met AJ King. He was very friendly and helped put us into a KIA sorento that we’ve been very happy with since we purchased it. But since then I’ve kinda kept an eye on AJ’s social media profiles. Not in a stalker way, just in a curious way. To see what he’s doing now. I’ve even recommended to my nephew that sells cars in Florida to check out AJ and watch what he does because he’s a master at breaking down the wall that people approach car buying with.

So, I had to have AJ on my podcast about interesting people of LaGrange....

Ok, though I do have an axe to grind....

At the close of the interview, I ask AJ “Beatles or Rolling Stones?” because you can really tell a lot about a person by how they answer that question. If they say “Beatles,” with informed confidence and lean toward the later stuff it tells you that they have hippie sympathies. If they say the same but lean towards the earlier works they have a bit more of a conservative bend to their musical tastes. If they answer “Rolling Stones,” they like a more aggressive sound and therefore like more blues and, dare I say sexual undertone in their music. If they don’t have a strong opinion either way, then that tells you something about the person too. The question is deceptively telling for its simplicity.

That’s what made AJ’s answer and subsequent explanation so frustrating. It was so hard not to hijack the conversation and make it about how I used to teach the History of Rock & Roll. I chose to not even bring it up because it would’ve been shoehorning it into the conversation unnaturally.

I agree completely with him about the Beatles role in the history of rock, though I think one could trace it even further back had they wanted to. There’s a case to be made that African American blues artists such as Robert Johnson are responsible for all music that came after. But, if you’re looking for one seminal event, the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1963 changed the musical landscape forever.

This will all make sense once you listen to the interview.

AJ and I had a lot of fun. He’s a fun guy tho, so that was no surprise. I was surprised to hear about his side hustles though. I thought he was just a car salesman with a good social media presence.

...and his Wild Safari stories cracked me up. I think those were my favorite part of the interview.

Overall, though, this was a good interview. We had a lot of fun and I got to learn a lot of things that I didn’t know about both AJ and KIA of LaGrange. So win/win.

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