Is There A SHOCKING Truth About Toxic Reality TV? Probably not. Guest Sean O'Bannon in-studio

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
No, listen, listen, I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to put you
on to something. This is a hot tape, but I
promise it's true. This is Hart Barkin, brought to
you by Right Hunter, right Toyota out of Scottsdale, AZ

(00:22):
Coming up on today's show, Sean O'bannon in studio.
You're really going to love this, especially if you heard
the teaser opening for this. But before we get to that, this
week, November 11th is veteran'sday, originally known as
Armistice Day, originally made in World War One.
And you know, I'm not a veteran.I I'd always wish that I had

(00:43):
served on some capacity. I may not be here today, but
still huge respect to all my friends and family that are that
are veterans. Huge respect to people who are
actively in the military, regardless of what your
political beliefs are, they are in the military to uphold
anything and everything that it means today to be a United

(01:04):
States citizen. You know, my father retired in
the Navy and you know, let's, let's let's try to remember what
veteran's day is. And let's make sure we keep the
utmost respect for our former military members that if needed,
have taken the oath to put theirlife on the line for all of our
freedoms. This was a really packed
weekend. You know what the the last

(01:26):
minute I received an invite froma a from a dear friend and I saw
a predator of Badlands. You know, I didn't really like.
So I saw the previews. I didn't really pay that much
attention to it. I, I thought Predator in the
movie leading up to the previewslook kind of crazy.
It looked like just some dude with an ugly face and bad hair,
unlike your traditional Predatorwith the giant heads and the

(01:49):
giant face Shields. But then when you watch the
movie, you realize what it's allabout.
And I thought it was actually a pretty good movie, a little
goofy and silly, but that's justwhat we're doing with today's
movies. I don't know if I'd say it was
excellent, but it definitely didn't suck and it is worth
seeing. We saw it on IMAX, which is
really cool. I haven't been to IMAX in years,
and I remember IMAX just being this huge thing and the screen

(02:11):
was bigger. But nowadays movie theaters are
just bigger in general. And there's a lot of theaters
that are just as big, maybe bigger.
But the seats were dope and maybe that's the selling point,
you know? Anyway, the movie was really
great. Went to the Scottsdale Polo
Championship again. I think I've gone 3 or 4 times
in the last five years and that's through the Arizona AMG

(02:33):
Club. It helps when your friend is the
president. Mr. Josh Benjamin, thank you so
much for that. My wife went with me for the
first time. She had a great time.
She says hey, how come you don'tever?
How come this is my first time going and I said well I invite
you every. Year.
And you don't want to go becausethere's always something else
going on or you're just not thatinterested in it.
But I think she'll be going backif we go back for sure.

(02:55):
So then Saturday night, I went to the warehouse and to one of
the events for the members and friends and family called the
Inflate a Light event. Inflate a light.
It's exactly what it sounds like.
It's this giant cube, or not really cube, this giant
rectangle light box. And they had it set up to where
you can do products, you can have headshots.
I got a few headshots. There's a headshot coach there,

(03:17):
which is great. Headshots are hard.
You have to stand a certain way and like move your head forward
a certain way and do like the certain thing with your jaw.
And then I took the Honda ZI have enough pictures of the of
the NSX. So I took the Honda Z got some
really cool photos of the Z sitting on the couch, Z behind
me reading a magazine and can't wait to see how that turns out.

(03:39):
And then this week coming up on Saturday, Texas plays Georgia.
I know none of you really care, but I care because there's this
there's this weird thing in sports, especially college
football, and I realize that college football fan is worse.
They're worse than die hard NFL fan, especially when you're on X
AKA Twitter. And Texas was they lost a couple

(04:02):
games. They fell the top 25 and
recently the rankings came back and they're like, oh, we can't
believe Texas is ranked twelve. How is Notre Dame ranked higher
than Texas or Oklahoma or anything like that right now?
Texas is back in the top 10, butit doesn't matter because they
still have to play Georgia, which is number 5 in the
country, and they still have to play Texas A&M, which is number

(04:24):
3 in the country. And then in between that they
have Arkansas, which is a natural rival.
If Texas goes two and one over the next three, they're going to
be fine. So even if they were to somehow
have been ranked in the top five, which you don't do that
with two losses. They still would have to go.
Would have had to go 2 and one out of the next 3 to be in the

(04:45):
college football playoffs for sure.
So if they went out, great. If they win 2 out of the next
three, they're going to be fine.If they go one and two, probably
not good. If they lose all three, they're
definitely done. And none of this matters anyway.
And then finally, I am 1 and 9 in fantasy football.
My team sucked this year. I don't think I'm going to pay

(05:06):
attention to my lineups for the rest of the year.
Coming up, Sean O'bannon, it's aquick story for you.
A listener lost a big job, missed the call, never saw the
DM probably because he has listened to this podcast.
It happens and it's fixable. Running a business shouldn't
mean juggling a dozen apps and missing opportunities.
Sparkforge helps you reply faster, capture more leads, and
get more reviews. All without adding hours to your

(05:29):
day. One simple place to handle
calls, texts and social messagesso you can focus on the work
that takes. It's like finally putting your
business on cruise control without losing the steering.
Wheel one, login, one platform, all under your control.
Consolidate your tech in one place to save time, money, and
headache. The future is here and it's
powered by Sparkforge AI from our friends at Arcus Foundry.

(05:50):
Jump into a 30 day trial today by using code Hardpark at Get
sparkforge dot AI and stop letting yesterday's tech eat
tomorrow's. Profits Sean O'bannon.
Welcome to Hard Parking man. I'm excited man, I've been
wanting to do this for a while. I know we've been talking about
it. Haven't made it happen.
We're making it happen today sitting in front of us.

(06:11):
So First off, we're going to hot, hot jump into this.
We're going to be trying some Japanese or just some liquors,
period. Yeah.
And inside this, inside these, the bottles, I have stuff that's
going to like brain control, right.
OK. Yeah.
Perfect. So then you're really going to
be an open book. Perfect.
Yeah, Sedate me. I'm going to sedate you.
Why don't you tell people a little bit about yourself, not

(06:34):
too much to where they can look you up and harm you?
A. Little bit about myself, shit,
I've, I've lived in Arizona for what, almost 15 years?
And I was a military kid so I moved around a lot.
And when people ask me where I'mfrom, I always tell them Chicago
just because that's where I moved here from.
But I think I lived in Chicago four years in reality.

(06:55):
Doesn't make you not from Chicago.
Well, here's The funny thing, too.
If somebody's from Chicago, I'm not even from Chicago, right?
Well, what part of Chicago are you from?
I'm from Naperville, which is a,it's kind of a, what?
More wealthy suburb, right? So I'm not even from Chicago,
Chicago, but I was born in NorthCarolina and then moved to Texas
and then New Mexico and then Chicago and then here.
And yeah, I was all over the place even then.

(07:17):
Even then, I didn't really. So you're from North Carolina?
Originally, originally, right. Well, what's funny then is is we
didn't even move more than once for the military, right.
My mom was was active duty in the Air Force.
So we moved to Texas for one of her transfers and she retired in
Texas the rest of the time. We just moved from divorced
parents being divorced parents. And yeah, everything getting

(07:38):
crazy. But so, no, I, so I was in the
pool industry for a long time. So that's how we met, right?
Is, I mean, remodeling your, your pool in your backyard.
And so I what I did that for 10 years about, and then I got out
of that and now I'm in medical sales.
Best decision I ever made, best decision I ever made.
So I don't know if that's enough.
No, that's good, man. Let's get a pour in and I'm

(08:00):
going to ask you a little bit about that.
Yeah. What do you want?
Dealer's choice. So I'm going to give you some of
this Shibui tin. All right, so Japanese whiskey
lightly peated this bottle my daughter gave me for I think
Father's Day or birthday or something a year or two ago.
I don't drink a lot of it, but it's pretty delicious.
And I want you to try it becauseyou told me that you don't
really know much about Japanese whiskey.

(08:22):
I don't either, but relatively speaking I'm a genius in this.
There you go, that's what I consider you as.
I'll tell you what too, this is my first time drinking out of a
Glencairn where you kind of do the sniff test, right?
Just sticking. Yeah, that's why they're the
shape that they are. Really.
Yeah, he's giving me rye vibes. Well, I think what it what
you're smelling is the peediness.

(08:43):
OK, yeah, the peediness. So we'll, we'll cheers to the
Shibui 10. Yeah, we'll talk a little.
Don't break the podcast. There you go.
Yeah, don't break my cups. And then we'll we'll get into
your career. I got to tip that thing away
for, oh, there's the peediness. It's almost like, yeah, like

(09:06):
burnt wood and it keeps going. It does.
What does that remind me of? It had something with brush.
Fire keeps going. Brush fire.
You know what it was? It was this this old lady that I
used to go to church with and her and her husband were really
into like making smoked cheese, right?
You'd try smoked Gouda at the grocery store or something like
that. But they were terrible at it,

(09:27):
right? So we would eat this cheese and
it tastes like cigarettes. Me and my brother were
horrified. You've just ruined my palate for
this Shibui. Did you?
Are you getting a lot of time? I'm not, but my brain is telling
me I should be, so it's kind of messing with me a little bit.
I don't hate it though, it's it's different for sure.
So you were in the pool industryfor a while.

(09:48):
One of the, one of the things that's I, I felt was super
unique about you was your knowledge, obviously not of just
the pools, but of the chemicals and everything else.
Yeah. What what's the education path
there? Because I look at you as kind of
like a chemist. Yeah, I mean, officially
speaking, there really isn't, atleast in Arizona, the

(10:08):
regulations are super loose. But I've always been that way
about everything. I'm kind of like an all or
nothing person and I just, I, I don't know, I, I don't want to
do anything half assed. I don't want to do anything
blind. Right.
Which is actually why I started,you know, working for the, the
company that I did when we were doing your pool.
So to go back a little bit, I, Ihad gotten off my, my mission,

(10:29):
you know, I used to be a Mormon.And so I'd gotten off my mission
and I started going to, to college and I was in a pre Med
program. So I always knew that I wanted
to be in the, in the medical industry and I ran out of money.
So I, I get out, yeah, I wasn't a great high school student or
anything. So I didn't have a scholarship
or anything. So I ran out of money.
And when I got home, as I went to school in Utah, when I got

(10:52):
home, I tried a couple differentthings.
I tried sales for an insurance company and tried selling shoes.
I tried to write. None of that stuff was really
interesting to me. And so my brother, who was
saving up for his mission was, was doing pools.
It was just a job that he was able to get.
And then, you know, barrier for entry was low.
And so, hey, what are you up to?You'd show me what you're doing.
So I, I did a ride along with him.

(11:13):
I figured, OK, I can do this fora couple of months.
And so I did. And it was horrible.
Hated it, but I was good at it and I kind of got good at it
quickly. And, and I think it's because of
that, that, you know, kind of thirst for knowledge and doing
things correctly that I, I figured out the chemistry pretty
quickly. In fact, my brother who, who was
better at the, the mechanical stuff as far as cleaning the

(11:34):
pool goes, they called him the net, right?
And then they called me the chemist.
That's funny. And, and we, we kind of grew
quickly in that company and, andbecame kind of the, the
authorities on whatever they hadto start, you know, training
people and that kind of thing. And my brother finally left on
his mission and I took over his route.
I had my route and there was another guy who moved up to
management. I took his route too.

(11:54):
So I started working crazy hours, but I got a lot of
practice in and just kind of learned a lot.
And, but I hated it, you know, same thing.
Like I said, it was, it was horrible.
And so I eventually got out of that.
I did, you know, sale, I sold door to door pest control.
I sold cell phones at Verizon asI really, I enjoy sales, but it
has to be the right product, right?
And so anyway. Not not passionate about

(12:17):
Verizon. No, no, still have Verizon
though, you know, but so I, I, my last kind of stop in, in
sales was I started doing real estate and I did it for a little
bit in Arizona. And and there was this guy who I
was working for who who ended upfiring me was the first and only

(12:38):
time I've ever really gotten fired.
And so I was, I was kind of sitting there wondering what to
do. I had gotten married and we had
our first, our first kid. And she was really young.
And I was like, oh, I got to, you know, figure this out.
And my mom calls me, who lived in Florida.
How old were you at this time? I was 2022, maybe a little

(12:59):
younger and, and so so my mom calls me and said, hey, there's
this lady I go to church with and, and she needs a property
manager for this real estate company.
I know you kind of have dabbled in that space.
Do you want to see what's going on?
OK, sure. So lady calls me.
She says what she needs. She says, you know, well, if you
get your real estate license in Florida and start doing all this
stuff for us, we'll give you theworld, right?

(13:19):
The Promise me in the world. So OK, you know, let's let's try
a new place. Let's try something new.
Yeah, I got nothing else to to lose.
So we moved to Florida and Destin northwest corner.
I know where that is. I haven't been there.
I have a friend there have. Been beaches man Incredible.
Incredible that sand like sugar.Oh God, incredible.
I think you just sold the trip because we're trying to figure
out where we're going to go for our next family trip.
So Destin it is. Emerald Coast, man, it's great.

(13:41):
So, so yeah, I, I did you know, real estate out there for a bit.
And what ended up happening was I did everything they asked,
right? Got my real estate license was,
was working really hard on the property management side.
I was getting them tenants. I was, you know, getting
contrast with new, new homeowners.
And anyway, what ended up happening is they never ended up
paying me anymore, never gave meany of that world that they

(14:01):
promised me. And we just, it was really
expensive to live there. Destin's, you know, the real
estate's really expensive and wejust couldn't really afford to
live there anymore. And so it, it, you know, I
wouldn't say we had no choice. It does right, But I wouldn't
say we had no choice. But at the time it seemed like
that was, you know, the best thing to do is to go back to
Arizona where I had a network and I could at least, you know,

(14:23):
leverage relationships to to geta job.
And so we moved back to Arizona at 50 bucks to my name, right.
It was me, my pregnant wife withour then second child and and
our our little girl who was a little less than a year old.
I was only in Florida for about 8 months and so, so we move into
a spare bedroom at best friend'shouse and I swore up and down

(14:43):
I'll never work for anybody again.
So I took a $2000 loan out for my mother-in-law and started a
pool company because that was the only, you know, marketable
skill that I had, right, right. And you want to talk about
having to know a lot of stuff and in Arizona, right, the pool
market super saturated. So I really locked in and, and,
you know, learned as much as I could and, and just started, you

(15:04):
know, going whole hog into the pool industry, built the company
up pretty quickly. And after a couple of years, I
switched over to construction because the money was better and
I did a, you know, some smaller projects and mostly kind of, you
know, low end, high volume stuff.
And what made me go and work for, you know, Tatum, the, the
company that, that built your pool.
I had one project that was, you know, relatively complicated and

(15:25):
I fucked it up, man. I was just, I didn't know what I
was doing at that level. And so I decided like, I need to
learn how to do things at a, at a higher level, kind of get into
the higher end space, but I didn't know what I was doing.
So I decided to go be a Superintendent for a builder and
I hit up the company and then they decided to hire me.
So, so that's kind of how I, I, what's the word reinforce my
knowledge of the construction side.

(15:47):
And I mean, I, I think between those two sides, right, the
service and the construction, both of them me wanting to, to
learn the best way to do things,that's kind of where a lot of
my, my knowledge base went in. So over all those years doing
all that stuff I did, I kind of became an expert and I'm really
proud of, of the, the knowledge I gained in that industry,
right? But the one thing that never
changed was it was miserable. I hated doing it right?

(16:08):
Just 'cause you're good at it doesn't mean you enjoy it.
I I think being good at something increases, you know,
the, the enjoyment of it, but. You know, I that's that's
incredibly accurate. Yeah.
You know, I've, I've said that before, Like I when I get myself
fired here, you know what I mean?
Like, I, I don't love my job. I sure as hell don't hate it.
And I'd be a fool to complain about it.

(16:30):
You know what I mean? Yeah, because of that.
But it's not like it's an enjoyable thing, you know?
Do you wonder if every job gets like that eventually?
I do wonder that because one of the things I always say is do
something you love and you don'twork a day in your life.
And I think that for most people, even some of our most
successful friends that are working everyday, busting their
ass, doing their dream job, theythey'll all tell you that it's

(16:54):
our hard work 24/7. And the dream is at some point,
you know, the money will just keep coming once you've paved
the way for yourself. But that's like residual money
coming in. But that's such a rare case.
Yeah, people talk about passive income.
I feel like it's a myth. Every once in a while you put
enough money into something, butI don't remember the exact

(17:15):
numbers. But it feels like if you want to
invest a bunch of money and pay out, you know, dividends enough
to to have a really good living and let's say 150 thousand,
$200,000, the millions you've got to put in.
It's just not realistic for a lot of people.
So yeah, I agree. For most people there's always
those exceptions, Sure. And the exceptions become the
rule depending on what it is, the type of sales.

(17:35):
Because I could tell you what I want you to do when you leave
here today. I want to go home, and I want
you to write down to think aboutyour three most motivated
friends, right? OK, Write their names down, get
their phone number and invite them over to my house.
Next Tuesday night. I'm going to have a seminar here
and I'm going to show you how you can make money in passive
income. Is this Mary Kay?

(17:55):
No, but it's, it's pretty much any other, you know, multi level
marketing, which for the most ofthem, they're actually legit.
But what they don't tell you is you got to work harder than
someone trying to build a YouTube channel which already
busted their ass. So the passive income can be
there. But I I think it's, it's so few
for so few people. It's easy.
It you can, you can say it's, it's, it's a dream and it

(18:16):
doesn't work and feel accurate with it because we're all still
trying to struggle with shit like that.
Yeah, yeah. Well, going back to the whole do
what you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
I feel like if you do what you love, you kind of stop loving
it, right? It gets monotonous, it gets
tedious. You start getting all the stress
of production. You know for.
For instance, if. There's a lot of truth to that.

(18:38):
Yeah. Well, OK, In high school, I was
really into music, and I thoughtfor the longest time I was going
to be a musician for the right. I played piano, I sang, I played
guitar. And in my first semester in
college, before I left my mission, I actually studied
music, right? I was on a vocal performance
scholarship and all this stuff. And I really thought that's what
I wanted to do. And the more that I thought
about it, the more I'm thinking if this becomes my profession,

(18:59):
it's not just music that I have to focus on now.
I've got to focus on business, right?
I've got to focus on production.I've got to focus on do people
like it? Do they not do?
That's going to get stressful. I'm going to end up losing the
love for music, right? And I think that's got to be the
case just about everything. Just because you love it doesn't
mean it's going to make a good career.
Yeah, I'm going to agree with you on that.
It's the same thing with me in illustration.

(19:20):
You know, I, I was a big time sports artist in high school and
that's what I was supposed to be.
The stuff that I did best at is stuff I did for myself because
it, it was more passion and lesstalent in my opinion.
My, my family disagrees. My wife always says I'm wasting
my talent. I'm like, no, I'm not.
I'm just finding other ways to use my talents.
Because I realized, especially when I went out to college for

(19:41):
the first time at Kendall College of Art and Design and I
was going to industrial design, which is the program where you
can design cars and things. But also, you know what else you
design? An industrial design shit like
this. Exactly right.
Yeah, and I'm like, I don't wantto spend 6 months designing the
next coffee cup. You know, I have more to offer.
And so that's kind of my deciding my pivot point of like,

(20:02):
all right, I like drawing, I like being creative, but this
isn't my future. Because when you, when you work,
when you do your passion projects for other people, it
becomes a job just like you said.
And now it doesn't matter what this painting looks like to me.
It matters if my customer is happy with it.
There you go. And then I got 6 customers lined
up. They want a similar painting.
I don't have time to do it now. I'm stressed.

(20:24):
But one, one thing that I talkedabout previously with another
guest, I, I found this post online and it's something about,
you know, how blessed we are to have wanted all this, how
blessed we are to be doing it, how blessed we are to be, you
know, busting our ass on our dream.
And for a lot of creators, that's kind of where it is.
And so that's like the other side of it.
But just getting to that side ofit where you can be like, yeah,

(20:47):
shit, this is good. It's so much hard work. 99.9% of
the people are never going to make it to that point because
there's just so many other things in the way.
Yeah. Well, things like this, you
know, doing what you enjoy independently.
I, I, I mean, you could, you could speak to this better than
I ever could, right? But I, I imagine you've got to
do something that makes sense for your audience, but also your

(21:08):
audience was kind of built around what you like, right?
You, you kind of attracted the people who were into the same
things you're into. So at that point, now you can
talk about, do whatever you wantand they'll stick around, I
imagine, right? Is that is that the case or no?
If you're Joe Rogan, I think so,right?
I mean, you asked me about him off mic earlier, but the the
thing that I think continuously holds this production back is

(21:30):
the fact that it's it's in the automotive category because how
would it not? It's the non automotive
automotive podcast. Car people want more Car Talk.
And then if you're talking cars,you need to be accurate.
You know, I'm, I'm a I'm, I'm a very casual car fan.
People think I'm a die hard car person.
I am, but not so much where I want to talk cars.
This entire podcast. I just can't do it.

(21:52):
I'm just not as interested as I used to be.
The non car people get confused when we say check your door
jamb. It'll tell you what your tire
pressure should be. You know, you don't have to go
to the dealership to air up yourtires.
And usually when you get them back from Discount Tire, they
weigh over inflate them and you're going to fuck your shit
up. So just check that.
Oh, that's too much Car Talk. So in order for me to bring

(22:14):
those one of those two in, I need to focus more on that
content and I refuse to because then it's not fun.
Now I'm building content for thefor the masses instead of
bringing friends in studio or people that I barely know in
studio and learning about them because that in my opinion, is
what's going to make this podcast better in the long run,

(22:34):
even if it's not getting me 50,000 downloads an episode.
So yes and no. Do you get a favorite of
turnover from, you know, car guys that maybe are interested
in the podcast based on the name?
They're like, oh wait, there's not that much Car Talk.
I wouldn't know the answer to that, but my guess is yes.
Yeah. And so now the podcast logo
that's, you know, in studio, thefirst one had two NS XS
back-to-back on a on a essentially a no parking sign.

(22:58):
OK, so when I, you know, tried to get the trademark, literally
it looked like it said no hard parking podcast because the no
was crossed out. I'm like, all right, I got to
make it more aggressive. Crossed out to where it says no
parking podcast or hard parking podcast.
Sorry, but after a while ago, OK, it's not as car centric 2
accurate NS XS. It's not Honda centric.

(23:20):
Don't want to get in trouble, change the logo.
So then I had my Infinity. Remember the Infinity I used to
have because I sold it? Oh you did?
I did. Yep, I had the Infinity on the
logo and got rid of the intersex's or the Hondas after a
while ago. I don't even talk about cars
that much now it's just me on the logo so I can talk about
whatever I want. So now just hard parking is the

(23:41):
only draw where someone might think it's it's more car
centric. OK.
I mean, I think you're interesting enough to keep
people on regardless of what you're talking about.
And I was looking at the it's a mic from my peripheral vision.
I almost looked like a piece of pizza.
I was like, what are you you talking about food?
But it's a. It's a well, you're swallowing
the mic anyway, right? Yeah, Chevy.
There's that. Yeah, yeah.
Do it again. Yeah, do it again.

(24:01):
You guys saw that, right? You you saw you saw that that
that's that that's that's theorem I was talking about.
Listen, I got an empty stomach. It might come on quick.
Did you ever do that in in college?
We used to. We used to start drinking with
an empty stomach because it was cheaper that way.
You had to drink less alcohol toget drunk, right?
So you ball on a budget, you don't need anything.
You've always, you've always been programmed that way.
Then See. Great.

(24:21):
Because if you think about it, in a way, that's your whole
chemistry thing coming full circle.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Because I never would have thought about that.
I was just the rule is don't drink on an empty stomach
because you will get fucked up quicker.
Yeah, but you'll probably want to throw up.
But I don't know of anybody who would say because you spend less
money on alcohol. That's what it was, man Yeah,
we're balling on a budget. If you, if you could only afford

(24:43):
a six pack of beer. I mean, you know as well as I do
on a full stomach you might get a buzz, right?
But you'll get full before you ever get drunk, right?
Right. 3 beers deep when you haven't had anything to eat all
day and you're. You're buzzing.
Yeah. Yeah, you're at.
Least pre gaming, you know what I mean?
Then you'll got to get a shot ortwo, then you're good and fucked
up. Yeah.
So what are you doing now? Work wise, Work wise, yeah,

(25:05):
yeah. So I'm in.
I'm in medical sales now, which is it's it's funny, the guy that
I work for now I met in a similar way to you did his
backyard and. That's how you meet people.
Obviously I. Think that's the only place I
ever was. Weird and awkward, but it works.
Yeah, I mean, it works. I wasn't doing any backyard
Finder so damn much. Yeah, exactly.
I would start breaking into people's backyards and start
meeting them that way. Shit, I might get more sales

(25:27):
now. You might.
Yeah, you've been thinking. So I was.
I mean, I we built up a good rapport, kind of became friends
like you and I did. And I was just, things were
going downhill with a company that I was working for and it
was kind of out of my control, right?
The owner was just being a dickhead.
And anyway, I was just kind of talking to him, venting to him
about how dissatisfied I was with my job.

(25:49):
And looking back on it now, I'm surprised he wasn't worried
about the state of his backyard.Was it?
Well, if you're sick of your jobor you, you know, sure, back on
my. But we did a good job and I.
Fired you on the spot. Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
But he he saw how hard I was working.
I was in the trenches with the guys every day and, and this
guy, he was paying cash for everything massive house.
He was always in scrubs and he was always home.

(26:11):
Like this guy's got a, what do you do?
And he told me he's in medical sales and he and he, you know,
whatever product he's selling was pretty lucrative.
And, and you know, I told him I had a background in sales and
obviously being a business owner, you get pretty good at
sales pretty fast. You have to, you don't eat.
And so the more we talked about it and I told him how I always
wanted to be in the medical. Field.
All right, good. OK, All right.

(26:32):
It was lucrative. No judge.
No judge but. No, so, so that's what it was.
He was kind of educating me on what he does.
And by the end of the projects, I was so fed up of what was
going on, you know, with the with the company.
He was happy with his backyard. So he didn't care anymore.
And he offered me a job and he knew that I'd kind of always
wanted to get back into the medical field.
It felt like a kind of a dead dream, right?

(26:53):
It's like I don't have time to go back to school.
I had three kids by then and andnow I'm, you know, running this
company. And so anyway, it was a great
opportunity. And I told you, I'm a college
dropout, right? So I didn't have a degree, don't
have a degree, and it feels likeusually you have to get a
bachelor's degree at least to work in that space.
And so I got really lucky. And so I'm an independent and so
I carry a bunch of different products and that helps a lot

(27:14):
with being able to, to pivot. But being in an industry for 10
years, having to learn somethingnew, right, is, is difficult.
But you know, to go back to the whole wanting to learn as much
as I can and and do things right, that's been a massive
asset because I've learned, you know, pretty quickly the right
thing to do, the way to move in the industry.
And so it's it's it's been a difficult Rd. kind of getting my

(27:35):
feet on the ground. But once I did, man, I mean,
it's you know, my work life balance is a lot better.
I make more money and I get to see my kids right.
I mean. There were times.
In the, in the pool industry, I was working so much I'd, you
know, leave before they wake up,come home after they go to bed.
You do that seven days in a row,you realize you haven't seen
your kids in a week, right? And that's, that's hard.
So this has been a lot better. And now I'm to the point where

(27:55):
you, I've got enough free time and enough spare money and I'm
and by, you know, middle of nextyear, I can start going back to
school and, and study what I want to study.
And yeah, I mean really life changing decision.
Why the motivation then to go back to school?
Because maybe the lack of a degree is your barrier to entry
in your field to certain things.It's not bad.

(28:16):
I think this is closer to what Iwanted to do than pools, but
it's still not what I wanted to do.
So we've talked a little bit about my experience with
psychedelics, right? That's a, that's a big thing for
me and what's starting to come out with these, these new
studies with how these things are affecting things like
depression and PTSD and anxiety.It's a really cool space and
something that I think is important, right?

(28:37):
Because mental health is a big problem in the United States and
all over the world. But mental health treatment is
dog shit, dog shit, right? When we see these, these highly
efficacious outcomes from, from,you know, these kind of
therapies, you know, psilocybin is a big one that Johns Hopkins
has studied quite a bit. And the, and when you see these,
you know, efficacy outcomes thatare similar to like the polio
vaccine in, in helping with longterm depression treatment, I

(29:00):
want to be at the forefront of that.
And so, you know, the degree that I'd like to, to get, and I
swear to God, this is a real degree is
neuropsychopharmacology, right? Where you're, you're essentially
trying to identify how a drug affects your brain physically,
right, physiologically. And you're also trying to
identify how a drug affects your, your psyche, right?
Maybe something a little bit less quantifiable.

(29:20):
But you know, those are the things that are helping to treat
depression and anxiety and that kind of thing.
And for a long time I thought, OK, maybe I want to work in a
lab and I want to actually be onthe development side of the
drugs. But the more that I thought
about it, the more I, I think administering the drugs
throughout a study to try and, you know, work on getting this
stuff approved federally and, and work on kind of building
credibility around that treatment modality.

(29:42):
I think it's way more important.So now I'm looking at, you know,
really going back to school hardand becoming an MD and, you
know, focusing on neuropsychopharmacology and,
and, you know, starting to administer these, these
treatments for, for studies and starting to get the, the thing
moving forward. So it's a, it's a lot of school,
but I really, I'm ambitious and I'm, I'm motivated and I, I
think it's going to be worthwhile.

(30:02):
Are there accelerator programs these days?
For undergrad there can be, you know, if you can finish a
bachelor's degree in three to two to three years versus 4,
yeah. Then you're taking a pretty
advanced intensive course load. And I still work, right?
I work less, but I still work. So I, I haven't fully figured
out all the details, which is why I'm putting it off till
probably middle of next year. But I'm, I'm getting as much

(30:22):
research as I can done. And ASU actually has a really
good, you know, pre Med program for with, with biochemistry.
As you know, pre Med is not technically a major, but you
know, the biochemistry background that's needed to move
forward. ASU has got a pretty good
program for that. So, you know, we'll, we'll see.
I'm kind of working out the kinks, but I.
Bet your average pool guy wouldn't be able to rattle off
everything you just rattle off. Probably not, right?

(30:45):
Like, it's in the bearish range.She's pretty low, man.
Everybody and their mother, you know, is, is able to do it,
which is crazy. Yeah, crazy to me.
Especially the chemicals right when you're doing service.
Well, that's what I mean. We were out there having a
chemical conversation. 1 And I'mlike, this motherfucker is smart
as. Shit, try to try to educate
myself, but listen, if you, if you combine chlorine and acid, 2

(31:06):
main chemicals that you use in in Pool service, right, in a big
body of water, maybe not a big deal, but some Jackass puts them
in a bucket to pre measure them and mix them together.
You get chlorine gas. Shit they use in World War One
as a weapon, right? I mean, you can kill somebody,
but some dickhead can go to Walmart, get what he needs to
get to to do it. And, you know, just go in
somebody's backyard and do whatever.
That's nuts to me. Why shouldn't we educate

(31:28):
ourselves more? You know, not just pools, but
the medical industry, right? You need to be educated.
They always make that joke. There's always the other Doctor
Who graduated bottom of his class from, you know, you might
have that doctor. You know, many of those doctors
I've met, if my grandmother was going through some of the things
that these, you know, patients are going through, I would never
send them to these. It's nuts.
Yeah, And that's kind of like a miss.
I mean, it's great that they made it to school, but that's

(31:52):
something that people don't think about, right.
And there's like, well, a doctortold me this.
I'm like, yeah, You know, we were raised to believe that they
knew everything. Yeah.
And the error rate in the medical field is so severe.
Yeah. Across practices or.
My nurse told me this or this nurse told me that when I was at
the. You know the the urgent care I'm
like OK they might know a littlebit more but I can promise you

(32:13):
they don't know everything. So that's why people get 2nd,
3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th opinions. Yep.
And just because your doctor said something doesn't
necessarily make it true. It could be that that's their
belief, or that's their belief based on the stuff that they
know, or that's their belief based on the stuff that they
know and they don't want to believe.
And so they think it should be another way.
Like you never really know when you're getting advice.
Yeah. And you don't know if they're at

(32:34):
the top of their class or, like you said, they're very bottom of
their class. Yeah.
And that could be a dangerous thing.
When you get these old heads that graduated in the 80s,
right, medicine has advanced a lot.
That's a lot. Different.
Well, and if they're not keepingup on continuing education,
which there's a certain amount that they have to.
They have to, but overall. You know, and then the other
thing too is they might learn something new, but if there's
some, you know, guy who's arrogant, which a lot of them

(32:56):
are, right, OK, I learned this new thing, but that's all
bullshit. I'm going to stick the way I've
always been doing things as it works.
It gets, you know, it gets dicey.
You know, from a personal passion perspective, I was
excited to get back into the medical field and into, you
know, pure sales rolling. I'm pretty good at what I do.
And so I enjoyed that. But from a business perspective,
I always assumed going back to pools for a second in the pool

(33:20):
industry again, because it's so saturated and the barrier for
entry is so low, it feels like everyone else is being
dishonest. And maybe that's how they can
stay so competitive. And sometimes you try as you
might to be an honest business person, it feels like you've got
to get kind of nasty sometimes to be competitive.
I didn't like that, right. So, OK, So looking at the
medical field, I think it's so highly regulated.
These guys are so well educated.This is going to be a much

(33:42):
better industry to get into, right?
You don't have room for a whole lot of dishonesty, man.
When I tell you I've seen some of the worst run businesses and
like sleazy people I've ever metin this industry, it's, you
know, you, you don't think aboutthat kind of thing.
And even then, I still enjoy it.I still enjoy it.
I love what I do. And it's, it's kind of
interesting kind of getting pastthose barriers, working with

(34:03):
these docs and, and like I said,a lot of them are arrogant.
You get these kind of sociopathic type people that.
Absolutely. Yeah, but you know, it's
fascinating to work with with these people and and around
these people and trying to figure out how to move.
It feels like kind of a puzzle every day, which I really enjoy,
kind of challenges me. I don't have to deal with them
really anymore because I'm a full remote employee or
contractor I guess. But there was a time where I had

(34:25):
to work in the hospital, or sometimes we'd have to walk over
from our IT over to the clinicalside and sit down with a
radiologist, or we had to communicate with a physician.
And there's a whole wide array, just like you're saying.
There's the guy who's super cooland open and you pray that the
champion physician is that guy. But sometimes they're an old

(34:46):
head. They're going to retire in two
years. They don't want any of the new
technology. Nobody knows anything but them.
And then you have the other ones.
Like I said, there's a whole, like, room full of guys, and
one's an asshole, and four of them are cool, or two of them an
asshole, and three of them are cool, you know, and they're
still learning along the way. And so, yeah, it's for people on
the outside. Just always, I mean, this isn't

(35:07):
really what we're talking about as much, but always seek, like,
a second or third opinion if youhave any questions.
And don't be afraid to like, just question anything, you
know, question everything because sometimes there's
incentives and it may not be on the doctor level, but it could
be on the director level or the hospital level or whatever
level. This is a new drug.
Push it because we're getting paid to push it and see what

(35:29):
happens with it. So yeah, my doctor prescribed
this for me because they said mydoctor subscribed the Shibui tin
for me that we're drinking rightnow because they said it's the
best thing for Japanese lightly peated whiskey.
But they're being paid to do it.Because what they don't really
know is the Shibui 18 that I'm getting ready to pour you is
actually a much better thing. Yeah, right.
Well, what's interesting is the Sunshine Act prevents doctors

(35:52):
from, you know, being induced todo anything based on financial
gain or anything like that. And my primary care provider
offered, offered me Ozempic and he was really pushing it hard.
I've lost 100 lbs and, and so I figured I don't need it.
I'm already on the track. I'm doing really well.
What, what the hell do I need this extra stuff for?
And so the guy that I work for, obviously much more, you know,

(36:13):
educated on the, the legal stuffthan I was at the time and it
still AM. And I was asking him, why would
this guy push this so hard? What is he being incentivized
by? He's not getting a direct
kickback from the pharmaceuticalcompany.
And what he said was well, at their place of work, right.
If it's, you know, banner or whatever it is and, and the doc
is pushing a drug, no, he's not going to pay for this

(36:34):
pharmaceutical company, but he is getting a bonus from where he
works for improving your metrics, right?
So if he thinks your A1C is elevated and he thinks he can
get it down by getting you on Ozempic, no, he's not getting
paid from Ozempic themselves, but he is getting paid from the
hospital for lowering your A1C. And that made a lot of sense,
right? The thing though is if somebody
doesn't already have an elevatedit, which you know, I'm

(36:54):
overweight, but I'm not pre diabetic, right?
So what exactly is your is your angle here?
And I, I guess I don't know for sure, but I wonder if the guy's
getting paid to just lower A1C in general, right?
I'm sure it's on an average too,right?
So if he lowers mine, it doesn'treally matter if mine needed to
be lowered. But it brings Joe blows also
down if he's, you know, if he's failing to get his A1C down.

(37:16):
So that kind of thing is interesting.
And it's a really nuanced situation with these docs, But
everybody's got a financial incentive to do something.
Yeah, there's a thing. And like I so I pulled out the
Shibui 18. I wasn't joking a little bit
about this. This was given to me by a good
friend of mine, Mark, she of of pride exhaust in Dallas.
And this is the 18 year statement Sherry cast.

(37:38):
So as I pour this, we're going to have this next all right.
But in my in my industry or my career path, there's a, there's
a thing called meaningful use. And that basically is sort of
what you just described where. Thank you for a few years.
With the EMR that I work on, forthose hospitals that have gone

(38:00):
live on that EMR, there was an Ameaningful use initiative, which
kind of tracks how they're not necessarily doling out
prescriptions, but just the overall care.
Sure. And orders, right.
So it's like, OK, does does Seanreally need ACT head?
Yeah, chest and abdomen. And why are we ordering so many

(38:20):
of them? So then they sign like this,
this a score decision making score as well.
So it's like if they're, if they're landing based on your
versus your symptoms, right? If they're, if in your, your
diagnosis, if they're ordering stuff that's more with a higher
score in line with your diagnosis and you get more
points from that. And it's really trying to to cut

(38:44):
down and I guess laziness and abuse when it comes to ordering.
It's like you come in and you got a headache.
Well, all right, well, let's give him the full CT or MRI
cocktails, Like, no, no, no, let's just, let's just figure
out if he needs advanced imaging.
But it's kind of the same deal, Yeah, Where you're incentivized
to to take better care of how you're ordering this stuff.
So the hospital gets paid. And if the hospital gets paid,
then you're going to get paid. Yeah, yeah.

(39:06):
First off, this I like. This is really good.
So you like the Shibui 18? Yeah, I was going to ask if it's
pee but it doesn't taste like itis.
Delicious, isn't it? Oh my God, it's in Sherry cast.
Yeah, it's got like a caramel almost in it.
Or butters, maybe. It's butterscotch.
It's delicious. Oh God, it's good.
This has never left this room. Really.
So you saw what? Little, but it's in there.

(39:28):
I I did all that here. After hours, of course.
Yeah. Yeah.
OK. Nights and weekends, of course.
Yeah, what time is it right now?It's like 7:00 PM.
Have you heard about this WISER initiative that's starting next
year? Let's talk about it.
So Medicare wants to reduce waste, right?

(39:49):
As they should. Because I I do think, I think
the. Spending There's no waste, fraud
and abuse. It's just the full of
everything. Right.
Holy crap. But Medicare wants to start
doing these pre authorizations for just about everything now,
which is going to significantly lengthen the amount of time for,
you know, approvals to happen. So patients are going to have to
wait longer to get stuff done. And it's it's sad that we have
to implement something like that.

(40:09):
And even as somebody who profitsfrom the sale of these things,
it's I get it. I get it.
And yeah, the whole medical necessity thing is a is a big
issue right now and I'm interested to see how the
medical field changes. Like I said, I'm an independent
now and you know, I work with a a distribution group who kind of
helps me get the products. And that's, you know, the guy

(40:29):
that I work for who kind of runsthat distribution.
But I'm glad because if I were working for a specific company
pushing a specific product and that's all I was qualified to
do, you know, I mean, as things change with coverage and
Medicare and that kind of thing,I'd be in a bad, a bad place.
So yeah, it's, it's interesting.We're going to have to pivot
quite a bit. I wonder if next year I'll be

(40:50):
selling the same thing that I'm selling right now.
I. Had a guest on, actually, I went
to go visit him at his home out of state and he was talking
about his life kind of coming upand doing medical sales with
devices and he worked for a specific company and he was our
top seller. They brought him down for a
conference and all that kind of stuff.
And the president, and I don't know if he's the vice president

(41:11):
or somebody else that kind of controlled the, the company
asked him, hey, what do you think about our presentation?
What do you think about this product?
And his response was, I think you're going to jail and they're
in jail right now. You know, he got out when he
could, but it kind of brings it full circle to kind of what
they're pushing you. Is it what you really need?
Is it legal? You know, what kind of hoops?

(41:33):
And then with this new initiative, you know, who knows
what's going to happen with that, with what are they going
to change? Yeah, ain't no talent, man.
Ain't no talent. Well, and, and on the sales
side, that's scary, right. On the provider side, that's
scary. On the patient side.
That's what I'm really worried about is we, we've started
conflating health insurance withhealthcare.
That's messed up. Yeah.
I've got a point. You know, I've got a podiatrist

(41:54):
that I work with who, who has this patient who's got these
bilateral wounds, right? He's also got bilateral edema.
Well, his mom and his grandmother both had to be
amputated, right? And I don't remember if I said
the guy said he's 35, right? So they can't seem to figure out
these wounds. He's been revascularized, you
know, I don't know how many times.
And, and nothing's really working.

(42:16):
He's at the point now where the only other treatment modality
they have is not being approved by Medicaid.
This guy's going to lose his legs, right?
He's 35, going to lose his legs.And all insurance is worried
about is we don't want to pay the claim.
Everybody's going to make money,but at that point, especially
Medicaid, which is a government agency, right?
It's like, listen, man, I know you have the money.

(42:38):
You don't want to save this guy's.
And that's what I mean is that'snot healthcare, that's health
coverage, that's health insurance.
They don't get a shit about patient outcomes, right?
Well, the doctor's sitting here horrified, like, I've got the
tools to do this right now, but right.
And if the doctor does it without getting paid, he's going
to lose his ass, right? So everybody's really in a bad
position and, and that's the most likely outcome is this
guy's just going to have to losehis legs and deal with it.

(43:00):
It's fucked, it's fucked, so there.
And then you take that situationand you multiply it umpteen
amounts of times, hundreds amounts of times.
Yeah. You know, and that's, you know,
they're talking about using AI to help make some of these
decisions, you know, these firstlevel decisions.
And that would be a first level decision that would probably

(43:20):
automatically now, hell, they could already be doing that now.
You know it's like when you filea claim for your car immediately
like it going to go to a claims adjuster, but if you answer the
question incorrectly with the person taking your call
initially, it's not even going to go to the claims adjust.
It's going to bounce immediately.
It's. Going to bounce.
You know, there's no Gray area. It's just OK.
Did you did you notice this? When did you last notice this?

(43:43):
Four days ago. Denied.
You have three days to report it.
Yeah. And then you can't change your
answer, right? Well, what's almost scarier than
that is, is you know, Medicare is doing these automated
responses things and, you know, they have certain codes, right?
That'll Ding and say like, OK, that's an approval.
Oh, that's a denial. OK, well, I've, I've got a doc
and I won't, you know, say any names, obviously, but they're

(44:03):
using one code that's they know is going to get approved, right.
But the other code is never approved.
And so they come to me and they say, hey, can you, you know,
guarantee that we're going to get paid on this?
Can you guarantee our reimbursement, whatever it is?
And I'm telling them no. Well, the claims are getting
paid. Why wouldn't you?
I don't really care if they're getting paid.
The scary thing is, are they going to come back and take it

(44:24):
right? Because now you're going through
an automated system using the correct code as dinging it gonna
approve you. You're gonna get paid great in
four years, right? When they come for an audit, now
it happens. Now you're gonna lose all the
money. The scary part about that is
let's say it's by that time, $1,000,000, $2,000,000, that's a
lot of money for the doc to lose.
Maybe they won't lose their practice, maybe they will.

(44:45):
But they're definitely going to have to cut down on staff.
Now. Other people are losing their
jobs, right? They're definitely going to have
to cut down on patient care. Now the patient's getting worse
outcomes, right? Like all this stuff, it's, it's
got this, you know, this, what do you call it?
This cascading effect where everyone else on the bottom of
the hills getting fucked and, and it could have been prevented
by #1 Medicare, you know, approving, having a more robust

(45:07):
approval, you know, system and maybe people LED instead of AI
LED and #2 the doctor being morerobust in their, you know,
knowledge of the process and, and their desire to do the right
thing. And it's just, I don't know,
man. It's, we'll see what happens.
But I I think there's going to be a lot of changes trying to
figure this stuff out. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of
wild shit going on. Obviously right now those

(45:30):
recorders, we're in the middle of this big shutdown and it's
with the SNAP benefits and what they show on TV.
And depending on what your social media feed and your
algorithm is going to tell you one story and then what you look
at, it might tell you something else.
And at the end of the day, it's like the people are being held
hostage between two sides that are just fighting over line
items. I was trying to explain to my
mother-in-law. I go, OK, well, everyone thinks

(45:53):
it's this thing, but it's either, but it's really this
thing and it's also this other thing.
So Group A says, OK, here's a list of my demands.
And then Group B goes, OK, they go down the list.
They go item 8, item 10, item 12, and item 14.
Absolutely not. So we're going to cross that out
and we're going to give it back to you.
And we want to do this, but you have to accept it.

(46:15):
And so Group A, the first group goes, Nope, we don't want to do
it because you crossed out our items.
And that's really what's going on here between both of these
sides. And at the end of the day, you
know, the administration gets blamed for it because it's under
their watch. At the end of the day, it's
under their watch. But the reality is the
administration themselves isn't the one making the choice.

(46:35):
It's all these people in Congress that are still taking
paychecks and playing with people's money.
And on top of that, the reality,and I've been saying this for
years, multiple presidents ago, we know this.
There are people that are abusing the shit out of the
system, yes. And I've had a good conversation
with Wes, my buddy Wes, you know, if you want to forgive my

(46:55):
my student loans, I make good money, my wife makes good money.
But if you want to pay that shitoff, yeah.
I'm not going to be like, Nah, man, we make good money.
We're just going to pay it. Yeah, yeah, no, we're good.
Now you can. You can give it to somebody else
who needs it. No, Hell, no.
Hell, I'll take that. Right.
Oh, yeah. And it's like people, if you
give people handouts, they're going to take them.

(47:16):
Few people are on such a moral where they have so much money,
they're like, no thanks. Yeah.
All right. So if you give me money to pay
the rent, like in the event of like a COVID era thing, right.
If you give me a stipend, if you, if you say here's $2500 to,
you know, and I don't, we don't qualify for half that shit
anyway. But there's a lot of people who
do qualify for it. They get the money and they

(47:36):
don't need it. Yes, yeah.
And I remember commercials that would say, hey, bring your bring
your cheque in and put it as a down payment for a new car.
And it's the same thing with taxis.
And you hear bring your tax money in, buy a new car.
Or I have friends on social media or people I see on social
media. It's like, oh, I don't need the
money. I'm going to buy a new bumper.
I'm going to buy a new body kit.I'm I'm going to put this down

(47:58):
on a set of wheels. It's like.
Listen man, pool guys were eating good around COVID, right?
Getting those stimmy checks, I'mtelling you.
Right. That's the waste part.
It's not your fault. It's not my fault.
You're giving it to me. What do you want me to do with
it? Yeah.
So then that's why, you know, the whole point in all that is
everybody that's on assistance needs to.

(48:19):
People need to be vetted more and people need to be checked on
more. I don't know if Have you had to
file for unemployment? No, I have.
So when you file for unemployment, you have to,
whatever state you're in, you have to sign up with the state
and then you have to check in every week or two.
So when you, when you send in your, I haven't worked in the
last two weeks, you know, where have you applied?

(48:40):
Have you refused any jobs that have been offered to you?
You know, that's all the shit you have to do just to stay on
unemployment, right? But you don't have to do that
shit when you're on a lot of these government assistance
programs. True.
And they need to implement that stuff to kick the lazy
motherfuckers off, and so the people who really need it can
stay on. Yeah.
Well, I, I think a lot of it is,is people being vindictive too,

(49:00):
right? It's Oh yeah.
There's a lot of that, too. Me, I'm gonna fuck them.
Yeah, there's a lot of that. Too, Why don't I take it?
Listen, I've been guilty of that, right?
I was on access for a lot longer, which is, you know,
Medicaid for people who aren't in Arizona.
But it's it's I was on that for a lot longer than I needed to
be, right? Because, you know, you do your
write offs and whatever it is. And so it's like as far as you
are this is concerned, I only make 20 grand a year.
I got a family of whatever so I can get access.

(49:22):
Why wouldn't I, right? They're fucking me.
I'd pay my D rights. Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, so. It's just what people do.
Yeah. The reality is, like, people who
understand that people like us can see that, and at least we
know we acknowledge it. So then we're not so as
resistant or so angry when it's like, oh shit, you know,
finally, you know, the the the free meal is up.

(49:44):
It was a good ride it. Was a good ride, yeah.
For people who refuse to see that, they're like, this is
bullshit. Yeah, it's like.
Is it though, you know? Yeah, yeah.
Were you getting more than you deserved anyway?
Maybe it's time to start, you know, paying the piper, guys.
You get used to a certain lifestyle, though, I think.
I think a lot of it is, you know, people want to keep as
much of their income as possible.
Why not, right? You tell somebody you make 80

(50:05):
grand a year, well, that's gross.
What do you actually make? Right?
They want to keep as much of that as possible.
And if they can, why wouldn't they?
And here, here's one thing aboutthe United States that I'm not
crazy about is I feel like we pay our fair share in taxes.
Other countries pay a lot more in taxes to be fair, right?
But. A lot.
You know, involuntarily. Yeah.

(50:26):
Well, but those social safety Nets, I think we get some of
them here, but a lot of them I and housing is a perfect
example, right? I think in order to get, you
know, low income housing or whatever it is, it's not an
incredibly easy process and morepeople get denied than I think
people realize. You know, Healthcare is another

(50:46):
one where it's yeah, yeah, you can, you can get Medicaid, but
the income threshold is kind of unreasonable, right?
Like it's basically, unless you're homeless or you work at
McDonald's, and even then McDonald's now just to stay
competitive in the market might be paying too much for you to
qualify for access. So it's like, technically these
things exist. And trust me, there are plenty
of people taking advantage of them.
But I wonder if people would be incentivized to take as much

(51:09):
advantage as they did if if we had more of those social safety
Nets. And if we've got to pay more in
taxes. It's it's a hard math problem,
right? Well, if you pay more in taxes
or you really keep more of your money, then, you know, if you
had to pay for everything out ofpocket, you know, groceries cost
an arm and a leg. Rent cost an arm and a leg.
Mortgages cost an arm and a leg.Do you remember when people used
to say your mortgage is is goingto be cheaper than your rent?
That's not the fucking case anymore.

(51:30):
Yeah, the rents are so out of like I we couldn't buy now.
Yeah, if we wanted to. It just would be ridiculous.
We'd have to pay out the wazoo. It's nuts.
Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't really make any sense.
But I mean, I mean, you're righton all those things, you know,
And it's, it's, it's like, well,as far as taxing, right, You
know, paying your fair share of taxes, like we get taxed.

(51:51):
But then there's also the consumption tax, which is what a
lot of countries have. We don't have a consumption tax
here where they're not charging the these these people based on
their income. They're charging them based on
what they use. So if you travel abroad and you
buy a Glencairn and you look at the receipt, there's a tax on
there. And it's not a sales tax, it's a
consumption tax and it replaces it.

(52:11):
So, you know, that's something we that way you're taxed for
what you want. Yeah.
You know, not what you make. And we, we can't, I don't think
we can survive with that becausewe're not made-up that way.
But a lot of other countries are, yeah.
If we were to change any of thatstuff, there'd have to be a lot
of infrastructural changes, a lot of infrastructure.
It's just, I don't know if it's realistic.
But to your point, like I was telling you, I'm into these

(52:33):
model kits, these Gundam model kits, right?
And they're all from Japan. We're about to pivot to Gundam
and Nerdism. There you go, do it.
Look, this is a perfect segue, right?
So, but they're from Japan. So when I'm buying them,
depending on the on the retailer, I got to pay a tariff
you. Go to Hobbylinks Japan.
You buy some. Hobbylink.
I love hobbylink, right? And, and it's not always a

(52:55):
direct tariff on the receipt, but you know, the price of the,
of the kit goes up because the distributor has to pay a tariff
or whatever it is. And at first I'm annoyed, but
also it's like, I could just notbuy the kit.
I don't need it, right? So it's like at that point it's
like, that's the, that's the price to pay, right?
So I can bitch and moan about itall I want, but at the end of
the day, it's like is not necessary.
And so those are the kinds of things that I think it's easier

(53:17):
to kind of swallow the idea of paying the extra price.
But anyway, we could talk about,you know, the, the no.
But you're 100% right. And that's one of the things
I've always said, if you want it, you don't care, right?
If it's just an ideal that pisses you off, now you care.
Yeah. Because, you know, we, we talked
about this for our our NSX of anNS Expo.
You know, we're trying to keep the cost down.
But if the cost goes up for thatspecific location, that's not

(53:39):
400 now it's 420 or 425. That's not going to stop anybody
from doing it. They're still going to buy it.
People are still going to buy tickets.
People are still buying Jordans.People are still buying.
If you want it, you'll pay extrafor it.
It's the same like we've been drinking this liquor, right?
This store has it. I'm used to paying $200 for it.
I'm not, but I'm just saying as as a point, but now I'm hanging

(54:00):
out with you. We're going to a party tonight.
This other store is the only store that has it and now it's
280. Oh my God, dude, that sucks.
But we, we, we want it really bad, so we're just going to pay
it. That's how it goes as you pull
out your wallet. Man fuck this.
I can't believe and you pay for it anyway.
Well, behind you, the mini rear wheel drive Kyoshi remote
control white NSX, right? It's yeah, it's so I was at AI

(54:22):
was at a car meet and I'm like, oh, cool, I have this cool NSX,
you know, is that an RC shop? And I go, I want that one.
So I'm standing in line and there's like 30 people behind
me, right? So I go to check out and they're
like $240 or whatever it was. I was like, fuck, I thought this
thing would be like $49.00, but I wanted it and I bought it

(54:42):
anyway. Yeah.
So that's one of those deals. It's it's the same case.
So your Gundam model kits. Yeah, let's talk about that.
Let's talk about Gundam and why.What got you into that?
We've had a few conversations about just anime and things in
general. Yeah.
And that's why you're here today, not to talk about
consumption tax and all that shit.
Yeah, talk about the fun stuff. I've always been into Gundam

(55:04):
since I've always been into anime, right?
And when I was a kid, you know, me and my brother would get on
Tsunami. We watched Gundam Wing, we
watched Erica 7. We.
Watched. Well, by this point, like 90% of
the people that are watching listen to this podcast have
already tuned out because of ourlast conversation.
Right, but the cool. Ones, this is the goal.
The cool ones are still here, yeah.
That's right. Yeah.
So I've always been into that stuff.
And, you know, mostly it was watching the anime and playing

(55:26):
the video games, right. Every once in awhile you get an
action figure for Christmas or something.
That's cool. But I don't know that I was into
the idea of building models until very, very recently.
But I do remember this one particular 1 and I don't know if
it's useful to say the specific name.
Who's going to know what it is? What's the new?
Somebody's going to know, right?Yeah.
It's the new Gundam. And man, that thing was sweet.
The, the design of it was rad. And I and I saw that they made a

(55:48):
model of it, right? And I was probably 1718 at the
time and I was like that one. If I get into this at all, I'm
doing that one. And obviously, you know, time
went on and I didn't do it, but I'm trying to remember exactly
what made me do. You finally do it again with
with all these. Oh, my God.
Yeah, Yeah. You almost get embarrassed,
like, oh, I play with these, youknow, plastic model kits.

(56:09):
These toys, Right? And everybody.
Oh, what the hell? They're not toys.
Yeah, they're not toys. They're models.
They're collectibles. They're models the way that I
was justified. As I say, your grandpa built
trains or he built Mustangs, whatever.
And that was cool, right? I've got a giant robot piloted
by a child soldier. You tell me what's cooler.
Yeah, absolutely. But I, I, I'd be lying to you if
I said I remember exactly why I finally decided to pull the
trigger and buy a kit. But I did.

(56:31):
And it's addictive. It's, it's relaxing, right?
It's, it's, it's challenging. And then by the end of it, you
get a cool looking thing. Here's The funny thing.
It's not an action figure. It really is.
It's a model. You can't play with them.
They fall apart. So you, you do this whole build.
Yeah, man. I mean, you put, you know, 20
hours into a kit or something like that and you slap it up on
the shelf and just stare at it. That's all you do.

(56:53):
So on the surface, I think what I think about it, it's like,
this is stupid. But at the same time, I don't
know. It's there's something
gratifying about it and being into the franchise in general
too. It's like I grew up watching
this thing. Now I've got it on my shelf.
I get to look at it every day. It is.
It's cool. I really enjoy it.
It's addictive. That's a problem.
Well, it's like the Robotech stuff I have over there, right?
I mean, I have these two up here, you know, the Huck G

(57:15):
Robotech, Macross stuff. And it's like, why?
Their impulse purchases are cool.
Yeah. You know, Zeke, my grand, the
oldest of the grandkids, comes in, and he points at that stuff.
And he's like, this is really cool.
And you mean, you know, you havesmall kids and you know what
that really means? It's just like, I wish you could
take this out and play with it. Yep.
The other day, he's looking at one of my NSXS over here.

(57:36):
He goes. Man, I wish you would take that
out that way it would be the same as the other ones.
And like, not 30 seconds after that he's out there, like just
launching these things off the loft.
Yeah, Yeah. No, it's staying.
Scaring the hell out of you. Yeah.
Yeah, my youngest is, he's 2 andhe's fascinated by these things
and he knows the word Gundam. Gundam, and he'll grab them.
Terrifying when this mother do you?

(57:58):
Have a case like that glass one over there.
I need to get an enclosed case what I've got now to keep him
away from airtight. By the way is you get the all
that shit in there collects dust.
Which in, out here the dust is bad, but you know, now I've got,
you know, floating shelf. So it's high up where he can't
get it. So, but yeah, I mean, for a
while he was terrifying. But just last night, my, my
oldest, she's 5. She's going to be 6 soon.
She just built her first one and, and she loved it.

(58:21):
Didn't need any of my help, you know, we had done one together
where I mostly did it and she's watching.
But now she's ready to do her own.
And she did it all by herself and she's thrilled about it.
But it's a small, they call themSDS or it's a smaller one.
They're a little more stout, right?
So she's running around the house with it, playing with it
and posing it and all this stuff.
And I'm like, thank God it's notone of mine, right?
But I mean it, it holds up well.But she was stoked about it.

(58:42):
So I'm, I'm, I'm excited that mykids are starting to take
interest in what I'm, I take interest in, right.
And it, you know, it should be, it should be both ways, or I
take interest in what they're, they're interested in as they
get older. I will.
But yeah, it's, it's cool kind of sharing what I, you know, got
into growing up. And so my poor kids are going to
be nerds, you know? But but it, yeah, looking over
there, right, you know, Zeke's like, oh, especially the, the

(59:03):
brown one, the VF1D, the the theorange and and tan one over
there. I guess I wanna play with that.
It's like that thing has like 200 parts points of
articulation. There's no way I think it'll be
busted in two seconds. Yeah, exactly.
No shot. Now is that a model or you
bought it prebuilt? No, those aren't models.
Those are actually all three of those.

(59:24):
I can change them into all threemodes, OK.
In Robotech, do they call that Gerwalk mode or is that just for
Max? It is Gerwalk that is the
weirdest looking thing. But the more I look at and the
more I'm getting into it, I actually thought about you.
Bandai just announced a couple more Valkyrie kits, the VF1
Valkyrie, and I'm getting that for Jay for Christmas as a model
kit. You got to put the time.
Well, there's a lot of stuff in here that were gifts from other

(59:46):
people. So, you know, if you can afford
it, you hook it up and we'll, we'll put it over there on the
case. Oh, yeah.
But yeah, all of those except for the one in the back corner
that a friend of mine bought forme.
He found it at like some sort ofa thrift shop or whatever.
Yeah, Yeah. And he brought it and he brought
it over. Did you get a chance to get into
the Mac Cross? I haven't watched any of it yet

(01:00:06):
so I'm finishing up a couple Gundam series.
We're talking about backlog 3 or4 months ago.
It's on the list. That means it's not going to
happen, which is cool. I get it.
It took me a couple months for you to for me to finally watch
the Transformers thing that you told me about and I've already
forgotten I got to watch it again.
I've got, I've got what, two more Gundam series in my
backlog? And then Macross is up next,
which I think I'm going to startwith Macross versus Robotech,

(01:00:27):
unless you think something different.
It's up to you, man. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, there. I haven't gone through the
original Macross. I'm a Robotech kid.
That's what we had here in the United States when I was like
little right And you know, you know, I'm across I guess for the
for the critics wasn't introduced to us for years just

(01:00:47):
because it was so hard to get right And you know, Harmony Gold
not to go down that rabbit hole,but the people on the rights to
robot what? A crazy story.
You know, they're very, they're very litigious.
I've been there. I've been to their studios on
Sunset Blvd. in California. They invited me there and I got
a tour of it and it was really cool.
But, and now I don't want to sayI'm friends with them, but I do
have their numbers in my phone. And I have at times texted their

(01:01:11):
creative director, Tommy Yoon, to be like, hey, man, someone's
making illegal copy of my car. Yeah.
And he's blowing them off the face of the earth, pretty much.
Really. Yeah.
So your car was it, was it efficiently officially licensed
that literally on the NSX? No, that's, that's a custom
design. So you don't have to officially
license a custom design. You know, that was that was me
that designed it. But, you know, as a super fan,

(01:01:33):
you know, it kind of carried on.It was an Anime Expo in 2018.
And then Tommy Union, there's a Robotech always has a Robotech
panel. So then Tommy came over and I
got a picture of him sitting in the car.
In fact, I think it's on a poster somewhere or picture
somewhere in here. But he was sitting in the car.
And then when I went to the panel, they're like, yeah,
somebody here has a car. They, you know, did in our
delivery. And I kind of went like this in

(01:01:54):
the background and I just becamekind of friendly with them.
And so it's not officially licensed.
In fact, it The funny thing is they don't like me when they
post it because they still post it, which annoys a lot of people
when I get it. But when they post it on on
Twitter or X, you know, they always say VF one.
They refuse to say VF1S. OK, I.

(01:02:15):
Don't know if that's for licensing purposes, but it is
AVF 1 SNSX, right? Which is my license plate, you
know, but they just, they refuseto call it AVF 1S.
So, so obviously I know more, a lot more about Gundam than I do
about Macross Robotech. So VF1 is the Valkyrie, right?
What is the S? A skull leader.
OK. And that's just a particular OK

(01:02:37):
Skull squadron, the Valkyrie, that's a mass produced unit.
Yep. Oh, OK.
It's just like our, you know, military jets here.
Yeah, you know, it's all the alltheir jets are all Valkyries or
Veritex in the Robotech world. Just like we had the F-14
Tomcats and everybody flew in F-14 everybody.
I guess. 15. Do they have like the one off?

(01:02:57):
So in Gundam you have the mass produced units like the Zaku and
the Goof and that, but then you have the Gundam, which is only
one, you have multiple Gundam's,right?
But that particular model, there's only one, right?
It's it's, it's, it's equivalentto like a nuke, right?
You send that in. That's when you got to get shit
done. Yeah.
Do they have that kind of thing?In I would say no.
What they have is like the that one that's in Gerwalk mode is

(01:03:18):
AVF 1D which is actually a 2 seater.
It's extra extra space on the inside.
So the VF1 AVF 1D and the VF1SI want to say this in AVF 1J
right? So the white and red one is AVF
1J and their heads are different.
So their lasers are different, but they all get equipped with
the same payload or armament. They all can have this super

(01:03:42):
with the big old jets on them sothey can fly into space.
You'll see when you start watching it, like all of them
are capable of that. There are some that have
satellites on them and maybe they're special, but there's not
like a we got to send the heavy hitter out there.
What they do is they just equip them with their with their their
their. This is very nerdy guys.
I'm sorry, but I'm not. Sorry.

(01:04:05):
They have their their super strike mode is what it is.
OK, so they have super strike armor and so technically all of
them could be equipped with thatand it's just one wearing like a
shit ton of armor. OK, but it's the same thing.
They have something. Similar in Gundam, but again,
it's not mass produced stuff, right?
You get a full armored Zeta, double Zeta, full armor, right?
So OK, yeah, I'm interested to see the parallels, man.

(01:04:26):
I'm excited to watch it. And they just have what they do
is and I don't know how how, howit is in in Gundam, but I'm
assuming there's different MEC when you say you're in the Army,
right? So there's different MEC.
It's not just the the Gundam wings or the Gundam whatevers,
right? So they have like tanks and they
have like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the same.

(01:04:47):
And they're all being piloted bypeople just do different things.
Yeah, right, like in the original Gundam you had the gun
tank, gun cannon GM and those are those are those mass
produced units like I was talking about and that, you
know, let's they make them in the 10s of thousands or whatever
it is. And the Gundam is the the one
that's, you know, can wipe them all out.
But even then, they have specialized versions of certain
units, right? Char is the main villain of the
original Gundam. He's got a specialized Zaku that

(01:05:09):
can compete with the Gundam, right?
So it's, yeah, it sounds like insome ways it's similar.
In the Robotech universe or the macro, I would just say macros,
not Robotech, period. OK.
But in the macros universe, because there's so many
different ones, right? I'm sure in one of the
iterations of Macross there's probably the Super whatever
fighter or whatever. Is there one whole continuity

(01:05:30):
throughout the whole series or is it just are they all?
What's the word siloed? I'm thinking of a SO Macross,
yeah. They're they're broken up.
It's almost like DC Comics. Oh, OK.
Everybody's version of Batman, everybody's version of Superman,
everybody's mini story that doesn't have anything to do with
the next artist or whoever's mini story.
And it's because remember watching that the history of of

(01:05:52):
Robotech across, it's the same deal.
The people on the back end of the studios own the different
rights. Different artists go to work for
different houses because they weren't paid or they want to get
paid more. And there's a company called Big
W that's always been fighting with Harmony Gold and so, but
what makes Robotech great is they just took three different

(01:06:12):
animes and they smashed them alltogether, which.
Is nuts they were able to do. That and they added extra
episodes to the first generationin order to meet the
requirements of American television back when they were
doing it, which isn't even a requirement today.
Yeah, yeah, the syndication rules and that kind of thing it.
Was the syndication rules. Yeah, you'd sent me that video
and I watched it and a lot of itwent over my head.
I feel like what I need to do isI need to watch the series now

(01:06:34):
and then go back and watch it again so I get a full
appreciation of what's going on,what Transformers gotten.
There were toy licensing deals and that it was what a story for
that. Yeah, because when you're a kid,
none of that matters, right? Right.
You want to watch the show? Watch the cartoon, play with the
toy. Yep.
And when you're an adult, you realize it was never about you
as a kid. It was all about selling toys.

(01:06:55):
That fucks me up man Cracks. Me up too.
Everything. Everything you've ever.
It was never about the TV show. Yeah, it was always about
selling the toys. Well, you learned that with
Disney, too. Do you see The Mandalorian?
Yeah, you get Grogu, little BabyYoda, right?
People called him and you find out that that was it was purely
A merchandising opportunity, right?
They didn't write him because itmade the story better.

(01:07:16):
They didn't put him in there because it was purely like, oh,
we're going to sell toys of this.
I'm sure shit they did, right. It's.
Yeah, you just blew a lot of people's brains.
I didn't know that, but I haven't looked into it.
But it makes 100. It makes perfect sense.
But that's that's a lot of stuff, Pokémon, right?
Pokémon, the video game came first and they made the anime
after it. What do they start doing?
Releasing toys and plushies and every day increase video game
salesman. All this stuff that we grew up

(01:07:37):
with, this kids that, you know, as weird as it sounds to me, I
feel like in a lot of ways it shaped me as a person, right?
Just, you know, anyway to find out that it's all for a
merchandising opportunity for a multi billion dollar
corporation. It is kind of like.
I was used. That's the thing I was.
Used for me, I grew up in the transformer GI Joe era and I

(01:07:59):
didn't, I always assumed. I mean GI Joe to me was always
just a either a separate episodeor a continuation of a few
episodes. Yeah, but then when you start
looking at the history of the GIJoe cartoons, all it was was a
bunch of mini movies that were broken up into episodes.
I didn't know that. Yeah.
Yeah. Again, with anime, it seems to

(01:08:19):
be the opposite, right? You have an anime that gets
released 50 episodes or whateverit is, and then they make movies
afterwards or to condense it, which I imagine the ideas of
people who want to get into something that's years old, they
don't want to, you know, start from the beginning.
You know, they you've got jobs, right?
I'd rather sit for six hours, watch all three movies and get
it condensed down right. So yeah, it's.

(01:08:40):
What's your favorite anime that you're that you that you're into
now or just overall? Because my answer's going to be
different because I don't reallywatch it anymore and I don't
have anything against it. I just don't have time.
And the stuff I find that when Ilike, there's one called Arcane,
which I heard is great. And I don't even know if you can
really call it anime because it looks.

(01:09:00):
Is that the League of Legends? Thing I have no idea.
Maybe, maybe I don't know because I never was in the
League of Legends, but I think one of the big ones is has
something to do with League of Legends.
Yeah, I know Arcane is. There's a there's a League of
Legends. People say it's all Arcane.
I've heard the same thing. I haven't watched it because
similarly I'm not really into League of Legends, but as far as
anime goes, the Full Metal Alchemist is fantastic.

(01:09:23):
Everybody knows that one. There's another one called
Steinsgate. You ever seen Steinsgate?
No, I don't think so. That's got to be the best, the
best portrayal of time travel I've ever seen in like media in
general. I'd highly recommend.
It's a slow burn. I don't know if you like that
kind of stuff, but man, the payoff at the end is fantastic.
That's a really good one. Right now I've actually kind of
taken a little break from anime,my girlfriend's into reality TV.

(01:09:45):
I'm watching, we've been watching Jersey Shore.
I'll tell you what, it's fascinating to watch these
people's lives fall apart. Get out of my studio.
Oh man, have you ever seen any of that stuff?
Unfortunately, yeah, because my wife loves it.
What is it about women into reality?
I don't know. They say they like the drama,
but I think it, you know, controversially, I think it kind
of starts shaping them a little bit because.

(01:10:06):
I can see that. Yeah, they want the lip jobs,
they want the BBLS, they want this, they want that.
And that's all these because shewatches.
Not necessarily Jersey Shore, because it's a little older one,
but like, you know, the 90 Day Fiance, the Love Island, the
Real Housewives that fill in theblank.
Yeah, and you know, the difference of and I, because
she's like, you like him because, you know, I was like,

(01:10:26):
well, that's what you watch. So I'm I, I always pay attention
to everything that's going around me.
You know, that doesn't mean I like it.
And I'm not sitting there eatingpopcorn watching it.
I might be in the kitchen or I might be in the bedroom doing
something else on my phone. But it's such toxic television.
The Real Housewives, I mean, I'drather they watch the
Kardashians, which I can't standeither.

(01:10:47):
But I have nothing against the Kardashians.
That type of drama. That's just, it's rich people
having rich people problems, right?
But I can see how some of those problems are relatable.
Yeah, but when you have a bunch of well paid, cuz people get
paid to do these shows and they're just sitting there
arguing and bitching. Bill Burr has an excellent like
a small comedy scale about that.You know, he's talking about the

(01:11:08):
WNBA and he he brings in what sells tickets or what's what
ratings. He talks about the Real
Housewives. And he's right.
All they do is they get paid to sit there and break each other
down about what they look like or what they don't have or how
shitty their husbands are. But to me, that's toxic
television, at least with these Love Islands and these 90 Day
Fiance's and these Love is Blinds.

(01:11:29):
You're watching people meet and fall in love, you know, and it's
like, that's the whole Princess meets the Prince story.
Yeah, so I get, I guess I understand that it's still
annoying to me, but it's a different type of annoying.
I think that kind of stuff, it does it, it loses meaning after
a while because, OK, Love Islandis a perfect example.

(01:11:49):
Or it's a dating show where these people are getting on.
They're supposed to meet the love of that.
And they're not just people. There are these very young
chiseled men and these eight to 10, eight out of 10 to 10 out of
10 women. Which will sidebar you look at
these people long enough and yourealize they're not as
attractive as they see. Funny you say that because

(01:12:11):
that's the initial hit. It's the initial hit because
we've all been places right where you see someone, you're
like, Oh my God. And after a while you're like,
Oh yeah, face versus a slow. Burn this thing.
Like your eyes, she's kind of cute, you know, After a while,
it's like. Wow, how much better is that
getting another personality? Well, to that point, and this is
what I was going to say, is these people are narcissists.
Let's call a spade a spade. Right.

(01:12:32):
And I think what happens is, right, Even if they find love
shitting on last. Yeah, right.
So. So I'm watching this and
watching and you get invested intheir love story and all this
stuff. It's like, what's the point?
Halfway through the season? I know, right?
Like, oh, they're going to walk off the island together.
Cool. They're going to last for two
months on the outside and then break up.
And it kind of loses its mystique, right?

(01:12:53):
Or Sarah's going to end up hooking up with Joey on the
night where she was supposed to hang out with David.
Yeah, you know, And then, you know, they're gonna.
You have all those breakups and it's like, Oh my God.
And then joeys mad at Sarah. Y'all just met 2 days ago.
What do you That's what's funny to me.
These people fall in love so quickly start throwing out the L
word. It's like, man on the outside,
you would have never. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(01:13:14):
So. It's the summer fling.
It's the summer camp fling effect.
Yeah, yeah, and you almost have to suspend your disbelief to get
through the rest of the show. We've been talking about this
for 5 or 6 minutes. I think it's hilarious.
This is going to be the clip. This is going to be the viral
clip that's going to take this podcast to the next level.
Talking shit about reality. TV talking shit about reality
TV. Yeah, yeah.
But it is, it's it's fascinatingsometimes.
So. But I will admit now I'm kind of

(01:13:37):
it's, it's good. I really do.
I, I enjoy it. I don't know what it is about
it. Maybe I enjoy watching people's
lives fall apart. But once we're done with this,
which I'm, I'm kind of, you know, antsy about it, we got to,
we got to watch Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans, which I think
you might enjoy. It's much more, you know, kind
of grounded and gritty and realistic and I don't know.
So. So anyway, once I finish that

(01:13:58):
stuff. I can't imagine how across like
in any of them. I just have yet to start any of
them. Yeah, yeah, they're slow and,
and a lot of them have similar themes.
I feel like if you've seen one, you've seen a lot of them,
right? They have, you know, minor
nuances and that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, it's
about child soldiers fighting war.
War is bad. What are the ramifications of
war? You know what I mean?
But you know, the different settings and the nuances of the

(01:14:20):
characters keep it interesting. I do.
I think it's a great franchise and there's hardly a bad one.
Do you know if there's Gundam parallels to what's been going
on in the real world when they're making them?
And I asked that because, you know, one of my returning guests
on here, Nick Kingsley, was telling us, and a lot of people
knew this, I didn't, But about the beginnings of Godzilla.

(01:14:42):
He was weirdly very well educated on the beginnings of
Godzilla. And do you know what that is?
Yeah, Yeah. So Godzilla.
Like the monster verse and all that stuff and.
Godzilla. No.
I mean, I know you know what Godzilla is, but the origin of
Godzilla came out of the atomic bombs.
That makes sense. It does, right?
But it's like, and so Japan was forbidden to necessarily talk or

(01:15:05):
write about that stuff. So they started creating these
stories, and that's why Godzilla.
And so I wonder if there's some sort of parallels of what's
going on in the world. Going on right now.
Because because, you know, maybenot right now, but maybe
originally because the the Japanese culture from what we've
learned, like so tell stories. About their trauma through
trauma. What's what's interesting about

(01:15:25):
that is, you know, did you ever play Final Fantasy when you were
younger? I didn't massive trope in I.
Don't know, obviously know what it is.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Final Final Fantasy 700 or
something right now. See.
Yeah, I think they just finishedsix.
Yeah, 16 was the last one they released.
Which is great. That's crazy.
But what's interesting about that is it it kind of introduced
or at least popularized this trope of killing God, right?

(01:15:47):
That's the idea is you start offas this humble farm boy and then
you move throughout the story and by the end of it, you're
killing God and people make jokes about it.
Now I was watching this video. I'll have to try and find it and
send it to you. You might find this interesting,
but it said something about and especially Final Fantasy 7,
which is the most popular one inthe franchise, right?
The, the corporation that you'refighting against, right, is, is

(01:16:09):
kind of environmentally unfriendly.
They're destroying the earth. And then by the end you're,
you're killing God, who you started, you know, working for
this, this company. And anyway, the allegory that I
guess it was trying to get across is, is number 1, you
know, saving the environment from corporate greed.
But #2 the fact that this corporation created this monster

(01:16:30):
that ended up becoming God, I guess it's an allegory for these
massive corporations. Kind of what's the word, you
know, subjugating people's freedom in Japan, you know, the
work life balance and that kind of thing.
The work culture over there is like horrific, right?
And that's their version of kindof letting out their, their
anger. And so, yeah, I, I think with
Gundam in particular, actually there's, there's one of them

(01:16:52):
called Gundam Double O. And the main character is, is
supposed to be Middle Eastern, right?
And so a lot of it was about, you know, kind of the war in the
Middle East and that kind of thing.
And and what children in a war-torn country end up turning
out like when they're older, right?
So I think there are some some parallels.
And just like you said, Japanesemedia tends to adapt these

(01:17:13):
stories based on whatever horrific shit they've got in
opposition to at the time, right.
Yeah, there's definitely parallels as far as what's going
on right this second. Probably who?
Knows. Well, no.
OK, right. This second, maybe not, but I
mean, it wasn't long ago that wewere in the Middle East, right?
You know, fighting for barrels of oil or whatever the hell it
was. I think what it ends up being is

(01:17:34):
you get these corporations, you get these countries that are
rich. And of course, the, the the
congressmen and the the presidents and the dictators,
whatever it is running these countries who are rich, the
kings, right? Where the hell is your gun at?
I know you're not in war, right,But you're sending out innocent
people to go and die. Yeah.
To meet your your financial needs or whatever it is.
Gundam deals with a lot of that stuff, right?

(01:17:55):
So yeah, I think there there's some parallels.
We're going to talk a little bitabout cars here.
Yeah, after. So right now I'm going to pour
you Brook Lottic, the classic Lottie.
And this is an unpeated single malt.
Scotch correct? This is my first time with
Scotch. No kidding.
Pop my cherry over here. This is a well, this is a good
one to break in on. There's a lot of people start

(01:18:19):
off with McAllen or Glenfiddich,OK, because they're very medium
or light, depending on who you are.
Scotches. And they're easy to drink.
This one tastes PD, but it's not.
But I watched a documentary on Brook Lotic, and that's how I
learned about this. Yeah.
Yeah. And they have a bunch of them,

(01:18:39):
but Brook Lotic, the classic Lottie is I guess, one of my
favorite scotches to go to. And I don't I've what I found is
I got started on Scotch and I don't hardly ever drink it
anymore. Now it's just like bourbon and
and and tequila. Yeah, is what I drink 90% of the
time. Got a oh?
What's your favorite bourbon? Oh, I I don't know what my
favorite bourbon is. There's several I like.

(01:19:01):
There's the the ones that I could daily, probably not
healthy, but there's things thatyou could daily, which are also
things you can mix in and there's things that you could
just handle every once in a while.
You know, I have, you know, I like, I like some like like
Eagle rear is good and it's not expensive.

(01:19:24):
I've heard about it, I haven't tried it yet.
We got that downstairs, you know, it's like 40 bucks a
bottle, whatever, you know, the,EH, Taylors are good.
Obviously. We talked about that downstairs.
I like most losers, you know, I like Blanton's.
I like Blanton's gold a lot. Yeah.
I wouldn't daily it because it'shard to get and it's kind of

(01:19:45):
expensive when you get it. Doesn't make it overly special.
Do you tend to like the higher proof stuff or?
I kind of like more of the yeah,I got, I got friends who just
they love the barrel string stuff.
I don't really, but I find that I have a kind of a bad reaction
to it, you know, with the, the, the Asian glow or flush, a lot

(01:20:07):
of that stuff. What is that you're a chemist
and you don't know about? Oh come on, we're going to have
to open up this whole different.Different door here.
Flush. The hell is flush here?
Yeah. Well, well, for a lot it's, it's
actually an Ald H2 deficiency, which is an enzyme that breaks
down alcohol and other things. So when you don't have that,
obviously as your body turns alcohol into sugar.

(01:20:30):
And that's why if I have a sugary drink, that's the real
reason why I stopped drinking sugary alcohols.
My body can't handle it because it's trying to process the sugar
and the alcohol at the same time.
And it becomes a, a bottleneck. And I start turning red
sometimes and I start, you know,it can affect your breathing
depending on what it is. Some beers do that, but not
nearly as much. Some wines do that, but not

(01:20:51):
nearly as much. What happens is I get really
tired and I'll swell up and likenothing we've drank today has
caused this for me. Right?
Yeah. But I'll swell up sometimes.
But what happens is if I get tired, I there's almost nothing
I can do to stay awake. Wow.
It's crazy. That's why I tell people I said
I can't sit and drink so we can go to a club.

(01:21:14):
Yeah. And if we get a table, that's
cool, but the quality of alcoholyou're going to get when you
have a table is shit unless you're super rich.
That I have. If I'm if I'm up and moving
around, that effect isn't going to hit me nearly as much as if
I'm sitting there. I'm likely to nod off even after
one or two drinks and people will think I'm drunk, but I'm

(01:21:35):
not. Interesting.
But once I'm through that cycle,I'm good to go.
Yeah, I can run a marathon. I get that way with pot.
I'm sure it's not the same the same mechanism, but it First
off, people in the kusativa thatdoesn't mean that's the shape of
the plant, but even if it's a a energetic oh, you said or a
sleepy weed yeah, what do you think is?
Pop, I'm like really like Coca-Cola make you tired.

(01:21:58):
That's that's weird, but no. Judgement.
No pot. You know, it's it's it doesn't
matter what kind of pot it is, right?
They tell you it's it's oh, thisis an energetic strain.
This is a sleepy strain. This is whatever.
If I sit down and just do nothing, I'm knocked out.
But if I'm out doing something, it almost like improves the
experience. Like I like to hike high, right?
That works great. Sounds safe.

(01:22:18):
Problems it is. You gotta not handle your weed.
No, But yeah, I never experienced that with alcohol.
I didn't even know that was a thing.
Well, my friend Johnny, who was just in studio is a speed hiker,
OK, He drives his NSX everywhere.
You'll have to check that episode out.
I. Thought you were about to say he
drives his NSX hiking with like in the rocks.
No, he takes it camping. Like he literally camps out of

(01:22:41):
his car. Stocks his pension.
Yeah, and he's got a van, he's got a truck.
But he just prefers, you know, and he and he pitches the tent
next to his car, you know, within 100 feet.
But he gets up and he'll hike 1015 miles to get back in his
car and go to his next destination.
And he's always high. I found so many potheads getting

(01:23:01):
into hiking and that kind of thing by the people into
psychedelics. Man, you haven't lived till
you've gone and seen Mount Mingus on mushrooms.
Guess I got a lot of living to do.
Huh. You sure do.
I'll help you live it too. You put me on the whiskey, I'll
put you on the drugs. All right, deal.
So what do you think of the Brook Lottie?
Classic Lottie. This is good.

(01:23:21):
I don't. I think I like it less than the
second one that we tried. What's the something 18?
So that's the Shibui 18. Shibui 18, that's been my
favorite so far, but I did I do notice what you're talking
about. It doesn't smell peaty at all
when you taste it because it gotthat kind of smoky thing going.
On yeah. Which is funny because it's not
peated. It's not quite smoke though, is
it? What if you had to describe peat

(01:23:45):
taste to somebody who'd never, who has no frame of reference
for what that is? How would you describe it?
I would say it's kind of like rye without the after taste.
OK, try again. I don't think that's.
That's quite it. All right, Well, I'm not the
chemistry you are and you're a rye forward guy, but I would, I

(01:24:06):
don't know if I could describe the taste.
I mean, most people say it tastes like a campfire, but
that's the heavily peated stuff.Again, this isn't peated right,
but it reminds you a little bit of like the lagovoolin that I
have downstairs and the more peated stuff like the the first
one was peated but slightly right.
Yeah, this tastes similar. It tastes similar without the
peat because you know, they theytake it and they burn it and

(01:24:29):
then then in the barrel and thenthat's how it gets this flavor.
So I would guess I would, I would say it tastes like the
smell of maybe burning damp peatMoss in the middle of Scotland,
which I've never done or been to.
I was. Gonna say that sounds
appetizing. Yeah, how would you describe it?
I think that's why I was going to ape whatever you said,

(01:24:50):
because you want to say Smokey. At least I do.
I want to say, but it's not. It's not Smokey and burnt
doesn't quite say it either. It's in, in my head I'm thinking
of like, I mean, a campfire was perfect, right?
Like kind of a a log after the fire's out.
It tries to smoke cheese and it tastes like cigarettes.
I don't know what that was aboutman, but no I I like it.

(01:25:11):
The image in my head is the log after the fire goes out right?
That black craggly? Yeah, that's what also pops up
in my head. But yeah, it's it's a it's
somehow a unique flavor while still familiar.
How pretentious does that sound?But I like it.
So you would take a sliver of that, and then there's always
like a little bit of unburnt wood underneath because it forms

(01:25:32):
that crust. Yeah.
And you just drop it in there like you would an ice cube.
There you go. And then take it out and that's
what you have left. Maybe I'd do that with some 4
roses Pete some 4 rows, but juststick and burnt wood in it.
Yeah, you like the Four Roses? What is your go to bourbon?
I think 4 roses the I don't tendto like lower proof whiskey and

(01:25:53):
it's it's not about anything other than like the mouthfeel,
right? It's you try this 80 proof stuff
and it it feels like water, right?
It's not quite rich enough, but 4 roses has AI think it's 9095
proof. Sometimes it's like the single
batch stuff. It's probably 40 bucks a bottle
similar to what you and it's it's really easy to drink.
It's nice. It's smooth on the rye side.

(01:26:13):
Like I said, Whistle pig. I've really been enjoying
Whistle. Pig, I have some incredibly high
proof bourbon in the closet there.
I can rinse out your cup. Yeah.
So what we'll do is let's talk Hondas really quick.
Yeah, one of the first conversations we had, cuz you
saw the NSX in the garage and westarted talking about cars and
stuff, is back in the day used to kind of tinker with shit,

(01:26:34):
right? Yeah.
Tell us a little bit about that because I know neither one.
I know you're not really up on whatever's going on today.
Right, Yeah, old stuff. No.
So my dad was always a car guy and he worked on Volkswagens
actually. Poor guy.
Poor guy. Yeah, he'd say the same thing.
Yeah, no. So anyway, yeah, as I was, as I
was coming up, you would kind ofget these old shit box Civics,
right? These old like these B&D series

(01:26:55):
engines. Oh, I'm sorry.
Yeah, bad Civics. They were just busted, right?
And I never learned anything about body work or interior work
or anything like that. But he would just really what it
was. He would just teach me how to
refresh an engine, right? And so as I got older and
stupider, right, I think really what got me into cars before my
dad ever rather was like, what am I trying to say?

(01:27:15):
My dad was showing me cars, but it didn't really land that much
for me till I saw Fast and Furious.
Then I was like, oh, I like that.
That's cool, right? Yeah.
Yeah. And you remember those, those EG
coops at the very, very beginning, right when they're
they're robbing the truck? They got 3 onto the spoon.
Engines, Yeah, yeah, I'm very familiar with that.

(01:27:37):
Yeah, those things were cool as hell to me.
And so anyway, I just, I startedtinkering with like B&B and D
series engines. And then when I was 1516,
something like that, I got interested in preludes and I
didn't have any for myself. And my buddy had one and it was
in, you know, the age 22 that they had those preludes.

(01:27:58):
And we were, you know, messing with it, trying to see if we can
get any. And we couldn't get any more
umph out of it. And we were stupid kids.
We didn't really know what we were doing.
But his dad said that, hey, I'llpay for a, a turbo kit, but you
guys got to install it and we did.
And it was fun as hell. We didn't do any other mods
right. No suspension, no tires, no, no
LSD, no something like that. And it drove like shit, but it

(01:28:20):
sounded cool. And once you got hooked up, it
was fast, right? And so I think that was the
extent of me actually working onthem, working on them.
But since then, I've always justbeen interested in them, right?
Honda and BMW, I think those arekind of the two things that I'm
really kind of well versed on. What do you like about the BMWs?
Because their design language has changed quite a bit over the
years. Well, the new ones, Jesus, you
know the the the G series, I know these are not really

(01:28:42):
called, but you know, the G generation 3 Series I think has
kind of lost me a little bit. Have you seen the renders for
the new new generation? I don't know.
Is it another rodent is? It another rodent?
No, it's worse. It just it looks like an old man
car but somehow uglier. It's just I don't like them, but
I think what I like. An old man car.

(01:29:03):
What's an old man car? Yeah, give me your top 3 old men
cars. Top 3 old man cars.
And then where are you drawing the line for old man?
That's fair. OK, The the Ford, what the hell
is it called? Is big.
It was. It's almost like the Ford's
answer to the to the Monte Carlo.
What is that called back in likethe I can't think 80s anyway.

(01:29:23):
Any old Ford. Let's go.
Yeah, I was gonna say any Ford. Yeah, any old.
Ford. Any old Ford?
Yeah. I think about like Thunderbird,
the older AM GS wasn't a Thunderbird.
I'm gonna feel stupid trying to remember this thing, but no, I I
think the old the old Mercedes. You know E classes, right?
Anything before the S 212 E series, I think kind of gives me
old man vibes and you know, BMWIthink like the the old seven

(01:29:47):
series, like those are I don't know they they they all they're
all. Lincolns.
The big Lincolns. The mobster Lincolns.
You said top three. I think there's stuff that beats
the Lincoln, but no, I mean, yeah, I think the mobster
Lincolns, the old like Chevy, the Chevelles and that kind of
thing. Yeah, they feel old, right?
But no, I I think what what I like about BMW is obviously

(01:30:08):
they're engineering, right. But I think what that really
means is they just know how to make an engine smooth, fast, and
no one wants to admit it, but reliable.
Here's what I've learned about reliability when people.
Are laughing at you, right? Now, no, listen, listen, I'm,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna put you on to something.
This is a hot take, but I promise it's true.
When people talk about reliability, I think what

(01:30:28):
they're talking about is how much abuse can it stand up to
before it breaks. You think about a Toyota.
What do people always brag about?
My Toyota hit 500,000 miles and all I had to do was change the
oil. I'm glad that your Toyota could
handle that much abuse, but regardless of the manufacturer,
that's not how you're supposed to treat a car.
And if you look at like rates offailure for Porsches and that

(01:30:49):
kind of thing, well maintained Porsches don't really break
down, right? The old first Gen. it's their
first Gen. Second Gen.
Cayennes, right? They have a really good rate of
reliability. Look at the high miles.
But you just got to keep up on the maintenance and the
maintenance is expensive. BMW, same way.
Mercedes, same. These are taxis in Germany, man.
They're putting on miles. Like, you know what I mean?
Yeah. And that's what I'm saying is,

(01:31:10):
and I think when you're talking about BMW, they everybody has
stinkers, right? Toyota has stinkers, everybody
has stinkers in their line up. But for the most part, BMW
engines are really well engineered.
They're really intelligently engineered as far as, you know,
service and that kind of thing go.
Not all the time, but you know, for the most part.
And if you keep up on the maintenance man, they run
forever. I think the problem with BMW has
always been electronics. Yeah, that's fair.

(01:31:34):
Yeah, that's the thing that thatis the Achilles heel.
I think of the brand. Yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't
know that much, but I don't think I've ever heard of like
BMW's having bad motors and shitlike that.
It's. Just they have bad auxiliaries,
yeah. Their water pumps, always.
Break, Yeah, yeah, on the high performance engines that you
hear about these rod bearing issues, but again, it's how much

(01:31:56):
you taking care of the car, how hard are you driving it?
A big issue is people will get in a get in their, you know, M3.
I think E36 had less of an issue.
E46 E 90 F 80, right. They get in these these high
performance engines. They don't let them warm up
right. They immediately pull out of the
drive and start ripping on them.I got a BMW.
I'm going to go fast and they throw a rod bearing and say this

(01:32:16):
engines shit. It's like.
Yeah, you. Know what I mean?
So like I said, I I've come to the conclusion that reliability,
when people talk about it colloquially is, is a matter of
how much abuse can it stand up to?
Don't abuse your fucking car. It's probably going to last a
while, right? It's not like Nissan, Nissan,
regardless how you treat, especially the newer ones,
right? Regardless how you treat it,
that transmission is going to fail at 50,000 miles.

(01:32:38):
It's just how it is, right? Yeah, I don't think these German
cars are that way. And then we'll end on this.
I mean, did you hear about the the Toyota Camry recall?
No, like a recent one. Yeah, they sent a recall out for
the people with the 90s Camrys because they figured it's time
to trade him in for a new car. Yeah, No shit.
No, no. Yeah, that's a longevity.

(01:32:58):
Joke have you have you heard about that Tundra?
Toyota's gotten their their museum now.
Some guy took his his Tundra to like 1,000,000 miles and Toyota
bought it back from him. Oh, no kidding.
Yeah, no, that's cool. Yeah, it's like a flex for them.
I wonder if he did anything morethan just changing the oil.
Probably. Hopefully.
I mean, yeah, you got to change out everything at that point,
right? About 250, three, 100,000 miles,

(01:33:19):
I think with most vehicles, unless it's a diesel, right?
Everything gets changed out. Sean O'bannon, Thanks.
For having me dude. Absolutely.
Yeah, let's go drink some high proof bourbon it.
Works for me all right, get fucked up off camera.
Well, another month, another closing.
If you like what you heard todayor like what you watched today,

(01:33:39):
if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify and make sure
you go ahead and hit that subscribe button, then make sure
you go and tell a friend all about it.
One of the our sponsors, right hunt and right Toyota Sparkforge
AI for Marcus foundry, one login, one platform, all under
your control. Auto cannon, officially licensed
Honda and accurate gear. Don't forget Patreon business
supporter Corey Automotive out of Winter Garden, FL, automotive
speciality tool out of Owings Bills, Maryland, the Lucky

(01:34:02):
breaks out of Caledonia, MI, thehouse small home designed out of
Ashbury, Virginia and Traverse City, MI and shaping success
Treasure Valley out of Boise, ID.
If you're in a position to help the podcast upgrade, you can
join the Patreon at patreon.com Hard Parking Podcast.
Or you can become a member on YouTube.
There's a buy me a coffee optionthere.
You want a sport to show up, youget value.
If this is one of your favorite shows to watch, why not support

(01:34:23):
it? Special thanks to Mark Stoneman,
Catherine Cox, a Ramos drifting raised by our Jones, Bojang
Ellis Domina, Drew Buckley, Andre Mullins Questions,
comments or concerns? Leave a comment below or e-mail
the show info at hard parking. Follow the show on Instagram at
Hard Parking Pod and make sure you're subscribed to this
YouTube channel if you're watching on YouTube and I will
see you guys next week. Now it's stripping time.

(01:34:44):
Ain't nobody got time for that. Shut up.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Is There A SHOCKING Truth About Toxic Reality TV? Probably not. Guest Sean O'Bannon in-studio

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

Is There A SHOCKING Truth About Toxic Reality TV? Probably not. Guest Sean O'Bannon in-studio

Stuff You Should Know