Sam Hansen aka Sam from FTK - Episode: 134

We asked Sam if he could help us with the description for this episode..."I CAME. I SAW. I CONQUERED."

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
This could get Me Fire podcast?What Up on Gizzo? That is John
Magic, and we are back superexcited about today's guest. He's been called
a marketing genius. He is wellversed in the hip hop culture and also
he has a fingerprint on making Fresnofucking cool and a dope city to be
in. Ladies and gentlemen. SamHanson aka Sam from FDK, What Up?

(00:31):
Bro? Yeah, thanks for havingme, guys. I mean,
I'm glad, like I've seen alot of your previous guests, Dorian was
on here, a lot of likethe homies, so I mean, I'm
glad you got them on. I'mglad that a lot of people got some
shine on here. So this issuch a big episode, right just because
Sam made such a name for himselffor the city. I mean just the
events that he's done, the stuffthat he's done with like the Grizzlies,

(00:52):
the stuff that he's done even beforethat. It's just so much that this
guy's brought to the city recognition andI'm excited to get into it for sure.
So we like to start from thebeginning because if I'm not mistaken,
you're not originally from Fresno, NoI was not born and raised here.
I'm I'd like to say I wasborn and raised in the Bay but made

(01:14):
with Central Cali parts. All myparents are from Lamore, California, So
my mom and dad moved to Valeo, California. My dad was in the
Navy, and that's where I wasborn. But my family all here in
Central Cali. I had the coolaunt that lived in the tower. You
know. She was like my mom'syounger sister. So I would come down
here every summer, and so alot of my childhood was spent here.

(01:38):
Oh Fresno. I might give awaymy age a little bit, but the
first time I ever made out withthe girl was nineteen ninety. It was
behind the pirate ship at Blackbeard's Ohwow, when the pirate ship was brand
new. Yeah. So, yeah, I have a lot of Fresne memories,
like in my you know, Fresnohad a big part in like building
my character. But obviously I grewup in the Bay Area. I grew
up in Vale, California. Okay, what brought you down here? Officio

(02:00):
school? Fresno State. Okay,so you went to state? Yeah,
all right, I left without myreceipt, but I did attend Fresno State
College dropout? Was that because,like you said, you had a childhood
here as well too in the city, and when it was time for college,
is that why? Yeah, Ijust it wasn't even a choice.

(02:22):
It was obvious thing that, like, I just had the valley in my
veins, and I just I knewI was going to end up here,
that this was where I wanted tosort of build my future. I knew
that there was opportunity here to sortof grow the things that I wanted to
to grow. I knew that whenwhen eventually I was going to start screenprinting

(02:42):
T shirts and open a store.And at the time, the Bay Area
was just so oversaturated that this justlooked like a an open, untapped market
maybe the market and uh, Ifelt that fresnol had such a great appreciation
for Bay Area music and just Imean to this day this day, Yeah,
I feel like Fresno does get moreinfluence from the Bay than l A.

(03:04):
I've always felt that way, Sothat makes sense. But what was
the store sort of your your firstbig move out here. It was probably
the event like street rock event.Okay, so I ended up getting a
internship at a screen printing shop inVicelia, and so I ended up moving
down to Vicelia working at their shop, and then I found out that you
could take Fresno State classes at COS. And at COS I met these cats

(03:30):
from Lamore that were throwing these bboy battles at the parks and it was
called street rock, and so Igot involved with them. I started doing
their flyers, we started printing tshirts and stuff for the for the events.
And around the same time, Imet Bobby DJ Bobby Noggle from Vicelia
and he was putting out mixtapes thatwere called for the kids. And back

(03:51):
then, you know, the Internetwasn't as you know, as dominant in
our lives as as as as itis now. And so we built this
website called Central Cali dot com,which became sort of like one of the
first, I guess platforms of socialmedia. It was a message board where
people could go on there and postabout different elements of hip hop. You

(04:12):
know. We had a section forlyricists, lounge and b boy wee boys
could uload their videos things like that. And then it was this was growing
the attendance of these street rock events. So they went from like us originally
just literally doing it at the parkto us having to rent convention centers and
put up cash prizes for the differenttournaments. So we'd have B boy Battles,
MC battles pre eight mile, yeah, whereas Freestyle Sea battles and yeah,

(04:40):
DJ battles, and we'ld have likeyou know, legal walls for graph
art and things like that. Andwe started growing the user base of this
message board and it ended up wehad like ten thousand registered users on this
message board. That was around thetime you really started seeing like, I
don't know, a producer from Bakersfieldnetwork working with a MC from Fresno and

(05:02):
you just would see this like sortof network of Central Cali really like kind
of developing it scene. Yeah yeah, yeah, she didn't really didn't.
There really wasn't a scene out here. It's sort of like people kind of
doing their own thing. There was, I mean, well, but it
was very like I remember going tothis place called the Mushroom in Fresno and
schoo Yard was there, Asia andthose dudes with their turbine were there,

(05:23):
and then you know there was theb boys like Climax and Charles and Eric
and all those guys in the graphRiders like the Gtail dudes and this and
all those dudes. So there wasa scene here in Fresno, but it
wasn't as connected as with all theother cities. Go yeah, it's like,
you know, so street rock kindof brought by Celia Bridge the Gap.
Yeah, all to the same events. And so once we made that
connection, we opened up our storeand Vicelia real quick, excuse me,

(05:48):
I think we got to put somecontext because you're you're known a lot for
the culture, especially hip hop hiphop culture. Before we continue with the
stories, where did that come from? Where did did this love knowledge of
hip hop culture come from? Youknow, moving here because you're known for

(06:09):
that, Yeah, what was theinfluence? I mean, I grew up
in Valeo, California, which is, you know, forty an inner city,
and I remember seeing you know,like the independent stuff obviously like the
you know, I mean I literallysaw like I didn't actually see E forty
do it himself, but I sawhis brother d shot literally selling like the
call Me on the under single,like his trunk, Like I watched that
happen, Like he gave me aposter out of his trunk, and so

(06:30):
I saw that. But to beto be honest, I wasn't as big
of a fan of like the localValo stuff. I was really into more
of the boom bab you know,like I was. I was listening like
Pete Rock and Seal Smooth, youknow, EPMD and yeah, like that
type of stuff in music. AndI mean Valeo was before all of the

(06:50):
the rap music started coming. Valleowas also like a hotbed for funk music.
So we had like Confunction and slicStone there, they're from Valoe.
So I always had an just sortof like funk music. And at an
early age, I started noticing likeI was like, oh, hey that's
you know mc hammy. You can'ttouch this. I was like, oh
hey that's Rick James, super freak. Like I just took an interest in
the music. And you know,I think I watched Style Wars documentarying Style

(07:14):
Wars and I was like, oh, the graffiti and break dancing and rap
music, like it's all part ofyou know, at an early age,
I sort of realized it was allpart of one culture and just always was
you know, I was just thatkid just watching every episode of MTV raps.
Yeah yeah, yeah, Like Iwould read the source from cover to
cover, Like some of my friendswould only read like articles about artists that
they were interested in, and Iwould be reading articles about like Law of

(07:39):
the dark Man and just random rappersjust to be up on it, you
know. So yeah, I meanthat was like my thing. Like I
just was really into the culture essentially. And then when I when I'm in
Valao, at least like that wasthe culture at least where I lived in
Valeo, like maybe out by likeVenetia and Napa and like where there's more
like did you say, like suburbanlike they were like into Green Day and

(08:03):
whatever that, you know, thattype stuff, Like I just wasn't.
I just never listened. I've neverlistened to rock, like I've listened to
country music. So come down hereand stay with my grandparents at the ranch.
When I was back home, likeit was nothing but like hip hop
and R and B that's all anyonelistened to. So yeah, I mean
that's just so. Then when Icame here, I noticed I go to
places like Jay and Sea House ofRecords over there on I think it was

(08:26):
on Poddole, and they it seemedlike they knew more about Bay Area hip
hop than like people in the Baylike Presno just had this real deep appreciation
for Bay Area hip hop. AndI was just so impressed by that.
Wow, just like Max Dre wasbig out here, that's crazy. Yeah,
And so that made me appreciate Iguess bay Area hip hop more.
And Fresno actually made me appreciate bayArea hip hop, that's funny. So

(08:50):
when I came down here, Igot more into you know, the the
mob music and yeah. Yeah,and then Hiphi you know, came in
around that early two thousands. Yeah, as I was here, Hyphie was
coming with me bring it, butfollowed me out. Yeah, So we
left off, and that's how youopened the store. The store that I

(09:11):
remember was the one on Sean Blackstone, but you had a store and Vicelia
before that. So the store wascalled for the Kids because that's what Bobby's
mixtapes were. Bobby's mixtapes were calledfor the Kids. Wow. So that's
where you got the name. Andso when we first opened, it was
pretty much Bobby was in a recordpool. He's in like the Fat Beats
and the abb record pool. Sohe was getting all these records and he

(09:33):
was basically just wanted a place tooffload them and you know, like he
had access to get a lot ofharder to find hip hop music back then,
you know, like your like atmosphereand your higher living legends and that
type of stuff. And so originallywe were just selling mixtapes, vinyl art
supplies, you know, spray paintcan and markers and things like that,

(09:54):
and then T shirts of the artists, like Hieroglyphics T shirts and that you
guys wouldn't make yourself. Where wereyou getting these? We were just getting
them from the artists would just giveit, you know. And so I
wanted to get these planet Asia tshirts that this brand Lifted Research Group had
made, and I ended up meetingup with the guys who started the brand

(10:16):
LRG Lifted Research Group, and thenone of my good homies from Danuba ended
up being the sales rep for them. So we sort of grew with LRG
into you know, a fast becauseat that point you were either like on
some real underground like backpacker type wearingsome Camo cargo pants and a Raucous Records
hoodie, where you were like superyou know, uh jiggy wearing a fake

(10:41):
Jacob's watch and a basketball jersey.Halfway on with that like those like those,
and then larg made it so likeyou had to choose one. They
just went straight. They were rightdown the middle. And then Kanye came
and he was just like the perfectposter child for LRG. Yeah. It
was like the where he would literallyput freeway and to live quality on a

(11:05):
track, you know, like theSo right around that time was whenever we
opened up our store and we justkind of grew into the brand with with
LERG. Lergy was a huge partof that, and then obviously Kanye was
kind of elevated that to a wholeother level. I was wearing a lot
of LERG stuff because I had friendsthat were reps for it. Just give
me stuff. Yeah, this gaveme more. I guess this is my

(11:26):
style. Now. I'm curious aboutopening a store at that time, like
how do where do you get themoney? Like how do you open up
a store like a storefront. Sothe first store was really small. I
was in by Celio was on CentralStreet. It was right next to like
the Get and Go. I meanit was five hundred square feet and we
were pretty much just going to useit as a warehouse for the stuff that

(11:46):
we were selling online and I hadmy screen printing equipment in there. I
had a little one station screen printingequipment, and I would so I was
printing like Central Cali dot com tshirts. And then also something that happened
right when I moved here was thearea coach changed from two nine. Yeah,
And I was at Bobby's house,Bobby's making his mixtapes, and there

(12:07):
was a single on Raucus that hadRoyce the five nine and roy says nickel
nine. And I was like,yo, scratch that back, and he
scratched it back, and I go, Nickel Nickel nine, Nickel nick.
He starts scratching Nickel Nickel nine.Oh snap, And so I immediately went
home, got on Adobe illustrator,made a T shirt designed with two Nickels
and a nine millimeter yeah printed classiciconic Nickel Nickel. When I was born

(12:31):
up, everyone had I mean,it's still the point where like I would
see people with it tattooed on himthat don't know. And but I would
go to you know, I wasgoing to Fresno State slanging those on that
pack. Yeah, you know,just like the rappers and Valleo used to.
I was, you know, SLEIbut I was doing it with T
shirts and uh so we were sellingthose online. We're selling these and so
it was just a smaller store onCentral Cali dot com. Yeah, it

(12:52):
was selling on Central caliy dot com. And we just we we couldn't wearhouse
all the product in our apartments,so we just got a cheap little space
some storage, yeah, like nextto anymore. And then it got to
the point where we needed more space, so I took my screen printing equipment
out and we knocked down that wallwhere my screenprinting stuff was, and we
expanded the store and we would haveopen mics there all the time. We

(13:13):
would have like open linoleum. We'droll out in thenoleum and duct tape it
down in the parking lot and wejust have open circles for b boys.
And then we started throwing these events. Started off the pp it well,
we started off at the parks,like we would just go out to the
parks and just not even get apermit. We would just I would literally
get a screw driver and unscrew thelight at the park, yeah, pulled
the cord out, and you know, we'd plug in right there and start

(13:37):
having these little we didn't even havea mic like dudes with battle on the
headphones. The headphones, plug thephone into the mic. Yeah, did
Gio, Did you ever get tosee that? I've I never got to
see the Vicelia store. No Ididn't either, No, I never got
to see it. We we hadthe Vicelia Store and then we heard about
it here in town. Were comingup here and promoting a lot. Yeah,

(13:58):
and we were buildings were connections witha lot of the guys here in
Fresno. It was important for mebefore we opened up the Fresno store for
me to like pay dues in Fresnofirst. So we had done some street
rock events here in Fresno years beforewe ever opened the store. We did
an event at the Orchid Hall.We did a free DJ battle at Holmes

(14:20):
Playground, like we we we broughtstreet rock here. And then we were
super involved with urban combat at FresnoState with hack K and like Scratchy Mentals
and those dudes. Always really coolwith the dudes from Schoolyard. Still to
this day, I'm boys with theyou know guys some soul Control and Climax,
Uh. The GTL dudes like Nistand Work and all the raft dudes
from here. So we were wewere tapped in with them, and when

(14:46):
we started doing the merchandise or Kanye, that was when we got the money
to open the Fresno store. Okay, so this is a great story.
Yeah. So so that's the nexttimeline before the Fresne store. Yeah,
okay, for there store, wewe started doing Anye's merchandise before we get
to the Kanye story. The reasonwhy I know this is such a great
story because I I was picking uptickets somewhere at the mall and you were

(15:07):
there and you just gave me therundown and I was things I did not
know about about this Kanye story.So that's just my setup for you guys.
Here's the Kanye story. So Iwe had we had an Adidas Originals
account and there was this dude namedDrew from Chicago that was buying a lot

(15:31):
of Adidas Original stuff from US,and a guy named Don Crawley aka Don
c who is Kanye's manager. Hewas buying a lot of Adidas Original stuff
from US. And then also,you know LRG was a huge brand at
the time. Was I'm sorry,well, it wasn't that huge, it
was it was gaining momentum. Itwas highly sought after and we were one
of the first people to carry it. So we helped plug LRG with Kanye

(15:56):
with LRG and then he wanted uhsome T shirts designed with his the Chicago
Skyline logo on it. A lotof people think that I did that logo.
I did not do the Chicago Skylinelogo. So it was that I
think it's said Kanye West, right, and then with the sky skyline yeah

(16:17):
behind it almost like cartoony right.Yeah. Yeah, that's sort of a
yeah, it's sort of a silhouettetype cartoony silhouette. But he just sent
Bobby the the file and I hadscreen printing, so I started printing those
shirts for him. And then hesaid that he wanted a logo for the

(16:37):
College Dropout and he asked he actuallyasked me to do the the what is
it the Godfather flip? And Iwas like, man, like, if
you're gonna if this is gonna belike your logo, Like it shouldn't be
a flip of something that Yogo shouldbe something like like gangster w EPMD or
something something that you recognize as atthis time, are you talking are you

(16:59):
communicating with the manager? I'm talkingto Kanye and management. Wow. Yeah,
ok, he was because he wasstill pretty you know, like uh,
he was on the rock, buthe was more known as like a
producer. Yeah. This is justwhen he was doing beats mainly, right,
Yeah, yeah, Through the Wirehad just came out, so I
brought Through the Wire when I cameto do that. We were doing an
interview in two thousand and three justabout like the street rock battles and the

(17:22):
b boy battles, and I actuallyget I don't know if you still have
it, but I gave you aT shirt, the Kanye West one that
was it was I gave you.Yeah, it's blue with orange riding on
it. It was one of myfavorite shirt. Yeah. I gave him
a Kanye shirt and and it wasone of the first ones because it still
had the rock They had the Rockefellerlogo on it. Yes, grip now
man, like you know, Iwish I would have it. So that's

(17:42):
the part where I interviewed you.It was for the Rock Battle. I
woul think I was here with FPlus Yeah, I think so, yeah,
JF plus talking Where is F plusnow? These days? You know,
I think he's in like Mount MountView or so I think he worked
at Google. Wow f plus washe was a doing great DJ? Yeah
man he plus wow. Okay,But so so yeah, we started.

(18:04):
We ended up creating the dropout bearfor Kanye real quick, let me stop
you there. Why did they didthey know? How did they know you
were gonna you're a graphic designer?I told him, Oh yeah, Well
Bobby was like, hey, likeyou know, we were talking to Dawn
and they wanted some samples of someT shirts. So originally he wanted that

(18:29):
he wanted the college drop out tobe the Godfather logo with the hand the
popp it oh yeah yeah, andand I was like I shouldn't do that,
like but you know, Kanye,we haven't got someone else to do
it. And then he sent picturesof the mascot suit and we're like,
oh, dang, like you know, like polo, like we already talked
about like we you know, we'dhad like a polo relationship, and so

(18:52):
we're like, oh, I'm gonnaflip that like it's a I'm like a
mascot collegiate type logo. So thenwe did that and he asked how much
do you want for it? Andwe were like, man, for the
logo. Yeah, he's like,I got a look cool little budget from
the rock. It's not you know, not a lot, but like you
we'll break you off for doing thislogo for us. And one of the

(19:14):
smartest things I think that we everdid. I mean, you know,
Bobby and I both are just likekind of looked at each other and we're
like, no, we're on speakerphoneand we're like, nah, man,
it's good like you have it,but let us put an extra page in
your album cover that says for fanclub information and merchandise. Log onto Kanye
West dot Com and they were like, well, we don't have a shopping

(19:37):
cart. This is two thousand andthree, late two thousand and three.
Yeah. Back then, like thefirst time I moved here. Now I
was in high school, encrypted shoppingcarts were like a new thing. We
had just upgraded ours because we werecarrying LRG and we had had so much
heavy traffic that it was worth itfor us to pay the one hundred bucks
a month for you know, encryptedcredit card process say shopping cart, and

(20:00):
we're like, well, we actuallyjust got this software. Wow. So
they sent us the HTML code fromKanye West dot Com, which was on
the Rockefeller server right by def Jamand we took that code and we made
FTK online. And at this pointwe had changed from Central Cali dot Com
to FTK online just because it wasmore marketable when we were getting a lot

(20:21):
of customers from out of state andout of you know. Uh. But
if you went to Kanye West dotcom and you clicked on store, it
actually took you to FTK online backsKanye Wow. So that was but the
background still looked the same, soyou know what I mean, Like like
no one knew but when you ordereda T shirt from Kanye West dot com,
it actually came from by Celia,California. So yes, we started,

(20:44):
you know, making a little breadoff of that. Wait, so
again, let me reiterate. Theyasked you how much do you want for
this logo? And you were like, nothing, but just do this link.
Let us do this, and Imean it. You know, I
mean we weren't you know, Imean I was. I was eating Ramen
noodles and you know, I mean, I like, but we also weren't

(21:07):
hell a thirsty desprit by any means. We you know, we're making some
cool money off of lerg orders andwhatnot. But all of our money was
going back into the store. Istill worked at a day job. I
worked at a screen printing and signshop in the morning, and then Bobby
would did inventory control for this vitamindistribution place and out in Goshen, and
then we would you know, hiphop doesn't start before noon, so we

(21:29):
would come in open open up theshop at noon we worked. We would
get up and you know, startour jobs at seven and then come in
and open up the store. AndI wasn't expecting to make a lot off
of the Kanye merch deal, tobe honest. But you know, normally,
like if we got a big largorder and we sold out of stuff,
we'd have like, you know,fifty sixty orders, and we thought

(21:51):
we were balling. Then you know, we're going to Sizzler. But when
the first day the the college dropoutdropped, we came in and there was
like three hundred orders, oh snap, And then the next day four hundred
and you know, and just keptgetting more. So Bobby ended up going
on tour with them and doing theTruth Tour with Usher the College Dropout Tour,
end up going doing going to Japanand doing the tour there. Ended

(22:12):
up doing the European tour and sowe did two four solid tours with him,
and then we started to do thethe merch for Late Registration second album,
and then I mean it was justit was just he had kind of
outgrown yeah, yeah, yeah,And so they negotiated a deal with a
larger merchandise company. But by thatpoint we had made enough money to open

(22:34):
up the Fresno store. But thenyou guys had brought Kanye to FTK,
right, Yeah, I remember thatcame for the grand opening at the Fresno
store, so real quick. Beforethat was FDK, wasn't it gear Hog?
Gear Hog was across the parking lot. Okay, that was another hip
hop clothing store. Yeah, thatwas Motts at that spot. Yeah,
and it was it was more kindof what we were talking about. It

(22:56):
was more like geared toys like thethe Sean John. Yeah, it was
like the stuff that I was wearingbasically stuff, and we were more like
and all that ship. Yeah yeah, and we were more like like l
R. I guess we were alittle more like sneakerhead like or and also
a little more graffiti Bee Boy,more of like they had a hip hop

(23:18):
hip hop rather than like the rap. I mean that's when we but then
the sneaker head element like brought inall the ball players yeah too. And
then around that same time was wheneverlike the Hyphie blowing up. I remember
when Kanye came to the Red Roomfor when he came for the grand opening.
I remember him asking, He's like, heyo, fres No, like,
what's this that they're telling me aboutit here that you guys what you

(23:41):
guys go dumb, what's that allabout? And President was just going,
man, yeah, yeah, youknow. And so right around that same
time, all of the Bay Areadudes started coming down and coming to the
store. So I started making like, sure it's this, said Hella hiphee.
Yeah. I started like leaning intothat because I mean because I am
from Balleo. You know, Iwasn't like a high dude per se,
but I mean, you know,I'm from there, so I know like

(24:03):
a lot of those guys, youknow, I know, I've had good
relationships with the jack I had goodrelations I have a good relationship with Numb
A lot of these like you knowdudes who were part of like the fab
is like a good home of mine. Gary Archer, so all those dudes
who are really you know, partof that movement I was really tapped in
with. So we were selling allof those CDs too, so like the

(24:25):
you know, the all the macRa CDs and yeah, and then we
had you know mac Ray, youknow, all the mac Ray merch and
things like that. Also, wedidn't really carry the crazy like airbrushed yellow
bus tees and stuff like that sort, but we still had enough of that
stuff to kind of you know,FTK was like that. That was the
style that during that time for me, just those hip hop shirts and I

(24:48):
would buy some, like I've Ibought a couple of sneakers there, you
know, not a lot because Iwasn't making too much money, but I
frequented that store just because, man, it was like a cool as it
was a cool store. Spots ofbeing right across the streets literally yeah station.
Yeah, yeah, man, theKanye thing. I think I was
out of town. Did you tellme you wanted to I didn't get to

(25:11):
go, but I remember when itwas happening. Yeah, I remember when
it was happening because I think wewere doing a promotion with that. I
think we were doing like tickets orsomething to get you there. So I
remember that time that was when Presentone censored. Yeah, during that was
that was a crazy era. Wesold all the President One censored DVD like

(25:33):
all that, you know, andso yeah, we had a some uh
kid got beat up at the Kanyein store and we ended up getting sued.
It was a security guard that beathim up, right, I remember
that it was on was on film. Yeah, we had some issues with
the Present one censored DVD and justa lot we had at a series of
you know, just headaches. Andthen the recession came in two thousand and

(25:57):
eight, we opened up we openedup FTK by Sellya two thousand and one,
we opened up FTK Fresno two thousandand five. We closed FTK by
Selja in two thousand and seven,and then in two thousand and eight,

(26:18):
Bobby, he was just over it. He wanted me to buy him out.
In two thousand and eight was wheneverthe you know, the big the
great recession it came in. Andit went from us having kids sleeping in
front of our store to pay twohundred dollars for a pair of shoes to
we couldn't sell a two hundred dollarspair of shoes for sixty percent off because
all the kids wanted to wear Vans. It was that era. That was
that era or the lower price point, and and Nike's kind of like a

(26:42):
cartel man like there, I mean, they owned Converts. I couldn't get
a Van's account because Vans was likea core skate account and I wasn't gonna
front like we were like we wereskaters, Like I respect skaters too much
to try to, you know,act like there's something you're not. Yeah,
but I knew that Nike owned Vanor I'm sorry, Nike owned Converse

(27:02):
and people were really rocking Chucks toughback then too, around the same time
as Vans, if you remember.And so I asked Nike or our Nike
rep. I was like, hey, can we get a Chuck's account?
Like, nah, man, you'regonna push these two hundred dollars force ones.
I deal with the cartel. Yeahyeah eventually, Uh so, I
I I had the idea to bringin vintage year. I had a really

(27:23):
big vintage Polo collection, just vintagestreetwear in general. I've always just archived
everything, and so I brought thatinto the store and I maybe like a
quarter of our two thousand square feet. When Sean Blackstone was vintage streetwear and
it was just too early. Fresnojust didn't get it, which is funny
because it's popping now. Yeah.Yeah, the vintage shirts and stuff is

(27:45):
like there's stores everywhere now shirt andit's just and but Fresno, I mean
they literally, like I literally gotmocked for it, like when people were
like this stuff is used, Yeah, I was like, it's been washed,
It's been But I ended up havingto buy Bobby out to not close
the store. So I kept itopen from Water Mountain two thousand and eight,
kept it open to twenty eleven.And in two thousand and eleven or

(28:11):
maybe like late twenty ten, fashOn was in the shop and he used
to just kick it in there,and I had in the venture section,
I had a bootleg Bart Simpson Tshirt, you know with the black Bart
Simpson went from the late nineties,and he goes, oh, man,
that's crazy. I'm I just wrotea song called black Bart Simpson. I
talked about me being a skater,and I was like, oh, snap,

(28:32):
I should we should do a BartSimpson character of you. And back
then his whole thing was like GrizzlyGang, Grizzly City, and I'd already
done like those logos for him byflipping the presne Grizzly stuff. So I
did this Bart Simpson T shirt designand it was, you know, a
Bart Simpson character wearing fresnel Grizzly stuff, the purple stuff, and at that

(28:52):
time he had just got this thisstrain of weed came out called griz City
cush, and so he asked meto put a joint in his character's hand
and it said Grizzly sitter or somethinglike, you know, g's up.
And someone wore one of those shirtsto a Grizzlies game and I ended up
getting a cease and desist from thepresent base, and so I went down

(29:15):
there and I was like, Hey, what if I just take the joint
out of his character's hand, wejust have him holding the skateboard with the
g And then I was like,and then we make the skateboards and we
sell them here in your store.And if we do that, then you
guys let me design like a newera hat. And we saw that Sean
Blackstone at my spot and they werewith it. Wow, and kids weren't

(29:37):
able to pay two hundred bucks fora pair of Air Force ones right then.
But they were down to pay fiftybucks for a new Era hat.
And so we sold one hundred andforty four Grizzly's hats like in two hours.
Wow, finned up for him andthe this was new to the Grizzlies
back then. Wow, how didyou do that? And they're like,
you want to come be a consultantfor us? What a great transition.

(30:00):
So they were like, they wantedme to be a merchandise consultant at the
grizz And I was like, man, a check would be real nice right
now. I mean, at thatpoint, I had more kids coming in
trying to get me to sell theirstreetwear brands and their CDs. Then I
had customers. In the days whereI had literally had more kids coming in
wanting me to take their stuff onconsignment or buy their stuff. Then we

(30:21):
had customers, and so I waslike, yeah, I started working for
the griz and I tried to keepthe store open and work for the Grizzlies
part time. I ended up beingoffered a job as a graphic designer there,
and then I had what I callthe Fulton Mall epiphany. I was

(30:44):
walking on Fulton Mall, just likeduring my little lunch break, and I
was like around. I was like, man, this is like this is
a city, Like this is aninner city. Like this is a bigger
city than I grew up in.It was like five times the size of
a Leo. But it doesn't feellike a city because the actual core of
the city has been abandoned. AndI was like, yeah, so thus
far everything that I had worked forthe whole like FTK, you know,
years of my life. I saidto myself, the brand that I built

(31:08):
is counterproductive to itself because hypothetically,if just you know, your standard issue
white boy from Clovis like had nevercome into FDK, he just probably buy
a lifted truck and spend his weekendsat the coast doing what white boys from
Clovis do. But because he hypotheticallycame into FDK, now he's a sneaker
collecting and he's listening to a differenttype of music, and he wants this

(31:30):
inner city culture that at the timewas not attainable in Presno. He'd had
to go to another city. He'dhave to move to Santa Cruz or the
Bay or Portland or wherever. Butthere wasn't a real inner city culture in
Fresno at the time, and soI was like, man, I have
to dedicate myself to revitalizing downtown andhelping re establish the energy in the nucleus

(31:52):
of the atom and letting things radiateoutward from the core. And I was
like, man, well, howdo we get things cracking down here?
I guess the Grizzlies. Being thebiggest anchor tenant of downtown. I just
was like, all right, Igotta really make the Grizzlies crack. So
the first thing I thought of wastaco truck. Well, yeah, it's

(32:12):
like I thought back to when Iwas in Fresno State and I remember being
in class and just sort of identifyinglike, man, that's some Presno Like
we can't we cuss on here here? Yeah? Okay? Well, I
was like, Yo, that's somePresno shit. Yeh like itay see stuff,
and be like dam that's some Presnoshit right there. One of those
things was in Valayl we had tacotrucks, but they were looked at as
like dirty, Like well, I'dcome down here and stee with my aunt

(32:36):
and she would take me to ataco truck over on Belmont, and you
know, everybody there was all walksof life. We're out of a taco
truck. But you go to ataco truck and valail in the eighties and
people were like, oh no,that's dirty. So they would call them
roach coaches. Yeah, and youknow they're the they're the rage now and
they have been for a minute.Yeah in the Bay, but you're lying
if you say that you were reallylike fucking with taco trucks like that in

(32:58):
the eighties and nineties because you weren'tnot Fresno, but the Bay wasn't.
And so I remember being in classand hearing like people just think, oh
yeah, whant to hit the tacotruck after the club, like that was
a thing in simple Callie. SoI was like, oh okay. And
I noticed that like every little city, Kingsburg, d Nuba, read like,
they all like had this one truckthat they were like like, that's
their truck. Like people would argueabout like you know. So I pitched

(33:19):
the idea to the marketing department atthe GRIS. I was like, Hey,
what if we bring like the besttaco truck from every city to the
stadium and we'd let people vote,And at first they were like, why
would people come, you know,people come to eat at a taco truck.
And we did it. We hadeight trucks the first year and it
cracked off like people loved it,and so each year we just kept growing
it and growing it, and theyasked they promoted me to marketing manager.

(33:45):
I became like marketing creative manager.And then when the Giants left in twenty
fourteen October twenty fourteen, they justkind of knew that they needed to race
sort of the Central Cali brand.A lot of their promotions had relied on
their affiliation with the Giants and everythingwas just kind of piggybacking off of that,

(34:09):
and you know, losing the Giantslike kind of forced them to find
themselves. And they were like,how do we like just give me the
rock? Like give me. I'mlike, you know, I just had
to, like I kind of hadlike lebron up right then. So I
became director of marketing and just kindof built the pro Fresno pro California.
Yeah, yeah, and then andyeah, I was director of marketing for

(34:31):
let's see, I started in twentyfifteen and all the way up to COVID
but that's when I brought in Dorian, and so I started bringing in more
of the I guess local culture intothe into the brand. Well, I
want to go. I think Iwas just going to say, like there
was just there was so many greatpromotions during that time of the Grizzlies,
and it was such a fun era. And not to mention they were really

(34:52):
good during that time too. Ijust I remember just going to the games
just to cop a hat or doyou get some march you know, one
of my favorites was like the Simpsons. There was just some dope shit during
that time. I wanted to justbefore we continue with that, part of
the story is going back to theTaco truck throwdowns the beginnings, because remember
the first ones was just this small, wasn't It wasn't that local artists in

(35:14):
the beginning as performers, and itwas like outside the stadium sort of,
right. Yeah, yeah, itwent on simultaneously during the game. Yeah
yeah, yeah, that's right.And so yeah, good thing you brought
that up, because actually actually abig point. So twenty it started in
twenty eleven was the first one,yep, and then twenty fifteen it was

(35:36):
just ridiculous I mean we just knowit was cracking outside in the Tillary Plaza
and no one was really paying attentionto the game to be h. I
mean, you know, the corehardcore baseball fans were and we were sort
of, you know, just debriefingafter the game, and I was in
Derek Franks, the president of theGrizzlies office, yep, and we were
just saying to each other, We'relike, man, like no one even

(35:59):
like watched the game, might aswell change our names to the fres No
Tacos. And they were like,yo, oh, ship, we should
change our name to the friends NoTacos. So that was Derek Frank's well,
yeah, kind of both yeah,like we both like we like Derek
Derek said it as like a jokealmost, yeah. And then I was
like, nah, like that's gonnawork, yeah, because you know,

(36:21):
I mean one thing like obviously,like you know, I love pissing off
suburban nights, like I live forthat ship. Yeah, And so I
was like, oh, this isreally going to piss off like all the
you know what. I just knewthat that was you know, your crow,
your cookie cutter, Like I justknew that that would really get under
their skin and that's like, that'sone of the few things that brings me

(36:46):
like you know. So I waslike, man, if we change our
name to the Freds No Tacos,like it's going to piss these people to
funk off. And I was like, I love it, and we so
we did that sort but you know, it ended up we only did it
for two Tuesdays. We're still thefres No Grizzlies. But we did the
alt We created the alter ego ofa baseball team, and yeah, no

(37:07):
one was doing that, not one, not one in the leagues. There
was a team from Lehigh Valley,Pennsylvania. They had they're called the Iron
Pigs, and they had done ahat with a strip of bacon on it.
So they were the first ones todo sort of like a food but
they didn't change their name to likethe lee High Valley Baconcons. Yeah,
we were the first ones to sortof like do it, like, look,
we're we have an alter ego.It's the friends of Tacos and we

(37:29):
you know, so does that stuffhave to get cleared by like the MLB
or something like that. Yeah,it did, it did. So we
had to create a you know,an on field hat and whatnot, and
and we we did it as apress conference. I think we're changing our
name. And at first we kindof you know, did the w W
like like yeah, like you know, just to rile people up. And
then we you know, said likenow we're only on Tuesdays. Ye,

(37:52):
but yeah, it got the itgot the hype, and that became like
a national thing. Yeah, I'vealready seen it. Yeah. Well,
actually a few promotions I remember seeinglike on ESPN and a lot of these
things were always making the news andstuff about what the promotions we were doing
out here, which was dope toget that notoriety. Yeah, that was
definitely like something that I felt wassort of important for the Grizz because I

(38:15):
know, unfortunately Fresno doesn't really rockwith something until like it gets attention outside
of Fresno, and so unfortunately Ihad to like get some hype around the
Griz. But I seeing just whatyou know, I've always been pretty good
at like what's trending. One thingI didn't mention like also, you know,
I was in Valail as a kid. I would be at the bus

(38:37):
stop and I'd hear dudes rapping andstuff, and I'd be like man I
could do that. I was like, I could, you know, and
I could come up. But Inever wanted to like make music. I
just wanted to like rap, tolike let other people know that they weren't
that good at rapping. And partof like rapping, at least back then,
what you used to have to havelike real clever metaphors and and you
also had to be very topical.You had to always know like what was

(38:59):
you know, like uh or likeyou know, like the day that you
know OJ's in the van, likeyou have to you know, like jumping
the cipher and you're like, yo, you know, I'm I'm OJ and
no white fan, you know,like you have. And so I was
always really good at like the minute. Like for example, I was I
was in Valao actually visiting a family. I'm in traffic in between Valao on

(39:20):
Fairfield and my phone starts going offlike just crazy text messages. I thought
somebody died. I pull over andlike seven people had sent me this link
of when twenty sixteen, when Trumpwas running for president, and this one
of like a Trump supporter said somethingabout like We're gonna have taco trucks on

(39:40):
every corner. I don't know ifyou guys remember that. I was like
the thing and I was like,oh my gosh, this is like so
I brushed out. Yeah, likewe got like the red hats that looked
like the Trump hat, and Imade them say Taco trucks on every corner,
bringing ordered like we photoshopped and putit on our website and we sold
a thousand of those hats, likepre ordered, like like we didn't even
have a man's thought yet. Yeah, you know, And so that's something

(40:02):
that's I've always been pretty good at, and it's something that's like sort of
a norm now in minor league baseball. So you have to just be like
topical and like, you know,you guys too and radio. Yeah,
yeah, you know, you gottaget in when it's hot. Real quick.
Let me wrap up the Taco truckthrow down thing, because what number
are we in. It's been TacoTruck throw Down thirteen now, yeah,

(40:24):
it's actually been four. It's fourteenyears we had it. We didn't do
one on the COVID twenty Yep.It's such a staple in the city.
Everyone waits for it and anticipates theTaco truck throw down. We're lucky enough
to as a radio station to bea part of it as well too.
My my curiosity is how how muchare you putting into it today with these

(40:49):
recent shows? Are you still partof it? And you don't have to
say too much detail, but doyou still get paid from it? Oh?
Yeah, yeah, I mean I'ma consultant with the Grizzlies, so
I would be like part of themarketing creative. Okay, so but they
sort of took it over the Grizzlies. Yeah, oh yeah, So it's
always been part of the Grizzlies.But then Mike Oz from he used to
be with the Fresno by now he'swith Presdent Street Eats to Mike Ouse and

(41:12):
I it was you know, areit was. It was my idea.
But it would have never gotten donewithout my gods, because my gods had
the connections to all the trust andso they brought them in. And then
just over the years, you know, like k Rich has been part of
it also, like it has helpedwith you know, and like so with
a lot of the events like Tequilaf s and some of these events,
like I work with I work withRich, I work with my Cause,
Street Dats Ray, and I workwith the Grizzlies marketing department. Might still

(41:37):
have my office at the grizz Ohokay, I'm still there. Yeah,
you know, and so you stillget a check from them, like you
know yeah, oh oh, Ididn't know that. Yeah, I mean
you left the grizz No, noduring uh they didn't have a season in
twenty twenty. Yeah, you know, so all of us just kind of,
you know, we're laid off.And they asked me to come back
as a consultant, and I said, well, I'm just going to start

(41:58):
a marketing me. I'm gonna basicallyturn ft K into a events and marketing
agency and you can hire FTK asa you know, so that's what kind
of I help with the events,and then I also design merch and I
I'm sort of like, I guess, like a marketing creative consultant for for

(42:20):
them and for Cockies and for youknow a lot of like like that's what
I do. That's pretty much FTKbecomes sort of a uh well, I
mean I have a have a vintagestore downtown, but it's uh, you
know, kind of as a howwould I say this? Yeah, let's
let's talk about this store because yousort of uh have opened an ft K
again but not but not but nota store. So it's basically the FTK

(42:44):
vantage section. Beautiful building like thepainting, like it stands out because it's
just in the middle of yeah.And it's so I had said this when
I closed FTK on Sean Blackstone startedworking for the GRIZ. I said,
eventually I'm going to real open astore, and I said, I was
like, I could probably put itin the middle of partlier because my core

(43:06):
customers will go wherever where it's at, Yeah, wherever it's at. And
so I ended up buying a buildingin downtown Fresno, and I have two
storefronts. I have what I callstar Child Archives because I mean, it's
still the same logo, the littlestar Child FTK logo, but it's not
FTK. I don't have a Nikeaccount anymore. I don't have larg I

(43:29):
don't have the brands. It's justI have FTK shirts that we make and
then vintage stuff. I mean alot of people that know me know that
I'm a huge uh Fresno State merchcollect a huge polo collector. So I
have just that type of stuff inthere. You know you're gonna find like
Troop and British Knights and Diodora.And is it basically all the same size

(43:50):
because it's all your vintage stuff orno? No, I I dig like
so oh yeah, very yeah.Yeah. So I've been like and then
I trade I you know, uh, it's it's actually most of it is
not my size because because I keepall my stuff. Yeah. So and
the upstairs is all my stuff?But is it do you live upstairs?
Is it like an apartment call?Yeah? Okay, So is it true

(44:15):
that to shop there someone has tomake an appointment? Yeah? Yeah,
yeah, oh wow exclusive. YeahI like that. I am. It's
gonna sound like some like bitter oldguys stuff, But I mean I was
so mad that like, well,I can't say, man, I don't
know how I feel. But Ihad all the like a lot of the
stuff that I have in the storenow, like I had it in two

(44:37):
thousand and eight on Sean Blackstone,and you know, all these kids were
coming in asking me for you know, the hundreds and Crooks and castles and
all that stuff which I had beforethat, and they didn't want the vintage
stuff, and now they want to. So yeah, I'm definitely like making
it a little harder. You know, you have to go through a little

(44:59):
bit of so a little hoops andhurdles to get in. But yeah,
if you go, I mean,if you're listening to this podcast, like
you're tapped in enough, like goon star Child Archives dot com and you
can just set up an appointment Andis it almost guaranteed or are you looking
at it like not today? No? No, I mean my online you
know, my social media persona mightput off that vibe, but no,

(45:22):
that's not you guys know me,I'm not kinda liken man. If you're
if you're listening to this, ifyou've gotten this far in the interview and
care this like yeah, of courseI'm you know, but yeah that the
well. And then also I'm Ido events, so if someone's schedules an
appointment, like I'll either be thereto open up the store or I'll get
someone to open up the store.Speaking of events, I got to experience

(45:45):
one. I'm at that age whereI don't really go out as much,
all like going home and just likejust relaxing. But I wanted to support
this certain one just because I've beenliving in downtown for a few years now
and it was that fashion show oneand this thing. All the seats were
taken, but oh by Fulton.Yes, bro, that's one of my

(46:06):
That's one of the things I swearI'm most proud of. Like it's right
now, and I mean, youknow, check this out. I'm gonna
let you explain more of it.But to make it real short, it's
local designers. But you have tothere's like rules in this contest. You
have to buy clothes from this fromFulton, like from this until from this

(46:27):
street to this street, go shopat all these stores and make a few
outfits and then we do a fashionshow. There's judges and I was like,
this is amazing, Like people needto know about this. It was
such a great event. Do youwant to talk a little bit more on
that? Ye? Please please?Yeah, thank you so much for bringing
that up. Man. I'm gladthat because I was so like everywhere,
you know, it was a lotgoing on. It's in that event.

(46:50):
But I'm stoked that you got togo to Pere. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So the concept is thatwe take three stylists from central California and
then we task them with creating threeunique outfits head to toe all with product
from the Fulton Corridor, so youknow from I mean the Visitarro to Ino,

(47:12):
you know, and a lot ofthose. There's a lot of vintage
shops on there like that. Yeah, Bag of Kids Club is in Mammoth
Mall, so you can find somecool stuff stores I've never heard of before
until now, like like Threstormanos andlike some of those like spots like and
especially with this whole wave of likeWestern stuff coming in, like I'm I'm
excited that the next one. Ithink people are going to embrace a lot

(47:32):
more of the Ostrich boots and youknow, the cowboy hats and the vibe
that you get from there. Andpeople are you know, obviously they're they're
they're customizing and doing like alterations andstuff and just building dope fits and working
with like what you have, notwith what you wish you had. Y
yeeah. It was It was justwild because you know, during the competition

(47:53):
the designer will say I bought theseshoes from this the pants are from this
store. Yeah, and it justplugs all the stores in that area,
and I love the winner gets abelt. Yeah yeah, yeah, I
got a championship belt for him andthen they also get a check for a
thousand dollars amazing, which you know, like pays for because they have to

(48:14):
put up all that loot themselves tobuy the outfit. So it supports the
businesses, but the businesses are usuallypretty cool about like loaning stuff to competitors
and giving them the jug on onon pieces. So that's one of the
events. I'm like this. It'sactually where the This is a collap shirt
with Sincere that we did for forthe event, But that's the event I
really want to grow the most.I don't think that Central Cali really gets

(48:37):
it yet. No, they haven't. They haven't seen it done anywhere else
yet, and it's gonna like yousee something somebody do it someplace else and
then it's cool to support it.Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to do
like a style by Manchester, astyle by Cherry Auction, like you know,
yeah, because I mean if you'reif if if you have style like

(48:59):
you can build, yeah, you'refit anywhere? You know, is there
a place where people can get infoon that or is it just through your
social media? So on? AtFTK Construction on on IG, I always
post updates on there for style byFulton and then I believe this year it's
going to be part of the FultonBlock party that the Downtown Partnership puts on.

(49:20):
So because we had our second onethis year, you brought up your
social media. Something that I've noticedis you're on their freestyling. You have
like these sessions of just freestyle rapping. And there was this one day where
you started combining country and wrap.Oh yeah, and so that's okay.
So that's what where I think CentralCali got it twisted. But I'd been

(49:45):
saying for the longest time because Iyou know, I told you guys like
I grew up in Valle I grewup around like you know, dude's freestyling
and rapping and whatnot. And butI also would come down here and stay
at my grandparents' ranch like outside ofKalinga, yep. And I never listened
to rocking. I listened to countrymusic when I was a kid. You
know. I grew up with thatin my veins. And when I started
hearing I guess Kevin Gates might havebeen like the I started hearing like those

(50:08):
melodies, right, I was like, oh, these are country melodies like
this is and I saw I'd saylike, hey, man, like Fresno
should just embrace like the Bay.I remember when the Bay dudes, some
of the Bay dudes would come downand be like, oh man, Fresne,
I am a country. I'd belike, hell yeah, we are.
Just like lean into it, belike hey, we're country, what's
up? You know? Like andand then people but that's where people will

(50:29):
get twist. They'd be like,oh no, I've already heard hik hop
like they already have. Like Iwas like, no, man, I
don't want to hear country dudes rapping. I want to hear hood dudes singing
country melodies. And because that's essentiallykind of what Kevin Gates was doing,
and then even Roddy Ridge, hismelodies were very those are country, and
then rod Wave and so now that'swhat post Malone is doing, and that's

(50:50):
like the big Now the country sceneis kind of like popular, right.
I So at that time that you'retalking about, I wasn't even familiar that
others were sounding like this because Iwould just watch your video and you would
always say, trust me, thisis gonna be like the next thing,
and correct me if I'm wrong.But that little nas X song came out
and next thing, you know,it blew up this country hip hop thing.

(51:12):
And I'm like, I saw thisfirst during Sam's Instagram videos. But
the reason why the little it tooka while for like the little nas X
thing too, So he was Iwant I say this like that was a
mockery of country, right, parodyYeah, parody parody, Yeah, for
sure, he was like kind ofdoing a parody of country. He wasn't
really And there's actually this kid thatfrom Fresno. He I think he's like

(51:34):
from Calba area. His uh,you can find him on ig His name
is kid k I d D Country. I think the country with a K
kid country. And this is likea dude that grew up, you know,
in the hood in Fresno, buthe sings country music and his style
of country music is you can definitelytell he's from the hood in Fresno,
you know. I mean, andI love it. I really love what

(51:55):
this dude is doing, you know. So I'm glad that, as I
mean, Fresnoe should be at theforefront of this. Unfortunately, Nashville is,
you know, kind of leading theway now and Nashville, Nashville is
a business Nashville is going to bethe the the promotion for the music,

(52:15):
but I think that there's still enoughroom left where, like Fresno could really
develop its own sound, like sortof how Bakersfield had its country sound that
came out of you know, inthe in the dust Bowl refugees, you
know, grapes of wrath era.Their kids became like the real Haggards and
the buck Owens, and you hadlike this Bakersfield sound of OKI's adapting to

(52:38):
California environment. I feel like Fresnocould produce a sound that is country roots
influenced by the evolution of Fresnoe growinginto an urban city. And so what
I would like to hear is lessof the what was his name Morgan walland

(52:59):
like I don't even listen the countrymusic. I'll keep it butt like I
listened to the old country music.I listened like Hank william Senior. I
listened to like the Morgan Wall andslowly getting into country lately. Yeah,
I mean and dope storytelling, man, Like great melodies, great storytelling.
But I'd like to see Fresno likenot try to emulate what post Malone is

(53:19):
doing now. I'd like to seethem sort of develop their own sound of
And I'm obviously going to be partialbecause I grew up in the Bay but
with such a heavy Bay Area mobinfluence and the high influence here, I
feel it's only right that there shouldbe like a hiphi version of country.
So that's my dream. It's likethe height Tonk, you know, so

(53:40):
I kind of want to switch upto this. It kind of goes with
the whole Instagram you posting. I'lllook at comments sometimes and there's and this
is through the last few years.I'll just look and how do you feel
about the people that kind of saythat you're corny or you're because it's you

(54:00):
always bring something so new that peopleare not used to. And I don't
know if I want to call ithate, but they judge you. I
mean that's gonna be and like peopleare gonna fear something that's different, know,
so outside the comfort zone. Yeah, yeah, I mean, uh,
I think that's gonna be. Unfortunately, what is holding Fresnel back from

(54:20):
creating its own version like I wasdescribing, you know of Uh? If
Fresne were to just be like,man, I don't care if people call
me corny, you care if peoplesay like that they don't get it,
and you just create a sound andyou just run with that sound. Eventually
you know that there's gonna be ahundred people to catch on and then it's
gonna be you know when or theydon't. But you you, you have

(54:44):
that sound. And so I ata real early age, I remember I
was listening to uh oc times upuh and he said I'd rather be broke
and have a whole lot of respect. And that's kind of how I've always
sort of, you know, likejust lived looked at life. I was
like, I don't really, It'snot so much about the money to me.
It's more about and as the olderI get, it's even less about

(55:05):
the respect for me. Like honestly, if the people that I respect respect
me, I'm cool. You know. You know that's I'll wrap it up
with this. You know. Ithink the Fresno b came out with a
story about you during one of thetimes that you know where. I think
it was from the Grizzlies, andI believe it said like marketing genius.

(55:27):
Oh the dude from beat from ESPNhad said that I was the smartest promoter
in baseball is because I was tappedinto didn't you have like a sort of
like a feeling about that, likeyou didn't like, no, don't call
me a genius, Like yeah,no, I mean because like everybody has
some form of genius in them.It's just like what you're gonna apply it,

(55:47):
like if you have the right platformfinding what your genius is. But
uh, yeah, I guess myquestion where where is this your mind is
so unique? Where is this comingfrom? Video? All that? I
mean? But I feel like mostpeople have like creativity in them. I
mean, it's just uh how Isay. I was fortunate enough to go

(56:08):
to a magnet school in the BayArea that was I got Like I tell
people now, it's like it waswoke before woke as woke, Like they
was progressive and they encouraged us tojust not be afraid of our ideas,
but then also like not be soopen minded that our brain has fallen out,
so to find that balance, findthat balance, and then that just

(56:30):
really taught me to uh have aframe where I would condition an idea and
like be processing the logistics at thesame time. And I mean, I'll
be honest, like freestyle rapping isa bit for that too. I mean
literally, like you know that sortof conditions your brain or just writing graffiti

(56:52):
and you know, being a doingthat style of art, like trying to
make things connect, just like buildingmetaphors in your mind is all part of
like that creative process. And Imean, but nowadays everyone is a creative
So it's just a matter of balancinglike creativity with logistics and making sure that
it can that it can ship hitit out the door, you know.

(57:15):
Like so that's the main thing,is finding out like is this scalable?
Is this executable? You know,that's that's that's the big part of it
where I think that the writer fromESPN was was impressed that the staff that
we had in Fresno, that wewere able to pull off the amount of

(57:37):
promos that we were doing that wereso well received. And it was just
because you know, it's Fresno,man, like there's no one here to
help us, Like we don't haveit, Like we got to do it
ourselves. All we got, weare all we got, Like so if
we don't do what, no oneelse is going to. So you know,
shouts out to Dorian, shouts outto Andy m and Derek Franks,

(57:57):
like everybody that was in the trencheswith k Rich everyone that was in their
trenches with us during those years atthe grids N twenty, the Bare Flag
Rebellion, you were. We reallyit was sink or swim during those years,
and so we really just we justhad to make it work just to
just to go back on that.I mean, you can't bearing bearing gifts
with these hats which appreciate it.So Grizzly had the as a. Is
that the old English g Yeah?Yeah. So my question for you is,

(58:20):
because you had a lot of greatideas graphics, was there ever a
design or a promo or even anevent that you pitched that just got shot
down? And you wish like,what have happened? Do you have one
of those? Yeah? Man,I mean to be honest like this,
you had mentioned the Simpsons merch before. I you know, I pitched that,

(58:43):
but then I I honestly wish likewe wouldn't have done that because we
ended up getting a crazy fine.We got like a seventeen thousand dollars fine,
no shit, Yeah, man,I mean there's like stuff that Oh,
there's just so much like merch likethat. I mean I approach Nike
about doing starter jackets like years ago. I wanted to do the the the

(59:07):
jazzy Jeff and fresh print summertime,the Starter shorts that I remember Starter.
I don't know if this my youyou remember these may I don't know if
you're old enough, remember when Starterhad those little the overall shorts and that
had the pin stripes. So Idid a whole mock up of like this
like Starter, uh collection for Grizzlies, and because Nike owned Starter, and

(59:28):
I pitched it to Nike, andof course, my dumb mass, I
had to take it one step further, like like we were down there,
and then I took the the fwor I took the Starter s and I
turned it into an F and Imade it a finisher instead of Starter.
And I don't know if Nike feltsome type of way about that or what,
but they just like they're like nah, yeah no, they just went

(59:50):
like like dark on me. Idid, but yeah, sometimes I will,
you know. That's one thing aboutwhere at the grids has made me
like reel it back a little bit, like I will sometimes take it.
I get this. Yeah, sothat's the corporate right, Yeah, yeah,
I'm sure you guys know might getyou might get yeah, exactly what's

(01:00:15):
next, What's uh, what's nextfor you? What's is there a new
project that we should be known aboutthat's coming. So I'm hype that you
brought up the style by Fulton ManThat's something that I'm super passionate about.
It's not, you know, asuh trendy or topical or whatnot like,
so it hasn't really gotten the energythat I wish it would have, but
it's something that I think is goingto grow. It's something that I'm really

(01:00:36):
putting a lot of effort and energyinto. Like I had mentioned, I
want to do like a style byManchester, I want to do a style
by Cherry, but we're going todo another one of those style by Fulton's.
We're going to bring back the defendingchampions and I'm probably going to increase
the cash price for it, andof course, you know, the champions
have to defend their belt and thenTaco Truck throw Down is November ninth,

(01:01:00):
so we're gonna start planning that wayearlier. Right now, you can get
twenty dollars tickets on Fresno Grizzlies dotcom. I don't know if anyone knows
that, but you're pretty much buying. You don't know who the artist I
was gonna ask, No artists yetor or not none announced at least none
announced. Okay, so but thereyou guys have people in mind. Yeah
yeah, okay, I mean Ido, others do. It's sort of
like you know who who at point. But typically those of you, you

(01:01:22):
know, follow talk truck through nowand we usually have a good Latino act
and then we usually have someone that'syou know, more like core hip hop.
Yeah, so on the path've hadCypriss. It's usually kind of the
formula that you guys go with,yeah, yeah, which is very Fresno.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a goodformula. Yeah, Chelino, Me's
Mac Drey, Yeah yeah, balanceof Fresno. Yeah. Well it's been
man, it's been cool to finallyget you on here and just chop it

(01:01:45):
up and just hear about stories thatman, long time coming, Yeah for
sure. And I mean Fresno ismy home. You know, I'm not
originally from here, but I've beenliving here for twenty years now, and
you make this city pop, likeyeah, everyone, you definitely got your
hand in it. Yeah man,And I guess that's what I was trying

(01:02:06):
to say. Is. You havea big part of making this city what
it is. So thank you guys, and thank you guys for creating this
platform, forgetting you know, becauseI I can't say like I've exactly handed
off the baton because I do stillhave my hand in it. But like
there's younger guys that are really makingit pop more than you know, like
uh, Dorian and yeah, youguys from Iron Bullies and my guy market

(01:02:28):
market here. Yeah, so Imean all the all the younger generation that
is, you know, like that'swho I did it for the kids,
and those are the kids I didit for. That way of putting it.
Hey, man, I appreciate youbeing here. I live in downtown.
He lives in downtown. I seeit. You walk everywhere. Like
yeah, I don't even think youdrive, but every time I'm driving home

(01:02:49):
from work, you're I see youin the streets just walking around. I'm
in the streets. Yeah. So, yeah, continued success, and I
mean we're you know, we're friends. So I'm sure that we'll continue to
chop it up and help come by. Come by butter brunch on Sunday.
Oh there you go, I'm Cocky'sright, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
there you. Yeah, yeah,but you're just gonna force the step some
Henny. That's why I don't drinkanymore like that man. Yeah. All

(01:03:14):
right, well, and don't comethrow down the plug your socials if you
want people to like to find you. F t K Construction is the marketing
and events. Uh. The storeis star Child Archives at star Child Archives.
And if you want to hear somerants about streetwear fashion, might even

(01:03:37):
do Hyphie Talk Tuesday. That's atSam at Sam from FDK. There it
is Sam. Thank you for joiningus on this podcast. Until next time.
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