Ep. 400: Gas-Powered Conservation with Tate Morgan of Sons of Smokey

This week, Cal talks with Tate Morgan, founder of Sons of Smokey and the Gambler 500: a road rally, festival, and North America's largest public lands trash pick up. Cal and Tate discuss how Sons of Smokey went from launching an eight-man COVID-era road race to creating an "anti-Burning Man" trash clean up powered by a unique phone app. Today, it's a near lawless public lands trash clean up where the number one rule is "don't be a dick." Long story short, everyone needs the SOS app.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
For uh from Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana.
This is Col's Week in Review with Ryan cow Cala.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Here's Cal.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
All right, everybody, welcome to another special edition of Cal's
Week in Review. This where you know, we interview folks
about interesting things. And one of the more interesting things
I've done here in the last few weeks, which have been.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Packed full of.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Travels and talking with folks, has been joining Tate Morgan,
who's our guest today, for an event called the Gambler
five hundred. This is something I've been aware of loosely
for like a decade. I feel, because there was a
Gambler event in Idaho that a few friends of mine

(00:59):
were involved in. I somehow followed them on Instagram and
wasn't all that into it, to be honest, And then
I saw they were picking up a lot of trash,
and I wasn't into it for a couple of reasons.
One like the it was just kind of like off
roady community that spends too much money on their vehicles,

(01:24):
which would have been the friends that showed me the
Gambler stuff. That's the group they represent. They spent a
lot of money on vehicles and not always practical means,
and I was like, man, that's not necessarily my crowd,

(01:45):
but I love the trash pickup side of things. And
it was a little skeptical, but i've as I followed them,
it was more endearing. And while we were out fighting
the good fight, the best fight for public lands, I
finally decided I needed to reach out to this guy

(02:06):
and see what the heck it is they're up to,
because I felt it was crucial to show, you know,
folks like myself.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Who are a little.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Biased towards the motorized crowd, that there's this huge user
group of public lands out there that are doing really
good things and they're very solid stewards of these places
that we all get to go out and enjoy.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Bring that.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
The big crews together to fight for public lands under
one big tent, as they kind of say. So that's
when I reached out to Tate and he said, come
on down. We got this event going on in Oregon.
Actually didn't even say that. He said, oh, my daughter
and I are coming into town. We should get together
and talk about it. And I said, we don't have
time for that. What else you got? And so yeah,

(03:01):
we met up in Madras, Oregon and decided to cover
the Gambler five hundred, which I would say is part
community get together party and trash pick up and blew
me away and so so many ways.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
So Tate, thanks for coming down Calan. It's awesome to
be here, and funny to hear you to say that
you know loosely followed us over the past decade, because
I've definitely been following you guys and paying attention to
what meat eaters doing. And I really love that you're
using this platform to fight for public lands, and I
just think it shows that all the different user groups

(03:41):
need to spend more time, you know, collaborating together and
make sure that public lands are around to then have
the discussion of what we get to do on them
in certain areas. And so I'm a hunter as well hiker,
you know, you know, so you know, off roading isn't
my only way that I utilized public lands, and so
I one hundred percent agree with you, and I have
my own trepidays about some of the OHV activities that

(04:03):
are out there too, So but thanks for having me here.
This is awesome.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Oh good man, Yeah, I think it is. It's really interesting, right,
like what I've seen personally over the years when issues
come up, right is we have to get the mountain
bikers to talk about this, and the horseback riders and
the skiers or backcountry skiers, fly fishermen, hunters, four wheelers,

(04:33):
single trackers, et cetera, all these individual groups. But the
reality is is very seldom, especially in the places that
I've grown up, is a dirt biker just a dirt biker. Right,
They're always there's always other pursuits throughout the season that

(04:53):
they're at least spending some time on, right.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
For sure. I mean a lot a lot of times
these activities are just an excuse to be out on
public land, right, And we do them because we're looking
for excuses to get out there. So if it's if
it's on the back of on a dirt bike or
you know, a four wheeler, or if you're out you know,
on your on your boots, you know that's it's just
an excuse to get out there and do it. You know,
the activity itself is sometimes just a byproduct. In my opinion,

(05:17):
Oh yeah, man, for sure.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
I think in the middle of this big ven diagram
of all these user groups is the dead center is
we just want to be out there.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, it's funny. I'm actually pretty exclusive Washington. I live
in Oregon and kind of the Portland vicinity, in a
rural part of the Portland metro area, but Washington is,
you know, probably only fifteen miles away. I refuse to
do any any off roading or any hiking up there
because I don't hunt Washington. But to be honest, I'm
always out doing these other things, but also kind of looking,
you know, you know what's over that ridge? You know,

(05:51):
do I think you know this area would hold any deer,
elk or anything. So I'm always Hunting's always in the
back of my mind when I'm doing anything.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Yeah, That's how I found out I couldn't be good
dirt biker because I couldn't focus on not hitting stuff
because I was looking up in the trees and on
the ridges and stuff going too fast on single track
and Idaho.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
You and me both we just did a Zion. We
did this the inners hike and your gun on Zion
and you the majority of the hike is through this
up a stream, so you're always looking at your footing
the entire time, and you actually don't get a look
up and through this beautiful cavern that you're kind of traversing,
or Cavernet Canyon that you're you're hiking through. So we
had the same thought.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
So what you're wearing your Sons of Smokey Wilderness Defense
shirt and we were talking, Gambler five hundred, What what
what's sons of Smoky and what's Gambler five hundred?

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yes, I think I think you've got to go back
to the beginning. What you know, Gambler five hundred. You know,
it's it started as I was a young father. We'd
just gotten through the recession and uh, and we were
looking for something fun to do. We didn't have a
lot of money, and so the idea of just you
had some buddies to put together, you know, each by
a five hundred dollars just a cheap car. No one
really cared about the rules that much. And it was

(07:07):
a race, you know. We'd we'd start in the Portland
metro area and drive over the Cascade Mountains and in
camp Out j actually Chinat Road just outside of Bend, Oregon,
and you know, we'd keep time. But you know, we
were all we wouldn't break any laws, and we weren't
you know, doing anything illegal per se, but we were
it was a time. It was like a navigation rally,
and so we did take it pretty seriously. And we
did that for three years, and it was the funnest

(07:27):
weekend I think out of all, you know. By the
end of it, I think we had fifty sixty people involved,
and I felt like, that's that's probably enough, you know,
I was thinking. And then we had a buddy getting
used some of the footage for another company. He was
doing marketing for us to kind of draw traffic to
their site. Well, this video of our Shenanigans went mega viral,
fifty million views over the internet, over YouTube and Facebook,

(07:49):
and so tens of thousands of people were saying, hey,
how do I sign up for this this race. I'm like,
you don't, man like this is We're not built for
this is just for our friends. And so I was in.
I was, you know, bacious at first about opening up
to everyone, and then finally I said, you know what,
I think we could probably pull this off if we
change a few things. And we said, instead of the
metric for competition as a timed event, because you just

(08:11):
have you know, mayhem and people would die, people wouldn't
understand the you know, the gentleman's agreement we had. I said,
that's that's changed the metric for competition, to see how
much trash you can pull out of the forest. And
so it's something I'd always done, you know, when I'm
driving up to the hunting spot or off roading, you know,
just picking up cans or tires or whatever. You know,
we always called it karma. Yeah, exactly. You know, my

(08:32):
my pockets are always full of you know, bush light
or a keystone like cans. You know, when I'm out
on my feet. It's amazing where you find a beer
can on the woods sometimes. But this is on a
bigger scale. And so we did it and instead of
you know, that's sixty people we had the year before,
we had three thousand people show up that year, and
and it was and that one, so that that was

(08:52):
the very first year, right, that was the fourth year technically,
but it was the first year of us opening it
up to the public. And so there was this ground
swell of people who want to how did.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
You open it up to the public, Like how what
was that process? Because this was still like your core
group of guys.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
I kept it the same format I had before, which
was probably a mistake. I just said, just show up
and I'll hand you the coordinates and then we'll meet up.
I rented out a ski resort up up on the
mountains and the house everybody if I was expecting maybe
three to four hundred people. Since I didn't have a
registration process, I didn't know that three thousand people were
showing up, and so myes were the size of pipe plates.

(09:30):
I no, I don't have a background in event promotion
or management or anything. And it took a leap of
faith of just trusting in people. And I think we've
got the right kind of people. People are willing to
go out and pick up a little trash along the way,
you know, and do a little bit of public service
while they're having fun. And we talk about that later.
It's kind of the whole basis. Four Sums of Smoky
at that point is just just doing a little bit

(09:51):
all the time. You know, it's a huge problem out there,
and it's just one little piece in this public land,
you know, issue that we've got going on right now.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
Right because there's they're like you, we want the ethos
to last all year long. Yeah, but there are kind
of organized events throughout the year, right.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, organized is a loose term. I mean you went
to our big, our big event, the Gambler five hundred
in Oregon, and that's that's kind of at this point,
and that's kind of our our festival of this of
this off road funny you know culture. We embrace you know,
people showing up in costumes and taking themselves not so
seriously at all, like like you're talking about people spending
money on rigs. This is a competition to see how

(10:32):
little money you can spend. You know, we don't have caps,
we don't have rules. You can show up in your
tacoma if you want. But if you show up in
you know, an eighties pewgho, you know that's you know,
all clapped out, then you know you're the coolest guy there.
And so we don't have a lot of egos and
a lot of the know, all that big macho you
know thing and so and there's just as you've spoken
to before, there's just a whole breadth of people that

(10:53):
come out for this thing. You know, there's the there's
the young kid working at the gas station scrape buying.
He probably brought out his daily you know, and then
there's you know the you know, the guy you know
pulling you know, you know, his company pulled out a
bunch of money that bought a fleet of rigs for
his employees to drive out there, and they're all doing
the same thing and having just as much fun as
each other.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
So and the Gambler part, right, was like car under
five hundred dollars or that was supposed to be your
your max spend. Yeah, and the gamble is whether or
not the car makes it the whole time?

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Is that right? Yeah? Pretty much? I actually called it
the the what was it the scumball Rally like gumball
scumball rally at first, and I found out there was
an event like that in Europe, and so I was like,
my dad had a little farm outside of Beaverky Corgan
and his neighbors scrap Pile had an old spoiler and
on the on the spoiler and said Gambler on it,

(11:42):
and he gave it to me and I was looking
at it. I was like, oh, that's the new name
Gambler five hundred. But this is back when I didn't
think anyone would ever care, you know, we weren't, we
weren't marketing it. We weren't trying to recruit people.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
We weren't trying to make it like more of a thing, right, No, one.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Hundred percent free. I wasn't charging my buddies anything to
go drive around the wood, you know, on public land,
camp on public land. That was the whole point was
to make it very loose, fun free and very punk rock.
And then I knew the second that we got this
global attention that that there was a certain punk rock
aspect that has to be abandoned. And everyone told me
I couldn't pull this off, and that would be shut

(12:16):
down in a year. And so, but by changing the
guardrails of how we engage with with the public land
and the agencies around it, and making sure that we
are leaving it better than we found it, by hauling
all this trash off, providing you know, to this day,
millions of dollars worth of you know, volunteer time, you know,
you know, blood and sweat and rigs and trailers pulling

(12:38):
all this something we did, We've done, you know, we've
had years. We got close to half a million pounds
of trash out of the woods and to hire, you know,
have the government do that and put towel a committee
and hire contractors. That would be an impossible feed far
too expensive. So we're just bypassing that and saying, hey,
these are people who enjoy the outdoors. Let's just leave
it this, let's engage with it. And it's fun. As
you saw, people love it, big old smiles on their

(12:59):
face coming into camp. Dragon water heaters and tires and
boats and hard and.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
So yeah, the okay, boy, there's so much to talk about.
So the Madras event, how what was your rough totals
on that?

Speaker 2 (13:15):
So maddress was different. We were based out of Bend,
organ for the last four or five years. And there's
there's the way that that city has mismanaged their houseless challenge,
their homeless challenge. You know, I'll use any words just
but it's it's a travesty. They created a housing crisis.
You know, it's a big mountain resort town. It's beautiful.
I lived there for years, my daughter was born there.

(13:36):
I love it to death, but but they've just kind
of chased development and dollars over community. And so when
the house's crisis was they partially created started, they just
shoved everybody out of town. So that Chinat Road was
just one of these little areas that borders the city
limits where you've got public land right on the other

(13:58):
side of it. Most cities have of accounting buffer of
farmers and ranches and stuff around it. Ben has these
access to these this four service and BLM, which is
just it's indefensible. You know, there's no one there to
just set up to tell these people not to be there.
So you've got hundreds of illegal camps out there and
no way to police it. So Ben just kind of
shoved everybody out there and then just made it the
for service problem. And so we tried to engage with
the city in the county, they weren't having it. For service.

(14:21):
Was fantastic to work with, you know, they'd send out
smoking the bear and all the arrangers and they were
so thankful for all the work we were doing. We
had millions of pounds.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
And how many like because that China Hat Road was
kind of like the origin place, and then how many
so how many pickups did you do on China Hat Road?

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Ultimately, so the way that we we like rather if
anyone's ever done an organized clean up, you know, you
all go out to one spot and you kind of
you know, disperse and or you're following each other in
a row. We do this flying monkey approach and we
use our app. You know, this really helped with with
what we do, and we just send everybody out and
all these directions so we can cover way more ground
and get way more stuff than any other you know.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, there's a huge choose your own adventure aspect, right,
So there's way points for roads to give people really
in my mind like a starting point, yeah, because definitely
not all the roads are marked, no, But then through
the app, the Sons of Smoky app, which we got
to talk about Sons of Smoky too, But the app

(15:17):
gives you the ability to mark trash that you see, yep,
and and take some of it or or leave it
and come back. And then when you clean up a spot,
you can basically like remove the previous mark and it
becomes like a trophy of badge.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah, you get credit it to your account and everything,
and yeah, there is we This is an event for
people who love rules and you know, for traditional racing,
there's a set of the rule book and racers would
go in there and the figure out how to how
to cheat. You knows as much as they can for us.
We're not into structure. We're not into you know. This
is a competition to see how crappy of a car
you can bring in, how much trash you can collect,
and how cool in funt of a person is you

(15:55):
can be. So you don't need those types of rules.
If you need those rules, this isn't your event. There's
there's twenty four hour lemons and other events that are
like that. This is this is more of a free form.
Then we do have waypoints that you navigate to and
you'll see gamblers out there in the middle of nowhere
and you'll smile away, maybe join their convoy. If we
put all three or four thousand people out there on
one course, it would you just be sucking dust the
whole time. And so we give people the option to

(16:17):
either navigate to these waypoints or just pull out the
app if they're looking for it to put a water heater.
You get on the app and you can see a
picture of what's out there and where it is. Oh,
there's a water heater on the top of this mountain
over there, you know, and that that's that's you know,
similar to you guys, you know, seeing a six by
six bull on the one ridge over and so you
make your way over there, go out there and grab
it and then you know, you can delete it on
the on the app and get your Ada boyd. And
then when you come into camp and the water heater

(16:38):
strapped to your you know, your geo metro, everyone's you know, cheering.
So we call that trophy trash.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
Yeah, so yeah, yeah, because that that is like you know,
when I think, oh my god, three to four thousand
people congregated in one spot, that's that's a huge impact.
But you guys have been able to find a private
property to kind of do the the main camp, yep,
to concentrate that stuff and all the things.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
Right. Yes, we have our big our camp which is
called Gambler Town, and we have you know, ten bands,
we have food vendors and as a big part and
it's the weirdest car show you've ever you know, if
you're you're in, you're intendee, but you're also you know,
you're also a participant, you know, and so it's not
it's not a spectator sport. And that's what's really fun.
I think people really get into it and you can
you can spend as little as much in your car.
No one checks receipts. We've never kicked anybody out, you know,

(17:26):
that stuff matters. But we do camp on private land
just to avoid any of the the challenges that come
with trying to you know, work with the government on
that side of things. And we're really respectful and and
love the agencies that steward you know, these public lands
for us. But like you said, you mentioned on the
Rogan podcast, thanks for the thanks for the shout out.

(17:47):
There is a little bit about control too, you know,
you talk about all these goofballs, you know, running out
in public land and how the government might not like that,
and there's definitely a threat of truth to that. And
then then we we we for many many years they
told us we needed to pull out a permit for
what we're doing. I'm like, well, reading the letter of
the law, there's no there's nothing here that says we
can't do this. And we don't have more than seventy

(18:08):
five people in one place and we're out here picking
up trash and we have that. We have the record
the largest public land clean up ever in the in
the in the in the nation, over four and a
half million pounds. There's no other organization that's done and
could probably come close to that at this point. And
but but the government finally said, well, will you at
least let us write you a letter that says that

(18:30):
you don't need a permit, that that that's that's fine.
I'll take that. And so, you know, thanks to the
Ochiko National Forest the they're they've been awesome to to
to work with and thanks for my letter telling me
I don't need a permit.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
So jumping back to China Hat road, yeah, you know,
like the leave it better than you found. It is
a great mantra to have for everybody. But you guys
were going back to the same spot and removing how
much trash every single year.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
Three to foreigner and one of yours furner and fifty
thousand pounds of trash and it was yeah, that was
such a target rich environment just because there's so many
RVs and what happens to the Brooke and glass theory
and so you start having trash, you know these these
you know, it's it's the last stage of And I
was in Bent during the recession. I lost my job,
my wife lost her job, We had one kid one
on the way, and I had to move in, lost

(19:20):
our house, and then I'd moved in with my father
in law. Think and think, gosh that you know Iah
I did, because not a lot of my friends didn't,
you know. And and so we're very empathetic to the
house of situation. But we but you but the city
of Bend and you know, these other cities like this
need to be responsible for taking care of their citizens.
It's part of the social contract. You can't, you know, Jack,
You know, these are people who work in the ski resorts.

(19:42):
These are the people who wait tables here in town.
They're living in trailers outside of town because there's no
where for them to live. And so, you know, and
then in that final stage, you know of the house
and depending on where they are, and you know your car,
your cars, you're you moved into your car and the
car breaks down. You don't have the money fix it.
It's got to stay there. It's not right. But there's

(20:02):
no government program to go do that. So we don't
have the money to do that. But you have a
bunch of wheeling, you know, able bodied dudes with trucks
and trailers who I kind of think that's fun, you know,
to go out there and you know, rig that car
up on a trailer and take it down. Look, we
have some good partners in the area, like the BNR
Wrecking that that takes that takes the cars for us
for free. But then on top of that is then

(20:23):
once areas get trashed, the community starts treating that area
like a garbage dump. And so the pile of three
hundred tires and the washing machine and uh, you know,
all the couches that I find out there weren't there
from by the homeless, the house population, you know.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
Right that that it started because somebody took an old
crappy mattress and threw it out there instead of paying
eight dollars to take it to the dump.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yep, yep. And that's all these areas get trashed. And
and that used to be a beautiful spot. We'd go out,
you know, shooting and riding, you know, dirt bikes and stuff.
And now it's now it's it's scary out there because
it's just all the population that's out there. And and
it's the first step, you know, they closed it down,
and they ended up closing down Chinat Road, the foresters did,
and I it's one of the only times that I've
agreed with an area closure because it was it was

(21:08):
I mean, there's five six million pounds of trash out
there still, all these abandoned camps and everything because they
moved everybody out. It's terrifying. But but but then the second,
you know, the second or third third step is say, hey,
what if you guys are just going to trash this land,
why don't we just sell it? You guys aren't you
guys aren't respecting it. And then so it's just that's
another arrow in the quiver the people who are trying
to take this stuff away. Mm hmm, mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
And that's an interesting deal. Like a lot of the
people I had talked to, you know, kind of when
when I would take kind of breaks, I'd just go
and help unload people's cars into the dumpsters there in
Gambler Town, and was taking that opportunity to chat with everybody,
and very very consistently, I think for mostly local people,

(21:50):
they're like, oh, well, we have to do this or
else they're going to close down more access. Yeah, which
was really interesting because we did we covered that uh
China Hat closure on the on the pod.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah oh yeah, yeah, yeah, see that that's where we started.
I mean, it's one of the the inspirations for everything
that we do now, is just how terrible that there is.
By the way, you hopefully you cut in some footage
of you just head to toe covered in dirt, throw
it away, trash racing go karts and just you're like
a kidney candy story. So I was having a great time.

(22:25):
I did bring you guys. I got some for the
camera guys, some bracelets. We didn't have the bracelets there
when you were there.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
There's a particularly reminds me I got we got my
ring is you know not it's just slightly too big
for my skinny little hands. But I'll get there.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
Yeah, Or I can, Yeah I can just a little
ball peen action on the bike. Yeah. We make one
of those rings every year. It's like a little Super
Bowl ring. You know, you buy it for yourself. But
then sometimes you're in a pickle and someone stops and
dusts you a solid and you know, fixes your car,
you know, gets you some water, you know, drags the
out of a situation, and and so it's also kind of
trail currency too. Yep. So yeah, yeah, I love it.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
You're pulling out millions of pounds of trash. You've developed
some good community relationships, and like who shows up for
this event? I think is a great because I saw
like a rave element. I saw a lot of dudes
that just resembled all my buddy's dad's growing up, you know,

(23:33):
like railroader types, and they're just they love to be
out there wrenching on stuff. And second to that, they
really like talking to people like bs and with other people.
So it's this community event. But who all shows.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Up and you didn't hit it right on the head.
You can wander into any camp in Campblertown and you'll
be offered, you know, a cold drink and you had
some conversation. You know, you guys can talk about cars
or punting or whatever. I'm actually talking to the b
h A guys from Arizona right now. Reached out and
then want to do a co lab and stuff right now.
And that it is if we talk about trash a lot,

(24:09):
because that's my that's my passion, and it's a thing
that we use to kind of refine and qualify the
type of people that come out. But don't even wrong.
Is I mean it's a party. I mean, it's it's
a fun we're we're rallying crap box cars across the desert,
racing for trash, you know. And and then but then
you spend most of the time, you know, kicking up
dust and having a ton of phne with your buddies.

(24:29):
And then at night we have a big rockets party,
and it's it's a type of situation. Whe Yeah, you
could leave a hundred dollars bill on your on your
seat and you're you know, surrounded by four thousand people
and it's going to be there when you get back,
Like just solid, solid people out there. So I'm really
proud of the community that we've managed to build. And
there are a lot of a lot of outdoor types,
you know, there a lot of owners, a lot of
a lot of hell e O's, a lot of firefighters

(24:51):
and people that come out and yeah, you wouldn't know it,
you know. I mean they're covered head to toe dirt
and you know, grin on their face. So it's I
would say, it's it is everything.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
Yeah, also like investment bankers and wealth managers and you know,
and it's like just seamlessly blending in. It's a melting
mixing pot, melting pot of people, right, I.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Had a guy come up to me and he said
something about wanting to get manufacturers involved, and I worked
with the Ford Motor Company through their Bronco Wild Fund
and uh, you know, like I know if you guys
over there Ford and then and he's like, well, I
probably know you know their boss or something. I can't
remember what he said. I'm like, okay, whatever, you hit
me a card. It's the CEO of Hoss Racing was

(25:33):
out there. So Custer, you're listening, Thanks for coming out
and thanks for having a ruckus time and you do
no more people at Ford than the idea. But yeah,
that's just indicative of yeah, you're rubbing shoulders with the
you know, the guy who works you know, swinging a hammer,
and then also guy who runs a you know, a
full blown right you know, one of the biggest race
teams you know, in the and F one.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
So yeah, and it's it's an impressive scene and I
I think one of the craziest things that you've pulled
off here is just making it.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Work with.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
A very loose structure, like people, there's a lot of
just straight up freedom.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, right, but.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
You have a bunch of like fix it types, which
I think helps you have a bunch of people who
have something to do, like the picking up trash aspect.
And I'm not going to say like everybody out there
is looking forward to picking up trash. You know, there's
some people that are probably there way more for the
party than the.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
Trash or you know whatever.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
But I think it's just like all these elements combine
and really really just make it work. There's a lot
of respect out there. Your guys' number one rules.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
What don't be a dick? Yeah, just keep it simple, right, Yeah. Yeah,
we have had to expand on that because people and
people figure out ways, uh to be still be a deck.
So I've had to define that. But yeah, we are
we definitely. We are defined by our lack of structure
and our vagueness. You know, a lot of times we
don't have a lot of information out there. I've had
to increase the amount that's out there. But I was like,

(27:12):
if you can't figure out, you know, how this works,
then you probably don't belong in a five hundred dollars
car out in the middle of the desert. You know,
if you don't have that sense of adventure, and if
you're too worried about what may happen, you know, and
and aren't ready to break down out in the middle
of nowhere. And and like you said, not everybody's a
wrench large. I'm not a great mechanic, but I know

(27:32):
that someone is going to show up at some point
that's going to have a solution for me. You know,
either gonna have JB welders.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
And you can probably have something like pretty well prepared
versus just being like, yeah, something happened and I just
laid down, yeah, and waited to be safe.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah, And then we're not these This isn't the Baja
right there, These are These are the same roads that
we use to get to our Elkin deer you know spots.
You know, these are This isn't o HV, you know,
like Johnson Valley or Moab where you're kind of on
this little you know, track to land. This is for
service BLM, you know, big open country, and that's that's
what we like to focus on. There's plenty of groups

(28:07):
that focus on OHV, and there's you know, plenty of
organizations that focus on back country, you know. Yeah, and
I think like the mix of people too.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
It was really interesting, Like one of the very first
spots was really close to Gambler Town and we were
gonna try to film uh, this big fifth wheel camper
that had been abandoned used to be a much larger camp.
You could see it on on X on on X
off road app. You could see like a you know,

(28:36):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Five trailers there yet. Yeah, and it was, you know,
it was it was shitty.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
It was very well crapped up, lots of like teeny
tiny micro trash all the way up to a big
fifth wheel camper that was full of stuff and the
doors ripped off and trash spilling out and no tires
or axles on that thing either, like they had been
scavenged for big recyclables and you know, heartbreaking to see.

(29:10):
And and we went out and we were trying to
like film it and people kept showing up, was before
the official started the race or the event, and they're like,
are you guys going to pick up this trash? They're like,
we got it, We're here to work type of thing.
And it was a you know, a pretty heartbreaking scene.

(29:35):
And that was on I want to say Thursday. On
Sunday morning, we went out there and there was this
group of like really young I would call them kids
that had driven down from Seattle together and they were
running around picking up trash at that same spot, but

(29:58):
it was essentially clean. And they were like, look at
all the trash that we found, and it was, you know,
like maybe a laundry basket, a small, shallow laundry basket
full of real small stuff, you know, and they're like,
look at this, Look at all the trash that we
got out of here. And I was like, oh my god,

(30:19):
you guys, like you should have seen this place four
days ago.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yeah, and you know that what you have right now.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
Which is like your trophy trash, wouldn't have been like
a drop in the bucket. But I think the looseness
right like really works where it's like wave after wave
of people hit the spots and they're picking up their
trash each wave, and eventually the thing is cleaned. And

(30:49):
I mean it was like an emotional experience. It was
unbelievable the transformation for that spot.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
And that was what one of fifteen campers that got
picked up and and all those areas got comb And think,
gosh for people like that who show because I I
have I don't have the attention span to do that.
I like call him big you know, cars, trailers, boats,
all that stuff out and so I'm usually my time
is better spent with you know, my truck. You know,
I touched this trailer out there, a hoss and the
big stuff out and so for me to sit there
and comb through the literal broken glass, which which could

(31:21):
you know, start another you know, little encampment there, you know,
so no one cares about this spot. I'll just you
know post up here. And that was right around the
corner from the rancher who hosted us, who had trepidations
about you know, having four thousand heathens on his property
and that that was a big thorn in his side,
was that camp. And so when he got back, because
he was gone that weekend, thank god. Uh oh, I

(31:42):
was going to say, he had just been shaking his
head the whole time. No, his guys are there, and
they they were. He was blown away. He said, not
one person you know, hoped this short little fence into
my you know, cattle operation. No one was up here
knowing nothing was broken. The whole community was just so
thankful for all the you know, all the extra money
that was spent down there, all the trash that got
picked up, you know, and so he was stoked, and

(32:02):
he was especially stoked to have that camper moved too,
because he had to drive by that basically every day. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
So yeah, I did some talking with people on the
economic impact in town. Yeah, and a lot of a
lot of folks were like, oh, is that what those
weird cars are? They're like, we have, like we're selling
a lot of coffee, selling a lot of burritos, can't
find a bag ice in town, all that stuff, But
what is sons of smokey? How how did that get started?

(32:29):
Because that's a five oh one C three.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Right, yeah it is. And so yeah, Gambler was this
big fun event and I noticed how much how people
were engaged with the trash side of that thing, and
I was like, there are a lot of people who
want to pick up trash and do good stuff with
public land, but don't necessarily want to drive a five
hundred dollars car to do it. And so I said, well,
let's let's put together this energy that we've got to

(32:52):
create an organization. At first, my wife as a as
a corporate attorney, and she begged me not to start
a five one C three just because the amount and
and and here's the thing. If you want to do good,
don't start a nonprofit. Nonprofits are vehicles for to kind
of we kind of sometimes monetize your your passion, you know,
in stewardship, and there are times to do it, which

(33:14):
is what this is. But we've we've treated this, we've
kind of siloed it that every single dollar that comes
into Suns of Smoking goes directly to our stated purpose.
We have zero paid positions. I volunteer all my time
because I've got thousands of people volunteering their time to
help us achieve this this common goal. And so we're
able to pull that off by you know, we sell
some merchants, wag and stuff, but then also through a

(33:37):
generous grant for the past four years from the Bronco
Wild Fund, So every percentage of a little percentage percentage
of every Bronco that sold helps fund what we're doing,
along with the outward Bound National Parks Foundation, State Parks Foundation,
A couple more. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, So, but Sons of Smokey is a five A
one C three. It is you're trying to be super transparent.
You're you're making sure that every dollar would be a
flow through dollar.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Right, So yeah, because I want that kid who's at
the gas station who wants to buy a piece of swag,
I can do some good feel like he's doing that
and not not contributing to takes Jet Ski fund or something. Right. Yeah,
so Jesski is our fun but but Relaiser focused on trash,
and I was add, I love trash because it's there's
a measurable aspect to it, you know, a lot. It's
not actually named our copy company thoughts and prayers because

(34:27):
so many things are just like just flippant, right and
so and so the trash you can literally put it
on a scale and say, hey, this is what we accomplished,
you know, good job, or help us next time. So
sound a smokey organization supposed to sound like a mean
biker gang kind of like you know, there's not Friends
of the Squirrels or whatever, which we love squirrels as well.
And so if I want to see three just too well.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
You told me, yeah, I can go about this a
couple of different ways with my excellent interview skills.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Okay, but I'm just going to go right at it.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
You told me, You're like I there was some version
of I feel like everybody wants to do good, everybody
wants to be an environmentalist in a way.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, but.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
Not everybody feels like they have a group. So that's
why I wanted to do Sons of Smoky because you
know that that like attracts people like you. Yeah, like
it sounds sounds cool, sounds tough like a biker gang.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, like a biker gang. But like but also yeah,
but doing you know, because not everybody in this politicized
psycho world of you know, Facebook politics, not everyone feels comfortable. Uh,
you know, being an environmentalist is almost a dirty word.
And so we wanted, we wanted to create you know,
and and they they're not invited to conversation, you know,
because they don't drive a press. It's like, well, I've
got who's going to holl that boat out of the woods.

(35:45):
You know, it's my diesel truck and my trailer, you know.
And then so we leave partisan politics out of it.
Just kind of one of the really great things I
saw about you in the way you attack this this
public land cell bill was it's it's going to take
it's going to take more than just one half of
the aisle or one side of the isle. Or or nothing.
And I love the idea of bringing these issues outside

(36:07):
of the environment is not a political issue. That's where
we can all agree that public lands, public hands, keep
trash off of it. You know. That's that's that we
can all agree on that there's nothing to argue about,
you know. And there are a lot of issues like
that which I think are unfortunately are you know, very politicized. Yeah.
So yeah, and you didn't, did you see? I didn't
see one political flag out there on you know what

(36:28):
I did not?

Speaker 3 (36:29):
Yeah, I did not, which was really interesting. Yeah, in
the inside or outside of Gambler Town, but with with
the gamblers, it was very uh a political.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Yeah. And when we don't care who you vote for,
it doesn't it doesn't, it doesn't matter. And you also
talked a little bit about on on Rogan too, about
about we're we're allowed to be wrong about stuff. We're
allowed to to to disagree with our politicians, you know,
and we're allowed to walk these issues back. You know.

(37:02):
I'm a gone owner and an environmentalist, two things that
most people would just be enraged you know by, you know,
and and so being able to pull that out is
one of the things I'm really proud of it and
what we do with Gambler, but also Sons of Smoking.
But Sons of Smoky we do run these big chocol ups, right,
half million pounds and weekend four and a half million
pounds over the course of our you know, of these

(37:23):
events and stuff, but what we really are trying to
focus on is building tools for people to use every day.
Are the biggest thing we can do is our user groups,
our off road groups, our hunters, our hikers, our bird watchers.
Out there, they're the ones using the land, they value it.
You're the one out here who sees the trash. If
you're on a bike, you can't get that pilot tires.
You can open up our app. You can take a

(37:44):
picture of it and describe what they'll need to get it.
But super super simple. It's just one little click, one
little button, take a picture, maybe describe it. Boom, then
you know it says, hey, you know, cal mark this
trash up there, and then you know, you or somebody
else you go up there later later date with pickup
trus any organization. We're built a tool for all off
road groups back you know, hunter hunting groups, clubs, you know,

(38:06):
hikers to use this as as a tool to for service,
and the Bureau Land Management is starting to adopt it.
It's just the one big database for all this trash,
and so it serves to not only find, locate, get
rid of it, and then also but also document it
and also illustrate how big of a problem this is.
Because we all see that that boat or that RV
or that pilot tires, the chest freees are full of

(38:27):
dirty diapers that was out on Chinat Road. But you
but once you start extrapolating on that's every one of
these roads around every one of these little you know, ridges,
and within usually within about a mile of town as
this garbage dump, you know. And so but to be
able to document that and show people how big and
how it's growing, and it's not going in the right
direction even with what we're doing. And so we need

(38:48):
to engage all user groups to be out there, you know,
picking up stuff at all times.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
Yeah, and so, like when we were talking about the
public lands fight, there is like this cataclysmic event that
happened in the House and then in the Senate and
the House on X got some maps released that allowed
people to see what could potentially be sold off and
they went, oh my god, that now affects me. Everybody

(39:14):
said it did, but I couldn't see it.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Now it does.

Speaker 3 (39:16):
The Wilderness Society did the same thing in the Senate
and everybody went, holy shit, that I know that spot.
That's my spot, you know. And so with the Sons
of Smoky app it's a same deal.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
Man.

Speaker 3 (39:29):
It's a great way to be like, you can see
the trash out there because people have marked it, and
you don't want those little icons building up. You want
them going away. So it the whole time. My mom's
a great trash picker. The whole time I was out
there for as wild and fun as the community is,

(39:52):
I was like, my mom would love this. They'd be
out tooling around. My mom and my stepdad be out
tooling around picking up trash, and they.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Would like of it. No, my mom loves it too.
You met my dad, Yeah, oh yeah, he's a he's
an ologist you were talking about. He said, you mentioned
that he heard you on some show talking about your
brief pursuit of the ologies. Yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
I had all the ologies University Montana had to offer
in a couple of semesters and was loving them.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
I got into the two hundreds, I think, you know.
And then once, once he started getting the real smart
guy stuff, I was like, all right, this isn't for me. Yeah,
it turns out maths involved in fricking everything. Real bummer.
Oh you're talking about spots. I had that that thing,
and you know how it affects us. And they're all
our spots, you know, and so we all need to
look at it that way, not all not one acre approach.
And plus if if you take away someone else's spot,

(40:42):
that other person made land in your spot. Yeah, and
so there's gonna be one or two more, you know,
little orange orange hats one around on the on the
ridge line if they start shutting down spots. So how
did you develop the app? Because it's.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
I hate to say it, but I feel like something
like on act or somebody should like buy that thing
or take it over to make it fully integrated into
so everybody knows where the trash is for sure, and
everybody can go pick it up.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
How do I talk to AX directly? Do I look
into the camera? Yeah, yeah, we'll figure that out. Well, no,
and and we're GONEX is a fantastic partner of ours too,
And so there there are maps. I've been using them
to hunt and navigate off road forever. And my secret
goal is to have a layer you can import inside
the on x app that would show our database of trash.

(41:37):
You know. I still want to be you know, it
doesn't behoove is a nonprofit. I don't get anything. I
can't build equity. I don't get it. I don't get
a cash out if they buy the app, you know,
and then I'm stuck, and then what's some to smokey?
At that point, I'd like to be a partner, you know,
with you know and and uh and I think that'd
be fantastic because yeah, they're there and the way that
they stood up in the fight and vocalize their efforts

(41:57):
when a lot of users, when a lot of organizations
and nonprofit it's I thought, we're we're supposed to be
in this fight. Were very silent. Yeah, and you had
cool companies like on x making us stink. So that
was cool year. So how did you develop the app? Yeah,
I'm not smart enough to actually building that, but we
have a development company that uh uh a scare scarab

(42:19):
ex scurb is uh is the name of it. I
think it's on sonse of smoky you can find them
a great local company actually from from Central organ That
is is that it also helps with these cleanups. These
guys are awesome, so they knew what the assignment was
and so yeah, we just we we built it up
and you know, it was expensive. Apps are not cheap
to to develop, especially you know this one which is

(42:41):
simple yet you know does the job and it's cool.
I suggest anyone even if if you're not going to
mark trash or you're not on your way out, you know,
to do that. You could open it up and you
can like it's like a it's trash tourism. You can
see the trash that's in Florida or New York and
it's in every state in the nation.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
Any so you you can take a picture of it.
You can write notes, yeah, and you say like generally
what it's going to take to get something out, Yeah,
like pickup truck.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Or you need a trailer. If there's biohazard, you can
market it as a biohazard. We typically don't try to engage.
Biohazard's just not in our wheelhouse. There's more trash around
the corner that doesn't have grows stuff in it. But yeah,
if you see the trash mark the trash. If your
adventure biker hunter, you don't have time, you don't have
the room to get it, just market somebody eventually will
come out and get it, you know, and it's just
looking for trash. A lot of time is through three

(43:31):
quarters of the time and so if you know exactly
where it's at and you know what the tool is
to grab, it makes everything far more streamlined and easy
to do. And it's fun. It's kind of like Pooky
Man Go for you know, for adults or for you know,
adventures and outdoor lovers. And then what what's Bronco Wild
Fund Bronco Wild Fund is is the.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Hat a blast with the app By the way, I
shouldn't say that, Yeah, I mean loved it.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
When we're still developing it, right, I mean we don't.
We're still when we so all that feedback is good
and it's it's still work in progress. It's that's like,
that's our big thing is creating that tool that fits
in your pocket that everybody can use. But the Bronco
Wild Fund has been critical that they they give us,
you know, the sizeable donation every year to to to
dispose of trash and then also developed these tools to

(44:16):
put in people's pockets. And then in return, we engage
with the Ford Motor Company because it's, first of all,
it's the last American uh you know motor company, which
which I'm proud of. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
The most ship I got, because there was definitely some
ship talking out there in Gambler Town.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
But our rental vehicle, because we flew in was a
jeep like Grand Cherokee, your wagon, you're you know, a
huge suburban like yeah, And people were like, nice Italian vehicle.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
It's like, I don't. It's what they gave me. The like,
how'd you pick that up? There's lore, there's lore behind
why they were giving you ship. There's Gambler lore why
the cheap brand is not is not is not beloved.
And it's a long story, but I I had originally
when I was looking for sponsors, I had. I pretended
I wanted a fake sponsor so I could attract other sponsors.

(45:10):
And I was like, well, what if a cat food
company sponsored the Gamber five hundred. So I said, the
Gamber five hundred presented by meow Mix cat Food, And
this is what is our website. We're getting two hundred
thousand people on it. You know, uh, you know a year,
we're getting ten million a month on our Instagram. So
this is this is out there that meo Mix is
sponsoring this this automotive rally. And so I get a

(45:30):
message they say, hey, you know that's not really who
did you talk to over here? I'm like nobody. I
was just having some fun, Like they sent me a
season assist. You were like, can I speak to mister mix.
They're only a dull food company. Yes, I could have
gotten some real trouble probably, But then because what I
did next is I published their cease and assist they
sent me. Because getting sent a ceason assist by a

(45:51):
cat food company pretty far about the funniest thing that's
ever happened, like to me at least. And so then
I then I was like, well that got me a
lot of attention. And I want to start because my
grandparents owned the Jeep dealership in Sacramento. My dad's in
the jeeps, so I gotta see if I get Jeep involved,
and so I'll just use them by send them a message.
They're going to ignore me. But if I publish that
they sent me a cease and desist people. I think,

(46:14):
I think that's hilarious, and so I've been calling them
Jeeps for a long time because of the way that
that's stamped on wranglers on the side. All in good fun,
you know, I'd like Jeeps. I had a Jeep gladiator
at the time. Uh and uh sure enough the internet.
I just thought that it was hilarious that Jeep was
sending me a season and assist. The marketing manager and
the brand manager for Jeep sends me this call. Frantic.
He's like, He's like I was. I was panicking, you know,

(46:36):
mass emails across the company, trying to figure out who
sent you a Ceason assist. Then I figured out that
you had just doctored it, and so he said you
want to work together, and I was like, yeah, awesome,
So I could all we have a zoom meeting and
I'm all ready and we're put on a collared shirt.
And I got ghosted by by the brand manager at
the time, and so then I had a real chip
on my shoulders. Oh yeah. But Ford called me and

(46:57):
they're like, hey, is Tate working exclusively with Jeep? And
I was like, well, it just happens to be. We
have a spot open and so Ford's been super punk.
Rocket Bronco is a fantastic product. We took it in
ours through the Rubicon Trail mo ab santall up hauled
two elk inside the cab.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
I run around with you, remember, I was like, God,
what upgrades and stuff.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
Did you do? And and uh bone stock.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
Yeah, not that your answers would really mean anything.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
But oh yeah we upgraded the bobber. No, it's things
bone stock. I put stickers on it, yea off. Yeah,
we were we huffed up that grade out of that
canyon when we have to. We pulled those truck parts
out there, and yeah, she took that instead and then
no one, no one else was able to make it
up there.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
Yeah, this is a like a multi pitch type of
grade two, I mean short wheelbase vehicle. Yeah, it's definitely optimal.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
But there's a little transition that made that thing a
little tougher then. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
I was like, oh this is and you were literally
on the phone with a news outlet.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
At the time. Oh yeah, just like as normal normal stuff. Yeah.
We we do a lot of off like rock crawling
on and off road and stuff too. That's what I
was into before we got into the crap car stuff
was was old land cruisers and taking them you know,
off the you know, rubicon stuff like that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
And so Bronco Wild Fund that it's like the philanthropic
arm of Ford.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Yeah. Yeah, it's through their cause marketing program. And yeah,
they they are the real deal. Like normally these things
are window dressing, you know, and and they they help
us make a big difference and a measurable difference. I
mean we've done over you know, about half of all
of our poundage with their assistance. So we got two
million pounds of trash removed and its disposal and the

(48:42):
felt when the app can be attributed to the Bronco
Wild Fund, you know. And also I never can't say
you know, our volunteers in that same sentence too, because
these these are the people out there picking it up
and they I mean they love you saw enthusiastic that
they were amazing and stuff. Yeah, like yeah, and just
like so jacked to.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
Haul campers in and uh, I mean there's no no
shortage nasty stuff. We we hauled out a couple of
things where you know, like the smell coming out and
it was it was brutal, but people a couple of
those campers have been sitting there for like two years
on public land.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Yeah yeah, No, I'm usually in the excavator there, and
so I get to pick apart a lot of these
campers and and stuff in the dumpsters and and you know,
I've gotten it down, but there's a tricky part. There's
a gooey center sometimes that you don't make sure. You
don't want to to pun sure that sucker. I've done
it once before. That was good. I take a little
bit of a break in the desert. Yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:41):
Uh so the gambler there that is in maddress is
is that like there's multiple events, right? Yeah, so what
what's like the kind of list of events because they're
spread out, So there's.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
The official events that I put on on host. You know,
we'll go down to King of the Hammer, so we'll
go down to like the Mint four hundred, and we'll
do these off road events and we'll we'll do a
clean up alongside these events. You know, we bring a
lot of a big party with us and then we
engage with the people are down there. Even if you're
not a gambler, come out to our events. Usually, know,
if you're in the automotive space. You know who we
are or what we do, and so we'll it's a
nice way to engage with them. But this goes all

(50:19):
the way back to two thousand and seventeen when we
blew up and before we even had our first event
there where us three thousand people showed up. I was like,
people are showing up to do something that's not gonna
resemble what they came here to do. We were fifty people,
very intimate, grassroots, cool, under the radar, free public land,

(50:40):
just just me setting way points for my buddies, throwing
a machet of paper and be like, hey, I'll see
in camp, no structure, no, you know, if they broke down,
they broke down, maybe you know, maybe we could help
them the next day. But you know, we drive by
people who broke down the road. Our buddies are close
personal friends, and we just sign our sc tomorrow, buddy,
like we've got we've got to get you know, get
ourselves a camp on time. And so I knew that

(51:00):
that was gonna the whole event. The inspiration of this
thing was gone, and so I was like, if you
want to start a punk rock gambler event, that's free
that's that's fun and that picks up trash. You can
use our name and logo as long as you don't
monetize it, because if you monetize it, now you have
Now you have more, you have liability. Well not liability

(51:22):
is one thing, but now you have, you have you
there's motivation to grow it past what it's supposed to be,
which is a small intimate event of you know, thirty
forty fifty twenty people would be great. And so if
you take away that motivation for you don't want to
grow it and you want to make it big, because
I'd already ruined that weekend for me. You saw me.
I was a stress case and I was most relaxed.
I've been at a gambler probably to date, I've never

(51:42):
been able to sneak out and do as much cool
stuff as we did as we did this last event.
So yeah, as long as you use you can, and
that's it's really it's covered by free you free use.
You know, you can use the logos long you're not monitoring.
You can make coke coke col can give you the
recipe for coke col and you make it home and
enjoy it and give it to your friends. But you
can't take the recipe and sell it and call it

(52:04):
col Cola, right, And so I just wanted to use
that same If you understand the concept of going out
having fun with the buddies and not making it about money,
not making about any of that stuff, then you can
use our name and logo. Like now, I have, you know,
twenty thousand dollars insurance policy, you know, twenty five thousand
dollars with a porta potties, and I gotta pay you know,
twenty some more grand to get my bands and production
there and insurance and rent the place. And that's you know,

(52:24):
it's one hundred thousand dollars bill, you know, to put
this thing together, even before I've collected the dime. So
you know, it's a hard thing to manage and keep
it true. I mean, you saw, it's feral nature. We
don't have security. I don't have Sunday at twelve o'clock,
when everybody was gone, I didn't have to pick up
a single piece of trash. There was a massive party
there the day before, and I didn't hear nothing on
the ground. I don't put out garbage cans. People just

(52:45):
take care of themselves. And so it's that relying and
trust in people to do the right thing and be cool.
That's that's that's what this is. It's a funny social
experiment and it works in our case. Yeah, a lot
of instances where it done hark, Yeah for sure.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
And you know again, when I was unloading trash, I
talked to multiple folks because I'd be like, well, how
many gamblers have you been to and they're like, oh,
we do one one once a month, right, And it's
that these different communities. I talked to people from Tennessee,
New York, maybe Florida, and uh that that kid that

(53:25):
we rode around with from Illinois I thought was amazing.
He I can't remember his name, yeah, but he had
the Land of Lincoln plates and and we went out
there to where I found my Chevy emblem.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We just ran into those
guys randomly, like I wasn't but.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
That dude, I he was easy to keep tabs on, yeah,
because he was a one man band and he was
in and out of Gambler Town NonStop that whole whole
time picking up trash. I mean, he was impressive. And
he told me he's like, it's like, well, why wouldn't
I do this. I drove all the way out from
Illinois because we don't have public land. Yeah, He's like,
I want to make sure it's around.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
Amazing, amazing, and and that's and that is the prize, right,
it's the experience and everything you don't we don't have
like raffles. And then you know, bless everybody who does
a raffle and does these events that are structured like
you're normally. But I don't need to lure people in
with the promise of free stuff for a trophy. The
experience and and the and this the satisfaction of doing it.

(54:26):
And that's that's why it works so well, is because
we just get people who who understand. Yeah, you know
that's the way that that's the way world, world dee.
So you guys do have trophies. Oh we have some
throat yeah. Fuel Safe Uh local company there in Redman
built some trophies for them to trash people. I just
make I see what happens over the weekend, and I
just make up awards and we'll give them to them,

(54:46):
right like I I you know, and like we did.
We gave away some rccars too from traxis and it's
just I just you know, I single out some people
with kids and it's like, oh hey, buddy, you want
an award. And then we do have our you know,
we have this scepter, but it's like with four thousand
people there, it's for everybody, not for one person. And
so I always preface it with that like this is
kind of like I don't value this a war, this thing,

(55:09):
but it's we're going to do it anyways. Yeah, and
it's and a lot of times it is kind of passed,
uh and and it's not exactly you know, it's it's
it is kind of a joke at times called the Scepter.
I don't know what we call it actually the sceptor.
So we have like this hatchet thing now that we
give out in a trophy, the Galt Trophy, which celebrates
a young man, William Galt, who lost his life the
day before a gambler. He's twenty one years old, got

(55:30):
hit by a distracted driver the night before he was
supposed to take off to the gambler and he was
he was real solid. It's ali bro. So we we
can have the trophy there to like, you know, you
go out and have these experiences in this fun for
for the the fact that he didn't get to yeah anymore.
So yeah, darn right. What so how do people get involved?
So on Gambler, go to Gamba five hundred dot com

(55:51):
and uh, you know, google it, watch some videos and
uh and then if you're brave enough, just show up
with uh with you know, anything with your you know,
crack box car or Tacoma and and I'll give you
a you know, a set of you know, loose instructions
and wait points. And also, you know, you can use
the app to go to navigate through the forests and stuff,
and you'll find a bunch of other goofballs out there
having fun as far as Sons of Smokey goes. Sons

(56:14):
of Smoky dot com has a link for the app.
It's on Google and iOS, so get on there. And
then yeah, you can open up and immediately start looking
at trash lights around the whole country, and you can
see what areas are affected, what areas have a lot
of engagement people out there working, And you can go
down to Johnson Valley, are all over Arizona anywhere and
see what kind of craps out there. And then we

(56:35):
do have some some events structured for that, like we
go down to King of the Hammers and do cleanup
and do some of these other larger events. But our
main mantra is just user groups are going to be
the ones to fix this problem. You know, you don't
have to lace up your boots and hold the trailer
out there and give your whole sunday. Just pick up trash.
If you're out there fishing or hunting or hiking or
whatever it is and you see some tires on the

(56:56):
side of the road, that's the norm in the back
of your pickup truck. You know, I know it sucks
us the minimum five dollars to dispose of but like
there's no for service trash man, you know out there
we don't there's no position for that. You know, we're responsible.
It's ours, We're responsible for cleaning up. And if I
can't remember who said it, but if you're gonna make
the world a better place, you're gonna have to pick

(57:17):
up other people's ship. So wait, So yeah, we say
day to day, use the app, you know, follow us
on the digitals, on the socials and stuff and and
and you know, share it and engage with us. You know,
I don't know, and I want to get more involved
in the b h A, yeah, we watch you. Conservation
is not convenient.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
Yeah right, it's like if you want to do it,
it's gonna inconvenience you, yeah, somehow, but we need you, right,
So I think, uh, yeah, it's it's it's great stuff.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
It's it's like putting some.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
Some party in preservation or party and conservation right and
then and it's just I think people leave that event
probably a little dehydrated and sunburned, a little little too
much dust in their nostrils, ears and eyeballs, but they're
they're stoked to be a part of that community. And

(58:14):
I'll just tell you like on I drove to Eugene
after the event on Sunday, and I saw multiple gamblers
on their way home pulled over picking up more trash
their way home, which is like, got to make you
feel good, right.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
I've got a great picture from my my brother in law,
Matt Cox. He was on his way to hunt Zoomball
and uh and there was some road construction and and
he saw his two or three cars up and a
bunch of people poured out of them with trash bags
and uh and they're picking up trash while they were
just waiting for this construction in the middle of nowhere,

(58:52):
pick up trash onside road, all wearing Gambler t shirts.
It was so proud. I love that picture. I need
to pull up. Yeah, give it to you.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
And then Yeah, one one thing that I want to
make happen here at the Meat Eater dot Com is
we want to add your guys's trash bags to the store. Somehow,
some way, we got to figure that out with you.
But he guys developed an awesome like nylon would kind
of be like decoy bag that straps onto whatever you

(59:20):
want to strap it onto, but.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
The exterior of your vehicle.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
Yeah, so you can be tooling or along doing whatever,
going out to your hunting fishing spot, have that thing
strapped on the outside and if you see something, it's
just a real easy chuck it in there and keep
on truck.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
Yeah, a little trail bag. It hooks onto the the
tailgate of your truck or even the trunk lender your car,
or the lift gate or you know, spare tire. It'll
snag on there. And says sons of Smokey fly the
flag and that's what you know. A lot of times,
if I'm out target shooting or something something, I'll go
pick up trash first. If I'm ever in a spot,
I'll pick up trash and then and then if I'm
ever engaging with law enforcement who wants to, you know,
sus me out what I'm doing out here, I can

(59:58):
show that you know I'm out here, you know, for
you it's it's usually kind of you know, kind of
they dropped any of their intrepidations about about you know,
what kind of person you know people we are out there,
So yep, it's nice. We have trash bags on their
sonst smoky dot com. Awesome. What's your next event? Gosh, Well,
we're building the race car right now. I mean it's
not all trash and and fun. We also do some fabrication.

(01:00:18):
We're building a tube chassis uh LS rear engine LS
long travel portal axled Ferrari based race car. We're gonna
go take racing at the Mint four hundred and and
probably down in Baja. So yeah, we're focused on fit
and just building projects. Got some hunting trips coming pulled
a got a nice Lammett Valley deer tag and then

(01:00:39):
a nice cow tag for out there in eastern Oregon.
Sofully I'll get that meat in that freezer, which we've got,
you know, pretty sick, So you need to come out.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Da.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
We've got a nice walk in and we process all
our own game, uh, and we grind all our own sausage.
And I think Andy invited you out for a high
fence squirrel hunt. Didn't. Oh yeah you did, Yeah for sure,
got crawdaddies down there on the twalten River. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
I gotta tell you, folks, if if you think old
Tate here is entertaining Andy and knock your socks off,
he's He's a good one. You will be able to
see Tate and Andy, uh plus the Gambler five hundred
on a future episode.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Of Cal the Wild Cal in the Field Phil.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
I don't even know what we call this anymore, but
it's gonna be on the meat Eater YouTube channel. And
if you have, you can track Tate down real easy.
But if you have any questions for him, and you'd
rather run them through me as K C.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
A L.

Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
That's Askcal at themeteater dot com. Uh, let me know
what's going on in your neck of the woods, and
I will let you know what what Tate's up to,
and we can have him back on to answer any
questions that you have, or have him answer them and
I'll read them off to you, whatever works. Thank you
so much for listening. Remember to write an ask c

(01:01:56):
L Mediator dot com and we'll talk to you next week.
It's Tate in Oregon, Sons of Smoky Gambler five hundred.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
Thanks for having me, Thanks for being here,