August 4, 2023 • 47 mins
Robert & Carlos chat: We take you from Orlando, to the green of Alaska, and through riveting tales of family reunions in Michigan and food in Chattanooga. Scenic hikes and gaming events.
Avid film buffs, we don't just stop at travel tales. We venture into Hollywood, dissecting the trend of deconstructed hero tropes and their impact on characters we hold dear. We share our insights on films like Force Awakens and Indiana Jones 5, and mull over Harrison Ford's comeback and the intriguing role of Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
We tackle some serious economic concerns, discussing the challenges tech startups face in a cash-poor environment and the looming economic downturn. We consider its potential impact on the world of streaming services, and share some valuable financial lessons we've learned along the way. As we wrap up our journey, we invite you to join us in debating the merits of turkey legs vs. chicken legs and sharing our favorite food adventures.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
And we're on, and so we're back from outer space.
Yes, that's not what it feelslike.
Where was it?
You went on vacation.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Let's see started.
We were in Orlando.
Okay, my son had town.
I know well, the worst placeI've ever lived.
Yeah, it was a little hot.
We had eSports Nationals forXPL League and or XPL, whatever
the heck they call it the videogame.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
We leave a video games.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah.
So we were down there for threeor four days.
Yep then flew straight fromthere up to Michigan for my
wife's Yep family reunion.
So we were like a day late.
It was great we're in a placeGaylord, michigan yeah, out in
the middle of nowhere, that's,that's what it feels like hotels
are sweet.
Yeah Well, no, no, this hasnothing to do with that at all,
it's just the location.
Yeah, it's called Gaylord, ohthe town town is called Gaylord
(00:50):
and it was a.
It was a resort called thesojourn resort.
It's not like nothing superfancy, but because we had 60,
some people, we got the wholeresort, which is nice.
It was on a lake.
Yeah, they had a whole likerecreation area.
The kids my youngest had a ballthere because there were a
bunch of little kids and youknow, my 14 year old, after
(01:12):
being in Orlando, was a littledrained.
I think I spent a lot of timein his room, which 14 year olds
will do.
And then after that we cameback for two days and we flew to
Seattle, went on our Alaska.
Finally four years.
It was awesome.
I I believe it was.
It was beautiful and again, wedidn't do like Excursions or
(01:32):
anything like since we had neverbeen.
We're like you know what, we'llgo and then we'll get off the
ship and we'll walk around, gofor hikes, whatever.
So we got to experience some ofit.
But just the and this is whatI've been told by buddy before
we went and obviously I talkedto you been a couple times
Mm-hmm was the way we went wasreally nice because we could see
some, because we had staterooms, that with balconies, yes,
(01:54):
you could see so much, like theday that you go up through the
channel towards the glacier.
We couldn't get all the way upthere because we were on a huge
ship, 40 for 4,000 somethingpeople, but the whole morning,
you know you, you get in thechannel at like five in the
morning and then they just kindof cruise along slow and you can
just it's.
(02:15):
It was so peaceful, commandingviews.
It was amazing the, themountains and the trees.
I don't know, for some reasonthe trees won't leave me.
Yeah, it, I'm a I'm a twilightnerd and it it felt like you
know Frickin, edward Cullen,jumping up in those huge trees
and forks, oregon, you knowWashington, whatever it was, but
(02:36):
but yeah, no, it was.
It was a lot of fun.
Eat too much food.
Oh yeah, that's just the way itis when it's on the cruise and
really it.
You know, I it wasn't like alot of food at once.
It was, I don't eat breakfast,but on on the ship we're like
all right, we're gonna eatbreakfast, lunch and dinner and
by by kind of like threequarters away through the week
I'm like I'm not eating lunch.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I don't need to do this.
That's my strategy for comingup vacation.
So I think the last time weactually met in person was like
May.
No, we were in June.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
You're right.
Yeah, it's June.
It's now.
We're going in in June.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, you're right, we did.
And I mean, it's just been afriggin whirlwind.
Summer is a whirlwind.
What else did you guys do?
Oh, shoot, okay.
So I don't remember if we talkedabout this because it has been
so long, but, like the lastcouple of weeks of May, as we
were going into the finale ofschool, I had written 36,000
(03:30):
words on the new novel.
Oh right, yeah, I Did not getany more done after the last
Wednesday of school.
There.
I picked it up like three weekslater and it took me another
Four weeks to finish it.
The last 30,000 words or so.
That's not you, that's not me,and it's good.
I did a read-through this weekand so I like it.
(03:50):
But so what happened was thelast week of school was intense.
We had all these events andaward ceremonies and you know
kids events.
The next week.
The whole week was like mydaughter's dance recital prep.
The week after that my middleson had his Dance recital thing.
The week after that my daughterhad nationals competition.
(04:13):
The week after that, I think,we had a brief lull and then it
was like the next week was danceintensives, to like try out for
competitive teams, and it'sjust like.
And then the week after that,like Alicia and I went away Two
weeks ago, my parents were intown, that's, my mother-in-law
was in town during part of that.
It's like we had a wave ofvisitors.
But when my parents got to town, alicia and I took off and we
went to Chattanooga for fourdays.
(04:34):
How was it it was awesome yeah.
I hadn't been to Chattanoogasince I was a kid.
Great town, yeah, I like it alot.
I mean I've never.
I don't know if I've everactually stayed there before,
but like we would go to mygrandparents.
I lived about 45 minutesoutside Chattanooga where my mom
grew up and we would go everyevery summer.
I would spend a week to twoweeks with them without my
(04:55):
parents around just, you know,exile.
I Could have some peace ofquiet, which I didn't.
I didn't care at the time.
They let me watch R ratedmovies my parents were super
strict about that thing.
And so it's like I would watch.
You know, freddy, I go down tothe video store which was like
one of three businesses in theirtiny town, and they let me rent
whatever R rated movie I want.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So it's like, freddy, jason, chucky, I saw them all
when we stayed in mygrandparents we watched be this
in bloodhead.
We'd play and watch be as a boy, which we couldn't do at home.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, yeah that's.
I wasn't even allowed to watchthe Simpsons when it first came
out.
It was considered to be toprope.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah not much, not much for me either, but anyway.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So Chattanooga was sweet.
We stayed at this Fancy hotelcalled the Chattanoogan.
It was July 4th week.
There was no one there.
Really, the place was dead.
They have a restaurant in thelobby.
We ended up eating at thatrestaurant five meals.
Oh my gosh.
It was so good.
It was one of the bestrestaurants I've ever eaten
downtown.
It's yeah, it was real close todowntown.
(05:55):
It's like Right by theconference center.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Okay, but you couldn't like walk to the
aquarium and stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
You could.
It's about ten blocks away.
I'd say we went to the aquarium.
Yeah, aquariums awesome.
It's beautiful.
It's rock city.
I hadn't been.
I used to want to go to thatevery year and I hadn't been
since probably I was 16 orsomething like that.
It's awesome.
Rock city is amazing.
I'm gonna on there.
It's really cool If you get achance to go.
It's a little kitschy, it's alittle tourist trappy, but it's
(06:21):
really neat.
Like we might come through onour vacation here next week and
and see it when we're comingback up, because I don't know if
I even told you this, we had tochop off the end of our
vacation.
No, yeah.
So Alex's cross-country is andthe Ravenwood Orientation is
like the days we were gonna bein DC and so instead of doing
(06:44):
Norfolk, dc, delaware, maryland,we're just like in West
Virginia, we're like, well, chopthat, we're just gonna do.
We added an extra day to seeAsheville.
We're gonna go to the Biltmore.
Then we're doing Charlotte,north Carolina, I'm gonna try
and do the NASCAR Museum and theWhitewater rafting center,
(07:05):
charleston, all the historicstuff, point Pleasant Naval
Museum and whatnot.
Um, myrtle Beach, for just thetouristy craziness here, it's
like the severe vol of the coast?
Absolutely yes.
So I'm All in for that.
Then we have to cut back acrossto Atlanta, where we will be
eating at Papa Citos, cantinaPapados the only ones in the
(07:26):
southeastern US Well, papa Citosanyway.
And then right back up here,but we might stop at Chattanooga
on the way and hit those, showthose to the Kid's house.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, cool, that's the aquariums really neat too.
It is that whole downtown area,like what they've done.
It's very walkable.
Did you go across the river?
What is it to the north side orwhatever?
We?
Speaker 1 (07:46):
went up there for lunch one day, to Taco Mamacita,
which they have one inGermantown up here.
It's a sweet taco shop, oh man,it's good.
They had some of the best liketacos I've ever had.
It was.
It was like the artisanal tacosyeah, authentic Mexican tacos.
Your mom would be like, ah,this is trash.
No bueno, what is this Norteamericano trash?
(08:09):
But it's really good.
It's like artisanal.
They have like a one that'sbrisket and Barbecue sauce and
like it's.
It was great.
I gotta go back.
I gotta go back down thereagain.
Chattanooga is a great place todo a getaway, but anyway, the
hotel restaurant called forge.
I never write reviews foranyone.
I wrote a Google review fivestars because we ate, I think,
(08:32):
everything on the menu whichthey had.
They had one of the best steaksI've ever had in my life.
They had.
They had an appetizer that waslike a whipped feta with a
little bit of honeycomb in it.
Oh yeah, in some capers, yeah,and a little smoked paprika and
with these, perfect, liketoasted chabata.
We ordered that every singletime we went.
(08:55):
Their salads were amazing.
They had a peach somethingsalad.
That was really great.
They had a fantastic baratasalad.
They had a half.
I ordered a half chicken onetime.
Like I never ordered chicken atrestaurants, I'm like I want to
try this half chicken and thegrits that they had that came
with it were pink unicornsomething grits.
Oh, they were the greatestgrits I've had in my life.
(09:16):
Why were they pink unicorn?
I don't know, that's just whatthey called them.
Were they pink?
They were pink.
They were indeed pink, and Idon't know what made them pink
but I know they were fantastic.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
They ate unicorn blood in them.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Well, I'll live forever.
Then, yeah, there you go.
It'll be a half life, firstlife, right?
Yeah, I mean, I could talkabout the food we ate there
forever, and I did in my Googlereview.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Where else did you guys go?
You went to Rock City, you wentacross the river, or where else
did you go?
Speaker 1 (09:40):
We kind of did a thing every day.
We sat, just sat in red andspent time together.
We logged into Netflix andbinged Santa Clarita diet Like
we never had a chance to do that.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I love doing that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Just the two of us.
It was amazing.
It was the first time we gottogether last year for like two
days when we went to Birminghamand did kind of a similar like
do nothing.
I think I was working a littlebit.
I think I was working on storyideas or something and she was
trying to get stuff out.
But this was just.
We got ourselves a suite, Hotelprices were rock bottom, there
was no one there.
It was just let's hang out.
(10:13):
We're gonna focus on us for afew days, enjoy ourselves, eat
like fat kids and it was great.
That's awesome, man, Just what.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I needed.
Yeah, I think we did that lastyear when we went to Austin and
I we looked up one evening andwe had been watching television
for like 10 hours.
Nice, and I realized I hadn'tdone that since college.
I mean, do you remember thosedays of just like vegging out?
(10:42):
I don't know if you did that, Iknow.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
I've done it in the last few years.
I haven't done it probably inabout five years now, but like
when the Marvel shows were onNetflix Daredevil and Jessica
Jones and stuff I would get upat two o'clock in the morning
and I would watch them straightthrough the whole season.
They're 13 episodes seasons, ohGod yeah.
But I haven't done thatprobably since then, because
just most of the stuff on TV Idon't give enough of a shit
(11:04):
about to dedicate that kind oftime to anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Have you been watching?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
the new Jack Ryan.
I watched the first season andyou told me that the third
season picked up.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
The second season was ish.
Third season was great.
The fourth season is like it'sgood so far.
We just finished the secondepisode last night and they are
rocking and rolling.
It's you know when they youknow, especially with like
espionage stuff, when you startfreaking out about like this is
like this is real.
(11:34):
That's how it feels I mean verymuch.
So you know they're bringing inthe, you know the Asian triad,
the cartels down in Mexico, theCIA, like the old director
basically being in on the wholething, and why.
I mean it's pretty powerful, ok, and I mean I'm kind of like
God, this is their writing hasgotten pretty damn strong.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Because the first season was really good.
I think I told you about it.
I know I talked about it withLee and then after that my
parents were like we didn't evenfinish the second season.
It was so weak.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
That one.
Yeah, it was a weak follow up.
I don't know if it was becauseof COVID or whatever, but I
highly recommend go to three anddefinitely do four.
Ok, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah, because I heard Ding Chavez is coming in.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yes, we, he just came in, yeah, which he's one of my
favorite characters in the inthe novels.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
That one guy that they have, the one that was from
House of Cards.
He kind of looks like he'ssupposed to be John Clark in
this series, Because he's John.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Clark oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, he's, yeah, so he
he's.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
It's funny I said he's my wife.
He was in season one or so, Ithink he's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Like I really like him as a good guy, honestly,
rather than a bad guy like inHouse of Cards.
And House of Cards he wasn't.
You know he was.
He's a really good actor.
Yes, he's phenomenal.
And so he just got the phonecall in episode two that Jack
needs him.
You know that Jack needs hishelp.
He's like I knew you would orsomething like that.
He's just I don't know he's.
(12:56):
Yeah, I really really like that.
And then, of course, the guythat plays James Greer is
fantastic too.
He was.
He was a really good Greer.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, yeah, really good.
I watched Hunt for Octoberagain not that long ago, like
within the last month, and it'sjust man, that thing stands the
test of time.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, you know it's.
It's like do you remember whyBaldwin didn't do the second one
?
I think it was a money thing,wasn't it?
No, well, I don't know if thiswas rumor or whatever but,
apparently he wanted to like sexscenes in it.
I don't know what I mean, butknowing his past I wouldn't put
that past him.
But then you know, they broughtin Harrison Ford and I thought
(13:33):
he did great in some of those.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
He did.
He wasn't.
He didn't scream Jack Ryan tome, but you know that's okay,
did you?
Because I was watching aninterview with Gates McFadden
who played Dr Crusher on StarTrek, the Next Generation, okay,
and she was talking about it,because I don't know if you
remember this, she was actuallyKathy Ryan in Hunt for Out
October.
What she's in it for like onescene, and that's it.
(13:55):
It's at the very beginning whenshe's dropping Jack off at the
airport.
I don't remember that at all.
That's her.
She's Kathy Ryan in that andit's funny because she plays it
with a British accent and KathyMuller Ryan is not British.
Yeah, they made that choice andwhatever.
It's like the only complaint Ihave for one of the greatest
movies of all time.
That's so funny.
But she said something about ohyeah, well, I was supposed to
be in Patriot games and thenAlec, whatever.
(14:16):
I don't remember what she saidand she's like it's so.
Then that was gone.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
So I went to Star Trek instead.
Yeah, she had a great run onthat?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Oh, she did, but yeah .
So it's funny you mentionedHarrison Ford, because I kind of
had him on my list of thingsthat I could possibly tear off
or rant about right now.
Oh no, harrison Ford has donesome of his best work in the
last few years on 1923.
That is the most Harrison Fordrole imaginable.
He does an awesome job as thepatriarch.
(14:48):
I can't remember.
It's Jacob, right, jacob?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
I don't know, they're all J's.
Yeah, it's Jacob.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure , and he's awesome in that.
And then Indiana Jones 5.
Oh, I haven't seen it.
Yeah, neither have I, because Idid all of the due diligence to
figure out what it's about andhow it goes.
And it's another case of what Iwill call the deconstructed
hero.
I'm not the one who pioneeredthis, I'm pretty sure Critical
(15:15):
Drinker or one of the guys inthat kind of orbit, that
constellation of reviewers hascome up with it and maybe like
Dave Cullen or somebody.
But the deconstructed hero isjust.
You resume with a hero who'sbuilt up over the course of
several movies Luke Skywalker,han Solo, indiana Jones being
the three right off the top ofmy head, all Luke's film
(15:35):
creations all built up in thecourse of a story arc that saw
them go from farm boy to hero,from rogue scoundrel to hero,
general treasure hunter to herowho saved the world multiple
times.
Right, we pick up with them 30,40 years later and they're down
(15:58):
, like you know, broken down,bitter, angry, pissed off.
Old men Like this is the onlything that Lucasfilm knows how
to do with old guys.
I guess it's like we will takeyour heroes and then rub their
faces in the shit and make themcompletely bitter, unlikable.
We're going to bring in newcharacters and instead of
(16:20):
building up those new charactersand making them awesome the way
you do with a traditional hero,we're going to advance them
while devaluing your currenthero, basically at the expense
of the current hero.
You think about Force Awakens.
Rey doesn't look so awesome onher own.
She just is naturally great ateverything and she Shines up, or
what do you call it.
(16:40):
She overshadows Han Solo andLuke Skywalker in turn.
She's just better than them.
Why?
Well, they kind of give a storyreason later on.
That wasn't really decided atthe time.
But essentially what they'redoing is that she's got to be
better than them.
Some people have suggested thatstudio head of Lucasfilm, kathy
Kathleen Kennedy.
It's like sort of a self-insertfor her, where she's like the
(17:00):
Mary Sue, and so all of thesecharacters must be better than
the original heroes Because theyrepresent her in the story.
I don't know about that.
It's an interesting theory, butit's only a theory.
No one knows what goes on inKathy and Kennedy's head.
The point is they take theseheroes.
Same thing with the, the ladyin Indiana Jones 5 who's played
by Phoebe Waller-Bridge who,from everything I've heard, her
(17:22):
show Fleabag is supposed to beamazing.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah, I've only watched a couple episodes.
It's a look, anyway, it's dark.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
It works on a lot of really is she's really good.
There's a YouTube channel calledbaggage claim where she talks
about why Phoebe Waller-Bridgewas amazing in Fleabag, not so
great in Indiana Jones and, asshe points, paints a compelling
case for why.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge isprobably a very talented writer
and person, but, like when she'sput in the Hollywood system and
forced to work with thearchetypes they give her for
(17:51):
these characters this, this youknow Female character that must
overshadow her predecessor hero,it doesn't work for her because
she's much better with likekind of more flawed,
multifaceted heroines orprotagonists, I guess you could
say.
Anyway, the point is I'm justsick of this trope at this point
.
I was I was the biggest HanSolo fan in the world.
(18:13):
I was willing to accept it inForce Awakens.
I saw Force Awakens six timesin theaters.
They broke down my hero.
I got it.
I thought, hey, this is maybegonna go somewhere.
Interesting.
It didn't.
Whatever that happens, but thefact that they've now done it
three times to three majorheroes with the same pattern, we
will devalue and destroy yourcurrent hero that was built up.
We're gonna turn him into acompletely irredeemable, bitter
(18:36):
old man.
No heroism, useless garbage,whatever.
It's the.
It's the anti-maverick Top Gun.
Maverick worked becauseMaverick is not a bitter old man
.
He still knows his shit.
He's still a hero.
He has things to impart to hissuccessors.
None of those Lucasfilmcharacters have shit to impart
to their successors.
They are useless.
They're useless in what isostensibly their own stories,
(18:59):
potentially, and that is awful.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Stop doing it, lucasfilm.
But, but I think they would.
They wouldn't they turn aroundand tell you that like the
sacrifice at the end Would beworth it for them.
What sacrifice.
You know Han Solo dying and andthen painting that, as you know
him sacrificing somehow for thecause.
You know I can see how andagain, I I don't get into this
(19:24):
shit as much as you do- I reallydon't, and, and to be quite
honest, I don't care.
Yeah, what I do care about is agood movie that's well-written.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
I just do that's the problem that I have too.
It's like and I thought forceawakens was actually fairly well
yeah no, I liked it.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I actually like the Ray character.
I like the Ray character earlyon.
She has no flaws.
That's the biggest.
Yeah, there's no character arcfor her.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
No, I agree with the only character arc she has is
that she gets to the end of thethird movie and it's like I'm
Ray Skywalker.
Yeah, like, oh, okay.
She's like I found the placewhere I belong alone.
Yeah, in the desert planetwhere I've never lived before.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, I didn't, I did not get.
I never understood.
I thought I knew where theywere going.
After the first one, yeah, andeven with the second one, but
the third one, you know, in thewhole the love stuff and and in
whatever I don't know, I'm gonnaswitch gears.
Yeah, hair have you seen safe?
Have you seen Harrison Ford inshrinking?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
No, you told me it was good and I haven't watched.
I don't have Apple Plus yet.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Oh my gosh.
So I here.
Let's take a step back.
So all of a sudden, harrisonFord is back on the scene again
doing a lot of stuff.
Yeah, I don't know what'sbehind that.
Like is he still with his wife?
Like did he have, I think?
So I think I don't know whatwas her name.
(20:47):
Yeah, yeah that's what I wasgonna say.
Allen move, feel that's not areal name.
So it's like all of a suddenhe's, he's, he's back, doing all
these things and and it alwaysmakes me wonder, like, do you
wonder about that?
Like, like what?
What brought that come back?
I don't know.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
he's in Captain America 4, 2?
.
He takes over for William Hertzoh, really character, yeah, cuz
what hurt died.
Oh.
And so he's gonna be playingThaddeus Thunderbolt Ross who
was yeah, he's in therespeculating.
He's gonna be the Red Hulk init.
So.
And then he was in IndianaJones publicity things and one
(21:23):
of the nerd Interviewers is likeso Everybody's kind of saying
you're gonna be the Red Hulk andhe like looks at the camera and
I mean it's perfect, like I'm90% sure he was acting, but he
did it really well.
Deadpan, like what's a Red Hulk?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Perfect Harrison Ford .
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Tresor Phoebe Weller Bridget Did you know about this?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, you have definitely, at least in my All
the outlets that I use.
I have not seen a lot ofpublicity for Indiana Jones at
all.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
It's gonna lose the money.
Yeah, so the Low-ended missionis that it cost them 295 million
dollars to make and it is sofar at global box office at 250
million and I think it's openedin about every territory.
Yeah, so I mean it's it's gonnalose them money, and at this
point I mean Star Wars wouldprobably lose the money.
(22:19):
Lucasfilm has burned everythingto the ground.
I I mean I'm sitting here assomeone who has invested in the
Walt Disney Corporation in thepast but thankfully does not own
their stock right now.
I Would be absolutely in favorof an activist investor
dethroning Bob Iger.
He is not Steering the ship ina smart direction.
(22:41):
It seems to me like I don'tnecessarily disagree with his
general idea of well, weprobably need to scale back
development a little bit inorder to make more quality stuff
, but he approved all of thisshit that was being thrown
against the wall and you knowdid you see?
Speaker 2 (22:56):
charge came out today when yesterday.
It doesn't matter that he'stalking about divesting out of,
like Some of their TV assets,like ABC and FX or whatever
because he's like with CNBC.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, he's know that that was part of it, but I mean
yeah he said he the TV mediumhe's like it's going away, it is
it is, I mean when.
This is the funny thing istraditional TV.
Yeah, why would even argue thatstreaming is gonna take a big
hit over the next few years?
Hbo's Well, it's now max, butit was HBO max.
Their service is not doing well.
Paramount is not doing well.
A paramount plus, netflix, youknow, first mover advantage.
(23:36):
They've done pretty well forthemselves.
I don't, I don't I haven'tlooked their financials lately,
but I mean most of thesestreaming services are not doing
particularly well.
Disney plus is losingsubscribers.
I mean they're the cheapest ofall and they're they're they're
losing ground.
They're the exclusive refuge oflike all of these Disney, star
Wars, marvel, whatever nobodyseems to.
And and free money the cheapmoney that we've had over the
(23:59):
last few years with low interestrates is drying up.
Yeah, like a lot of businessesare gonna be hit hard.
Yeah, it's funny cuz Alicia andI've been talking about it and
In general I think she's like Ithink a recession is coming.
Oh, yeah, she went and rebookedall our hotels for the next few
weeks of vacation and was ableto get like a 25% Discount on
what we were gonna pay becausenone of them are at occupancy.
(24:20):
Yeah, and that included somepretty, I mean myrtle be.
I will see what Myrtle Beachlooks like, because there's a
lot of hotels in Myrtle Beach,but I Think it's generally a
pretty damn busy place in thesummertime.
Oh, absolutely, and so if we gothere and it's like not busy at
all, I think something might beright, see, travels not down,
that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Travels not down, but the Corporate.
So I had an interestingconversation with a guy who's a
pretty big commercial realestate investor here in town and
he, they, he told me, he saidyou Banks are shut down for
commercial lending.
Yeah, and I would too if I werethem yeah, like that asset they
do not want on their booksanymore.
(24:59):
For them to just say, uh-uh, nomore.
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
And I didn't see the disposition of it.
But there's some of these bigoffice buildings in places like
San Francisco and New York.
I saw one in San Franciscowhere they basically just handed
the keys back to the lender andsaid best of luck, Because
again it goes back to that urbandoom loops thing we've talked
about before, where there's notenough demand for people who
want to work in the city, and Idon't know what you do with all
(25:26):
that commercial space.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of loans on the book
associated with that Right.
Well, and that's one of thebiggest factors is, you know, as
a developer, as an investor youare, you're basically, you know
, taking out loan after loanafter loan, like big loans too,
yeah, huge loans, and so you'reconstantly refinancing, right,
mm-hmm.
Well, when you go from almost0% money, to 5% To 5% yeah.
(25:47):
Your returns just disappeared.
Yes, oof gone.
So I don't blame some of thesepeople that are like here.
Here are the keys.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Well, I think the occupancy rates are the other
big part of it.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
In San Francisco, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, yeah, I mean in downtown Nashville you probably
have a better situation,although I did talk to one of my
neighbors who is a commercialreal estate guy and he was
saying it's going to be aslightly more challenging
environment.
Amazon had that second towerthat they were building in the
Nashville Yards area I think iswhat they called the development
, where they put the logisticsbuildings yeah, and one of my
neighbors works in one of thembut I was hearing that they had
(26:21):
a second tower and theybasically just left it at the
shell stage because they're likewe don't know if we need as
much office space as weoriginally talked about.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yeah, Again, when there's free money, you can
basically develop as much as youwant.
It totally makes sense.
And here's the thing, and youknow this, we've been through a
couple of cycles.
This is natural.
Like this needs to happen,because a lot of the things were
completely they were screwy.
They were screwy, people weretaking advantage of the system.
So it's like there needs to beand I love how everybody looks
(26:53):
for the government to fix it all.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
I'd rather you not.
They've been trying to fix itfor years and they've screwed
everything up.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Well, that's the thing is like.
Everybody's going to trywhatever they're going to try.
There is no perfect fix because, even if we look back at
history, history will repeatitself in different ways, but
not exactly.
And that's the thing is like,especially when you read the
news well, the Fed is trying todo what they did back in 1943.
Well, okay, different factors,different things.
(27:19):
Yes, maybe certain things arethe same.
But I've gone back and I'mreading like the Tower of
Charlie Munger, right now.
And to see, even over his career, the times that their focus and
the way they invest has changed, because the market, the world,
everything has changed.
So it's like I feel like it'sall just a guessing game.
(27:43):
The government's trying toguess which way things are going
to go, so they apply certainthings.
Banks do the same thing.
Banks are like I don't know, Idon't want to be, I'm glad I
don't work for a bank right now,especially in a commercial
world.
It's going to be interesting.
I mean, I think, fromeverything that I've read and
that I listened to, the firsttwo quarters of next year are
(28:03):
going to suck for a lot ofindustries.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Did you listen to my talk with Mike Lorenz from a
couple weeks back?
Okay, it's really long, but oneof the more interesting things
that he and I talk about is justhow the US economy and banking
in general has kind of been likea guy who's on steroids working
out and I don't know how muchyou know about steroids, but if
you're on them, you basicallyhave to stay on them in order to
(28:29):
maintain your mass, otherwiseyou just tail off and become
skinny and to a large extent,our playing with interest rates
and central banking has becomelike the steroids that have kept
our economy going.
And so if we lose the ability todo that to a certain extent
because we've been playing withinterest rates and printing
(28:51):
money and doing all of thisstuff, if we ever lose that,
it's really going to be like aguy who's suddenly goes off a
crash diet.
He was on all the steroids andreplacement test and all this
stuff and it's just and he'sjust going to be back to the
skinny nerd.
If he survives the trends andtransition down to he's going to
try and lift and then he'sgoing to break both shoulders
(29:11):
because he can't lift anythinganymore.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
And we're seeing that .
We're seeing that withcompanies.
Now, right that you have, say,a company that was a unicorn and
that raised all this money, andnow they basically the company
has no value to the investorsbecause they've already been
wiped clean.
And so what do you do?
What do you do with a companylike that?
Well, maybe you strip it forassets.
Maybe you start from day one.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Take the tech or somewhere else with it.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I can know, but I do like that, and it's coming
faster now that companies aregetting back to fundamentals
right, making money instead ofthis ridiculous burn rate every
freaking month, because thatnever used to be a thing that
wasn't a thing back in the early1900s or even the mids.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Even in the early 2000s.
In fact, one of the things thatwas interesting that I read not
that long ago was about thesenew tech startups like Uber new
now, they've been around for awhile, but like Uber, netflix,
the ones that are like mostrecent generation of unicorns
right, whereas in the past itwas like Amazon, facebook,
microsoft, the tech titans ofthe 90s and early 2000s.
(30:20):
Those companies always madecash, like they always.
Their burn rate was not obscenecompared to what they would
bring in.
They generate revenue, whereaslike Uber was not doing very
well at all there for a whileand they would burn through
incredible amounts of cash.
Netflix, same thing.
I think Netflix is now makingmoney, no idea, but for a while
there it was like they wouldjust burn through the cash in
(30:41):
order to create content and itwasn't necessarily getting, I
guess, best bang for their buck,or they were burning through so
much cash that they couldn'tmake a profit.
I think they controlled costsand they might be in better
shape, but the point was thatthese new companies, because
they were raised in this cashrich environment, would just
(31:02):
absolutely burn through at aninsane rate, and you saw the
same thing with Twitter whenElon came in and took it over he
was the first one that did it.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
He was the first one to cut.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Cut, cut, cut.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
And then what happens .
But those are all end.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Guys were saying that at the time you sent me that
podcast.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Then Facebook did it, then everybody started doing it
right, because that's what wasneeded.
You had all this fluff ofmiddle management that they
weren't doing anything.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Well, they expanded rapidly to include all of these
people that didn't add valueTotally.
And that's why I mean I thinkthat's one of the reasons why
the DEI coordinators at a lot ofthese places are getting the ax
first is it's like yeah, okay,if we have infinite money, sure
I'll virtue signal for whateverI have to pay, but when we
(31:49):
actually start to get into afinancially dicey position,
you're the first to go.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And to be shocked at that if you're in that position
is naive.
You know either that or you'rereally young.
And I feel bad for those intheir early 20s who were getting
chopped and they haven'texperienced it yet.
And the same thing back in 08when we were in the middle of it
is like holy crap.
Lucky enough for me, like Iremember 2000.
(32:15):
And I was going to the militaryat the time, so that didn't
really affect me, but I got towatch it from the outside and I
had friends.
You know, my best man, one ofmy best friends, was at Enron
when that whole thing, implodedright.
He was there for like a yearwhen that whole thing happened.
So it's like you see thesethings and you live and learn
and you can, you know.
I hope that these founders thathad these unicorns will call
(32:37):
them that are no longer unicorns.
I don't know.
They've got a name for now,like falling unicorns or
something like that and I hope.
I hope these really smart people, these guys and gals like,
learn from this and either pickthemselves up and keep building
or go build something else.
You know, inevitably, hopefully, that will happen, but but it's
(32:58):
really interesting to see.
It's like you said, they werebasically raised in an
environment where there was freemoney.
Yeah, you know, like I tell thestory all the time, if I had
been a kid who was like LeBronJames and given $100 million out
of high school, I would be atotal shit show.
Oh yeah, I really would.
And even so, I still have beenin my life because I have to
(33:20):
learn all these money lessons.
You know, for me the lessonscome very, very slowly because
I'm I'm not very smart when itcomes to that, apparently, but I
think that as I've gotten older, I'm picking up those those
little things quicker.
You know because, because Idon't want to make the same
mistakes again, I don't know,it's going to be really
interesting next six, eight, 12months.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
That, that lesson, though.
That what you're talking about.
There is exactly what Aliciaand I discussed with our oldest
here, because he was like we youknow, if the lottery gets high,
we'll buy it one ticket or twotickets probably, and I think
it's Powerball's like 875million right now.
Let's go get them.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah, yeah, let's stop right now and go $4,.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
You know, we'll buy a couple of tickets.
And it's like we just sit backand kind of enjoy it, like, haha
, you know, this is kind of fun.
And he's like, hey, I want tobuy a ticket too.
And I'm like, no, hey, you'renot old enough.
Well, you can keep it though.
And I'm like no, because thelast.
Can you imagine how much of anabsolute dumpster fire you would
be if someone would handed you$400 million in cash?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
and it sounds so great, it sounds so great it
sounds like.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
You know, if someone did that to me, I would be in
the exact same situation as youlike.
The best I would be theintrovert who sits in a castle
like house, probably nevermarried, because I didn't have a
need to get out and socializeand I just have read and played
every video game known to man.
My Xbox gamer score would be inthe millions, it's like.
(34:45):
Would that have created arewarding life for me?
No, I had a process ofdevelopment to go through.
I had to do a character arc,Like they should have done with
Indiana Jones.
And they decided not to.
And so that I mean there's yourproblem right there.
If you don't go through thecharacter, growth and
development and suffering, thenyou don't become the person that
you're supposed to be I.
And why would you suffer if youhave $400?
Speaker 2 (35:08):
million.
That right there.
That's the headline, though,right Is?
People don't want to suffer,and I raised my hand and say I
was one of those that did notwant to suffer.
Yeah, no, it's not fun, becauseyou don't.
I mean you want to wish that onanybody, especially not
yourself.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
The thing is, life is suffering to a certain extent
and money can erase some of that, but I mean the struggles, part
of it, like when we talked, Idon't know whenever, the last
time we were actually doing acouple of podcasts in a row, it
was like taste like poverty.
How would you know if you'venot done?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
what we did Right, unless you have that same
linguine pasta every single daybecause it only costs 50 cents.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yeah, the junior bacon cheeseburgers and the
chilies the value menu atWendy's.
I would not know the taste ofthe value menu at Wendy's if I
hadn't tasted poverty.
I mean why would I?
I'd have a private chef.
I have three of them, one forevery meal of the day.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
But thank God that we went through that.
I needed that.
I really did.
It's funny.
Best case scenario for meprobably would have been like I
would have burned through 90some percent of that money, and
there still happened to be like10 million left to when I
finally woke up, ditched all myaddictions and realized oh man,
maybe I should get my shittogether.
You know who knows how longthat would have taken, though.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
It's easier to burn through large quantities of
money, like I knew a couple ofpeople who got inheritances in
high school and they didn't getlike I don't think huge ones,
but they blew through them inrapid order and it was like
booze, weed, samurai swords Oneguy I'm not even kidding you.
This one dude.
He inherited enough money likehis mom had to basically live in
(36:50):
his house because somehow heinherited it from his dad.
I don't know if there wasmarriage on the rocks or what,
but it bypassed her and went tohim and so his mom was basically
subject to him when he wasstill a minor.
Oh no, yeah, cause she couldn'thave her own place and so
anyway, he was out drinking,doing drugs and whatnot.
He's driving down this road andis blasted out of his mind and
(37:12):
somehow he goes off the road andhits this 100 year old church
and knocks it off itsfoundations.
I mean it's Florida, so it'sbuilt up off the swampy ground
or whatever, but I mean it'slike I think he got his life
together eventually, but like hehad a really rough time with
that.
And why wouldn't he Cause youhave no, he had no one to check
(37:32):
him and be like, stop being adumb fuck.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny.
But before you even said that,it reminded me of something that
I saw I don't know if it was acommercial, probably something
on socials about a guy who wastalking about one of these rich
guru guys he was talking about.
Yeah, you know, and you shouldstart from day one, when your
kid is is born, to start, youknow, maximizing so that by the
(37:57):
time they become, you know,they're 23, they can be
millionaires.
I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, what, what, why would I do that?
Like, I don't know, and you andI have talked about this some
too.
I just, I don't know.
I think my kids should have towork for that themselves, like,
like, if we leave them something, you know, I think it should be
structured.
That's me personally, I feellike it should be.
(38:18):
You know, for us it'll probablybe something revolving around
travel or something like that,but I don't want to leave them a
ton of money to be stupid with.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Like I would have an easier time if they came to me
at age 30 and they're like, hey,can you help me with like a
down payment for a house?
Speaker 2 (38:34):
That's totally different.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
But it's different because it's like you know it's
not going up their nose or youknow, or being drunk, drunk away
, which, when you're in your 20s, let's be honest, that's a real
danger of happening, because Idon't know.
I suspect I know what youranswer is going to be to this
but like I drank a lot in my 20s, I quit because I was so sure
that I was an alcoholic.
I quit drinking before I was 21because I couldn't drink
(38:59):
without getting completelyblitzed out of my mind drunk.
I had no discipline to it and Isort of picked it up again in
my 20s and I still had nodiscipline with it.
And so now I can have a drinkevery once in a while without
getting completely blitzed outof my mind.
But that's like the virtue ofwisdom and also the fact that I
know how it goes right to mybelly.
(39:20):
I figured out I can either havedessert or a drink, and not
both.
I think I'm going to pick thecake.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Wait, which kind of cake?
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Well, let's see.
Do you currently have afavorite?
So I make a wicked pineappleupside down cake.
Oh yeah, it's so damn good.
Oh my gosh, I'll have to makeit for you sometime.
It's so good.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
We'll coordinate for one of my cheat meals.
How about that?
Speaker 1 (39:48):
That sounds like a plan.
When I'm on a cooking bender,which I was during COVID I was
making chicken parmesan,linguine alf or a chicken
alfredo, fettuccine alfredo withchicken in it.
I mean it's one of the bestfettuccine alfredos I've ever
(40:09):
had in my life and I made it,which is dangerous because then
you realize you can have itanytime.
Oh yeah, like all of thesethings, I was doing them during
COVID and after.
I learned how to cook duringthat time and I learned how to
cook really, really well, thestuff that I like the best.
Blessing and a curse it is.
It is so I can make an amazingchicken parmesan anytime I want
(40:32):
to have it, but it takes time,number one, and I'm going to be
fat if I eat it all the time.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I told you when I walked in or
maybe we had already talkedabout it that being away and
being out of my routine andeating just not the way I'm used
to, yeah, I feel it way morenow, now that I'm older, you
know that sick feeling in yourstomach, right.
Yeah, body doesn't processthings quite as well as it used
(40:58):
to.
I mean, then I watch my boysand they can eat anything,
they're just disposals.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
So Alex had a doctor's appointment thing this
morning and afterwards mydaughter's like a day camp thing
, and I took the other threewife and the other two kids out
to breakfast at Waffle House.
Oh man, I'm not going to beeating again until late this
afternoon.
I love Southern Hibachi.
That's what we call WaffleHouse.
(41:25):
That's what you call itSouthern Hibachi.
It is, it's Southern Hibachi.
Do you get the waffles Hell?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
yeah, their waffles are dynamite.
Yeah, yeah, do you get theblueberry?
Speaker 1 (41:36):
ones or just regular ones, just regular, regular.
I'm not fancy.
I just take that crappy canolaspread and just douse it in that
and drown that fucker in syrup.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Yeah, my big splurge when I do breakfast is Cracker
Barrel.
They're pancakes, crackerBarrel, those pancakes.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
We went there for Father's Day at dinner.
Oh really, yes.
Did you have breakfast ordinner?
Speaker 2 (41:56):
I had breakfast.
Oh yeah, If I go to CrackerBarrel, I'm having breakfast Me
too.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
I don't think I've ever had dinner meal at Cracker
Barrel they have really amazingchicken fried steak, but you can
get it as part of the breakfastmeal.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I still don't understand what the hell that
means.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
You know what chicken fried steak.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I know what it is, but I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, it's like a low grade meat that's fried like
chicken.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
OK.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
And usually has a white gravy on it or whatever.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
So it's just a mass of the fact that it's cheap meat
, yeah, ok.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
But it tastes so good .
Ok, I went to this place inHouston that my cousin who lives
down there turned me on to thatI had the best damn chicken
fried steak I've ever eaten inmy life.
I've never had it.
You've never had chicken friedsteak.
Never Get it as like I don'tknow.
I guess you probably can't getit as a side at Cracker Barrel
Chicken fried steak, but CrackerBarrel has really good chicken
(42:44):
fried steak.
It's like a.
It's like you ever have steaknuggets when you were a kid.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
No.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
OK, that's sad.
Where's steak nuggets fromApparently heaven?
In my imagination Is thissomething your parents made.
No, they came in like banquetmeals when I was a kid.
What?
Yeah, you could get chickennuggets and you could get steak
nuggets.
Nope, oh yeah, steak nuggets.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Maybe it's because I ate the cheap version of Hungry
man meals, I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
I mean, I might have been getting the cheap version
of them too.
It might have been a regionalthing, because some stuff is
just regional markets, so it'svery possible that Chicken Fried
Steak is not sold west of NewMexico.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Maybe I lived in Japan the year that that was out
.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
I don't think it was a year.
It was there throughout mywhole childhood.
I've never heard of that.
Oh yeah, man.
Chicken Fried Steak nuggetsNuggets.
Chicken Fried Steak nuggetsthey were dynamite, you could
dip them in a gravy and theywere really good.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
How do our conversations always devolve
into food?
Speaker 1 (43:48):
I think it's because I'm hungry.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
No, I ate before I came over here for a reason, and
we're still hungry, becauseother than editing.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
All I care about right now is eating, Like when
we're going on our vacation.
I've already got the restaurantscouted, Do you really?
There's this place in MyrtleBeach called the original
Benjamin's Calabash Buffet?
What?
Speaker 2 (44:06):
It has oh shit you not?
Speaker 1 (44:08):
There's like 160 or 190 menu items and it's like
crab legs and fried shrimp andcoconut shrimp and it's like
everything you can imagine.
I'm like I'm dragging my familyalong like a hostage situation
to that place.
We will walk out of here when Iam full and that is it, and
(44:29):
when I get back, I'm going to goon the most epic weight loss
spree that you can ever possiblymention.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
I can see Alicia.
I can help daddy to the car.
No.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
I want to come back.
I need a lap band procedure.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
What is it called Benjamin's Calabash?
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Yeah, I think it's called the original Benjamin
Calabash and it was apparentlyso popular that they created an
offspring one that was calledsomething else, captain's
Calabash or something.
It's a local, you know, localarea with these like weird
traditions, but like apparentlythere was a secondary one and so
they had to specify that.
Hey, where are the originals?
Seafood, all you can eat,10,000 item buffet oh my gosh,
(45:11):
when we were in that it's likeit sounds like a red lobster all
you can eat.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Oh my gosh, can you imagine?
I haven't been to a red lobsterin a long, long time.
When we were up in Michigan, inGaylord, there was a place it
was the one that was in themiddle of town was no longer
there, but when we left that wesaw there was a new one.
It's called Gobblers and it'slike there.
I mean on the sign it says like,our specialty is turkey, like
(45:35):
everything, turkey To me that isnot, not somewhere I want to go
, but it looks like it had beenthere for a hundred years.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Dude, I don't know.
I don't get it.
I don't understand the appealof turkey at all.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
They need good fried turkey because I want the skin
like fresh out of the fryer.
But I mean turkey is not.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I mean, if you had to pick turkey breast, chicken
breast, perfectly cooked, bothof them, yeah, way more flavor,
way tastier I prefer a thigh,but yeah.
Yeah, I love a good chickenthigh.
That's my diet is eatingchicken thighs, but same thing,
it's like a turkey leg.
I think I'd rather have achicken leg.
Yeah, yeah, I'm with you.
I mean I'll take oneoccasionally and we go to like a
(46:16):
medieval Renaissance fest orwhatever.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Yeah, then it's fun.
It's not like Disney World, butit's not that good.
No, it's not.
No, it's never as good as Ithink it's going to be.
No, I mean it looks goodbecause you know they've toasted
or whatever.
It looks huge.
Yeah, it really does.
It's always too much.
You could kill somebody thattried to take your wallet, you
know that'd be cool.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Yeah, club them, yeah .
So there's that.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Well, with that, how about a perfect time?
Speaker 1 (46:40):
We've talked about enough food for you, yeah we'll
let that wrap.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
We'll come back with more food, yeah.
And we're on, and so we're back from outer space.
Yes, that's not what it feelslike.
Where was it?
You went on vacation.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Let's see started.
We were in Orlando.
Okay, my son had town.
I know well, the worst placeI've ever lived.
Yeah, it was a little hot.
We had eSports Nationals forXPL League and or XPL, whatever
the heck they call it the videogame.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
We leave a video games.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah.
So we were down there for threeor four days.
Yep then flew straight fromthere up to Michigan for my
wife's Yep family reunion.
So we were like a day late.
It was great we're in a placeGaylord, michigan yeah, out in
the middle of nowhere, that's,that's what it feels like hotels
are sweet.
Yeah Well, no, no, this hasnothing to do with that at all,
it's just the location.
Yeah, it's called Gaylord, ohthe town town is called Gaylord
(00:50):
and it was a.
It was a resort called thesojourn resort.
It's not like nothing superfancy, but because we had 60,
some people, we got the wholeresort, which is nice.
It was on a lake.
Yeah, they had a whole likerecreation area.
The kids my youngest had a ballthere because there were a
bunch of little kids and youknow, my 14 year old, after
(01:12):
being in Orlando, was a littledrained.
I think I spent a lot of timein his room, which 14 year olds
will do.
And then after that we cameback for two days and we flew to
Seattle, went on our Alaska.
Finally four years.
It was awesome.
I I believe it was.
It was beautiful and again, wedidn't do like Excursions or
(01:32):
anything like since we had neverbeen.
We're like you know what, we'llgo and then we'll get off the
ship and we'll walk around, gofor hikes, whatever.
So we got to experience some ofit.
But just the and this is whatI've been told by buddy before
we went and obviously I talkedto you been a couple times
Mm-hmm was the way we went wasreally nice because we could see
some, because we had staterooms, that with balconies, yes,
(01:54):
you could see so much, like theday that you go up through the
channel towards the glacier.
We couldn't get all the way upthere because we were on a huge
ship, 40 for 4,000 somethingpeople, but the whole morning,
you know you, you get in thechannel at like five in the
morning and then they just kindof cruise along slow and you can
just it's.
(02:15):
It was so peaceful, commandingviews.
It was amazing the, themountains and the trees.
I don't know, for some reasonthe trees won't leave me.
Yeah, it, I'm a I'm a twilightnerd and it it felt like you
know Frickin, edward Cullen,jumping up in those huge trees
and forks, oregon, you knowWashington, whatever it was, but
(02:36):
but yeah, no, it was.
It was a lot of fun.
Eat too much food.
Oh yeah, that's just the way itis when it's on the cruise and
really it.
You know, I it wasn't like alot of food at once.
It was, I don't eat breakfast,but on on the ship we're like
all right, we're gonna eatbreakfast, lunch and dinner and
by by kind of like threequarters away through the week
I'm like I'm not eating lunch.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I don't need to do this.
That's my strategy for comingup vacation.
So I think the last time weactually met in person was like
May.
No, we were in June.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
You're right.
Yeah, it's June.
It's now.
We're going in in June.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, you're right, we did.
And I mean, it's just been afriggin whirlwind.
Summer is a whirlwind.
What else did you guys do?
Oh, shoot, okay.
So I don't remember if we talkedabout this because it has been
so long, but, like the lastcouple of weeks of May, as we
were going into the finale ofschool, I had written 36,000
(03:30):
words on the new novel.
Oh right, yeah, I Did not getany more done after the last
Wednesday of school.
There.
I picked it up like three weekslater and it took me another
Four weeks to finish it.
The last 30,000 words or so.
That's not you, that's not me,and it's good.
I did a read-through this weekand so I like it.
(03:50):
But so what happened was thelast week of school was intense.
We had all these events andaward ceremonies and you know
kids events.
The next week.
The whole week was like mydaughter's dance recital prep.
The week after that my middleson had his Dance recital thing.
The week after that my daughterhad nationals competition.
(04:13):
The week after that, I think,we had a brief lull and then it
was like the next week was danceintensives, to like try out for
competitive teams, and it'sjust like.
And then the week after that,like Alicia and I went away Two
weeks ago, my parents were intown, that's, my mother-in-law
was in town during part of that.
It's like we had a wave ofvisitors.
But when my parents got to town, alicia and I took off and we
went to Chattanooga for fourdays.
(04:34):
How was it it was awesome yeah.
I hadn't been to Chattanoogasince I was a kid.
Great town, yeah, I like it alot.
I mean I've never.
I don't know if I've everactually stayed there before,
but like we would go to mygrandparents.
I lived about 45 minutesoutside Chattanooga where my mom
grew up and we would go everyevery summer.
I would spend a week to twoweeks with them without my
(04:55):
parents around just, you know,exile.
I Could have some peace ofquiet, which I didn't.
I didn't care at the time.
They let me watch R ratedmovies my parents were super
strict about that thing.
And so it's like I would watch.
You know, freddy, I go down tothe video store which was like
one of three businesses in theirtiny town, and they let me rent
whatever R rated movie I want.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So it's like, freddy, jason, chucky, I saw them all
when we stayed in mygrandparents we watched be this
in bloodhead.
We'd play and watch be as a boy, which we couldn't do at home.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, yeah that's.
I wasn't even allowed to watchthe Simpsons when it first came
out.
It was considered to be toprope.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah not much, not much for me either, but anyway.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So Chattanooga was sweet.
We stayed at this Fancy hotelcalled the Chattanoogan.
It was July 4th week.
There was no one there.
Really, the place was dead.
They have a restaurant in thelobby.
We ended up eating at thatrestaurant five meals.
Oh my gosh.
It was so good.
It was one of the bestrestaurants I've ever eaten
downtown.
It's yeah, it was real close todowntown.
(05:55):
It's like Right by theconference center.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Okay, but you couldn't like walk to the
aquarium and stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
You could.
It's about ten blocks away.
I'd say we went to the aquarium.
Yeah, aquariums awesome.
It's beautiful.
It's rock city.
I hadn't been.
I used to want to go to thatevery year and I hadn't been
since probably I was 16 orsomething like that.
It's awesome.
Rock city is amazing.
I'm gonna on there.
It's really cool If you get achance to go.
It's a little kitschy, it's alittle tourist trappy, but it's
(06:21):
really neat.
Like we might come through onour vacation here next week and
and see it when we're comingback up, because I don't know if
I even told you this, we had tochop off the end of our
vacation.
No, yeah.
So Alex's cross-country is andthe Ravenwood Orientation is
like the days we were gonna bein DC and so instead of doing
(06:44):
Norfolk, dc, delaware, maryland,we're just like in West
Virginia, we're like, well, chopthat, we're just gonna do.
We added an extra day to seeAsheville.
We're gonna go to the Biltmore.
Then we're doing Charlotte,north Carolina, I'm gonna try
and do the NASCAR Museum and theWhitewater rafting center,
(07:05):
charleston, all the historicstuff, point Pleasant Naval
Museum and whatnot.
Um, myrtle Beach, for just thetouristy craziness here, it's
like the severe vol of the coast?
Absolutely yes.
So I'm All in for that.
Then we have to cut back acrossto Atlanta, where we will be
eating at Papa Citos, cantinaPapados the only ones in the
(07:26):
southeastern US Well, papa Citosanyway.
And then right back up here,but we might stop at Chattanooga
on the way and hit those, showthose to the Kid's house.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, cool, that's the aquariums really neat too.
It is that whole downtown area,like what they've done.
It's very walkable.
Did you go across the river?
What is it to the north side orwhatever?
We?
Speaker 1 (07:46):
went up there for lunch one day, to Taco Mamacita,
which they have one inGermantown up here.
It's a sweet taco shop, oh man,it's good.
They had some of the best liketacos I've ever had.
It was.
It was like the artisanal tacosyeah, authentic Mexican tacos.
Your mom would be like, ah,this is trash.
No bueno, what is this Norteamericano trash?
(08:09):
But it's really good.
It's like artisanal.
They have like a one that'sbrisket and Barbecue sauce and
like it's.
It was great.
I gotta go back.
I gotta go back down thereagain.
Chattanooga is a great place todo a getaway, but anyway, the
hotel restaurant called forge.
I never write reviews foranyone.
I wrote a Google review fivestars because we ate, I think,
(08:32):
everything on the menu whichthey had.
They had one of the best steaksI've ever had in my life.
They had.
They had an appetizer that waslike a whipped feta with a
little bit of honeycomb in it.
Oh yeah, in some capers, yeah,and a little smoked paprika and
with these, perfect, liketoasted chabata.
We ordered that every singletime we went.
(08:55):
Their salads were amazing.
They had a peach somethingsalad.
That was really great.
They had a fantastic baratasalad.
They had a half.
I ordered a half chicken onetime.
Like I never ordered chicken atrestaurants, I'm like I want to
try this half chicken and thegrits that they had that came
with it were pink unicornsomething grits.
Oh, they were the greatestgrits I've had in my life.
(09:16):
Why were they pink unicorn?
I don't know, that's just whatthey called them.
Were they pink?
They were pink.
They were indeed pink, and Idon't know what made them pink
but I know they were fantastic.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
They ate unicorn blood in them.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Well, I'll live forever.
Then, yeah, there you go.
It'll be a half life, firstlife, right?
Yeah, I mean, I could talkabout the food we ate there
forever, and I did in my Googlereview.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Where else did you guys go?
You went to Rock City, you wentacross the river, or where else
did you go?
Speaker 1 (09:40):
We kind of did a thing every day.
We sat, just sat in red andspent time together.
We logged into Netflix andbinged Santa Clarita diet Like
we never had a chance to do that.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I love doing that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Just the two of us.
It was amazing.
It was the first time we gottogether last year for like two
days when we went to Birminghamand did kind of a similar like
do nothing.
I think I was working a littlebit.
I think I was working on storyideas or something and she was
trying to get stuff out.
But this was just.
We got ourselves a suite, Hotelprices were rock bottom, there
was no one there.
It was just let's hang out.
(10:13):
We're gonna focus on us for afew days, enjoy ourselves, eat
like fat kids and it was great.
That's awesome, man, Just what.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I needed.
Yeah, I think we did that lastyear when we went to Austin and
I we looked up one evening andwe had been watching television
for like 10 hours.
Nice, and I realized I hadn'tdone that since college.
I mean, do you remember thosedays of just like vegging out?
(10:42):
I don't know if you did that, Iknow.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
I've done it in the last few years.
I haven't done it probably inabout five years now, but like
when the Marvel shows were onNetflix Daredevil and Jessica
Jones and stuff I would get upat two o'clock in the morning
and I would watch them straightthrough the whole season.
They're 13 episodes seasons, ohGod yeah.
But I haven't done thatprobably since then, because
just most of the stuff on TV Idon't give enough of a shit
(11:04):
about to dedicate that kind oftime to anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Have you been watching?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
the new Jack Ryan.
I watched the first season andyou told me that the third
season picked up.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
The second season was ish.
Third season was great.
The fourth season is like it'sgood so far.
We just finished the secondepisode last night and they are
rocking and rolling.
It's you know when they youknow, especially with like
espionage stuff, when you startfreaking out about like this is
like this is real.
(11:34):
That's how it feels I mean verymuch.
So you know they're bringing inthe, you know the Asian triad,
the cartels down in Mexico, theCIA, like the old director
basically being in on the wholething, and why.
I mean it's pretty powerful, ok, and I mean I'm kind of like
God, this is their writing hasgotten pretty damn strong.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Because the first season was really good.
I think I told you about it.
I know I talked about it withLee and then after that my
parents were like we didn't evenfinish the second season.
It was so weak.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
That one.
Yeah, it was a weak follow up.
I don't know if it was becauseof COVID or whatever, but I
highly recommend go to three anddefinitely do four.
Ok, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah, because I heard Ding Chavez is coming in.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yes, we, he just came in, yeah, which he's one of my
favorite characters in the inthe novels.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
That one guy that they have, the one that was from
House of Cards.
He kind of looks like he'ssupposed to be John Clark in
this series, Because he's John.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Clark oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, he's, yeah, so he
he's.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
It's funny I said he's my wife.
He was in season one or so, Ithink he's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Like I really like him as a good guy, honestly,
rather than a bad guy like inHouse of Cards.
And House of Cards he wasn't.
You know he was.
He's a really good actor.
Yes, he's phenomenal.
And so he just got the phonecall in episode two that Jack
needs him.
You know that Jack needs hishelp.
He's like I knew you would orsomething like that.
He's just I don't know he's.
(12:56):
Yeah, I really really like that.
And then, of course, the guythat plays James Greer is
fantastic too.
He was.
He was a really good Greer.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, yeah, really good.
I watched Hunt for Octoberagain not that long ago, like
within the last month, and it'sjust man, that thing stands the
test of time.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, you know it's.
It's like do you remember whyBaldwin didn't do the second one
?
I think it was a money thing,wasn't it?
No, well, I don't know if thiswas rumor or whatever but,
apparently he wanted to like sexscenes in it.
I don't know what I mean, butknowing his past I wouldn't put
that past him.
But then you know, they broughtin Harrison Ford and I thought
(13:33):
he did great in some of those.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
He did.
He wasn't.
He didn't scream Jack Ryan tome, but you know that's okay,
did you?
Because I was watching aninterview with Gates McFadden
who played Dr Crusher on StarTrek, the Next Generation, okay,
and she was talking about it,because I don't know if you
remember this, she was actuallyKathy Ryan in Hunt for Out
October.
What she's in it for like onescene, and that's it.
(13:55):
It's at the very beginning whenshe's dropping Jack off at the
airport.
I don't remember that at all.
That's her.
She's Kathy Ryan in that andit's funny because she plays it
with a British accent and KathyMuller Ryan is not British.
Yeah, they made that choice andwhatever.
It's like the only complaint Ihave for one of the greatest
movies of all time.
That's so funny.
But she said something about ohyeah, well, I was supposed to
be in Patriot games and thenAlec, whatever.
(14:16):
I don't remember what she saidand she's like it's so.
Then that was gone.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
So I went to Star Trek instead.
Yeah, she had a great run onthat?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Oh, she did, but yeah .
So it's funny you mentionedHarrison Ford, because I kind of
had him on my list of thingsthat I could possibly tear off
or rant about right now.
Oh no, harrison Ford has donesome of his best work in the
last few years on 1923.
That is the most Harrison Fordrole imaginable.
He does an awesome job as thepatriarch.
(14:48):
I can't remember.
It's Jacob, right, jacob?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
I don't know, they're all J's.
Yeah, it's Jacob.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure , and he's awesome in that.
And then Indiana Jones 5.
Oh, I haven't seen it.
Yeah, neither have I, because Idid all of the due diligence to
figure out what it's about andhow it goes.
And it's another case of what Iwill call the deconstructed
hero.
I'm not the one who pioneeredthis, I'm pretty sure Critical
(15:15):
Drinker or one of the guys inthat kind of orbit, that
constellation of reviewers hascome up with it and maybe like
Dave Cullen or somebody.
But the deconstructed hero isjust.
You resume with a hero who'sbuilt up over the course of
several movies Luke Skywalker,han Solo, indiana Jones being
the three right off the top ofmy head, all Luke's film
(15:35):
creations all built up in thecourse of a story arc that saw
them go from farm boy to hero,from rogue scoundrel to hero,
general treasure hunter to herowho saved the world multiple
times.
Right, we pick up with them 30,40 years later and they're down
(15:58):
, like you know, broken down,bitter, angry, pissed off.
Old men Like this is the onlything that Lucasfilm knows how
to do with old guys.
I guess it's like we will takeyour heroes and then rub their
faces in the shit and make themcompletely bitter, unlikable.
We're going to bring in newcharacters and instead of
(16:20):
building up those new charactersand making them awesome the way
you do with a traditional hero,we're going to advance them
while devaluing your currenthero, basically at the expense
of the current hero.
You think about Force Awakens.
Rey doesn't look so awesome onher own.
She just is naturally great ateverything and she Shines up, or
what do you call it.
(16:40):
She overshadows Han Solo andLuke Skywalker in turn.
She's just better than them.
Why?
Well, they kind of give a storyreason later on.
That wasn't really decided atthe time.
But essentially what they'redoing is that she's got to be
better than them.
Some people have suggested thatstudio head of Lucasfilm, kathy
Kathleen Kennedy.
It's like sort of a self-insertfor her, where she's like the
(17:00):
Mary Sue, and so all of thesecharacters must be better than
the original heroes Because theyrepresent her in the story.
I don't know about that.
It's an interesting theory, butit's only a theory.
No one knows what goes on inKathy and Kennedy's head.
The point is they take theseheroes.
Same thing with the, the ladyin Indiana Jones 5 who's played
by Phoebe Waller-Bridge who,from everything I've heard, her
(17:22):
show Fleabag is supposed to beamazing.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Yeah, I've only watched a couple episodes.
It's a look, anyway, it's dark.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
It works on a lot of really is she's really good.
There's a YouTube channel calledbaggage claim where she talks
about why Phoebe Waller-Bridgewas amazing in Fleabag, not so
great in Indiana Jones and, asshe points, paints a compelling
case for why.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge isprobably a very talented writer
and person, but, like when she'sput in the Hollywood system and
forced to work with thearchetypes they give her for
(17:51):
these characters this, this youknow Female character that must
overshadow her predecessor hero,it doesn't work for her because
she's much better with likekind of more flawed,
multifaceted heroines orprotagonists, I guess you could
say.
Anyway, the point is I'm justsick of this trope at this point
.
I was I was the biggest HanSolo fan in the world.
(18:13):
I was willing to accept it inForce Awakens.
I saw Force Awakens six timesin theaters.
They broke down my hero.
I got it.
I thought, hey, this is maybegonna go somewhere.
Interesting.
It didn't.
Whatever that happens, but thefact that they've now done it
three times to three majorheroes with the same pattern, we
will devalue and destroy yourcurrent hero that was built up.
We're gonna turn him into acompletely irredeemable, bitter
(18:36):
old man.
No heroism, useless garbage,whatever.
It's the.
It's the anti-maverick Top Gun.
Maverick worked becauseMaverick is not a bitter old man
.
He still knows his shit.
He's still a hero.
He has things to impart to hissuccessors.
None of those Lucasfilmcharacters have shit to impart
to their successors.
They are useless.
They're useless in what isostensibly their own stories,
(18:59):
potentially, and that is awful.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Stop doing it, lucasfilm.
But, but I think they would.
They wouldn't they turn aroundand tell you that like the
sacrifice at the end Would beworth it for them.
What sacrifice.
You know Han Solo dying and andthen painting that, as you know
him sacrificing somehow for thecause.
You know I can see how andagain, I I don't get into this
(19:24):
shit as much as you do- I reallydon't, and, and to be quite
honest, I don't care.
Yeah, what I do care about is agood movie that's well-written.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
I just do that's the problem that I have too.
It's like and I thought forceawakens was actually fairly well
yeah no, I liked it.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I actually like the Ray character.
I like the Ray character earlyon.
She has no flaws.
That's the biggest.
Yeah, there's no character arcfor her.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
No, I agree with the only character arc she has is
that she gets to the end of thethird movie and it's like I'm
Ray Skywalker.
Yeah, like, oh, okay.
She's like I found the placewhere I belong alone.
Yeah, in the desert planetwhere I've never lived before.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, I didn't, I did not get.
I never understood.
I thought I knew where theywere going.
After the first one, yeah, andeven with the second one, but
the third one, you know, in thewhole the love stuff and and in
whatever I don't know, I'm gonnaswitch gears.
Yeah, hair have you seen safe?
Have you seen Harrison Ford inshrinking?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
No, you told me it was good and I haven't watched.
I don't have Apple Plus yet.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Oh my gosh.
So I here.
Let's take a step back.
So all of a sudden, harrisonFord is back on the scene again
doing a lot of stuff.
Yeah, I don't know what'sbehind that.
Like is he still with his wife?
Like did he have, I think?
So I think I don't know whatwas her name.
(20:47):
Yeah, yeah that's what I wasgonna say.
Allen move, feel that's not areal name.
So it's like all of a suddenhe's, he's, he's back, doing all
these things and and it alwaysmakes me wonder, like, do you
wonder about that?
Like, like what?
What brought that come back?
I don't know.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (21:03):
he's in Captain America 4, 2?
.
He takes over for William Hertzoh, really character, yeah, cuz
what hurt died.
Oh.
And so he's gonna be playingThaddeus Thunderbolt Ross who
was yeah, he's in therespeculating.
He's gonna be the Red Hulk init.
So.
And then he was in IndianaJones publicity things and one
(21:23):
of the nerd Interviewers is likeso Everybody's kind of saying
you're gonna be the Red Hulk andhe like looks at the camera and
I mean it's perfect, like I'm90% sure he was acting, but he
did it really well.
Deadpan, like what's a Red Hulk?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Perfect Harrison Ford .
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Tresor Phoebe Weller Bridget Did you know about this?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, you have definitely, at least in my All
the outlets that I use.
I have not seen a lot ofpublicity for Indiana Jones at
all.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
It's gonna lose the money.
Yeah, so the Low-ended missionis that it cost them 295 million
dollars to make and it is sofar at global box office at 250
million and I think it's openedin about every territory.
Yeah, so I mean it's it's gonnalose them money, and at this
point I mean Star Wars wouldprobably lose the money.
(22:19):
Lucasfilm has burned everythingto the ground.
I I mean I'm sitting here assomeone who has invested in the
Walt Disney Corporation in thepast but thankfully does not own
their stock right now.
I Would be absolutely in favorof an activist investor
dethroning Bob Iger.
He is not Steering the ship ina smart direction.
(22:41):
It seems to me like I don'tnecessarily disagree with his
general idea of well, weprobably need to scale back
development a little bit inorder to make more quality stuff
, but he approved all of thisshit that was being thrown
against the wall and you knowdid you see?
Speaker 2 (22:56):
charge came out today when yesterday.
It doesn't matter that he'stalking about divesting out of,
like Some of their TV assets,like ABC and FX or whatever
because he's like with CNBC.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, he's know that that was part of it, but I mean
yeah he said he the TV mediumhe's like it's going away, it is
it is, I mean when.
This is the funny thing istraditional TV.
Yeah, why would even argue thatstreaming is gonna take a big
hit over the next few years?
Hbo's Well, it's now max, butit was HBO max.
Their service is not doing well.
Paramount is not doing well.
A paramount plus, netflix, youknow, first mover advantage.
(23:36):
They've done pretty well forthemselves.
I don't, I don't I haven'tlooked their financials lately,
but I mean most of thesestreaming services are not doing
particularly well.
Disney plus is losingsubscribers.
I mean they're the cheapest ofall and they're they're they're
losing ground.
They're the exclusive refuge oflike all of these Disney, star
Wars, marvel, whatever nobodyseems to.
And and free money the cheapmoney that we've had over the
(23:59):
last few years with low interestrates is drying up.
Yeah, like a lot of businessesare gonna be hit hard.
Yeah, it's funny cuz Alicia andI've been talking about it and
In general I think she's like Ithink a recession is coming.
Oh, yeah, she went and rebookedall our hotels for the next few
weeks of vacation and was ableto get like a 25% Discount on
what we were gonna pay becausenone of them are at occupancy.
(24:20):
Yeah, and that included somepretty, I mean myrtle be.
I will see what Myrtle Beachlooks like, because there's a
lot of hotels in Myrtle Beach,but I Think it's generally a
pretty damn busy place in thesummertime.
Oh, absolutely, and so if we gothere and it's like not busy at
all, I think something might beright, see, travels not down,
that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Travels not down, but the Corporate.
So I had an interestingconversation with a guy who's a
pretty big commercial realestate investor here in town and
he, they, he told me, he saidyou Banks are shut down for
commercial lending.
Yeah, and I would too if I werethem yeah, like that asset they
do not want on their booksanymore.
(24:59):
For them to just say, uh-uh, nomore.
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
And I didn't see the disposition of it.
But there's some of these bigoffice buildings in places like
San Francisco and New York.
I saw one in San Franciscowhere they basically just handed
the keys back to the lender andsaid best of luck, Because
again it goes back to that urbandoom loops thing we've talked
about before, where there's notenough demand for people who
want to work in the city, and Idon't know what you do with all
(25:26):
that commercial space.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of loans on the book
associated with that Right.
Well, and that's one of thebiggest factors is, you know, as
a developer, as an investor youare, you're basically, you know
, taking out loan after loanafter loan, like big loans too,
yeah, huge loans, and so you'reconstantly refinancing, right,
mm-hmm.
Well, when you go from almost0% money, to 5% To 5% yeah.
(25:47):
Your returns just disappeared.
Yes, oof gone.
So I don't blame some of thesepeople that are like here.
Here are the keys.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Well, I think the occupancy rates are the other
big part of it.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
In San Francisco, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, yeah, I mean in downtown Nashville you probably
have a better situation,although I did talk to one of my
neighbors who is a commercialreal estate guy and he was
saying it's going to be aslightly more challenging
environment.
Amazon had that second towerthat they were building in the
Nashville Yards area I think iswhat they called the development
, where they put the logisticsbuildings yeah, and one of my
neighbors works in one of thembut I was hearing that they had
(26:21):
a second tower and theybasically just left it at the
shell stage because they're likewe don't know if we need as
much office space as weoriginally talked about.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Yeah, Again, when there's free money, you can
basically develop as much as youwant.
It totally makes sense.
And here's the thing, and youknow this, we've been through a
couple of cycles.
This is natural.
Like this needs to happen,because a lot of the things were
completely they were screwy.
They were screwy, people weretaking advantage of the system.
So it's like there needs to beand I love how everybody looks
(26:53):
for the government to fix it all.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
I'd rather you not.
They've been trying to fix itfor years and they've screwed
everything up.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Well, that's the thing is like.
Everybody's going to trywhatever they're going to try.
There is no perfect fix because, even if we look back at
history, history will repeatitself in different ways, but
not exactly.
And that's the thing is like,especially when you read the
news well, the Fed is trying todo what they did back in 1943.
Well, okay, different factors,different things.
(27:19):
Yes, maybe certain things arethe same.
But I've gone back and I'mreading like the Tower of
Charlie Munger, right now.
And to see, even over his career, the times that their focus and
the way they invest has changed, because the market, the world,
everything has changed.
So it's like I feel like it'sall just a guessing game.
(27:43):
The government's trying toguess which way things are going
to go, so they apply certainthings.
Banks do the same thing.
Banks are like I don't know, Idon't want to be, I'm glad I
don't work for a bank right now,especially in a commercial
world.
It's going to be interesting.
I mean, I think, fromeverything that I've read and
that I listened to, the firsttwo quarters of next year are
(28:03):
going to suck for a lot ofindustries.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Did you listen to my talk with Mike Lorenz from a
couple weeks back?
Okay, it's really long, but oneof the more interesting things
that he and I talk about is justhow the US economy and banking
in general has kind of been likea guy who's on steroids working
out and I don't know how muchyou know about steroids, but if
you're on them, you basicallyhave to stay on them in order to
(28:29):
maintain your mass, otherwiseyou just tail off and become
skinny and to a large extent,our playing with interest rates
and central banking has becomelike the steroids that have kept
our economy going.
And so if we lose the ability todo that to a certain extent
because we've been playing withinterest rates and printing
(28:51):
money and doing all of thisstuff, if we ever lose that,
it's really going to be like aguy who's suddenly goes off a
crash diet.
He was on all the steroids andreplacement test and all this
stuff and it's just and he'sjust going to be back to the
skinny nerd.
If he survives the trends andtransition down to he's going to
try and lift and then he'sgoing to break both shoulders
(29:11):
because he can't lift anythinganymore.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
And we're seeing that .
We're seeing that withcompanies.
Now, right that you have, say,a company that was a unicorn and
that raised all this money, andnow they basically the company
has no value to the investorsbecause they've already been
wiped clean.
And so what do you do?
What do you do with a companylike that?
Well, maybe you strip it forassets.
Maybe you start from day one.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Take the tech or somewhere else with it.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I can know, but I do like that, and it's coming
faster now that companies aregetting back to fundamentals
right, making money instead ofthis ridiculous burn rate every
freaking month, because thatnever used to be a thing that
wasn't a thing back in the early1900s or even the mids.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Even in the early 2000s.
In fact, one of the things thatwas interesting that I read not
that long ago was about thesenew tech startups like Uber new
now, they've been around for awhile, but like Uber, netflix,
the ones that are like mostrecent generation of unicorns
right, whereas in the past itwas like Amazon, facebook,
microsoft, the tech titans ofthe 90s and early 2000s.
(30:20):
Those companies always madecash, like they always.
Their burn rate was not obscenecompared to what they would
bring in.
They generate revenue, whereaslike Uber was not doing very
well at all there for a whileand they would burn through
incredible amounts of cash.
Netflix, same thing.
I think Netflix is now makingmoney, no idea, but for a while
there it was like they wouldjust burn through the cash in
(30:41):
order to create content and itwasn't necessarily getting, I
guess, best bang for their buck,or they were burning through so
much cash that they couldn'tmake a profit.
I think they controlled costsand they might be in better
shape, but the point was thatthese new companies, because
they were raised in this cashrich environment, would just
(31:02):
absolutely burn through at aninsane rate, and you saw the
same thing with Twitter whenElon came in and took it over he
was the first one that did it.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
He was the first one to cut.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Cut, cut, cut.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
And then what happens .
But those are all end.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Guys were saying that at the time you sent me that
podcast.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Then Facebook did it, then everybody started doing it
right, because that's what wasneeded.
You had all this fluff ofmiddle management that they
weren't doing anything.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Well, they expanded rapidly to include all of these
people that didn't add valueTotally.
And that's why I mean I thinkthat's one of the reasons why
the DEI coordinators at a lot ofthese places are getting the ax
first is it's like yeah, okay,if we have infinite money, sure
I'll virtue signal for whateverI have to pay, but when we
(31:49):
actually start to get into afinancially dicey position,
you're the first to go.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And to be shocked at that if you're in that position
is naive.
You know either that or you'rereally young.
And I feel bad for those intheir early 20s who were getting
chopped and they haven'texperienced it yet.
And the same thing back in 08when we were in the middle of it
is like holy crap.
Lucky enough for me, like Iremember 2000.
(32:15):
And I was going to the militaryat the time, so that didn't
really affect me, but I got towatch it from the outside and I
had friends.
You know, my best man, one ofmy best friends, was at Enron
when that whole thing, implodedright.
He was there for like a yearwhen that whole thing happened.
So it's like you see thesethings and you live and learn
and you can, you know.
I hope that these founders thathad these unicorns will call
(32:37):
them that are no longer unicorns.
I don't know.
They've got a name for now,like falling unicorns or
something like that and I hope.
I hope these really smart people, these guys and gals like,
learn from this and either pickthemselves up and keep building
or go build something else.
You know, inevitably, hopefully, that will happen, but but it's
(32:58):
really interesting to see.
It's like you said, they werebasically raised in an
environment where there was freemoney.
Yeah, you know, like I tell thestory all the time, if I had
been a kid who was like LeBronJames and given $100 million out
of high school, I would be atotal shit show.
Oh yeah, I really would.
And even so, I still have beenin my life because I have to
(33:20):
learn all these money lessons.
You know, for me the lessonscome very, very slowly because
I'm I'm not very smart when itcomes to that, apparently, but I
think that as I've gotten older, I'm picking up those those
little things quicker.
You know because, because Idon't want to make the same
mistakes again, I don't know,it's going to be really
interesting next six, eight, 12months.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
That, that lesson, though.
That what you're talking about.
There is exactly what Aliciaand I discussed with our oldest
here, because he was like we youknow, if the lottery gets high,
we'll buy it one ticket or twotickets probably, and I think
it's Powerball's like 875million right now.
Let's go get them.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah, yeah, let's stop right now and go $4,.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
You know, we'll buy a couple of tickets.
And it's like we just sit backand kind of enjoy it, like, haha
, you know, this is kind of fun.
And he's like, hey, I want tobuy a ticket too.
And I'm like, no, hey, you'renot old enough.
Well, you can keep it though.
And I'm like no, because thelast.
Can you imagine how much of anabsolute dumpster fire you would
be if someone would handed you$400 million in cash?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
and it sounds so great, it sounds so great it
sounds like.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
You know, if someone did that to me, I would be in
the exact same situation as youlike.
The best I would be theintrovert who sits in a castle
like house, probably nevermarried, because I didn't have a
need to get out and socializeand I just have read and played
every video game known to man.
My Xbox gamer score would be inthe millions, it's like.
(34:45):
Would that have created arewarding life for me?
No, I had a process ofdevelopment to go through.
I had to do a character arc,Like they should have done with
Indiana Jones.
And they decided not to.
And so that I mean there's yourproblem right there.
If you don't go through thecharacter, growth and
development and suffering, thenyou don't become the person that
you're supposed to be I.
And why would you suffer if youhave $400?
Speaker 2 (35:08):
million.
That right there.
That's the headline, though,right Is?
People don't want to suffer,and I raised my hand and say I
was one of those that did notwant to suffer.
Yeah, no, it's not fun, becauseyou don't.
I mean you want to wish that onanybody, especially not
yourself.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
The thing is, life is suffering to a certain extent
and money can erase some of that, but I mean the struggles, part
of it, like when we talked, Idon't know whenever, the last
time we were actually doing acouple of podcasts in a row, it
was like taste like poverty.
How would you know if you'venot done?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
what we did Right, unless you have that same
linguine pasta every single daybecause it only costs 50 cents.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yeah, the junior bacon cheeseburgers and the
chilies the value menu atWendy's.
I would not know the taste ofthe value menu at Wendy's if I
hadn't tasted poverty.
I mean why would I?
I'd have a private chef.
I have three of them, one forevery meal of the day.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
But thank God that we went through that.
I needed that.
I really did.
It's funny.
Best case scenario for meprobably would have been like I
would have burned through 90some percent of that money, and
there still happened to be like10 million left to when I
finally woke up, ditched all myaddictions and realized oh man,
maybe I should get my shittogether.
You know who knows how longthat would have taken, though.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
It's easier to burn through large quantities of
money, like I knew a couple ofpeople who got inheritances in
high school and they didn't getlike I don't think huge ones,
but they blew through them inrapid order and it was like
booze, weed, samurai swords Oneguy I'm not even kidding you.
This one dude.
He inherited enough money likehis mom had to basically live in
(36:50):
his house because somehow heinherited it from his dad.
I don't know if there wasmarriage on the rocks or what,
but it bypassed her and went tohim and so his mom was basically
subject to him when he wasstill a minor.
Oh no, yeah, cause she couldn'thave her own place and so
anyway, he was out drinking,doing drugs and whatnot.
He's driving down this road andis blasted out of his mind and
(37:12):
somehow he goes off the road andhits this 100 year old church
and knocks it off itsfoundations.
I mean it's Florida, so it'sbuilt up off the swampy ground
or whatever, but I mean it'slike I think he got his life
together eventually, but like hehad a really rough time with
that.
And why wouldn't he Cause youhave no, he had no one to check
(37:32):
him and be like, stop being adumb fuck.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah, yeah, it's funny.
But before you even said that,it reminded me of something that
I saw I don't know if it was acommercial, probably something
on socials about a guy who wastalking about one of these rich
guru guys he was talking about.
Yeah, you know, and you shouldstart from day one, when your
kid is is born, to start, youknow, maximizing so that by the
(37:57):
time they become, you know,they're 23, they can be
millionaires.
I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, what, what, why would I do that?
Like, I don't know, and you andI have talked about this some
too.
I just, I don't know.
I think my kids should have towork for that themselves, like,
like, if we leave them something, you know, I think it should be
structured.
That's me personally, I feellike it should be.
(38:18):
You know, for us it'll probablybe something revolving around
travel or something like that,but I don't want to leave them a
ton of money to be stupid with.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Like I would have an easier time if they came to me
at age 30 and they're like, hey,can you help me with like a
down payment for a house?
Speaker 2 (38:34):
That's totally different.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
But it's different because it's like you know it's
not going up their nose or youknow, or being drunk, drunk away
, which, when you're in your 20s, let's be honest, that's a real
danger of happening, because Idon't know.
I suspect I know what youranswer is going to be to this
but like I drank a lot in my 20s, I quit because I was so sure
that I was an alcoholic.
I quit drinking before I was 21because I couldn't drink
(38:59):
without getting completelyblitzed out of my mind drunk.
I had no discipline to it and Isort of picked it up again in
my 20s and I still had nodiscipline with it.
And so now I can have a drinkevery once in a while without
getting completely blitzed outof my mind.
But that's like the virtue ofwisdom and also the fact that I
know how it goes right to mybelly.
(39:20):
I figured out I can either havedessert or a drink, and not
both.
I think I'm going to pick thecake.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Wait, which kind of cake?
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Well, let's see.
Do you currently have afavorite?
So I make a wicked pineappleupside down cake.
Oh yeah, it's so damn good.
Oh my gosh, I'll have to makeit for you sometime.
It's so good.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
We'll coordinate for one of my cheat meals.
How about that?
Speaker 1 (39:48):
That sounds like a plan.
When I'm on a cooking bender,which I was during COVID I was
making chicken parmesan,linguine alf or a chicken
alfredo, fettuccine alfredo withchicken in it.
I mean it's one of the bestfettuccine alfredos I've ever
(40:09):
had in my life and I made it,which is dangerous because then
you realize you can have itanytime.
Oh yeah, like all of thesethings, I was doing them during
COVID and after.
I learned how to cook duringthat time and I learned how to
cook really, really well, thestuff that I like the best.
Blessing and a curse it is.
It is so I can make an amazingchicken parmesan anytime I want
(40:32):
to have it, but it takes time,number one, and I'm going to be
fat if I eat it all the time.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I told you when I walked in or
maybe we had already talkedabout it that being away and
being out of my routine andeating just not the way I'm used
to, yeah, I feel it way morenow, now that I'm older, you
know that sick feeling in yourstomach, right.
Yeah, body doesn't processthings quite as well as it used
(40:58):
to.
I mean, then I watch my boysand they can eat anything,
they're just disposals.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
So Alex had a doctor's appointment thing this
morning and afterwards mydaughter's like a day camp thing
, and I took the other threewife and the other two kids out
to breakfast at Waffle House.
Oh man, I'm not going to beeating again until late this
afternoon.
I love Southern Hibachi.
That's what we call WaffleHouse.
(41:25):
That's what you call itSouthern Hibachi.
It is, it's Southern Hibachi.
Do you get the waffles Hell?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
yeah, their waffles are dynamite.
Yeah, yeah, do you get theblueberry?
Speaker 1 (41:36):
ones or just regular ones, just regular, regular.
I'm not fancy.
I just take that crappy canolaspread and just douse it in that
and drown that fucker in syrup.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Yeah, my big splurge when I do breakfast is Cracker
Barrel.
They're pancakes, crackerBarrel, those pancakes.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
We went there for Father's Day at dinner.
Oh really, yes.
Did you have breakfast ordinner?
Speaker 2 (41:56):
I had breakfast.
Oh yeah, If I go to CrackerBarrel, I'm having breakfast Me
too.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
I don't think I've ever had dinner meal at Cracker
Barrel they have really amazingchicken fried steak, but you can
get it as part of the breakfastmeal.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
I still don't understand what the hell that
means.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
You know what chicken fried steak.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I know what it is, but I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Yeah, it's like a low grade meat that's fried like
chicken.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
OK.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
And usually has a white gravy on it or whatever.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
So it's just a mass of the fact that it's cheap meat
, yeah, ok.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
But it tastes so good .
Ok, I went to this place inHouston that my cousin who lives
down there turned me on to thatI had the best damn chicken
fried steak I've ever eaten inmy life.
I've never had it.
You've never had chicken friedsteak.
Never Get it as like I don'tknow.
I guess you probably can't getit as a side at Cracker Barrel
Chicken fried steak, but CrackerBarrel has really good chicken
(42:44):
fried steak.
It's like a.
It's like you ever have steaknuggets when you were a kid.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
No.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
OK, that's sad.
Where's steak nuggets fromApparently heaven?
In my imagination Is thissomething your parents made.
No, they came in like banquetmeals when I was a kid.
What?
Yeah, you could get chickennuggets and you could get steak
nuggets.
Nope, oh yeah, steak nuggets.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Maybe it's because I ate the cheap version of Hungry
man meals, I don't even know.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
I mean, I might have been getting the cheap version
of them too.
It might have been a regionalthing, because some stuff is
just regional markets, so it'svery possible that Chicken Fried
Steak is not sold west of NewMexico.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Maybe I lived in Japan the year that that was out
.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
I don't think it was a year.
It was there throughout mywhole childhood.
I've never heard of that.
Oh yeah, man.
Chicken Fried Steak nuggetsNuggets.
Chicken Fried Steak nuggetsthey were dynamite, you could
dip them in a gravy and theywere really good.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
How do our conversations always devolve
into food?
Speaker 1 (43:48):
I think it's because I'm hungry.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
No, I ate before I came over here for a reason, and
we're still hungry, becauseother than editing.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
All I care about right now is eating, Like when
we're going on our vacation.
I've already got the restaurantscouted, Do you really?
There's this place in MyrtleBeach called the original
Benjamin's Calabash Buffet?
What?
Speaker 2 (44:06):
It has oh shit you not?
Speaker 1 (44:08):
There's like 160 or 190 menu items and it's like
crab legs and fried shrimp andcoconut shrimp and it's like
everything you can imagine.
I'm like I'm dragging my familyalong like a hostage situation
to that place.
We will walk out of here when Iam full and that is it, and
(44:29):
when I get back, I'm going to goon the most epic weight loss
spree that you can ever possiblymention.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
I can see Alicia.
I can help daddy to the car.
No.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
I want to come back.
I need a lap band procedure.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
What is it called Benjamin's Calabash?
Speaker 1 (44:48):
Yeah, I think it's called the original Benjamin
Calabash and it was apparentlyso popular that they created an
offspring one that was calledsomething else, captain's
Calabash or something.
It's a local, you know, localarea with these like weird
traditions, but like apparentlythere was a secondary one and so
they had to specify that.
Hey, where are the originals?
Seafood, all you can eat,10,000 item buffet oh my gosh,
(45:11):
when we were in that it's likeit sounds like a red lobster all
you can eat.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Oh my gosh, can you imagine?
I haven't been to a red lobsterin a long, long time.
When we were up in Michigan, inGaylord, there was a place it
was the one that was in themiddle of town was no longer
there, but when we left that wesaw there was a new one.
It's called Gobblers and it'slike there.
I mean on the sign it says like,our specialty is turkey, like
(45:35):
everything, turkey To me that isnot, not somewhere I want to go
, but it looks like it had beenthere for a hundred years.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Dude, I don't know.
I don't get it.
I don't understand the appealof turkey at all.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
They need good fried turkey because I want the skin
like fresh out of the fryer.
But I mean turkey is not.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
I mean, if you had to pick turkey breast, chicken
breast, perfectly cooked, bothof them, yeah, way more flavor,
way tastier I prefer a thigh,but yeah.
Yeah, I love a good chickenthigh.
That's my diet is eatingchicken thighs, but same thing,
it's like a turkey leg.
I think I'd rather have achicken leg.
Yeah, yeah, I'm with you.
I mean I'll take oneoccasionally and we go to like a
(46:16):
medieval Renaissance fest orwhatever.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Yeah, then it's fun.
It's not like Disney World, butit's not that good.
No, it's not.
No, it's never as good as Ithink it's going to be.
No, I mean it looks goodbecause you know they've toasted
or whatever.
It looks huge.
Yeah, it really does.
It's always too much.
You could kill somebody thattried to take your wallet, you
know that'd be cool.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Yeah, club them, yeah .
So there's that.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Well, with that, how about a perfect time?
Speaker 1 (46:40):
We've talked about enough food for you, yeah we'll
let that wrap.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
We'll come back with more food, yeah.
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