Jay Pennington: West Side Roots, NASA Detours, Spurs Magic & the Stories That Shape Us

Season 2 opens with a conversation that feels less like an interview and more like two West Side kids catching up after a lifetime of living. We sit down with filmmaker, engineer, actor, and San Antonio original Jay Pennington, a man who grew up literally one street over from the Pedraza family. The episode begins where all great stories do — with bikes, cracked pavement, and a childhood fishing hole Jay revisits fifty years later.

From that memory, the conversation expands in every direction: screenplays, stage plays, late‑night New Orleans trips, and the unexpected path that took Jay from the West Side to NASA, where he worked on the MX missile program.

We talk about the Fulda Gap and Nuclear Biological Chemical warfare, and suddenly we were tracing Cold War shadows from opposite sides of the same era.

Then the episode shifts into the creative world that shaped both men. Jay talks about his entry into those iconic San Antonio Spurs commercials, his work with Renée Zellweger, and her recent collaboration with Miranda Lambert. They dive into the strange dance between Texas and New Mexico film incentives, the doors that open (and slam) in Hollywood, and Jay’s work on Magnum P.I. — plus the time he suited up as a full‑on Viking.

The conversation loops through DB’s films, their shared history on set, and the dream of building Solar Studios into the DB Media Portfolio, a home for the kind of stories they’ve both been chasing their whole lives.

But the emotional center of the episode lands in the personal: Jay’s longtime friendship with famed comedian Ruth Buzzi, and the shared grief over the passing of "the voice," Raul Malo, a friend whose loss hits both men deeply. It’s raw, honest, and exactly the kind of moment that defines this show — where chisme becomes memory, and memory becomes something sacred.

This is Dave at his most reflective, Jay at his most open, and Green Chili Chisme at its most expansive. A 90‑minute ride through childhood streets, Cold War detours, creative reinvention, and the people who leave fingerprints on our lives.

Season 2 starts here — with roots, truth, and a whole lot of corazón.