How to Navigate the Entertainment Industry with Filmmaker Geo Santini

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to Studio twenty two.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Welcome to Studio twenty two. I'm your host, Will Meldman,
joined as always with Brock o'heron. How are you doing?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Brock Im good Man can't complain, You're looking tan, You're
looking good, feel good, Field Tan ready for stagecoach, It's
I mean it's coming up right, So one of my
favorite times of the year.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Absolutely. We are joined today by Geo Santini, indie filmmaker, actor,
all of the above multifaceted talent.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
How you doing, I'm good Man trying to launch his
only fans.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Wait, let's get that again in.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
A mi Let me move on closer, because I think
I'm far.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
With uh yeah, sometimes I pull the mic like to
the edge too. All right, I got you?

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Got you speaking to like a girl up.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
How how are you doing? You're based in La, right, Yeah,
we've been.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
I've been in LA for almost fifteen years now, back
and forth, but mainly in LA for fifteen years.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
That's literally the same as me, actually really dope. Yeah yeah,
hell yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Originally from New York to New York Yeah yeah, New.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
York Queens, Queens. I lived in Philly for a while
and then I went back to Queens and then stayed
in Queens and had fun throughout that whole time, and
then the towers went down and then still had fun.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
I mean that was kind of after I.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Think post Post nine to eleven was a crazy time
in New York.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
I had a life fun.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
And then I was like, you know what, I really
want to do this film stuff. So I came out
here to La La Land.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, it was great.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
My first two years was amazing, you know. I mean
I got here and I was like, I should have
done this a long time ago, you know me, I
got I came out here. A year after I came
out here, I saw my first feature.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Oh wow, it was.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
And then we but it was it was a crazy
story because the guys that I ended up shooting out
there was they all they're all in jail right now
so I can talk about this. But I ended up
getting into a situation with these guys. And again, I
don't know, I'm like twenty twenty four at that time,
and I meet with these guys who are they just
got a lot of money. Their investment group ends up

(02:21):
being the guys from Countrywide Investments. So the guys who
sunk the whole two thousand and eight economy.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Really yeah, So.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Got in there with them and then we made a
film and they were scamming and but I got my
film done and it came out with Lionsgate and did
well and it was fun.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
So we had crazy to Did you direct it?

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, directly, Yeah, that's it director.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
It was.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
It was a crazy time. It did a lot of
stuff you can't do now, but we did.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
It back then.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty wild how much everything's changed, especially
the last ten years, you know, yeah, worldwide. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Wait, so your first film you came in and directed. Yeah,
that's impressive. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
I came into I'm telling you. I thought the magic
thing was you get them to LA and you get
a film, You get you get to be on yacht,
you get to be with girls, you get to go
to clubs all night. I thought it was amazing. So
my first that's year three. That's year three. That was
year one for me.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
And then after that it declined and it was like
early do it again.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
So no, we came. I came out here and I
did a short. I was I was doing music videos
in New York and I did a short, and then
that short went to the Pump Springs Film Festival, met
these guys, these investors, and then we decided to do
this movie called Hotel California and it was a crazy ride.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
So when did the acting start?

Speaker 3 (03:38):
So the acting started? What I started learning about the
film industry was, well, the acting actually started because I did.
I did Hotel California. It came out in twenty ten
and the writers strike was going on and I was
signed a Paradigm and I was going to do a
bunch of films. I had like three film deal with them,
so I was excited, and the rug just came underneath me,

(04:03):
got kicked out of the agency, got kicked lost all
my deals. I was doing a movie Irishman that we
spent a million dollars on, never happened. So I started
the YouTube thing, you know, and I did it. We
did this channel called Wise Guys. And what I ended
up realizing was like I couldn't get everybody all the time,
So to continue making content, I had to just kind
of be the guy, you know what I mean, and

(04:25):
just do do little skits and stuff like that. Because
I the only person I could really you know, count on,
was me. So that's how the acting kind of came on.
So I started doing the YouTube stuff, the channel blew up,
and then from that I got my Amazon series was
called Borderline. So that's how I kind of ended up
doing the acting thing.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
That's really cool. The acting started on YouTube and then
back into the feature films. Yeah, that's actually really interesting.
I feel like that's very like like millennial esque, yeah,
our generation.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
You said that the rug got swept. I mean, we
don't talk about it. You don't want it obviously, but
what happened, Like what caused that to happen? Because this
kind of stuff happens in Hollywood all the time, it does.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
And I think the only reason that happened to me
because I got caught up in the hype, you know.
I mean, I thought I'm signed a paradigm. I just
did a film. I think the worst thing that happened
to me was having success right off the back, you
know what I mean. So there was no work for it,
you know me, So I thought I had I had
an office in La Center Studios. They were paying sixteen
thousand dollars, they had me on a retainer, and I

(05:31):
wasn't doing shit, you know what I'm saying. I was like,
I thought this was great. I was living life. I
was going back to my apartment, hanging out at two
o'clock and three o'clock in the morning, going to clubs.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
But I wasn't investing in myself.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
So all the projects that I had, they just didn't happen,
you know, you know how the film industry, So it
was like packages. There was one film that was packaged
of Paradigm. There was another movie that we had private investors,
which was a funny story which we can get into later,
and it all got it all went to shit, and

(06:02):
then basically I was stuck with nothing.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
It is this harsh reality of the film industry where
you know, I've worked on projects for years and you know,
you tell everyone, you know, this is what I'm doing.
You could even like, oh, we got the money, like
this person's in and then for whatever reason, it just
falls through and you know, you're on to the next one, right,

(06:26):
And it's kind of like the nature of the industry
like kind of just rolling with it and keep going
and you know, figuring it out. I think people may
not understand like how to what degree that actually happens, right.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
It happens all the time. I mean, it happens more
than often than not. But I didn't know because I was,
you know, again, like my experience was you come into town,
you get a film. I thought that was like your
calling card, you know what I'm saying. You get a film,
you get to hang out with beautiful women, you get
to live this life, you get to drive around in Ferraris.
That's what I thought. It was little did I know, No,

(07:00):
it wasn't that. And then when I but I didn't invest,
I think, you know, if we always say yo, if
we could go back, well I could go back, I
would have. I would have focused more on Okay, I'm
working on this film, what am my lining up next,
meeting more people, going to these meetings, not being so arrogant,
I mean a little bit that kind of caught me
off guard. Was my arrogance, you know, I mean, uh,

(07:21):
and and my work ethic, you know, I mean I
was just too complacent with what was happening because it
was just it seemed like this was the flow.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
But I you know, when it happens early on, it
kind of at least for me, it feels like I've
seen it with so many different people. You feel like
it's gonna stay there forever exactly, It's gonna keep coming, right.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
You think you think you got here.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
Now it's just only up and there's no there's down too,
you know what I'm saying. And and you know, the
good thing about the down is you learn a lot
from the down. You know, you learn a lot about yourself,
you know. But it's it's hard, you know.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
I've definitely learned tons from the downs where it's almost
like it gives you this kind of like more realistic
perspective on the world, at least for me, because I've
had so many projects fall through and I don't know,

(08:13):
I think I'm gonna get into like my own therapy
session right now, get into No. But it is interesting.
But you've done so many projects right that it's like
it's interesting to hear that kind of roller coaster ride
from someone who has done so many films and projects.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, it's still not where I want to be, you know.
I mean, still I still haven't done the project that
I want to do yet, you know what I'm saying.
It's like, but it's like, yeah, there, it's you're probably
gonna do if you got like ten lined up, you're
lucky if one happens, right, that's the that's the nature
of the beast. But I feel like we're in a
good time because the industry is changing. Things are changing.
The gatekeepers are no longer the gatekeepers. We have more power.

(08:54):
But you know, there's a give it take. You got
to work harder, you got to work more independent. You guys,
you know, got it small all the crews, smaller guys,
and you know what I mean, But you can make
it happen. Technology is helping.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Us do that. What what was the YouTube channel?

Speaker 3 (09:07):
Why? Yeah, it was just a it was you know what,
we talked about comedy you can't do anymore, you know
what I'm saying. But it was, uh, we were just
doing it. So what ended up happening? After I did
my film, I did a video called I can't even
say it. That's basically how it is. It was for
it was for Funnier Die. So we did Yeah, we
did a video for Funnier Die and it just went

(09:29):
viral And I was like, you know what, ilse like.
I like this model. I like I like the instant
gratification because in a film, there was no instant gratification.
You have to write, okay, or you got the script,
you're putting together, you're waiting, you're sitting there, okay, you
got to make an offer to this guy, or and
then this actor comes and he gives you his notes
or his theory or his idea, and then you got

(09:50):
to figure out, well, do I like.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
His idea or do I think he's full of shit?

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Or you know what I'm saying, do I want to
conform now do I'm not artistically challenging myself?

Speaker 2 (10:00):
So so all that.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
So with the YouTube stuff, we were like, it was
like you did a skit, did a video. It felt
like SNL and you know, college humor was huge at
the time.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
And you're Funnier. I may have like I've probably seen
it because I've watched like tons of Funnier die.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
So it was just like h and and we had
like these cartoon animations with it. So it was really ridiculous.
But anyway, that gave me the branch and I was like,
you know what, I'm I'm gonna start shooting these things
and doing them. And sure enough it blew up and
we're doing them every week and we're doing like three
or four videos, but it was hard to keep up
because we were doing like three or four videos every week,

(10:37):
and we were shooting with reds and we're shooting with
high end cameras. It was just it was a lot
of work. And and then I ended up from that.
We were like, you know what, let's just do this
original series kind of ideas on the channel. And I
did one called Geo's Pizza, which was this cockamani story
that I had going on about me and this rat,
the situation that I had with his rat, which was hilarious,

(11:00):
and I told the story. We made the video anyway
that kind of jumped off, and we had we had
a lot of guys on that who actually were on
that web series that actually blew up, and you know,
there are Marvel shows now and whatever. And then and
then we kept going there and I had an idea.
I was like, I'm gonna do another one called Borderline.
So Borderline was like an idea that I had about

(11:22):
a kid who's the son of a cartel member who's
basically bipolar. But he basically his father disappears, he gets
to take over the cartel, and he wants to bring
the cartel into the social media age, you know. And anyway,
we did it as, we did it as a web
series and we're going to release it on the channel,

(11:43):
and then we ended up getting cutting the trailer. A
young lady over at Hulu saw it and she's like, Hey,
is this a thirty minute show? And I was like, yeah,
it's a thirty minute show. That's what we wrote it for.
She's like, oh, can I see the pilot? And we
shot it as webs.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
I was like, oh, So, I'm like, oh shit. She's like,
she's like, yeah, I want We're looking for twenty two
minute content shows. Big fan of The Office, big fan
of those shows. I was like shit, I was like,
all right, let me cut this together. So I took
whatever episode stuff we had and cut it together as
a twenty two minute. She ended up like oh, I
like this, We're gonna we're gonna put it on our
main platform. We're featuring this, and so I was like

(12:22):
super excited. And then got into some politics stuff with
because this show was originally pitched to Hulu Latino because
there was a a Hulu Latino version coming up, but
the lady was from Hulu Hulu. She was from the
actual the main thing, and then the guy from hu
Latino got mad that she got the show, and then
they got into a fight with the producer and turned

(12:43):
into this whole thing and our success story turned into like,
well fuck this deal and Hulu got fucked up. And
then around my birthday, I had a friend he's like,
you know what I have. I told him about the Huluda.
He's like, hey, you know, I just met this guy
who has this deal over at Amazon. And sure enough,
like let's send them. And they're like, all right, send
us the episode. And Amazon saw it and they're like

(13:06):
we like this, let's go. And then I had to
figure out how to shoot the rest of it, you
know what I'm saying, because I just I only shot
a web series, you know what I'm saying, the rest
of like the season. This, yeah, the season. So I
had to because the minimum at that time, the way
they were scheduling a season was six twenty two minute episodes,
so they.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
Would they would categorize that as a as a series.
They're like, well, do you have a minimum? I'm like, yeah,
of course I do.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
You know, I didn't have shit, you know, I mean,
I had just a bunch of wepisodes the way I
shot it, and then we just ended up taking the
advance and just shooting the rest of it and delivering
it to them, and then that came out in twenty fifteen.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Yeah, I love that. It's like every step you want
to just make sure you continue closing the deal whatever
it is, right, Like, that's such it. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, find a way and get it done, dude. But
then that's like, that's see, that's like such a great mentality.
I think for people to see that want to make
it in Hollywood is like, yeah, I shot a websteries.
I'm not gonna tell you that, you know what I mean.
I'm gonna I'm gonna find a way to make it
onto the platform and make what I really want to
make on top of it. So it's like you just
got to find a way, you know. And a lot
of people I think are like when they get told no,
they're like, oh dang, that sucks, you know.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
Yeah, And then now's the days you can't say no.
I mean, the cool things. We have the tools, but
it's harder now, right because there's more efficiency now.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Yeah, there's a lot out there now with a lot
of platforms, a lot of competition, a lot of content, yeah,
a lot of content, yep. And it's kind of like,
but I feel like, you know, the bigger you know,
studios and platforms have been making a lot of content, right,
But if I feel like now and maybe just because
I'm doing it too, it feels like there's a lot

(14:42):
of indie filmmakers and people making stuff that you know,
I think maybe that they want to but in that
same right, you know, where it's like, well, look, I
actually can get a better deal if I make something
and go sell to one of these guys, you know,
and they're looking at that too, right, Like.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
I was watching mister Beast on the Lex Breedmen podcast, right,
and he would essentially like they were talking about who
he hires for like his crew, right, because he always
has like a crew around him of friends that help.
They're like PA's but also producers and partners and friends
all kind of in one right, Nolan Chris people like that,

(15:18):
But he's like I hire He's like, I mainly hire
people from film or people that want to get into film.
But then he goes, I always ask what do you
want to do? What do you want to end up? Doing,
and they're like, oh, I want to be a film producer,
and he goes wrong, like, you want to be a

(15:38):
YouTube producer with me, aka the biggest YouTube producer, and
like that's what you want to be doing, because this
is what you should be doing. Right. So I feel
like that works because he's like one hundred percent in
on YouTube and like it works for him that way.
But it was interesting to hear because I think maybe

(16:00):
only a handful of people could say that, because I
think like getting into film is still the better route
in my opinion, because that's what I do too, right,
But like it was interesting to hear that of like
we're actually at an age where working for mister Beast
is actually, you.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Know, probably more profitable.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, well, I mean where would you rather go? Work
for Joe Rogan or CNN? Oh okay, right, all day? Right,
So it's like and who's got more eyeballs? Rogan or
CNN Rogan? Right, So it's like we're in that world.
So it's it's kind of interesting, which I feel like,
you know, because I came back backwards. I did a
film that I went on YouTube because YouTube was kind

(16:42):
of blowing up in there and it started becoming and
then I think what changed YouTube was because remember the
first YouTube videos, they look like shit, They looked like pixelated,
little trashy videos like. But when it started like actually
the content actually started looking better. And then there was
people like Adam McKay who you know, saw the vision.
And then you know, when you see somebody that legit,
you're like, oh wait, these guys do legit films, you

(17:05):
know what I mean, you know, and they're working with
World Farrell, but they're doing this, you know what I mean.
It gives it literally and then you figure but it's
it's I feel like I keep saying this, like I
feel like we're in a time where it's like, if
we look back, what happened to the music industry, I
feel like it's happening to the movie industry. Like we're
like we're at a point where before you used to

(17:26):
if you were an artist you wanted to blow up
either New York or LA, you had to come to
it because all the A and R's there, all the
gatekeepers are there. But now you got guys that blow
up in their local areas. They can get a following,
they get a million of people to follow them, they
get shows, they get all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
They have a career actually in that little local area.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
And then the machine looks at them like, wait, he's
already got a career, he's already making money. Let's just
put more money behind him. And now we take them
globally or international.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yeah, or they make like a big TikTok song that
people dance to, right, and then boom, it's like, here's
a million followers on TikTok. Let's build around like you're saying, well, the.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
Whole SoundCloud era, right, the whole like uh nap, little pump, yeah,
little little pomp. Then the cash He's like they just
blew up up for no label, no nothing. They just
knew how to strike up an algorithm.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
I love that too. I love there there are like
they're definitely pros and contents to all that, right, But
I do like how more people have access to to
a voice and to an audience.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah you could, and then having giving people the ability
to have an audience, it changes everything because how many
how many people have got hired in film just because,
as you know, part of the conversation, just because they
have a big following, you know, see, like and like
I'm not saying he's not talented by any means, but
because it's not true. He's very talented, but like somebody
like King Batch, you know, like you know, like and
he gets all these films, then he became a great

(18:49):
you know in the space as well. But I'm like,
it's because of the following, you know. It's the same
thing like with The Rock with wrestling. Right when he
got the he was the highest paid actor at the
time for his first film, made like five mil for
this being King because he brought a following with him,
brought a following and it might have not been social media,
but it was wrestling. You know, you had dieballs. It's
value there, right. Social media is currency when you really

(19:11):
break it down, if you're able to get people to
you know, interact and buy things and download.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
If you know how to utilize it.

Speaker 3 (19:17):
Because there's guys that, you know, I know, guys that
they have their social media, they got followers and they
just do dumb videos and they've done nothing. But if
you know how to use it, it's like wrestling, right,
Like The Rock knew that he was a character, he
knew he played a character. He knew how to rock,
how to play that he knew how to draw people
in and he took that into the movie business and
then just kept it rocking.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
You know. It's very very interesting. Same with Arnold. He
had a stage presence because he was a performer and
an entertainer. Right, he worked on his body. He'd go
on stage mister Olympia and rock the crowd. Right, he
would do Pumping Iron documentary, and like he was a showman,
and like then that transfers, like you have the audience

(19:59):
some sort of same with the rock performer entertainer. You know,
I feel like all that kind of translates in terms of.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, because like Tyler Perry, I feel like I've worked
under Tyler Perry gat my first role ever, actually my
first opportunity. But you know, he was doing plays for
years almost was he really, Yeah, that's how that's how
he blew up church plays.

Speaker 3 (20:18):
He was doing him in his car too, right, He's
doing him in his car and living out his car,
living at his car and traveling. And then he had
that audience.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yeah, so even for him, it took him seven years,
like never made a dollar. And then finally when I
think he was like thirty at Hit and he started
you know, getting an audience around the block making money,
and then that turned into he like wrote a show
and then it all worked out where now there's a
ten ninety rule. It's because of Tyler where they buy
ten episodes and then they have to buy the ninety

(20:46):
if they want to continue on. But he yeah, he
translated the plays into into TV and film man and
just it just and still continue to do the plays.
But there's just that that value that you realize when
I mean, you know, I was just the same thing
I've been sending in real estate a lot lately. And
you know, I look it into uh, these two guys,
Grant Cordon and Paste Morby, they're really big in there

(21:08):
in their individual spaces. They're getting shows on A and
E and you know, HGTV and all this stuff just
because they're so good at what they do and they've
got a following, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
Well, Sunset baby.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
Yeah, look at that. That's crazy because you know, now
you could be a famous chef, you could be good
at what do you do and you have a TV show.
You could be a famous electrician, you could be a flipper,
you could be I mean, I feel like it's anything
you could do you could do right now. And as
long as long as you do it really well and
you can be entertaining, you got it.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
You gotta go. Yeah, it's you know, Chef Gordon created
the celebrity chef industry just by doing it. I mean
not only that, I think I think he taken more.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
I think he created a whole foodie and the whole
food phenomenon that were like, you know, I mean, nobody
used to think about food the way we're thinking about
food right now.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Right.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
Food used to be like you eat food, you go
to a restaurant, whatever. Now it's like it's part of
like pop culture, like food, food restaurants, and.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
People are still taking pictures of their brea taking pictures yet.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
Yeah, so it's like it just became a whole other thing.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
You know, dude, it's crazy. What are we gonna make?
What are we gonna what are we going to turn
into the next big thing?

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Well, like you you know you did, uh it's called
after the Ring Yeah, yeah, and uh that you know
you mentioned Takashi and that was like one of my
first thoughts when I saw the trailer. But the rappers
in that era and then social media and all that
stuff too, Like you guys kind of leaned into what
was happening in the world right and then made a
great film, a funny film.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
The funny thing about that is we wrote that script
before Takashi.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
You're kidding, so what what?

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (22:44):
So I wrote it into you manifested to cash.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
Into the not really I wish, I wish I could
take claim for that, but nah No. But the thing was,
I was getting fascinated by you know again because I
was I come from the music industry. I love I had. Actually,
that's how into film was because I was doing music videos.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Loved that.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
And then somebody showed me a commercial that they did
and I was like, dude, the marrying films and music
and that whole I fell in love with that whole world.
And that's how I ended up doing films. But I
started seeing like it was interesting to me to see
like how these young kids are just like, Okay, they
putting up a song on SoundCloud and the next day
they're like, their shit is everywhere, and not only the

(23:26):
shit is everywhere.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
They're performing at the.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
Festival and they got fifty thousand fans and then they're
talking shit and it's making them more active and now
they're trolling.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
So the film became about more like a troll.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
And for me, the first troll was fifty you know
what I'm saying, because his first song was a troll
and then the way he trolls is like nobody else, right,
so he was just he owned it. But then when
I saw these young kids like taking it, I was like, Oh,
they're fucking geniuses and it's funny and it's but there's
a you know, if you see the film, it's it's
one of these cultures where it actually takes from him

(23:58):
being a kid to like the end of the career,
and it's it's really interesting because it's a film that
kind of it starts out all funny, but then it's
it just has a dark ending, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
I was interested in getting your take on that too,
Like when you were creating it, were you thinking in
your head because we all think of like comps if
we're either writing or creating an idea, right, So were
you more like spring Breakers or more of like was
that even out by the time you started that? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, spring Breakers was out. Spring Breakers, Yeah, spring Break
Verst was way out. I had seen that a long time.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Like, what were some of the comps you were thinking of?

Speaker 3 (24:33):
So I when I I just was looking at what
I was thinking of. Well, pop Star had came out,
Remember pop Star with uh Andymber? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
saw pop Star and I thought it was funny. But
I it was one sided, right, So I wanted.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
To go deep over the top.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, it was a little over the top, but I
wanted to go deep into So my whole thing was
because there was there was like a side of it
that was dark, right, because it's like they're trolling, but
people are actually getting shot. They're trolling, and people actually
it started influencing society where it's like I felt like
it started birthing these these kids thinking like Okay, if
I do this shit, if I call this guy out,

(25:13):
if I do and not knowing the circumstances that there's
like real life circumstances like you could actually get shot,
you can actually get killed. So I started getting fast
fascinated with that world and started getting obsessed with it,
and then it was just it was a lot of
crazy stories that I started doing. I mean, I mean
there's a scene in there where he goes to an
old age home you know what I'm saying. And it's
like that shit is when you see he goes to

(25:35):
old h home. And even when when I send the
producer of the script, she was like, how we're going
to shoot this? Like you have old ladies flashing the camera,
you have like yeah. I was like, I was like,
I don't know, We'll just do it. We'll just we'll
just hire old ladies. Like you're not gonna get nobody.
I was like, let's do it. I was like, nobody's
going to do I was like, all right, let's just
do it. And it happened, you know what I'm saying,

(25:56):
And it was funny as hell. But then there was
a video where Cardi B. After we shot that, Cardi
B goes an old age home. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Oh wow, it was crazy like everything we manifested.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
You'll see the movie. It's like it's lenear. So it
was just like but you could see not to say
that it was I could see the algorithm, but you
see where you could see the the It was like
a rock and roll story for me. Right, it was
like a biopic, but the modern biopick where it's like
the rise and fall of a guy, but instead of
always these rise and Fall films are like, oh, they
get into drugs, they get into the party, like Cox,

(26:30):
Cox was great, you know what I'm saying. So I
think that was the inspiration for like an After the Rain,
you know, I mean, okay, okay, yeah where Yeah cause
just got like the you know, serious biopic elements but
also having fun the how what you do to get
into that character.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
I mean, you play such a unique role.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
I just studied these kids and I found them fascinating,
and I just like lived through them, you know what
I mean, And I just, you know, I think that's
what it was.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
It was fun.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
They were they were doing fun ship like you can't,
you know, throwing shit out, saying dumb shit, trolling on.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
It's fun. It is fun. So it was.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
It was one of the funnest characters I ever played.
To be honest with you, it was just fun as fuck,
you know what I'm saying. It seems like it was
fun as fuck, but you know, and then you start
thinking about it and you're like, oh, wow, this is
really weird. So and then again I wanted to tell
a bunch of stories how they're getting fucked in the
music industry, how they're getting taken advantage of, and all
of that kind of compels into it.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
So to get into the character. It just you know,
I had really fun with it.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
I you know, I was like, let's play with the cosmetics,
let's play with everything.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
And on the PbD podcast they were talking about how,
you know, they had a Harvard professor on I just
saw that.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
I just saw one of the clips where he was
talking about the EI or I mean, was it that guy,
the guy with the dredgs?

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Right?

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah? Yeah, same guy, Yeah, same guy. So they were
talking about how they well they were They were also
referencing a Bill Maher ice Cube clip right where ice
Cube was talking about how like.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
The prison reform situation right.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
Or right in regards to did the CIA and FBI
potentially set up gangster rap in order to imprison more
people to fill the prison systems because there's someone who's
like an owner of a prison and also the owner
of a record label.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
I'm not saying I believe in any of this. I'm
not saying any of it's a fact YouTube, But did
that factor into like any of the stuff you were
going not specifically those conspiracies, but more of like what
started gangster rap? How do we end up here? Why
are these kids doing this? In that sense if that

(28:41):
even it makes sense?

Speaker 3 (28:43):
So for me when you when because I saw both clips,
I saw the Bill Mark, I saw the Bill Mahrk
clip with ice Cube, which was perfect person because he
started he was like, you know, straight out of Compton
was the kind of the biggest selling gangster rap album
and probably one of my top twenty albums still of
all the time. Yeah, I think this situation comes along,
which is gangster rap, and then I feel that people

(29:06):
figure out ways to manipulate it. And my story wasn't
more about the jail system, and that's a whole other story,
but mine was more about the label side. And you
know this idea of they see this kid popping, they
see that he's got a bunch of views right over here,
so let's take it. And then instead of guiding him
and mentoring him, like yo, go buy some houses or

(29:29):
that's some real estate. You know, think about what your career.
Maybe you want to start having some acting lessons. They say, no,
go buy these chains and keep the trolling, because every
time you're trolling, you're selling records. And then so was
the constant encouragement of keep getting a bullshit instead of,
you know, keep fitting a bullshit. So I do think
a lot of labels, and there was a situation I

(29:50):
will name the artist, but there was an artist. There
was a situation that I know that it was an
actual label executive and the artist was did a video.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
And the song was had to deal with the topic.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
Of murder, and somebody that knew them they held that
video back. I knew the guy who did the video.
They held the video back, never released the video. The
kid gets charged for murder, and all of a sudden,
the next day the video's out.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
Oh wow, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
So I do believe that there's opportunists. I believe. I believe,
like my main thing for the film was because there
was no guidance, you know what I mean. You know,
you look at somebody like ice Cube right where he
was just not necessarily he was a gangster, but he
was just he was a poet telling nahs. And all
these guys there's poets telling you what they see and
they putting it together in words and it's brilliant, right,

(30:40):
it's nice. But all those guys, you see their careers.
I mean, look at what Ice Cube did. He ended
up not only owning starting his record label, but then
starting the film stuff with John Singleton. He had man
and making money, moving money, and then you know, now
having the basketball league. I mean, and and he created
an empire and he's a positive role model out of

(31:01):
a situation that came out. That's not happening with these
kids right now. You know what I'm saying. They just
they're just you know, and again they're just getting dumped
into the bullshit.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
It comes closing thought and I'll shut up, I promise.
Even if it was some sort of conspiracy, the reason
if the police blew up is because you can't deny
that that was a real sentiment being felt by that

(31:30):
community at the time, and it was the biggest cultural
revolution of our lifetime. Nothing even closed. So you can
say it's set up. But I like how you said
like opportunists, right, it's more of like reacting to something
that's real, right, Like.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
Anyway, shut up, I have a lot. I mean, I'm
not saying it's just I actually forgot what I was
gonna say. That actually kind of sounds I was planned.
It's not, no, dude, So that's dope. So you you
grew up with with wrapping, and I grew.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
Up with music. The first thing I used to do
was do beats. And then and then talking about the
fuck the police situation. I was in a situation where
I was delivering pizza when I was a young kid,
and from delivering it right now, bro, yeah, pizza would
be amazing right now. No, I delivered pizza when I
was a kid, and then literally I got into It
was in a bad neighborhood. It was North Philly. It
was a bad neighborhood. I drove the wrong way in
a one way because all those streets were bad, and

(32:29):
these cops saw me, they came, they took my money,
they threw the pizza out, damn and people saw it
like it was in front of people. It was in
front of people, and you know, you had that sentiment
they were they were just being assholes. They weren't even corrupt.
I mean, I didn't have much money. It was it
was it was in North Philly that I mean, I
think I was like forty bucks that they took.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
They were just making you then like.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
It was a show and it was just like you know,
you drove the wrong way. I don't even think I
had a driver's license, to be honest with you at
that time. But you know what I mean, there was
you know, and they're calling the pizza shop like yo,
your drivers getting you know, it was hilarious because at
the end of the day, and it meant nothing to me.
When I went back, I was like, ah, yeah, yeah,
and I was like, oh, we got to send this
lady her pizza again because you know, she didn't get it.

(33:12):
But I get the sentiment. I mean mine was minor,
but there is a sentiment of that, and I think
there was a reality in that. Fuck the police, because
if you're just getting harassed by something for no reason,
I think that's where it comes from. You know. Now,
in the same time, do I believe no police aren't needed. No,
A lot of these communities still need a lot of police.
You know what I'm saying, Look at what's happening to

(33:32):
our city right now without you know.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
I mean, yeah, I think you're you're always going to
need someone there to kind of keep the checks and
balances and offer some form of safety because if somebody,
you know, if everyone was free to do whatever they
wanted all the time, we'd have some chaos, you know
what I mean, it's gonna be a little bit yeah, yeah,
which would be pretty nuts and like, but at the
same time, yeah, there's people, like you said, the opportunists. Essentially,

(33:55):
they can take advantage of their situation or their power.
And it goes both ways, man, because I've got friends
who are cops that are freaking amazing, right, and you
know what these people are going through. Imagine every day
in Philly for these guys, I can't know so many
times they've been shot at.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
It's a tough job.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
It's a tough job.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
I mean, we need police. And then you know who
needs them more, as though old ladies who live in
the block, it's more of the kids, like they need
them more.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
There's drug dealers.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
I mean, you know, you could take all the guns
away from from the people, that's fine, But criminals don't
need a permit to get a gun, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
I've seen I literally saw a YouTube video that put
together it must have been twenty videos, twenty videos of
women over the age of twenty being punched in the
face on the street for New York. Yeah, what is happening?
It's crazy, I mean it's just yeah and New York.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
You know, when I grew up in New York, I
remember when I was a little kid. I remember New
York being a total shit hole, and then I saw
it becoming the most in all Honestly, I never thought
I would leave because you know, I used to walk
around see and all that.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
It was beautiful. It was fun, you know what I mean.
We had fun.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
It was no it was safe. I'd be out at
two thirty in the morning and Granwede Village. I didn't
feel like I was going to get robbed. I didn't
feel like anything. It was cool, you know what I mean.
And then you go to the neighborhoods where you know
you're gonna get robbed, you know, so you don't you
act right or you do what you gotta do, because
there's neighborhoods that you still get robbed.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
Stuff.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
But I'm talking about the city like Manhattan. It was
more like a playground. It was dope. It used to
be at this, you know, we used to go out.
I used to I remember being kid like literally going
home home on a Friday, going to sleep, to wake
up at eleven thirty at night and make plans and
be meeting with guys at one o'clock in the morning
and we're out to like four o'clock in the morning
or five o'clock in the morning, eight at evening, breakfast

(35:40):
at the diner. It was great, you know, but you
can't even do that no more.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
The National Guard is deployed in the subways.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
Your people are getting stabbed, taken it.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
Yeah, it's pally just like such a rise in mental
illness or something, man, Like, what what would be the
shift for that for people to start going that way?
You know what I mean? I think the drug shand
I don't know, he's a big factor. I think, yeah,
drugs are a big factor. I just it's just like, man,
it's so sad to see because I'm really sad if
I saw that walking down the street. Bro, that guy's done.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
It's tough, man. Yeah yeah, yeah, you guys.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Happened to the good Samaritan. Yeah he's in he's in jail.
Oh yeah, the one that's so crazy. Bro, that's the
other thing.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
You're punishing the guy who's actually sticking.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
So they probably lock you up for punishing the.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
Guy squatters in the houses man like I might. That
doesn't make any sense. To me, or someone breaks in
California is to me, it's just so crazy. If someone
breaks in your house and gets hurt, they can sue you.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Yeah, like what I mean, Well, Ron DeSantis just changed
the squatter law in Florida. Oh really yeah, just signed it.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
But look look at what happened upon Bee. Right like
he was at his house. He was taking a shower.
I think bun Bee was. Yeah, I think it was
bun Bee. I'm I don't quote me one, but I
think the story is he was in his house. He's
he's upstairs, and his wife is they're in Texas, by
the way, this is perfect story. But his wife's screams, yeah,

(37:09):
so he basically but this is the point is his
wife screamed, somebody broke in the house. The guy chased them,
shot him, you know what I'm saying for bringing in
the house. And they came up, you know what I mean,
They're like, what happened?

Speaker 2 (37:21):
They explained the story. They're like, cool, let's take him
to prison, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
And he was able to protect his home, you know
what I mean, protect his wife, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Oh, so they actually got the trespass. They took care
of the trust back he was good, you know what
I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
But that wouldn't happen in California though, you know what
I'm saying, that wouldn't happen in other states. And look,
I'm not telling you chase anybody down the street, but
you should have the right to protect your home. I
know so many friends that have got followed back with
the Rolls Royce back in Hollywood. And one of my friends,
he has a weave spot, you know what I mean.
And literally, they're at a club in Hollywood. They meet

(37:53):
this girl and they're all gonna hang out and just
smoke some weed and have some fun. And the kid
has a role and they drive back and as soon
as they pull into Rolls Royce, three guys get out,
guns to the face.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
They're like yo.

Speaker 3 (38:09):
The girls starts talking up and they smash her face
and the poor girl, you know, she had to get
reconstructive surgery in her face.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, that's not cool, man.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
That's not cool. So it's tough. Yeah, man, it's brutal.
It's it's really sad to see kind of crime rise
and you never want to see that. But it happens
every day. Yeah, I don't know what the answer is.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
It's crazy because I've talked to people who live out
of the country. It's happening globally. Though globally it's.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Like it's a pandemic. I mean again, but COVID changed everything,
So I think Paris is on fire.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
Yeah, I heard, like I have friends that you know,
and I had a friend who she lives in New
York too, and I was just like because I was like, yeah,
I'm just tired of la just the thing because when
I first came here, like I told you, I felt
like I came to paradise, you know what I mean,
You get a film deal, you get all this thing's
going on. But it did like I did, you know,
like you go out today, it's like, look how beautiful

(39:06):
the weather is. Look how beautiful the view is. Like
where do you get this? You know what I'm saying.
You don't get it anywhere. So I was like I
was in love with Elther. I'm like, I'm home now
I must sit here, you know what I mean. It's cool,
but now it's like, you know, it's kind of crazy.
You know, you have to deal with stuff, and you know,
you feel bad for certain people, but at the same time,
it's like you're trying to live, you know what I mean.

(39:26):
And like when I went to the San Francisco Film Festival,
like almost when my film came out Hotel California, that
was almost like ten twelve years ago. San Francisco is
a beautiful city.

Speaker 4 (39:37):
Man.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
I grew up there, Yeah, from nineteen ninety to two
thousand and two, two thousand and three. Yeah, I think
that was like the best thirteen year stretch in San
Francisco's history. I went there.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
I ate the best Chinese food I had ever eaten.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
Yeah, and my dad every Sunday Chinese food takeout, Like
the more dive restaurant, the better. Yeah. It was beautiful.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
I went through this hallway, went through like the second floor,
then the back room, and it was just the most
beautiful food.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
That I ate.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
And then we went to you know, Fisherman's Wharf, and
it was just the food was great and it was
beautiful to go shopping down there and everything. And then
I was like, I was like, you know what, one
of my dreams is, I'm gonna come up here and
chill here for six months and write a book because
it's so beautiful, you knowful, but you know, shit went
to shit.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
You know, my heart goes out tof man. I don't
even know what to say on that topic. I just
I loved growing up there. I felt very very blessed to,
you know, grow up writing Pacific Heights right in the
city and experience that city for you know, a little
bit over a decade, you know.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
Yeah, I mean it was gorgeous. And then I just
recently went because I when I did the music was
mixed in a studio in San Francisco and Oakland actually,
and I rode the bar, and you know, I saw
all the stuff that happens. It's kind of crazy, you know.
I mean, yeah, dude get attacked, you know what I mean.
I saw people yelling. It's it creates with a hostile environment.

(41:01):
So well, I mean the violence is real. I mean,
this stuff, some of it's over hype. I get it
because I talk to my friend he's Ryan, who's who
does music.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
He's die hard guy.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Now, yeah, I live here.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
It's amazing. He's like, no, it's media over hyping it,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, so a lot of stores closing. Yeah, yeah, I
was just trying to add some positive I guess.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
I mean it's people's perspective too. It's like, if it's
not happened to you, it's out of side, out of mind.
You know. I've got friends out here that have had
their you know, cars and houses and invaded, and then
other people that like live the dream life every single day,
you know, and they're too polarizing. Two very different lives,
but you know, within miles of each other. So it's
really just kind of whatever's happened to you. But at

(41:44):
the same time, like, is that stuff still happening? Yeah,
happen at any time? Yeah, you know, I mean.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Squatters took over the house next to Lebron. Oh really
they literally for like over twenty four hours or maybe
even multiple days right in like Beverly crashed or wherever
he lived.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
I thought it was a skit, but so like not
even that far away.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
They were partying all night, like literally, right.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
Is that squatters? Just like yeah, breaking it Enterney and
having a party.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
It could have been be any sound like a movie.
Isn't squatting basically anyway?

Speaker 1 (42:18):
He did one like that? Right?

Speaker 3 (42:19):
It was? That was house?

Speaker 2 (42:21):
No, what was the one? There's a I think that
party is kind of like that.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yeah, no, no, no, what's the movie where the kids left
alone and then it just turns big?

Speaker 1 (42:28):
It was yeah, camera, I know what it is by camera.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
The name not Home Alone.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
No, no, no, no, this was project.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
That was project. They are making a new one, isn't
Todd Phillips. Yeah, that was top Phillis. That's what I
was like, That's what I said, director.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
I know there.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
So maybe after Joker Too, he's doing that.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Maybe maybe he just wrapped up on Joker Too.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Did they wrap Yeah?

Speaker 3 (42:53):
I think so, I think hell yeah, I mean yeah,
he's He's kind of one of my idols, the guy
that goes and does something like Hangover and the does
something like Joker. He's fucking sick. I love I love
that range.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
You know, it's cool seeing creators do stuff kind of
but do it well in different kind of fields, different.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
You know, you did both of them amazing, you know
what I'm saying from a visual standpoint, Like Hangover to
me is probably the first one is like probably one
of the top comedies because it's like, you know, comedies
used to have this thing where they were shot kind
of flat. They were funny, but they didn't really look
that good. I mean, Hangover was stylistic, it looked it
was funny as fuck, and the characters.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
Give me Hangover, Wedding Crashers, Friday, Tropic Thunder.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
I'm with you.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
I was watching Wedding Crashes on them playing like a
month ago, and I'm like, I got to turn this off. Bro,
there's like too much nudity. I'm like, people are looking
at me like like a pervert over here. Yeah, no, hilarious.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Movie's hilarious. Yeah, Hangover to me for his top there.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
It just came out of nowhere, you know.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
And those guys weren't that big at that time, you
know what I'm saying. It would just it was just
like simple guys. And I think it was a low
budget kind of like twenty million dollars. Wasn't a big
big studid for a big studios.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
Kind of what it did.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah, I mean it was a monster. I would love
to work on bringing that genre back.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
I think you should. I'm with you. I will I
will plant that flag with you, brou will. I will definitely.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Be because I love that genre.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
Like just those comedies are just fucking hilarious.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Crack up.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
It's just like you're meant to go in and have
fun and laugh.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
Yeah, right, like not take anything serious. Nothing serious, nothing's
political nothing, It's just we're just having fun. Nothing's political.
Political politics ruins everything, yeah said the true Keep out
of it. I mean even even in I just splashed.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Water all over my face.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Credit.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
Yeah, that's cool. Leave it on there, make it funny,
you know me. But the thing is, like, I.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Want to talk a little bit about the bat Sheppard
came out. Would you come out in February? Officially it
was January February.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
Twenty thirty, came out in theaters, had like a week
theater run, and then vod Yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Yeah, tell me about the because I know we talked
about it off camera, but like, what was the process
for making that? When do you make it? You know?
I feel like that's pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
So I had a friend I was telling you Dmitri's
metries guy Crystal's uh, and then Crystal's basically got an offer.
We won't mention some names, but from an executive it
was like, yo, you know you need to go and
do your own film and go shoot it on an iPhone.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
So Chris comes against me.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
I'm like, dude, I'm not shooting no fucking film on iPhone.
You know what I'm saying, we're going to spend that
much time and energy making a film. Let's make a
real film. And unless Apple's funding the whole thing exactly now,
if Apple's funding the whole thing, I'm in I'm in one.
But no, we just you know, it was after it
was during in twenty one where was kind of where
we're trying to pick up the pieces after COVID. A

(45:50):
lot of people weren't working, there was nothing to do.
So I had a friend named Andy Pagana who had
a friend named Ryan who had this script. He's like,
you know, read Ryan's script. I was looking for something
self contained and something that could be done with not
a lot of people, because it was an issue at
that time. I was looking for something that could to

(46:12):
be self contained, one location kind of thingy. And I
read the script and it, you know, the script was
very simple. Was it felt to me like a play,
and I kind of love movies that I feel like
I kind of play. Actually that's how I did Hotel
California was a play and then I just kind of
turned into a movie. So I was like, you know,
what let's do this. I was like, it's five guys.

(46:32):
Four guys are the main guys, and you know this
one antagonist.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
So I was like, let's do it.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
You know, let's go out. Let's find a location. And
we ended up going out to New York. So Andy
was shooting a film called Surrounded, which was with Letitia
Right and Titia write, Jeffrey Donovan, Jamie Bell. So he
was doing that film. He was shooting that film. He
wrote it, and I was like, yo, listen. I called
him up. I was like, look, I got this opportunity,

(46:57):
we got a little bit of money. Let's you know,
to do this. He's like, Yo, let's go to New York,
my area that I love. I got the guys, I
got location people, I got producers, will help us out.
So we went up there and we got you know,
we got a road. We had a farm that Andy's
brothers he let us shoot there. He helped us out,

(47:18):
and we just put it together, you know what I mean.
And it's about four guys who end up finding a
bag of money on the road and they hit this girl.
They think they hit this girl and ends up that
she's already shot. So it's like what would you do?
There's two million books in there, she's already shot, so
you know she's dying, not because of you, but she's dying,
So what would you do? And then the decisions from there?

Speaker 2 (47:40):
Dude, I love films that propose like a very grandiose
moral dilemma right where it's like if we get caught,
were it fucked? But you know, right, how can we
maybe get out of this on top? And then it
just kind of compounds from there, right, It's like I

(48:00):
love that and the opportunistic concept of that's how we
shot a horror film. It's like we essentially had the
location and then put together the team and then went
out and sniped it, right, Like sometimes filmmaking is very
like you have a plan, go knock it out?

Speaker 3 (48:20):
Right?

Speaker 2 (48:21):
What's that saying?

Speaker 3 (48:22):
Where it's like limitations are the what is it the
Like it's like you're you're limited by something I know
when it's like I don't know, I'm fucking the whole
thing up. No, No, basically saying you have your resources
and you're more creative when you have limited resources and
you have these you're working in these constraints and it's like, Okay,

(48:42):
how do you make it happen with Christraints and I
see that with guys.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
I think that's one of the most fun parts about
making a film, just like finding those ways to make
it work, you know, and make it work well and
the best you could do it with the little that
you have. Like how many times we did that in
the resort when we shot that movie. It started rain.
It wasn't to be a rainy scene, but we wrote
it right in and the way it like changed over
the scene just made it led us right into like
the second act or the or the where it started

(49:08):
to go downhill from there, you know, and it just
and it was we had weather on our side. Ironically, Uh,
when we thought it was a major problem.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
We'd changed the production schedule every night at four am
after shooting just what we were dealing with it, right, Yeah,
the same.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
Thing we had snow. Like we're shooting a scene and
it starts and it's this guy's got a great performance
where he just got you know, his foot in a
brayer trap and he's giving off this fucking amazing performance
and then just flurries just start coming down. It's like, Okay, guys,
I guess it's snowing. From now on. Oh yeah, and
then we were like, well, how do we plan this?
And we're like looking at the weather, like, well, it's
supposed to snow. And then we're like, all right, we're

(49:44):
gonna shoot the interiors here and then we're gonna come out.
And there was a point of time where we were like, a, right, guys,
is snowing. Cut this scene. We've gotta go upstairs and
go outside and shoot this scene and pick up from me.
So it was kind of challenging, but yeah, it comes
out amazing. It comes out epic on the film, you know,
I mean, it looks beautiful on the actual texture where.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
We'll put the link in the description. But where's the
best way to go watch it?

Speaker 3 (50:06):
It's on Amazon, It's on Voodoo, It's on Google, It's
on your Google plates.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
On all the on demand yeah, all the all.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
The demands apps right now, yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
Oh yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
And after the rains the same too, right on Amazon.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
Yeah, after rains on Amazon. After I you can get
on Amazon Prime right now. But it's it's on two
B two I believe to.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Be Yeah, and it's and it's rain is spelled R
E I G N.

Speaker 3 (50:27):
Yeah, basically like a like a rain of a dynasty.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Yeah, hell yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
And then what what I did want to mention though
too is obviously I'd love to talk about that more.
But also you gotta you have your coffee shop. You
got airloin oh man, Yeah, don't bring more people there,
don't bring.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
No it's yeah, I got a call. I mean, I
love food. That's what I think is I love food,
and uh, it just happened by accident.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
I had. I ended up.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
What's the cool thing that you want to do when
your kid, you want to want, you want your man,
you want to wann a bar? You know, me think
it's fun. So I did that. After I got my
check from Hotel California, I went and bought a bar.
And that was a nightmare.

Speaker 2 (51:02):

Speaker 3 (51:03):
It was just a fucking nightmare. So I never yeah,
I never wanted to have a bar after that. People
it was like the club, It's like nah, it's like yeah,
it's like cool on paper, it's cool on paper and idea.
It was cool for like a month, and then after
that I was like, dude, this is a job, this
is a headache.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
You're dealing with.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
Drunks. Wow, so, but how cool is that you got
to like experience the dream, right, Like.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
Yeah, and you know what, that's kind of the cool
thing is like even filmmaking, right, It's like you get
to experience a dream. But how much hell do you
go through making films? You know what I'm saying, It's
actually hell. And it's like the cool thing too, is
like you know, you get your film. Like, so the
story with The Bad Shepherd is we did it. We
we did all the agency routes. I ended up getting
a sales agent that I ended up really liking. Those

(51:49):
guys ended up taking the film to con and he
was like, look, it's gonna take.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
About six months.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
We got four offers right away from big studios, Sabam
bought it and two weeks later and it was great.
I was like, dude, this is amazing. We're fucking great.
No delivery starts. That's worse to making the fucking film.
You know what I'm saying, actually doing deliverables and contracts.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
And I'm doing that right now for my documentary.

Speaker 3 (52:12):
How fucking yeah we license? Yes, yeah, yeah, So you
know how fucking trainous that is? You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Absolutely, So the business of it sucks in one end,
and but you know you love it.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
So I love making films, but you know, and each
one you learn, Like now I learned, Okay, you know,
I got a lawyer to do this paperwork. From now on,
my lawyer is all boiler playing everything and started so
like how we said with real estate, it's like you're
you're starting to dabble in it. I'm starting to dabble
in it, and I'm way over my head. But I'll
figure it out, you know.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
What I mean? Y yeah, hell, yeah, No, It's it's
I talk about golf a lot, and like relate golf
to filmmaking and life in a way. In golf, it's
you got to enjoy the struggle, right, And it's like,
I don't know how people survive on film sets if
they don't just like absolutely love filmmaking, they have, you know,

(53:06):
or some aspect, whether it's wardrobe or makeup or acting,
you know.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Yeah, And I think that is why, like it's a
high stress environment. There's a lot of things that can
and do go wrong on every single every film, no
matter what the budget, whatever the situation. And I feel
like all of us, if you've done a couple or enough.
Have all experienced that one person that is just a nightmare.
I'm like, dude, is hard enough.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
Yeah, that's on every film, every project, there's that one person.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
It's it's funny because I just said, just this movie recently,
I'm not going to no, I got nothing with me.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
They're going through the same thing.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
So they're on day you know, sixty or whatever. So
like there's already been friction. There's already been egos. You know,
there's and like everyone was nice, right, but it's communication,
and then there's some people need stuff in a certain
timeframe and the other people are like, you didn't give
me enough time, and like they're all like button heads
and stuff. I'm sitting here like this is just one
all you need. It's just one conversation. But because everyone's
tired of sleep deprived, they're hungry, they're stressed out. You know,

(54:04):
we're trying to get this done because you got to
stick on the schedule otherwise it's gonna cost you a
bunch of money. You know, there's all that stuff that
comes in. So when you get somebody who's an a hole,
you're like, yo, this is already this is already a
lot for all of us. You just you know, you'd
making it ten times worse.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
Or how about when it's already done and it's more
successful than they thought and they become an a hole.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
After that, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, it's like.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
It's like, you know, okay, I should have just thrown
this fucking thing on YouTube and then you would all
been happy, you.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
Know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (54:31):
Yeah? But then yeah, but then it's the ebb and flows.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
Man.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
You just remember when you if you burn bridges or like, uh,
it's the same people on the way up as it
is on the way down.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
And that's the thing, you know what I mean, It's
like the one thing. And it was funny because I'm
at the restaurant the other day and I'll tell you
a funny story. And even the way I got to
know Tim, I'm just whatever. I would just be myself.
I learned this this story of just being yourself because again,
back when I was younger and I came into the
arrogance kind of short you know, showed its face and
you know, you fall and you fall hard with the arrogance.

(55:02):
But like, yeah, man, when you come up, like you've
got to respect everybody but then the whole thing too,
and that if you're the guy who wants to be
an asshole, realize that some of these people are gonna
move on and then on the next project, they're not
gonna call you. And then when you're wondering why you're
not working, So the best case scenario is to just
keep your head down and do it humbly and love

(55:22):
it and then just you know, take the winds, take
the l's and keep moving, you know, and learn from both.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
Of them exactly. Yeah, learn from your mistakes, right, But
that's also I feel like, you know, us as as
people as men to like finding ourselves who we are,
you know, and that's in your twenties. You're supposed to
make all the damn mistakes in the world, especially, you know.
So you come back and you're like, looking back retrospectively,
like I would do so much stuff differently, you know, Yeah,
I was a fucking Yeah, We've all done that, you know,

(55:50):
and that's that's part of growing up, becoming a man,
you know. And then you look back and it's like, well,
it turns out it doesn't really pay off to be
a dick, you know, it doesn't pay off to be
arrogant doesn't pay off to have my have a big
head that I think I'm better than anybody. Right, So
you flipped on the other side, step into humility and
work ethic, work your ass off, out work everybody. You

(56:10):
start making some momentum, and it's like, well, damn, this
is actually the formula for success after all, and.

Speaker 3 (56:15):
Then people like you more. And like I said, I
was about to tell the story, I was at the
coffee shop and this guy pulls me, a guy from
Warner Brothers because it's close to Warner Brothers studio.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
And he's like, I didn't know you were a movie start.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
I'm like, what are you talking about. He's like, he's like,
why don't you tell me you were in the movie business.
He's like, I saw your film. I was on Apple
and I just fucking rented your film and I saw
it and I'm like, I'm texting my wife. I was like,
this is this guy from fucking like this the guy
from the fucking coffee shop. And she's like, yeah, that's
the guy, you know what I mean. So, but it
was but the payoff was more. What he came to

(56:47):
say was it's interesting and it's impressive. That you're not
bragging or talking about this, that you're just letting it be.
And you're just letting it you know, because there's so
many people in the industry like I'm doing this and
I'm doing that, and I'm doing this, and you find
out they're not doing shit, you know what I mean.
And it's like people don't really want to hang out
with that guy. They want the guy who's like, you know,
can you have a cup of coffee with him? Or
can you have a beer with him? And then you

(57:08):
fucking rock with them. It doesn't matter what you got
or what you don't have. Everything changes in the tides.

Speaker 2 (57:13):

Speaker 3 (57:13):
So it's like it's like, as long as you could
be yourself, you know what.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
I mean, be yourself and accurately represent you know what
what you got going on, and how you treat people,
for sure, how you treat people as a big thing,
like I don't I believe this.

Speaker 3 (57:29):
I don't think you you let anybody walk over you,
you know what I'm saying, somebody's being a dick. Then
you get that energy back, you know what I'm saying,
You're gonna you know what I mean, Like you want
to be an asshole, Like I'm pretty sure nobody's intimidating
you. You know what I'm saying, you know, but uh but
it's like I'm the guy like you. You know, if
you're being an ask I'm or being asked to you too.
But at the same time, I think, if you give
me kindness, I'm going to be more kind to you.
But if you start with kindness, and you know, it

(57:50):
makes people feel good. I mean I saw, like I was,
I got out the gym, got some bananas and I
saw this old older lady that huh no, oh okay.
I was like, I go to La fit I used
to go to Golds and going to La Fitness, I
just you know, I mean, I want to My thing
is I want to build my own gym.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
You know.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Yeah, it's talk about all the time. It's actually pretty
hard to fund, like actually good gym out here.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
Yeah, it's hard, and it's like just time convenience if
you could just roll out of bed go to the gym.

Speaker 2 (58:15):
And then you know, I like the Equinox because well
one I lived on the same block and they had
so many cardio machines that there was always a treadmill
for me to run on not anymore really.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Really packed, which yeah, well yeah yeah, because I yeah,
you'll go anymore. I'll walk out like ready to do
my cardio, and then this is I went there just
for that, And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
Well, that one the one in West Hollywood, though, they
kind of make it like a scene, you know what
I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
Yeah, it doesn't feel like it's just kind of more
of the scene. I just happened to live on the
same exact block, yeah, previously, not myself.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Yeah, I mean I go there to work, you know.
So I've got friends that don't even go there anymore
because they just talk too much. You know. It's all
all the time social hour, which I get to, you know,
like especially if that's the way you you get that
in and if you need that, you know, like to
connect with.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
People whatever gets you in the gym.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, And I get that part of it,
you know. But at the same time, for me, I'm like,
this is part of my job, part of my career.
I'm still I'm not going to be a dick, you know,
I'm not. I'm not a dick, but no, you never
let me do my work. So you see a timer.
I have a timer on everything. This thing's got a magnet,
so I put it on it on everything I work out.
I'm like, if you can get in what you want
to say in the minute and a half, we can talk.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
But if I got a job to do, I'm never
a dick away.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
But if I just start working out and stop talking
to you.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
But the disclosure out there. Yeah, but yeah, man, I mean,
I'm with you too. You got like when you're talking
about you gotta love it. You gotta passion for this
thing too, because it's it's we don't I mean, as
an audience member, I guess is where I'm coming from.
When you watch a movie, you don't think of all
the intricate stuff that goes into interacies. I guess it

(01:00:02):
sounds a little smarter that goes into making a film.
You just get to enjoy it, right. You don't know
that half the time some of this stuff took ten
years to get made or three years to get approved,
or like you had all the casting, the stuff that
they thought they were gonna have, you know, whoever they
thought they were gonna have, and it ended up being
something everything could go wrong with this thing right, not.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
Only that you get get it done right, you get
it done and it's out and you're proud of it,
or you're not proud of it, or you feel whatever
you feel. But then there's gonna be a million people
on the internet judging the ship out.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Of it, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
So it doesn't matter how much work you put into it,
just you know. Yeah, so it's it's and then you
have to also understand that too, so you'd be like,
when it's out, people are gonna judge the shit out
of it, and through that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
We're making art right, Like art's meant to be judged.
It's meant to be.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
It's great. I love I love good and bad.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
The bad ones are funnier, you know, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
I think it's how you respond to it too, you know,
Like for me, when I first came into it, I
was for sure insecure and worried about whatever thought of
me all the time. I was like trying to be
for it all the time. And then now I'm at
a point where I really don't care. You know. That's
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
But yeah, man, we covered a lot of really good stuff,
and yeah, we we got the films in there, We
got the restaurant. Is there anything else you wanted to
shout out? Before?

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
We're gonna picture some movie that we're gonna film in
this property in Puerto Rico.

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
The property is finding but that's an endeavor I'm doing,
so we'll see. That's kind of getting dabbling into real estate,
you know what I mean, and investing in different ventures.
I think it's cool. Our dream over there is to
actually eventually one day kind of throw a festival where
it's like a film festival, music festival, because right now, well,
first of all, the biggest artists, not biggest Latin artists,
but the biggest artist in the fucking world is out

(01:01:42):
of Puerto Rico. Bad Bundy's got more Bad Buddy's got
more streams than Drake, you know what I mean. Yeah,
And you know, the whole music the whole Latin music
scene is blowing up. So that's kind of like the
epicenter right there. And then a lot of guys came
from there, So it's it's it's a it's a it's
cool because is I think Puerto Rico is first of all,

(01:02:02):
it's it's the United States, you know what I mean?
So you get. You're backed by the dollar, you're backed
by the laws. You're not getting fucked like you would
get fucked if you know, not to be bad about it,
like places like Costa Rica. But I know guys who
did real estate deals there, and I know guys who've
done different things, right, and you kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
We're doing a project.

Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
Yeah you got you know, you kind of have to,
you know, deal with the politics over there.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Yeah. Every place kind of has their own right, you
know system.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
So I but for like you know, I think what
we're trying to do is kind of do the bodie
of of Puerto Rico, like the Bali for the United States,
you know what I mean, and nature and health and
wellness and it's amazing. Yeah, so we'll see, piece by piece,
we're going to put it together. We'll get it done eventually.
But so that's what we're doing over there. But it's fun.

(01:02:47):
I mean, it's great that you guys are doing real
estate and so it's fun. It's just learning new ship
and then you know, and because I think, like going
back to like the film stuff, like you know, we
all had the dreams of let's just do films, but
you know, I feel like the film is going to
turn like the music industry where it's going to be
like and I have a friend who's like on Law
and Order right now, and he was telling me the
same thing. He's like, you know, he's like every day

(01:03:08):
he's like, he's a one. He's like my first film,
I shot it with sixty people. The second one I
shot it with twenty five. I just shot one with four.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:03:14):
It's just going to keep going down there like that route.
You know, technology is great, but which is great because
we can make our own stories and do what we
want to do, so, you know, and we all have
different stories to make.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
You know, there's so many factors in that too. I
mean even even as you're saying that too, I'm thinking inflation, right, yeah, inflation.
It's costs the same for four people now as it
did for sixty you know however, right actually, but you
know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
No, but it is it is crazy. I mean, inflation
is super crazy. I mean I'm looking at it and
just businesses that I'm dealing with, and I mean I
don't know, you guys know construction, so you're seeing it
in construction, but I'm seeing it in food business wore
off the charts.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Yeah, I mean er.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
I mean so in my cafe, we we have Nyman
ranch bacon, right, So I was getting nim in ranch bacon,
you know, even even after the pandemic, Like you know,
four ninety nine twenty four pound pound now it's eight
ninety nine a pound.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Yeah, it's crazy, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
So it's crazy people, It's crazy, and it sucks for
you know, people who are like, you know, on the
lower level situation because like, you know, you go to
a supermarket. Now, my boy called me from Jersey's like, dude,
I want to a supermarket one hundred dollars like a fucking
half a bag.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
Yes, that's how it is. I spend like sometimes when
I'm I'm trying to figure it all out because I
eat a lot of food, but it's like two fifty
for like two to three days of food. If I'm
really on my diet, I'm like, damn, you know how
much money is for one person that should feed a
whole family for a week.

Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
One When I first got out here, I was like
sixty bucks a week, and I was, yeah, I mean
I think I think I I think I was going
out all the time. It was like three hundred dollars.
Three hundred fifty was my budget for the whole month,
and I was partying. That was like you know, I
mean like going out to restaurants every night and never
eating at home. I just so I do every year
for fast, and I do a spiritual fast, right, So

(01:05:00):
I give up a bunch of things that I love.
So I give up I love meat, I love steak,
I loves chicken, I love fish. I give all black,
I love coffee.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Gave up a coffee.

Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
So I went and bought nothing but vegetables, as you
were saying, And my bill was that hofus was three
hundred and fifty fucking dollars. You know what I'm saying,
vegetables for vegetables. I didn't even I mean, the only
thing that could tell you was the one protein, the
vegan protein, which was fifty bucks.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
But yeah, it was. It still doesn't equate. That's like
we could grow that, and you should be able to
grow down in the backyard.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Yeah, I guess some veggies back there. We got like
peppers and cucumbers. But it's just like enough for a
couple of salads, you know. The but think about that
four ninety nine for a pound of where you're saying bacon, right,
and then what is it now? Nine? Yeah, so that's
essen almost nine.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
Yeah, it depends, it depends on that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Yeah, let's call it, you know, two x or eighty
five percent. That's doubling your grocery bill basically. Yeah, think
about it. It's tough for families right now. I think
we're in a real problem with inflation. Like I think
we're gonna slow it down. I mean, there's something that
we gotta do because yeah, man, I mean shit, I
remember thinking like one hundred thousand dollars car was Wow,

(01:06:13):
it's one hundred thousand dollars car.

Speaker 3 (01:06:15):
That's how Now it's like a fucking cheap Cherokee can
cost one hundred thousand dollars. Sure.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Even that market too, is so insane. Everything's marked up
like twenty grand. Yeah, you know it's something's more. You're
sitting there, like off the lot, this thing would cost me,
you know, say it's suburban or something, it's like sixty
nine thousand. I'm like, but they're trying to charge you
almost one hundred grand. I'm like, how is this making
any sense? And then and then if you're like financing,
you're like the it's just crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
Everything's just credit card race like twenty five percent. You
know what I'm saying, twenty eight percent on your credit card.
So that means you borrow a hundred dollars, you got
to pay back one hundred and twenty five that's insane
to think about.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:53):
So then if you're if you put yeah, and that's
what it is. I think and kind of what you
were saying back to like learning, you know the one
I like something you said. You were like, you know,
as men were learning how to be ourselves, we're learning
like how to be more humble, and we're learning. And
I think one of the reasons why, like I did
that film After the Rain, was I kind of wanted

(01:07:14):
to show kids, bro, this does have you know, there's
sharks and predators out there and there and then and there.
There's consequences into what you do with online and I
feel like a lot of that messaging is going it's
happening now. But at the same time, it's like before
going back to the ice cube ear er, there was
people like mentoring, there was gatekeepers that were and there

(01:07:35):
was people that actually I guess took an interest that
weren't trying to, like, hey, you can have a long
term career, you can have a lot, and I think
we need to do that with a lot of men
right now. We got we gotta tell them, like, yo,
bro you guys, you know there's a lot of good
ways to do this.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
Learn about money.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
Nobody taught me that, you know, nobody taught me like yo,
I was fucking around here for fifteen and there's times
I got some big checks, you know what I mean.
And I got these big checks and I blew them,
you know what I mean. I was back being broke again,
you know what I mean. And it's like, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
I think it's like that almost across the board to me,
Like it's sports, you know, they get massive checks and
then such a high percentage end up losing everything.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
Right, Well, how can you like you can literally graduate
with like a really good college degree and never learn
how to balance the check book, you know what I mean.
Like it's not even it wouldn't even come up.

Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
So I'm in Puerto Rico. So my daughter, my daughter
goes to school and she's learning business management. Right, So
I go to Puerto Rico and I'm like, you'll get
all these receipts for these car rentals. And she's like,
why are you collecting all the receipts. I was because
I'm gonna writ her all off. R She's like, she's like,
I'm writing this whole trip off. And she's like, why
are you doing that?

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
What does that mean? And I'm like, and I started
explaining her the reason that I get these incentives.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
So basically the trip was a business.

Speaker 3 (01:08:49):
Expense, you know, and we're taking it and she's like, oh,
they didn't teach me that in school. And I was like,
they teach me shit in school either, you know what
I'm saying, And they're not teaching that in college. They're
not teaching none of that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:59):
But and in Europe, like college is basically like a
vocational school, right, you like go into a trade or
you going to learn something. It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
Crazy thing is when you're doing the school too, especially
with student loans, how much debt you come out with.

Speaker 3 (01:09:12):
But yeah, no, you rack up a bunch of debt
and then what you get like a sixty thousand dollars job,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
What I mean, And it's like you get taxed on
that and then you.

Speaker 3 (01:09:19):
Get taxed on that and then you have no money and.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
You're paying twenty five thousand off of that or someone
usually where you're at.

Speaker 3 (01:09:25):
Yeah, it's crazy. I think we're not we're not teaching people,
and again, like we should teach younger people or like,
you know, cause there's you don't. Look, I'm not saying
school if you're going to be a doctor, a lawyer,
or you're going to be somebody like that, Like school's great,
you know what I'm saying. I really didn't go to school.
I never went to school for filmmaking. I never went
to school for business. I never went to school for

(01:09:46):
none of this shit, you know what I mean? And
right now we're in their information age. There's so much
information out there, but it's like, yeah, there's just I
feel like we're just not teaching people, that we're just
getting caught up in things. We're not teaching people.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
I think there are there, there are people out there
doing it right, but they're far and few between the differences.
As far as from an educational standpoint, what I think
is self education is going to be the best education.
Like what are you interested in actually learning or going
out and figuring out? But obviously learning from people who
know what the heck they're talking about, but going out

(01:10:18):
and learning from the best. How to how to do
your taxes right, how to you know, manage a house
or whatever, like how to you know, whatever the thing is,
and then how to invest, you know, how to how
to like build wealth, you know, like that's stuff that
you know. I grew up like very low, like food stamps.
Sometimes we didn't even get those and we just weren't eating,

(01:10:38):
you know, And none of that stuff was taught to me.
And then even when I did get money for the
first time, I just spent it because I like I
had no idea of what to do with it. And
I'm like, oh, I can go buy a guitar. Now
I can buy an iPod. I can you know, like
on a trip, I can you know, you broke again exactly,
and so you have to and so there's some but
there's learning mistakes, you know, as I as I grow,
as I grew that, now I'm like, okay, well, least

(01:11:00):
I know I don't want I want to have a
good life, you know. I want to have I want
to have a family, I want to be able to
take care of myself and whoever else and provide for
my extended family as well. And what do I got
to do to do that? You know, as a man,
So I feel like it's my duty to do that,
you know, to show up and provide and after that
security and safety. And so it's a mindset shift really

(01:11:21):
more than anything. And I think figuring out what that
is and then finding out because all the informations out there,
you say exact, we're in the information era, all the
informations out there, You've got figure out what you want
to learn.

Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
Yeah, figure out I think I saw a video I
think with Hylotte Buffers, like figure out what you're good
at or figure out something, figure out what you will
to do. Yeah, and we do. We all got gifts.
And there's even in the film like like you know,
I mean, you know, you get somebody who's a great actor,
but he don't know how to write, you know what
I mean. But there's somebody who can write their ass off.
They're just not actors, you know what I mean. And
I think we all are talented, you know. And there's

(01:11:50):
companies that are set up. There's the guy who sells
and he can talk walk into a room and doesn't
even know how to know what the product, but he
can sell his ass off. So is figure out, you
know what you want to do, what you love to do.
Because like the thing for me, the only time I
feel like I'm working is when I'm doing administration stuff
because I hate administration stuff. But when I'm actually doing shit,
like if I'm like working with food, or if I'm

(01:12:12):
working with you know, like developing ideas or writing or creating,
that shit is all fun to me. It's never it's
never really work Like I like that all the.

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
Time, you know me one hundred percent. So stedmnd Graham
has his whole program around identity. He has like over
nine books, but his core thing is identity teaching. And
the very beginning of that is what do you love?
Make a chart or a list, write it down everything
you love, everything you're passionate about, even if it's the
cheeseburger spot on the block, right, just like get things

(01:12:43):
you love down and then build around that. So I
started to kind of implement that system in my life.
And he told me to write, like if you if
you're interested in writing, try it out and write. And
I did, and I taught myself how to write and
that is a process that was tough and challenging, but

(01:13:03):
very enjoyable, and it's now leading to things that I'm
able to do with it. Right, So teaching yourself, like
both you guys are talking about and the other part
of that. I taught myself how to use Unreal Engine,
the most complicated video game software in the world. Wow,
or most advanced, I should say, in a matter of

(01:13:24):
weeks by doing YouTube tutorials. Yeah. Right, Like we're in
the information h everything is right in the palm of
your hand. Figure out what you love, get out there
and do it. Like I love that. Yeah me. And
I'm not even like saying I'm special or different. I'm
just saying I've It's not like I'm that great at

(01:13:47):
either one. I'm just figuring it out as I go.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
I was crazy broke when I was like eighteen, and
I'd worked a trade but then I ended up leaving
that trade job. And so I was about nineteen here
and I had this old rappy crown VIC and it
wasn't even it wasn't even a cool one man. It
was like the year before it was cool, and it
was red and it had chipp and paint and everything.
But it got me from point A to point B. Man.
And I remember this thing. The year is in ninety six.

(01:14:12):
It was the year before they went to like like
steel or metal intake manifold. So mine was plastic and
what happens over a certain amount of time is it vibrates,
so it cracks and all this fluid coming out, all
this stuff. The car wasn't even worth two grand and
it was going to cost like twenty two hundred or
something to fix it. Well, I looked up all the parts.
It was like three hundred and fifty six dollars like that,

(01:14:34):
and then I just youtubed did and figured out how
to fix it at home, dude, And I couldn't an
afford the three fifty six you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:14:39):
That's brilliant.

Speaker 1 (01:14:40):
But it was from YouTube, right, and it's like, well,
that saved me thousands of dollars. And I've got this
friend who's very successful, and we've actually had him on
the podcast. He's very successful. He's had a great career
financially and in the industry as well. And I'm telling you, man,
this dude has has added he's probably spent I want.
I don't know the exact number I say, he's probably

(01:15:00):
spend two hundred thousand dollars on his home. And this
is like making mistakes, hiring people that have messed up,
and so he's added, uh, but he's gone and literally
a YouTube studied learned whatever it is, had contractors learned
from them, whatever it is. He just readid his entire bathroom,
right all because that religned all the pipes and wired everything,
and just he just readid the whole thing. Saved himself

(01:15:20):
like fifteen grand, right, it cost him, and he down
to the point where I thought this was genius. I
thought it was hilarious. Ordered all the tools he needed
on Amazon, used the tools, and then return the tools,
so even got his money back. Dude redid his whole
entire bathroom for like three hundred bucks.

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
That's fire, right.

Speaker 1 (01:15:36):
But it added over a million dollars of value one
point five million dollars value to his home. Right And
because he self educated himself and figured out how to
save money, you know. And I'm like, that's where it's
like I.

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
Might I might do that with the with the development situation.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
Arn I've saved tons of money on writers, Yeah, well
mean writing writing, writing, Well, that's another thing.

Speaker 3 (01:15:56):
I learned how to edit because I had to, and
I learned how to write because I had to. One
this year, this year, this is my first year, I'm
going to write a book, you know what I mean. Yeah,
so I don't even know how to write a book,
but I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I know the story, I'm
writing it. Yeah, and then fucking chat GPT can help
me out, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
And then you know, I mean, that's a good Somebody
on the podcast, we had somebody as a professor with
j He wrote his whole book with He even told
us that he sells now. He wrote it all with
chat GPT.

Speaker 3 (01:16:22):
Yeah, because it's like you can as long as you
got the idea and you got things the AI, because
look what do you used to do? Like there was
there was people used to go to call editors, right
and they or people that used to co write with
So you.

Speaker 2 (01:16:33):
Knew the idea, you knew the story.

Speaker 3 (01:16:36):
And then you had to go to this co editor
and give them piece of it, you know what I mean,
and they had to co write it or tweak it
with you. But now you could just throw it into
the system and you know, structure this as a book.
This is my idea, it's your your idea. It's not
it's not creating that content for you. You're just it's
helping you, you know, restructure it the same thing you
would hire somebody else to do it and then put

(01:16:57):
it out there.

Speaker 1 (01:16:58):
Yeah, I mean find a way no matter what. I Yeah,
that's awesome man. Yeah, I look forward to reading it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):
Yeah. I want to hear about the process. I'm interested in,
like the process for sure. Yeah, you got to keep
out there.

Speaker 3 (01:17:11):
I'll let you know. Hopefully I'm going to have it
up by it I'm hoping to finish by December. That's
my That's one of the goals that I wrote every year,
like goal and do it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
That's great advice too.

Speaker 3 (01:17:20):
Yeah, that's the thing. Write everything down, write everything down,
put put it up there. It's like, you know, I
believe I truly. You know what The funny thing was,
one year, it was not last year. The year before,
it was like I had a good year last year,
and then I was I literally had a in my office,
I had a vision board yep. And the house that
I had a vision board looked like the house I
was living in. And then you know, I mean it

(01:17:42):
was piece by not exact, but it was like I
noticed the car, like everything was kind of like what
I envisioned for. So it was like you kind of
attracted it, but it wasn't you put up a vision
because a lot of people be like, oh, you put
up a vision board and you manifest it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
Now that's bullshit.

Speaker 3 (01:17:57):
You put up a vision board and you work towards
it every day.

Speaker 2 (01:17:59):
But yeah, something is manifested, which is manifesting.

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
That's how you because I think people don't understand manifesting.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
It's not like a Jesus miracle. No, it's like work,
like you said, working towards the goal. But end of
the day, if you put it on the board and
then the cars in the garage, it doesn't matter what's
in between. You manifested that car and.

Speaker 1 (01:18:17):
You're grand theft auto.

Speaker 3 (01:18:20):
Yeah that's coming out soon, right, I manifested officer.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
Yeah. No, that's a great point, man, because again I've
had this conversation with a lot of people. You know,
you can you can put it in your mind. You
can say you're manifesting, right, but your definition of manifesting
has to you have to understand that it's the work
you put in to get to that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:37):
Hell. Yeah, thank you so much, Non, thank you for
having me.

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):
Guys.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
Appreciate it. Appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:42):
Great to meet you, great to hear from your story.
Awesome to see what you're doing, bro. Keep it rocking
and we're looking forward to seeing what comes next.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
Yeah, thank you, Thank you so much. Man.

Speaker 3 (01:18:50):
It was great for meeting you guys, and we keep
rocking your stories and love all the stuff that you
guys are involved in with.

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):
I'm excited for the book progress. We're gonna put all
the thanks to the films and the restaurant as well.
The restaurant in the description check it out. Thank you
for the time, man. No, thank you, guys. Thank I
really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:12):
Appreciate you, brother, Thanks

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
All, thanks for tuning in to Studio twenty two.

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