11-04-25 FULL SHOW - Election Day! Plus The Future, And Escaping The Drift In Your Life

It's election day, plus a great Xmas gift for the hostess in your life, what things will become archaic by 2040, and my brother on Escaping the Drift!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Accident and injury Lawyers.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
No, it's Mandy connellyn.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
On KOA. M S got way you want to say?

Speaker 4 (00:18):
They three by Donald.

Speaker 5 (00:24):
Sad Bab Welcome Local, Welcome to a Tuesday edition of
the show. Today we barrel and a barreling with me
is Anthony Rodriguez. We call him A Rod. Together, we'll
take you right up until three p m. When the
KOA Sports dudes take over. And boy do we have
a lot to talk about. For some reason, when I

(00:46):
pull up my blog at my own in the iHeartMedia Studios,
occasionally it will give me a oops, this page can't
be or whatever? Page just refresh? Is it just happening
to me here? A Rod's going to take another shot
my ability to use technology.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
I mean no, every now and then you do have
to refresh. But when you get older, things just don't
go the way you want them to.

Speaker 5 (01:07):
For whatever reason, this morning, none of my emails that
I sent this morning sent well some of them.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Did I know this could be groundbreaking? Try to hit send?

Speaker 5 (01:16):
Yeah I did, I did. Indeed, did you turn off?
And I do know how to work the email apparently not.
I apparently not.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:26):
I did have to close my email and then reopen it,
so maybe in the reopening I did something and fix
the issue that I'm having. But now all the emails
have been sent, nothing to worry about. Let's talk about
what's on the blog because it's a good one and
we have a big show, and I'm super excited because
my little brother is coming on the show today. That's right,
he yeah, yeah, he's gonna join us today. He's got

(01:49):
a new book coming out.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
From Senn City.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yes that you guys all, you're gonna You're gonna spend
at least two minutes, yes, asking him specifically about what
I need to prepare for now that we've officially booked
our New Year's Eve to Vegas PHO.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
No, you'll have to get that.

Speaker 5 (02:04):
Okay, we'll get that. We'll do that. We'll get to
run down on that. We'll make sure we get that
information out. To find the blog, go to mandy'sblog dot com.
That's mandy'sblog dot com. Look for the headline this is
eleven four, twenty five Election Day plus the Future and
Escaping the drift in your life. Click on that and
Here are the headlines you will find within Office half.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Of American, all with ships and clipmas, and say that's
going to press plat.

Speaker 5 (02:30):
Today on the blog ah got a frog in my
throat today on the blog don't forget to vote today,
No on Prop L L and M M. Jeffco school
Board Race, Dougco Schools Race, Denver school Board Race, Jerry
Greek School District. Jimmy Segenberger writes about the local school
board elections here what will be archaic in twenty forty?

(02:52):
My brother is on the show today at two thirty.
Former VP Dick Cheney has died. Aurora looks to clean
up shady business. Oh my god, and RTD is listening.
How the Fed lost the plot? Yes, the shutdown is
hurting the Democrats the most. It's time to talk about snap. Yes,
Arctic frost is a real scandal. Shoplifting is putting people

(03:12):
out of work. Oreo rolls out new disgusting flavors walking
walking can slow Alzheimer's disease about them finding Amelia Earhart's
plane to someone you love collect Nora Fleming dishes feel
a sore thrope coming on. It's time and Sephora knows
it Dave Logan calling the TD. Did you hear about

(03:32):
our new lineup? How is this bond? And not about
Mayor Johnston? A quick way to know the time change happened?
Is Chat already killing jobs? A rod As Tebow feelings?
Sutton makes the birthday and YouTube folks, here's how you
can watch ESPN and ABC. Those are the headlines on
the blog at mandy'sblog dot com. Tick tech two syrianer

(03:56):
Oh thanks, Nancy. Do you think it's because she's a
little old it takes her a little longer to make
her for mind? Okay, okay, that's fine.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, I know, I know Nancy and emails you kidding me?

Speaker 5 (04:12):
N has people for that, Anthony, she has people. They
don't let her near the keyboard. So today is election day?
Did you turn your ballot in ern?

Speaker 6 (04:22):
What?

Speaker 2 (04:22):
No? What forgot? Probably got thrown away?

Speaker 5 (04:27):
So you have to stop on the way home and
vote them.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yes, that's not gonna be something I'm spend time doing.
Oh my gosh, it's gone.

Speaker 5 (04:35):
You stop by a polling place, look of what's on
your ballot and I'll help you figure it out.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
By the time you go.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
By the time I get there. What school district. Han,
do you know Nope?

Speaker 5 (04:45):
Oh my goodness, I know, ladies and gentlemen, what's the
matter with kids today? I never get to say that
about Anthony, but I'm saying it right now. What's the
matter with kids today? Anthony? I know you're killing me.
You are so on top of so many areas of
your life. Yeah, like you're way more on top of
other areas of your life than your peer group. You
are completely underneath this area of your life.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, oh god, I know.

Speaker 5 (05:10):
Now I have to nag you earlier next time instead
of election yault, don't. I won't be gas lit by you, mister.
I'm not voting this election cycle. Uh huh yeah, sorry,
I overestimated you, Anthony. Sorry, by apologies, you're forgiven. So
I've got a few things on the ballot today. I'm

(05:33):
just gonna say this. There is uh nothing statewide that
you should vote for. No on LL and MM, They're
both horrible. There's absolutely This is just a way to
create a progressive income tax in Colorado.

Speaker 7 (05:48):
That's all.

Speaker 5 (05:49):
This is the whole thing, the whole scheme, the whole
free lunch thing. Do you really think they're so stupid
as to not recognize that every kid was going to
take advantage of the free lunch when the lunch became
first right. Of course they knew it was gonna overrun.
Of course they knew it was going to spend more money.
That's precisely why they did it. So now they can
bring these two ballot initiatives to keep taper refunds, which

(06:12):
I don't even know how they are gonna fund more
programs with something that they've already managed to give away
to everybody else. And then, oh, yeah, that doesn't work.
We're just going to tax the rich. We're going to
introduce a progressive income tax, all to buy lunch for
my kid. You guys, at my daughter's high school, there
are a lot of kids who drive BMW's. You're telling

(06:33):
me you need somebody else to pay for their lunch. No, no,
we really don't. Today on the blog, we got we
got two guests today. We were supposed to have Nora
Fleming when I'm a little bit bummed out about this.
She has a legitimate emergency that had to be attended to,
and not like some you know, people who blow us
off and give us some dumbass excuse. She has a

(06:53):
legitimate emergency. Nora Fleming is one of those things. This
is where I can go super girly on you. I think,
for the most part, I keep the show pretty even keeled.
I recognize there are a lot of men out there
listening who don't necessarily care about proper hostess dishes.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
I get it.

Speaker 5 (07:10):
But I have always loved hostessing and setting a beautiful table.
And I got that from my mom, who also is
an amazing hostess and loves setting a beautiful table. So
I have platters out the wazoo. I got Christmas platters,
I got Thanksgiving platters, I got all. Norah Fleming is
a woman who had an idea. She owned a pottery studio.
I love this story, so you're gonna settle in. It
will take me about a minute. She owned one of

(07:31):
those you know, do it yourself pottery studios, and she
had an idea. She said, why don't we have like
a platter, a plain platter that we could then decorate
with ceramic charms for every holiday. Guys, that is like
a hostessing game changer. And because people do enjoy having
nice things. I mean, there are entire stores like home

(07:52):
Goods dedicated to nothing other than crap for your house
you mostly don't need. Right, So she has this idea,
she brings it to Fruition and she has just created
a gold mine of a company and she is just
really has outstanding success. My friends Chris and Dorn who
own Outside the Box and Outside the Box two in Arvada,

(08:13):
are bringing her in Wednesday afternoons so people can come
in and at their pieces signed. Now, if you don't
love the host of stuff, you're probably like, what are
you even talking about? What are you even doing?

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Y'all?

Speaker 5 (08:26):
I had to stand in line in my childhood at
some point with my dad because there was some guy
who made these ridiculous engraved silver plated shotguns that were insane.
They were beautiful, and we had to stand in line
so my grown father could get his autograph. So it

(08:48):
just depends on what you're into, right, I'm just saying,
But if you or someone you love loves these Nora
Fleming sets, they've got pieces available for pre sale at
Outside the Box, you can just give them a call.
All the information is on the blog. But we were
supposed to have Nora on the show and then she
has a legit emergency, so we cannot make that happen.
But we do have two guests today. One is our

(09:11):
futurist Thomas Frye. What things will be archaic in twenty forty. Well,
Thomas has created a list of two hundred and fifty things,
And at first I was like, I'm going to argue
about most of the Nope, they're they're they're true. Since
my childhood Camp fifty six, since my childhood in the
seventies and eighties. Think about how many things we used

(09:32):
on a regular basis that are archaicnal, When is the
last time somebody bought a VCR tape rewinder? Remember the
little race cars? You know what I'm talking about? You
sleep because be kind rewind Ayra, did you ever go
to a video store rent VCR tapes?

Speaker 3 (09:48):
Like?

Speaker 5 (09:48):
Did you ever do that? Or were They're already DVD
by the time nor sention.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Goes Do you think I am just asking? Yes?

Speaker 5 (09:53):
Of course, Okay, be kind rewind Did you guys have
a rewinder?

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (09:59):
I think the.

Speaker 5 (10:01):
No, you gotta have the standalone. If you were a
really hardcore you have the standalone.

Speaker 8 (10:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (10:07):
That So we're going to talk to Thomas at one
o'clock and then at two thirty, my little brother, who
is not little by any stretch of the imagination. He
is an extremely successful real estate broker, and he has
now written a book. And the only thing wrong with
this book, because of course I've read it, is that
he does not spend enough time on his sisters. I'm
just saying, would have been so much better if there

(10:29):
had just been a chapter about me and.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
My sister even named.

Speaker 6 (10:35):
What was that?

Speaker 7 (10:36):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (10:36):
Yeah, well, you know what. I don't think he named me.
I don't know if he named me or not.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
But I mean he talked about his digital versions, so
I can control find and type of Well, I I may.

Speaker 5 (10:47):
Have the digital version, Yes, I do in my email.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
See how many times you do have it? Yes?

Speaker 7 (10:52):
Okay?

Speaker 5 (10:52):
Okay, no, wait, shout that way?

Speaker 7 (10:53):
How many?

Speaker 2 (10:54):
How long is the book?

Speaker 5 (10:55):
Oh not, I don't know. I've read it online, so
I don't know how many pages it is?

Speaker 2 (10:59):
Okayed?

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Over under set for how many times the name Mandy
is mentioned in the book. I'm gonna think it's zero.
I think it's zero. I don't think he I don't
think he can check me. Yeah, I don't think he
named which is fine.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Okay, one and a half.

Speaker 5 (11:10):
Here's what I'm thinking. Okay, I love my brother, you guys,
but I am this would be the most epic time
to mess with him because if I say, hey, we're
gonna open the text line and you guys ask ask
anything of my brother and you only ask questions about me,
that would be next level hilarious, next level, like every

(11:32):
question is just about me somehow, I would you guys
have to do it.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
You have to do it.

Speaker 5 (11:40):
My brother is the king of the messing with the king,
or he was one of your kids. He's not anymore,
so that would be super fun. I mean, that's you
have to. It's your it's your little brother, right, you
have to. You can't just do an interview straight. That
would be ridiculous. Okay, I want to talk about something
serious because I was listening to Ross on the way
in and he was talking about the fact that snap

(12:02):
benefits have run out and we're seeing the panic, we're
seeing the lines that the food banks were seeing everything.
It's not good, right, And Ross was sort of saying,
you know, how can we get people off of relying
on the government for food? And I have been thinking,
I've been thinking about welfare for a really long time

(12:26):
because in my lifetime, I have seen people, all women,
I'm just going to be honest. They're all women who
have found themselves in a marriage with someone who was
highly abusive, or an addict or an alcoholic, and they
knew they had to leave, and the only way that
they could leave was tapping into the social safety net.

(12:50):
And every single one of those situations, each and every
one of the women that I have known, have then
worked to better themselves while relying on the social safety
net so they could then get gainful employment and get
off the social safety net. So I have seen how
the social safety net can work as a positive in
the world and a necessity in the world. Right, So

(13:11):
I don't want anything I'm about to say to be
seen as everyone should suffer and we should do away
with these programs entirely. But what we have we have
a system that is currently created generations of dependency. And
I have a story on the blog today where a
woman has been on SNAP for thirty years. Thirty years

(13:34):
we have been buying her food. Now, let's start with
the fact that SNAP used to be SNAP stands for
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Supplemental is the key there. It
was never meant to provide someone's entire food budget, ever,
supplemental being the key there. Now, I don't want people

(13:54):
to starve, especially children. I don't want anyone to go hungry.
But the reality is the program as we know it
incentivizes people to not try to better themselves. And ros said,
he said something along the lines of, you know, I
don't want people in poverty to suffer, and I don't
think we want anyone to suffer, but I want people
in poverty to be uncomfortable. And here's why. In my

(14:16):
long career, now I've had the opportunity to interview people
that were self made billionaires and self made millionaires. But
I think it's even more impressive when you talk about
self made billionaires to a man, and they've all been men.
There just haven't been that many self made billionaires, and
certainly none that will come on this show.

Speaker 7 (14:37):
So here we go.

Speaker 5 (14:38):
So I'm talking like self made billionaires. They all grew
up in grinding poverty. They worked from the time they
were six years old. I don't want children today to
work from the time they're six years old, but they
made a decision very early on in their lives. I'm
talking about like six, seven, eight years old, that they
were going to work so they were never going to
be poor again, and they ended up creating entire industries.

(15:01):
Some of these people, I mean, these are some of
the most successful people, just flying under the radar, creating
more jobs and really creating juice in the economy. And
they all came from that position of want. And it
wasn't so much who I want to be able to
buy a new car. It was I never want to
have to wonder where my next meal is coming from.
So it's not that I want people to starve. I

(15:22):
don't want children to suffer, but we have got to
stop making dependencies so comfortable, and with what we have
now with mail order groceries, I have a thing on
yesterday's blog that the CEO of Walmart is saying they
are changing the industry, and they are. The note wasn't Walmart.
I'm sorry, I can't remember which other big grocery it

(15:44):
was that said we're changing the grocery industry permanently. Going
to the grocery store in a weekly shopping trip is
a thing of the past. So we now have the
ability to deliver food. Back when I was a kid,
people did not necessarily get actual stamps. In our community,
they got food boxes, so they got boxes of real food, vegetables, beans, rice, meat, eggs, milk,

(16:11):
you know, stuff like that. They got boxes of food delivered.
We need to go back to that. You know, I
heard a story today talking about one of the places
in downtown Denver that is like a grocery store, only
everything's free and you can go in and shop. And
I think that's great, that's fantastic, But as the person
that has access to that really is motivated, as a
person who gets a box full of stuff that they
marginally like, that's going to keep them alive, but certainly

(16:34):
isn't gonna win any records for like being the most
you know, chiff four star restaurant experience. We have to
make sure that people are taken care of, but we
also have to make sure people are not coddled in
such a way that makes them comfortable letting someone else
put their bills. We also have to do something about
the welfare cliff. These are the two parts of this plan.

(16:57):
We have to allow people who are getting benefits of
some kind to be able to get a job and
improve their standing in that position, get a raise, get
a promotion without getting clobbered by losing all of their
welfare benefits over a modest pay increase, right because right now,
welfare is an all or nothing situation. You either make

(17:18):
too much money or you don't. And if you make
too much money, you're gonna lose. You could lose your
housing benefits, you could lose your food benefits, you could
lose everything that's keeping you and your family alive. We've
got to fix that to allow people to work themselves
out of the system. Because right now, we've got a
woman on food stamps for thirty years. Do you think
she's ever taken a raise of any significance. No, because

(17:39):
she would lose her three hundred dollars a month in
food stamps. We've trapped people in this cycle of dependency,
and now that cycle of dependency has turned into a
mentality of entitlement among a portion of people who choose
very stupidly, I think to put themselves on the internet
complaining that we're not paying enough, it's not exactly conducive

(18:03):
to warming my heart and making me want to help more.
So that's kind of where we're going from there. That's
how the show is snapped. Just a subsidy for the
grocery stores kinda yeah, but it's also designed to actually
help feed people.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
So there you go.

Speaker 5 (18:21):
I got a lot of people weighing in on the
Common Spirit health text line. You can do that at
five six, six nine. Oh, we will be right back, Mandy.
I'm sixty years old and on Snap benefits. I have
staged the three lung cancer and cannot work. I love
your views, but you're making me feel like a loser.
Not all benefits or for those that can work. I
want to be clear about something. We as a society

(18:41):
have decided that a social safety net is important, and
I agree with that, and I agree with it for
people just like this text. I agree with it for
little children who need help, for elderly people that are
that are having trouble, people that are physically disabled, people
that are developmentally delayed, whatever their situation is. There are
people that definitely need our help. But you cannot tell

(19:04):
me that we have. And if you look at the statistics,
when the Snap benefit usage skyrocketed, it went up during
COVID and frankly a bunch of people got used to
it and now it's like, well, you can't take it away.
Now because I'm used to it. Based on the people
I'm seeing on social media, a lot of people have
redirected that money they used to spend on food to

(19:26):
things like incredibly complex hairstyles and nails. My daughter is
sixteen and she's like, Mom, I want to get my
nails done, and she has gorgeous nails. And I was like, hmm.
We went down that road one time and I was like, no,
this is too expensive. And yet every single woman I
see in these videos complaining about someone not paying their bills,
they all have these ridiculous nails. Maybe they do themselves,

(19:47):
maybe they do I don't know, but text her there
are times when you need it. I started out the
whole conversation by talking about the fact I knew multiple
people that, for a variety of reasons, that we're genuinely
their control, right, they ended up tapping into the system.
But that's what it's there for. It's there for those

(20:07):
times in your life when you absolutely need it. I'm
sorry for the most part, I see somebody who's been
on Snap benefits for thirty years. You're telling me, in
thirty years without a physical disability, you can't figure it out.
You cannot better yourself in any way, shape or form
that you can't move ahead in life over thirty years.

(20:33):
So sir madam, please don't feel bad, Please don't. Really,
you're not abusing the system. You're using it the way
it was intended to be used. But forty million people
are not using it. That six hundred thousand people in
Colorado get Snap benefits, that is that's a crazy number.
And I know our cost of living is stupid high.

Speaker 9 (20:53):
I really do.

Speaker 7 (20:54):
I get it.

Speaker 5 (20:55):
And every time I go to the grocery store, I
say this to Chuck all the time we go to there.
I look at my cart, you know, I look at
what's in my cart, and then I look at how
much I just spent on it, and I'm like, thank God,
I'm not a family with three little kids, or god forbid,
one teenage boy's feeding a teenage boil just about put
you in the poorhouse. But the reality is is that

(21:18):
we are not helping people when we put them for
life in a system that prevents them from achieving at
the highest level that they can achieve. And by the way,
when I say that, that doesn't mean I think everybody's
going to end up in the c suite of some
major corporation, because we all have different levels that we
are capable of achieving. It's just the reality. So I

(21:41):
want everybody to be able to achieve at the highest
level they can. But we also have to understand that
by trapping people in a system that they can't get
out of, because as I explained in the last segment
about the welfare cliff, once you hit a certain amount,
then you get kicked off all your benefits. It just
traps them in this dependency. It makes them easy to control, right,

(22:03):
you just campaign on a promise of the other guy
taking away your free stuff. But eventually that entitlement mentality
starts to creep. We see it all the time. Corporations
love to put their hand out for the government. They
love to ask the government what they can get. And
the more people that just sort of check out and
decide that this is good enough because we've made poverty

(22:25):
comfortable enough. We're not pursuing people who are abusing the
system enough. So yeah, we've one thing. This whole thing
is in I think a lot of people are like, wait,
how many people are getting snap benefits? How many people?
What we need to clean up the system and the
only way to clean it up is to make it
slightly more uncomfortable. And yet somebody said a text when

(22:49):
I said, if you really want to take care of
people using snap benefits, you need to go back to
food boxes, have them delivered. They can have your staples.
You know, your beans your right. Somebody else said, when
I was in college, I ate on beans and rice
for tenar like ten months, you know, for ten bucks.
So somebody else texted in and said, you know, we've

(23:13):
got to do something to force people to change their ways,
and it's I would say, not force. Force is the
wrong word to use. I would say, encourage different behavior.
And the only way to encourage different behavior is to
disincentivize the behavior that you're not after. Yes, we have

(23:35):
a social safety net for people who really need it,
but for people that have the ability to do something
more other than just sit at home or work in
a menial job that has no real opportunity for promotion
because you don't get promoted fast enough to make up
the money that you lose on the welfare benefits. And
you're starting to see all this all goes together, and

(23:57):
we've just created a class of people that they're in
higher lives are dependent on someone else that they don't
have direct access to. Think about that for just a second.
When you're a kid, ultimately, your parents are responsible for
your life. They're responsible for the feeding and the clothing
and all of that stuff. But you have direct access
to those parents to plead. You can plead for your

(24:19):
you know, new toy, you can plead for new clothes,
you can plead for food. But when you are dependent
on the government, who who do you plead to? When
you're worried about not being able to feed your children,
who are you gonna call? Because there's so many degrees
away from where that money actually came from, which, by
the way, is the taxpayer. Don't even get me started

(24:40):
on that part of it. There's a video I have
linked on the blog today, and it's a young woman
with the you know face tattoo, long nails, bleach hair.
She could bleach her hair herself, but whatever, it's bleach chair.
And she says when she finally gets her food stamps,
she's to go out and buy anything she wants, just

(25:02):
to show those maga people. And I'd love to be
able to just look her in the eye and say, so,
you're gonna go spend my money on crap that you
and your kids don't actually need my money. Could you
imagine if everybody was like I wish you'd spend my
money a little more responsibly. Of course we won't because

(25:23):
it would create a problem. The disconnect between those of
us who pay the bills and those of us spending
the money has never been larger. I was talking to
Ross when we were switching here between the shows, and
when I was a kid, we'd go fishing every weekend
in the Gulf of Mexico and we would catch so
many fish. We would catch probably one hundred and fifty trout,
maybe one hundred and fifty red fish, depending on what

(25:44):
was hot, you know, where we were fishing kind of thing.
We'd come back, we'd clean them all, we'd put them
into ziploc bags. And my dad was an attorney in
our small town, and we would drive around and he
would he had clients that he knew were very poor,
so we would drive over to these very poor people's
houses and y all, these were poor people. You could
see through the boards on some of their houses into

(26:08):
their house, that's how poor they were. Now, it's not
obviously not Colorado winter, but it was Florida summer. But
we would go buy and my dad and say, hey,
we caught all these fish. Do you want to bag
a fish? And these people would not take the free
fish unless they gave us something in return. So we
were often like we had a block of government cheese
in the fridge sometimes you know, stuff like that. But

(26:30):
the mindset was so different. They were poor, but they
were proud poor. They were poor because they grew up
at a time when black people did not get a
good education or or really poor people were sort of
marginalized in society and they didn't have any opportunity. I mean,
there's valid reasons people were that poor back then, but

(26:51):
they would never take it. And I just think to myself,
where how did we get from gratitude? And don't get
me wrong, I don't expect every person on any kind
of entitlement to come to me every day and be like,
thank you so much. That's not what I'm asking for.
What I'm asking for is an awareness that somewhere, maybe
watching your obnoxious video on social media, there is someone

(27:12):
barely scraping to get their own family buy but they
don't qualify for any benefits, and you are rubbing in
their face that you're going to go buy the things
that they can't afford to pay for for their own kids.
That's what I'm talking about. This is the ultimate Look
over here, look over here, this text message. Do you
know Elon Muskt's five million dollars of government subsidies per

(27:37):
day and you want to police how the single mom
spends her money? Disgusting? Great point. Texture And I'm assuming
you mean all of the subsidies that he has his
companies get for producing things like electric vehicles and stuff
like that. I say take them all away. Take away
all the subsidies that would be fantastic. Within subsidies, by

(28:01):
the way, or not direct cash payments, they are born
out in the form of tax credits or tax benefits.
So yeah, those things have nothing to do with one another.
But if you were hoping to big gotcha like I
was going to defend all of the special treatments that
evs get, you are wrong. I would say do away
with them and let them compete on the open market.

(28:23):
I've said before about Elon Musk, who I genuinely believe
is a space alien. I also have to credit him
for looking at the landscape and saying, how can I
work most in businesses that are all heavily subsidized by
the government, so I can do it and not pay
a lot of money to do it. Now, don't get

(28:44):
me wrong. When I say pay a lot of money,
we're still talking like millions and millions and millions of dollars,
which for me is a ton of money and for
you is a ton of money. But for Elon Musk
is like, oh, I found it in the sofa. So
I am perfectly fine with doing away with all those subsidies.
I'm perfectly fine with it.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
You know why.

Speaker 5 (29:01):
I'd like to see the government really buckle down and
just really get into it. Very few areas that I
would like to see a very very careful examination one
the defense industry. This doesn't mean that I don't want
to have the most spectacular, amazing modern defense forces in
the world, but my contracts with defense contractors for potential weapons,

(29:27):
potential aircraft, potential helicopters would sound like this. You guys
have this many years and this much money. If you
can't bring me a prototype that delivers in those many
years with this much money, the contract is over and
we're not going to pay you another dime. And more importantly,

(29:48):
the next thing you've bid on for the next two years,
you will not get. The cost overruns and the project
overruns for weapons that never ever come to fruition are stupid.

Speaker 8 (30:01):
Now.

Speaker 5 (30:01):
I know some people will email me and say, but Mandy,
that's how we fund all the black ops stuff. Then
put a committee in charge of black ops funding and
do it that way. I'm tired of this no oversight
in the name of national security. I have had friends
who have worked for defense contractors. They will verify if
you ask them how much of this nonsense they deal

(30:23):
with on a regular basis. When they say, we don't
think we can make that happen, we don't think it's feasible,
and the higher ups in corporate say, you're going to
have to figure it out because that's what the that's
what the contract's for. I'd love to see them do that.
I think there's so many areas of the government that
are just out of control and there's no incentive to

(30:44):
rain them in. That's the kicker, you know. Somebody asked
me the other day if I was still a registered
you know, unaffiliated and I said, yeah, I haven't changed
my party affiliation because I became a Republican in the
first place, because I believe in smaller government. I believe
in private property rights. I believe in truly free speech.

(31:06):
I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in a
free economy. And what the Republican Party now is delivering
is crony capitalism dressed up as the free market. It's
tariffs that are hurting our economy. If they're a tool,
I love them. If they're permanent, I don't. They're not

(31:28):
delivering the things that the Republican Party that I joined
used to be about. So it's like, why would I
go back? I don't feel the need, Mandy. Over the
course of the last two segments, the phrase dead horse
keeps repeating over and over and over in my head.
I know, I know, Mandy. I work in at King's

(31:49):
Supers and have watched how people use their foodstamps. They
buy lots of cake, candy, pie, ice cream, whatever, junk food,
and I'm talking one hundred bucks or more. They are
short on their own own money. The food that goes
back are the veggies, the meat, the good stuff, and
not the junk food. And this is why I'm in
favor of limiting what can be purchased with Snap benefits.

(32:10):
And if you want, and I realize money is fungible
and all that stuff, then take a principled stand. Just
take a stand.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
The other thing.

Speaker 5 (32:19):
By the way, the third part of my Snap reinvention
program is simply this. If you get caught selling your
Snap benefits, if you get caught in any way engaging
in fraud around Snap benefits, you lose them forever, full stop.
Go figure out how to feed yourself. Thomas Fry looking
into his crystal ball every day just to see what
might be coming down the pipeline, or in this case, Thomas,

(32:42):
what might be leaving the pipeline. Wait a minute, what
might be well expiring in the pipeline. I can't make
a good analogy here. First of all, welcome back, my friend.
Good to see you.

Speaker 8 (32:54):
Yeah, great to see you as well. So yeah, I
think we're going to see lots of changes coming up
here in the next ten fis fifteen years yep.

Speaker 5 (33:01):
And Thomas has a column on the Future Speaker website
the Vanishing Present two hundred and fifty things that will
disappear from our lives by twenty forty and I went
into this all with my skeptical hat on, and I
was going to prove you wrong. But some of these
absolutely are going to be completely useless, but some of

(33:21):
them are a little bit unnerving. So how did you
come up with this list? First of all, Yeah, I.

Speaker 8 (33:29):
Just started making notes about everything that's going to go away,
and I thought, ah, let's just push us to the
limit here. And as you start going through all this here,
I actually think a lot of the things going away
are going to be driven by what I've been referring
to now as the Revenge of gen Z. Gen Z

(33:51):
has gotten left out of so many things that this
is just not cool. They can't afford to buy houses,
education is way too expensive. Throw them into debt. Uh,
they can't get rid of that debt. They're they're they're
getting jammed up everywhere they're turning. And so when changes
start happening, they're they're pushing these changes as fast as

(34:14):
they can. And I think we're going to be seeing this.
This is they're they want to take it out on
the boomers.

Speaker 5 (34:23):
So oh wow, okay, so we're going to stick it
to the boomers. Okay, give me some examples of that
specifically that are that are that gen Z specific, because
not all these things are gen Z specific. Some of
them are just that our technology is advancing in such
a way so you won't necessarily need a driver's license. Right,
So so things like that you can understand, is that

(34:44):
gen Z driven. But what are some of the specific
gen Z driven examples that you have.

Speaker 8 (34:50):
Yeah, well they're gonna, yeah, not going to own a car,
so they're going to be able to afford the robots.
That's that's a big deal. The robots are going to
give them lots of freedom and they can just summon
a car whenever they need it. They're they'll build the

(35:10):
ford Ford houses because the housing is going to be
different and changing along the way.

Speaker 7 (35:19):
This this whole idea of.

Speaker 8 (35:23):
You know, when you start looking at all the systems
that are wrong, The education system's wrong, the prison systems
all wrong, the income tax systems all wrong. Income tax
has got to go away because it's just entirely too complicated.
Uh So we need a new system for that. So
when you start seeing all of these things start unfolding,

(35:46):
then the fact that these things go away, like movie
theaters go away, that keyble TV subscriptions that all goes away,
video game consoles, all that goes away. Nobody's going to
be collecting autographs from celebrities because there the fakes are

(36:07):
out there and nobody can prove if it's authentic anymore. Right, Yeah,
just this list goes on and on and on and on,
and so tell me one that you think might be.

Speaker 5 (36:23):
What a couple of like a couple of them jumped
out right away and they have to do. The one
that that I'm stuck on is number four traffic lights
at most intersections. So is that because autonomous cars are
going to be able to work in conjunction with each
other in terms of I'm in this space, you're in
that space, and we're going to make this work, you know, uh,
you know, seamlessly. We don't need. But but then this

(36:46):
this leads me to the big question because so many
of the things that you have on here we're going
to eliminate because of technology, and because we're everything's on
the cloud or or everything is sort of autonomous autonomous
taxis and no traffic lights. That makes us far more
at risk from a thing like an EMP attack, because
if you take out all of our systems and we've

(37:08):
lost the ability to even stop at a traffic light.
I'm concerned about that because if I'm the enemy Thomas,
and I see all of this happening, that's the way
I attack.

Speaker 8 (37:18):
Yeah, a good point, but what are they taking over?

Speaker 3 (37:24):
Yes?

Speaker 8 (37:24):
So yeah, yeah, the idea of traditional wars tend to
fade in the into the woodwork when there's other options.
Rather than a military sell.

Speaker 5 (37:37):
Attack some of these. Oh, go ahead.

Speaker 8 (37:42):
Yeah, so rather than having cavities, you go to the dentists.
The dentists are going to help you regrow your teeth.
Reading glasses are going to go away, so we won't
have anything like that anymore.

Speaker 7 (37:57):
Just being able to.

Speaker 8 (38:00):
Solve medicines solve our healthcare problems. I can't wait for
that to happen because I've got enough of my own hand.

Speaker 5 (38:09):
Well, there's one that I have a question about, and
that is cubicles and assigned desks hot desking with AI
optimized space allocation. Explain to me what that is, and
then I'm going to tell you why that's not going
to work.

Speaker 7 (38:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (38:25):
So most people are going to be working from home
when they when they get together, they will get into
a group setting where they have assigned desks, and and
that that's the possibility. That's one way of doing it.
They may they may just do off sites that are

(38:45):
grouped together in a foreign country because that'll be easy
to do as well. So, yeah, the cubicle world is
is going to be over.

Speaker 5 (38:57):
Well, I'm I'm not going to miss a cubical world
at all when it's over. But here here's the thing
that I'm realizing, and coming out of COVID, where we
all went home and we were all working on our
computers all day long in our offices by ourselves. I
don't necessarily think that was good for our mental health
or good for society. So so many of the things
that I see here are in some ways, like I

(39:18):
cannot wait to not have a car and just have
a Robotox taxi subscription, like I am ready now for that.
I don't like to drive. I'd rather spend my car
and to spend my time in the car doing something
productive to and from work. But I've ultimately come to
realize that I prefer being in the office with my
co workers than I do working from home. I like

(39:41):
the camaraderie. I never thought I would say that, but
I like being here, and I think that the more
we come back to office, So how does all this
jive with our natural inclinations as pack animals, That's really
what I'm getting at.

Speaker 8 (39:56):
Yeah, that's a really good point. We this list here
is not perfect for it by any means, So we
may find that a lot of the assumptions behind all
this are flawed and we're going to have to rethink
it all together. But the nature of work is going
to continually shift and morph and change. Like as an example,

(40:21):
right now, if you go see a doctor, you have
to get a referral to a specialist, and then we
have to get on a waiting list to get in
to see that person for the first time. Usually it's
four or six months or something like that. I actually
think we're going to have private doctors that establish a
practice and they'll have eight robodoctors that are working for them,

(40:44):
and then they will each of the robodoctors will take
patients and work with them individually, and they'll spend a
lot more time with them than a regular doctor would.
And then so one practice like that only has one
actual doctor, and that doctor is responsible for doing the
prescriptions and everything that the doctor has to do. But

(41:07):
everything else can be handled by the bots.

Speaker 5 (41:09):
And you thought your doctor's hands were cold. Wow, yeah,
come on.

Speaker 8 (41:17):
And then then the whole thing is only cost fifty
dollars a visit. There's no insurance, there's no nothing that's
dealing with, no and none of the overhead expenses, and
the insurance companies will get caught off guard with some
like this.

Speaker 5 (41:30):
Well, it's already happening in direct primary care. We already
have doctors that are creating membership based systems, but they're
still staffed by real doctors. But to your point, Thomas,
I've been following along with the medical AI that they
are building, and they're building AI that you can sit down,
you as a patient, you would sit down at a
computer and you would literally type or or you know,

(41:53):
check every single box that applies to you. You could
check things like my right shoulder hurts, my left elbow,
so I've got dry skin on the bottom of my feet,
my nostrils flare at a certain time. You write down everything,
and AI is so much better at diagnosing what could
possibly be wrong with you, and then they would use
that piece, they would get the diagnostic suggestions from AI,

(42:17):
and then a real doctor a human doctor would step
in to kind of hone the diagnosis and come up
with a treatment protocol. We're a couple of years away
from that being in every doctor's office.

Speaker 8 (42:30):
Yeah, and I think that we're going to see the
constant reinventing of the whole business model around this having
I mean, there's a good argument right now that we
have one of the worst healthcare systems in the world
because everything is so stretched out and so delayed and
for anybody to come up with a diagnosis. I've had

(42:54):
two kids that have gone through this recently, and it's
just been prolonged out. So to actually get to what's
wrong with somebody at six to nine months, to actually
get that diagnosis, which I think is just insane. Being
able to drive that down to less than a week,
I think is entirely possible, and possibly even less than

(43:17):
a day. I think that's what we need to achieve here,
sooner than later. And so I think all of this
gives us up that kind of opportunity.

Speaker 5 (43:30):
Oh, I think so some of this stuff in here
is really interesting. And the one of the ones that
caught my eyes shopping malls converted to mixed use housing
and experiences that's already happening across the country. So is
real Do you think retail is just dead as we
know it? Like the traditional retail experience where you go
into a store and someone comes up and helps you

(43:51):
and then you go check out.

Speaker 8 (43:53):
Yeah, the traditional retail experience is not not going to survive.

Speaker 7 (43:59):
It'll have to be.

Speaker 8 (44:02):
An actual experience, whether there's a product demonstration where there's
live people involved, where there's something going on other than
just looking at products on a store shelf. Right, that
is not going to survive at all. Because you can
just order that it becomes a commodity. You can two seconds,
you can have it delivered to your house. But finding

(44:26):
out why something is better than this product is better
than that product you did, product demonstrations, that sort of thing.
I think we're going to be seeing a lot more
of that. Yeah, product comparisons, I think that.

Speaker 5 (44:44):
Would be super interesting. I mean, if I were in
the market for a new vacuum cleaner and I knew
that my local purveyor of vacuum cleaners was going to
be having a compare and contrast demonstration of their models,
I just may show up for that. I'm just nerdy
enough that that would appeal to me. So a couple
of the other things that I saw that I wanted
to bring up very very quickly.

Speaker 8 (45:05):
Hang on.

Speaker 5 (45:07):
Communication in this social you've broken it down into different sections.
Phone numbers would be replaced. Now I am ready for that,
because I can't remember a new phone number to save
my life. I remember my childhood phone number, but I
do not remember my daughter's phone number, which is terrible,
absolutely terrible. What does that get replaced with?

Speaker 8 (45:28):
It just gets you just say their name and that's
all you need.

Speaker 5 (45:33):
So essentially, just replace the functionality of I mean, but
then what if your name is Bob Smith? How does
that work?

Speaker 8 (45:45):
You have to identify which Bob Smith?

Speaker 5 (45:47):
Yeah, exactly, Bob Smith. You know the guy with blond hair,
blue eyes works down the street from Tony.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
You know that guy?

Speaker 5 (45:53):
Is that how I'm going to make my phone calls?
Because I probably would. I got a couple of things.
I got a couple of people asking stuff from the
text line, as ask Thomas if he knows anything about
the flying car that Elon Musk is supposed to be
unveiling soon. Are you paying attention to the flying car?
Talk over there, Thomas, because you know I'm ready for
a flying car, but now it has to be autonomous.

(46:14):
I've moved on in an autonomous flying car.

Speaker 8 (46:18):
Yeah, well it has to be better than anything that
James Bond has demonstrated.

Speaker 5 (46:22):
Yeah, with a little propeller on the top.

Speaker 8 (46:24):
Absolutely. Oh so it has to be able to dive
underwater too, I mean, of course, yeah. So, And he
doesn't even know if this thing is actually a car anymore.
It looks like a car. I think it's rather interesting
how he described it, but he's pretty sketchy on the information.

Speaker 5 (46:44):
So I'd like to notice to take off vertically, do
you have to have a runway? Do you have to
be able to get it up to fifty five miles
per hour before you hit the lightning rod to make
it go into time travel? Is that what's happening after that?

Speaker 7 (46:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (47:00):
Yeah, it gets real interesting because I mean, air traffic
control people right now, they don't want people taking off
of their cars in any neighborhood around a city exactly.
That makes it real dangerous. But if these if these
are devices that would actually manage your own air traffic

(47:21):
control system, so they all talk to each other so
that there's no chance of running into each other that
becomes a different ballgame then, And we've seen that.

Speaker 5 (47:31):
In futuristic movies, right. Futuristic movies, I feel like, always
have that one scene of the traffic where there's multiple levels.
There's like thirty cars on top of thirty cars, and
they're all moving along perfectly at the same speed, same height.
They never nobody's weaving in and out until Sylvester Saloon
shows up. And I feel is that where we're headed,

(47:51):
where it's going to be just like basically working on
in my mind, it would look like this Thomas, like
it would almost look if another car got too close
to the top of my car. It would be almost
like if you try and put the wrong sides of
a magnet together right, and it would forcibly keep them apart,
but keep them also in some kind of stasis so
they could fly at the same time on the you know,

(48:14):
on different levels.

Speaker 8 (48:16):
Yeah, if you're if your condo is on the thirty
fourth floor, do you have a parking space on the
thirty fourth floor next like the Jetsons, Yeah, so you
park like on a balcony or something to get out
and walk right into your apartment. That I think is
going to be entirely possible, but not probably in the

(48:37):
next ten years, I think I think we're going to
see lots of creative designs here. Now, keep in mind
that as we reduce the amount of manpower and labor
that goes into creating these things, that we're going to
set our sites higher. That are our need for greater
and greater accomplishments takes a center or stage here. So

(49:02):
the amount that we can accomplish in our lifetime will
be probably one hundred times greater than what somebody could
accomplish fifty years ago.

Speaker 5 (49:13):
Is this I feel like in my lifetime? Okay, So
I'm fifty six, I was born in nineteen sixty nine.
In my lifetime, I have lived through the switchover from
analog to digital.

Speaker 3 (49:23):
Right.

Speaker 5 (49:23):
I grew up in an analog world and now I
live in a digital world. So I've seen that massive
amount of change. There are so many things from my
childhood that are completely archaic now, like not even I mean,
when was the last time you saw a rotary phone?

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Right?

Speaker 5 (49:37):
So there's all these things that we had. So it
stands to reason. But in the next fifteen years, because
of AI and the revolution that's happening now, I feel
like we're having two revolutions a little too close together.

Speaker 7 (49:50):
Thomas.

Speaker 8 (49:52):
Yeah, and then the one after that is coming even sooner.

Speaker 5 (49:55):
Well, that's when the robots take over and become our overlords.

Speaker 7 (50:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (50:03):
I wrote a column recently on a g I and
how to define it and what to be worried about that.
It's uh, what does a g I stand for?

Speaker 3 (50:16):
Uh?

Speaker 8 (50:18):
A g I autonomous. Uh well, it's artificial intelligence that's
stands on its own.

Speaker 5 (50:27):
So, oh great, those are the robots that will take over.
So there you go. That's why I always say please
and thank you to chat Thomas.

Speaker 8 (50:35):
Yeah, but they have no incentive to do that. They
don't they don't have any personal needs. I mean, the
reason that humans stay in the center of all of
this is because because we're flawed creatures and we have
our own personal needs and the fact that we can
have other people help with our needs and we can

(50:55):
help with their needs. That's what creates the economy that
we have. If you have robots that are perfect from
day one, they don't have any personal needs. They can
just work relentlessly and help each other, and so there's
there's no motivation, there's no incentive. So if you think

(51:16):
about it from that standpoint that we have our own
our own flaws, and that's what creates our economy. Yeah,
then you try to figure out what what is the
motivation that actually drives drives these robots to do something.

Speaker 5 (51:32):
Else because they don't have self interest.

Speaker 8 (51:35):
Right, they have no self interest? Yeah? Yeah, I mean
go ahead, I was gonna say, grandiose plan to take
over California or something like that.

Speaker 5 (51:43):
Knock yourself out, robots, take California all you want. Thomas
Frey can be found at futuristspeaker dot com. I put
a link to the article and his website there. Thomas,
good to see you. We'll see you again next month.

Speaker 7 (51:56):
All right.

Speaker 5 (51:56):
Thanks. Some of these are nuts, some of these are great,
but some of them already happening. Here's my favorite number,
fifty eight spam calls. AI screening makes them impossible. Nothing
would make me happier than never have to hear from
I am Bobby from somewhere across the world. Again. Thanks Bobby.

(52:18):
I don't think his name is really Bobby. Mandy's just
an analog girl living in your digital world. Amen to that,
my friend. When we get back, got a ton of
other stuff, on the blog today. Aurora is looking to
do a very interesting thing, and it has to do
with those shopping centers that you see that when you're

(52:39):
driving through a strange city and you see that one
shopping center that's got the pawn shop, the vape shop,
the tattoo shop, and maybe a veil bondsman, you immediately
know what sort of hood you're in. We'll talk about
what Aurora is doing about that when we get back.
I'm rooting for both Aurora and Denver, but I kind
of feel like Aurora and Denver in some ways are

(52:59):
like one of those games at the carnival where you
shoot the water stream into the hole and then the
horse races, and I'm watching Auror on one and Denver
on one, and I realized that in many ways, Aurora
has a lot further to go, but Denver's been giving
them a run for the money in the bad ways.
So this is kind of an interesting ordinance that they

(53:20):
are considering an Aurora. It was put forth by Danielle Dreinsky,
and if passed in a future regular meeting, it would
address the clustering of what they call high risk businesses
in low income communities. So there would be a permit
for certain types of businesses. Businesses that already exist in

(53:44):
this category would be grandfathered in, but they want to
do something to address what officials call predatory businesses. Now,
I'm going to come back to that in just a moment.
High risk businesses would be things like pawn shops, vape
and smoke shops, rent to own stores, marijuana retail stores,
convenience stores that sell alcohol or tobacco, and bail bond services. Now,

(54:08):
if you've ever been driving to a city and you
get to that one strip mall that's got the tattoo shop,
the pawn shop, the bail bondsmen, in the rent to
buy furniture, You're like, okay, I am in an area
that is impoverished. Now, I'm going to go back to
the notion of predatory, and in many ways these businesses
are predatory. The interest rates that are charged on rent

(54:31):
town furniture are insane, absolutely insane. Pawn Shops are generally
used by people who have fallen on hard times and
are looking to unload, you know, some stuff in an
exchange for cash, or they are used, if they are
an unscrupulous pawn shop, by people who have stolen merchandise
and are looking to make a little cash money. So

(54:54):
liquor stores is another one, and they sort of they
provide an outlet for people living in poverty. Sure, but
it's not a helpful or positive outlet, right, It just isn't.
So what Aurora wants to do is prevent those businesses
from clustering together all in one strip mall. Under the ordinance,

(55:17):
such business could not go up within two thousand feet
of another business of the same type. No socioeconomic impact
business could go up within three hundred feet of another
socioeconomic impact business. They would also not be allowed to
go up within a thousand feet of an extended occupancy motel,

(55:38):
within five hundred feet of a light rail station or
major bus intersection, or in a retail center exhibiting blight
or with more than fifty percent vacancy. What they're trying
to do here is clean up some of these blighted areas.
And before you say, hey, you know what, we should
just let those businesses go where they want, the reality

(55:58):
is is that if you get enough of those businesses
in one place, you're going to start attracting homeless people
who are going to loiter and attracting people who are
not necessarily looking to be their best selves, right, That's
that's the reality. So they want to clean up the
city and this is one way to do it. What
I find interesting, And we talked about this the other

(56:19):
day with Emily Barrett from Gleam car Wash. She's actually
trying to fight a car wash by QT right down
the street from her place. And this is a clear
sort of insertion by the City of Aurora in the
private industry space. So though I get the intent here,
and I actually agree, I think that these sorts of

(56:42):
businesses all cluster together prevent other businesses from wanting to
move in. I mean, who wants to open a cute
little cafe in the same strip mall as the pawn
shop and the bail bondsman and the pot shop and
the you know, vape store. It just it discourages the
kind of business that can Well, we'll bring up the
rest of the shopping center with it, so we'll see.

(57:05):
By the way, there are two council members who said
no in the study session, Steve Sunberg and Curtis Gardner.
Steve Sunberg said, look, this is anti business in a way.
He's absolutely right to be clear. But if we're going
to have zoning, if we're going to do these things
in an effort to somehow control where people, but businesses

(57:25):
then use the zoning, I can make the argument that
zoning should be done away with if you look at
the places in the country who have the least expensive
real estate, usually speaking, they are the places that have
the least restrictive zoning regulations. Now, when you go to Houston, Texas,
you can drive in Houston, Texas and you can go

(57:46):
through one area that has a really nice neighborhood, and
then you'll have a self storage unit place, and then
you'll have like a warehouse factory situation, and then on
the other side of that, you'll have a couple like
a strip mall at a grocery store, and then more
neighborhoods on the other side. But it's all kind of
smushed together.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
Right.

Speaker 5 (58:03):
There's the zoning there is. I don't know if it
still is. It used to be extremely loosey goosey. So
I understand Sunberg's concern. But if you want to invigorate
an economy and encourage other businesses to move places, you
got to make sure their places. Business would want to be.

(58:24):
And one of the reasons, by the way, all of
these businesses are located in these downtrodden areas is because
that's where they work. People living in poverty are more
likely to need the services of a pawn shop in
the South, where lots and lots and lots of places

(58:47):
in the South. When a Dollar General comes to your town,
you know you're a small town, right If you get
a DG, you're like, Oh, we are a small town.
Not that we didn't need us to tell that, but
some people freak out. They're like, oh, we're getting a
dollar General. Little down, Like, no, that's a dollar store.
That's totally different. What other businesses would you put in
this in this category? I'd love to know five six six,

(59:12):
And I know, Mandy, you didn't mention tattoos. What happened
to the free market? I understand the free market. I
totally get it one hundred percent. But if I am
working to invigorate and revitalize parts of the city of
Aurora that are sort of perceived or accurately perceived to
be overrun with homeless people and crime and drug dealers,

(59:32):
I'm going to use the tools at my disposal, and
this might be one of them. Mandy, I hate government,
but Aurora's plan needs to happen in Cheyenne. Yep, yep, Mandy,
Amen on the spam calls. My home gets thirty to
fifty calls a day for solar panels, medicare and burial plans.
Are you signed up on the dono call list because

(59:52):
that should take care of most of those. The only
ones that get through now are political calls, and that
makes me angry. This text said, Houston has churches and
strip joints across the street from each other. Exactly exactly, Mandy.
Government has no business doing this business open where they
can make money. Period.

Speaker 6 (01:00:12):
You know what.

Speaker 5 (01:00:12):
I used to feel that exact same way, But now
I watch and it's a running joke, right. I think
every town has this. I now want to know what
your towns are. Okay, so somebody breaks ground to build
a new building of some sort. I can go to
my next store and someone will say, Hey, what are
they building at the corner of so and so and

(01:00:33):
so and so? And the comments will be lit up
by people saying, Oh that must be a new car wash,
Oh that must be a new tire store, or that
must be a new bank. How many do we need? Now,
you can't force people to come into your community to
open up businesses. But at some point, I mean, do
you just allow every free for all? I guess unfettered

(01:00:55):
capitalism would sort the weight from the chaff. But then
what do you do when you have a bunch of
car washes that have gone out of business? Yeah, it's
just I don't know. Oh, fast food, Yes, that's the
other one. Payday loans add store front liquor stores in
a laundromat, you guys, laundromats are not necessarily an eyesore.

(01:01:17):
First of all, every town needs a good laundromat. Every
town does, because not everybody's gonna have washers and dryers
in their home. But some of them are quite sketchy.
I agree, Mandy. Predatory businesses perpetuate the very poverty that
ensures their necessity one hundred percent of the time. That

(01:01:37):
is exactly right. But people have to be free to
make their own dumbass decisions, Mandy. Whenever I see a
cricket mobile phone shop, I know to lock my doors
at traffic lights. That is absolutely right. Anyway, tell me what,

(01:01:58):
you guys, what are what are they building?

Speaker 9 (01:02:00):
Like?

Speaker 5 (01:02:01):
What are sprouting like mushrooms in your community. I'd love
to know. We'll be back right after this. He is
an absolute devoted listener and he drives a truck all day.
Congratulations Heath and missus. Heath, may you have many, many, many,
many many many years of happiness. Mandy. I live in
the mountains, so the only thing popping up around us

(01:02:21):
are geriatric liberals from Blue states. They help destroy and
don't want to retire in. I take a QT over
them any day. I mean, the coffee's probably better. The
QTQT has some good coffee. I'm just saying, Mandy, Cherry
Creek North needs some of the opposite kind of zoning.
We need some normal people restaurants. Another expensive steak restaurant

(01:02:42):
is opening soon.

Speaker 6 (01:02:44):
Just what we need.

Speaker 5 (01:02:45):
More fifty dollars entrees and twenty dollars drinks. That's a
function of the real estate in Cherry Creek North. Now,
you can't be a small mom and pop shop selling
burgers and you know, patty melts and make it in
Cherry Creek.

Speaker 8 (01:03:00):
So there you go.

Speaker 5 (01:03:00):
Those are from the text line on that Good News
you guys. I'm not saying RTD listens to this show
and is finally taking my advice. But RTD has launched
a web page for high volume events. Oh yeah, oh yeah,
high volume events. You can actually give them your opinion

(01:03:26):
about this. I'm going to get Kathleen Turtle, Kathleen Chandler,
she's on the RTD board on She's coming on on Thursday,
I believe. But if you scroll down and I put
a link to the rtddenver dot com, you can actually
provide ideas and feedback to RTD. I will be doing
this at length, not really at length. Here's my suggestions.

(01:03:50):
Add more trains when you know you have a concert
event at Pepsi or whatever ball arena. Add more trains
when you have games and big Rockies games that you
know are going to be sold out. I know those
are harder to predict. Oh by the way, guys, that
little tiny germination of hope that I was having, it's

(01:04:12):
now gone back into the ground for the Rockies. I'll
explain more later, but I'd love for you to go
and give RTD your thoughts. I'd also and I'm gonna
put this on the blog tomorrow because Kathy Walker did
a story on it earlier about the City of Denver's
asking for your opinion on what to do about Payinia Boulevard. Now,

(01:04:33):
if you have not seen their master transportation plan, it
is one hot garbage thing after another. They have things
like more frontage road to Payinia Boulevard. They have everything
except widen the dang road. Well they have that now
because that was my comment. Widen the dang road. Stop

(01:04:55):
trying to get us out of our cars. I live
south of Denver. It makes no it would I would
have to leave if I had a five pm flight,
I would have to leave my house at like noon
to get there in time taking the train. It doesn't
make sense for everyone. Widen the dang road. Anyway, Mandy,

(01:05:19):
you ain't got no show Thursday. Why don't have a
show on Oh it's football Thursday? Well dang, y'all, Well
a Rod, did we note that in our calendar? Because
I think we have guest scheduled on Thursday?

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
Uh oh.

Speaker 5 (01:05:36):
Both of those people? Yep, So we don't have a
show at all on Thursday.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
Nope.

Speaker 5 (01:05:41):
Well that sucks, That really sucks. Thanks for telling me,
listener that I don't have a show on Thursday because
of Thursday night football. You guys are gonna have another
opportunity to see Chuck Stellar work with the parabolic mic
on Thursday night.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Who's on the other side of Ross?

Speaker 7 (01:05:55):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:05:55):
No, Ross doesn't like to do the night games during
the weekend. I get that because he doesn't show prep
and everything the night before and all that.

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:06:03):
I don't know if it's him or not.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
I have no idea because.

Speaker 5 (01:06:08):
Guys, well, now I have a problem because Friday is
Ross's last day in this time in the current lineup. Monday,
We're gonna have the new lineup, and I'm gonna have
to look at Michael Brown every day when we change.
You know what, Although do you think, no, he promised
to wear pants. He didn't promise, he said he would
wear pants on promise. I'm gonna on speed dial if

(01:06:28):
he shows up without pants, speed dial hr.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Hello, you wouldn't see under the table my coworkers.

Speaker 5 (01:06:33):
Not wearing pants. Just letting you know. But I won't
be here on Friday, taking Friday off, and now I
don't have a show on Thursday. Yay me, dang must
be nice. Do you have a short show or any
show at all on Thursday? Because of the Broncos game.
I got no show, which I did not know about
until starts right at noon, Dad Nabit with Ben and Zach.

(01:06:58):
They did a nice job last time I was listening
to them. The last time they did on Sunday morning?
Was it they did Sunday morning?

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
Yeah, they did a little due warm up.

Speaker 5 (01:07:08):
Yeah, because I heard them. I was running air. It
was like go to the grocery store something to buy
stuff for breakfast. It was pretty early. They did a
really nice job.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Might as well take ten seconds to break it down.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
Ben and Zach from twelve to two, Jojo and Nick
down at the VIP Tailgate, Mini mile High from two
to four, Found down to kick Off with Ryan Dave,
Rick Susie from four to six, and then Game of
six fifteen.

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
All right, there you go.

Speaker 5 (01:07:31):
So I guess I'll just move Kathleen Chandler about this,
But you can still go to the our TV website
and make your comments. This Texter guessing your blonde correct
Texter blondeish blondeish. Mandy Ross said he is not working
the microphone Thursday, so that is I don't know who
the other person is, uh, Mandy. On Payna Boulevard, they

(01:07:52):
need to close the exits to fifty six in Green
Valley Ranch. That would cure the traffic problems. And then
how would those people get home? Is there another way?
How do you go home?

Speaker 7 (01:08:01):
A ride?

Speaker 5 (01:08:01):
You don't go down Payna?

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
Do you PAYNYA?

Speaker 3 (01:08:04):
Where are you?

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
You're like, I have to do the little backward c
around because I twenty five is a mess. Okay, it's
tolls all the time. It's usually I twenty five all
the way up from hour twenty or if I want
to spend five to twelve dollars, then four seventy.

Speaker 5 (01:08:22):
I'm I'm trying not to use I'm really well. We'll
talk about that later. I got a lot of stuff
on the other side of this break coming up in
the next hour. My brother joins the show. He's got
a new book coming out. It's pretty good, although a
little short on me, which of course makes it not
as good. He's up in the next half hour or so.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock,
Accident and injury Lawyers.

Speaker 7 (01:08:46):
No, it's Mandy Connell Man on KOA.

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
NINETYFM.

Speaker 4 (01:08:57):
Got way.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Because through.

Speaker 4 (01:09:03):
Andy Connell keeping sad bab Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.

Speaker 5 (01:09:09):
To the third hour of the show. I'm your host,
Mandy Connell, and we are ripping barreling. If we will
right through our program. Anthony Rodriguez my right hand Manny,
he's here too, and we will take you right up
until three pm. Coming up in about half an hour,
We're gonna interview my brother, not just because he's my brother,
although that would be enough reason. He has a new

(01:09:29):
book coming out called Escaping the Drift. It is about
how he went from a person who let life happen
to him and has now become a stone cold baller
and real estate broker and business builder and is way
more successful than me. So we're gonna talk to him
about that, and all of you should buy his book.
You know why, because I need to be the one

(01:09:50):
that when he looks back on his ROI like, what
got me the most sales? It better Dan will be
this show. I don't care if you just send him
all to me. I don't care, makes absolutely no difference
to me whatsoever. So I got a couple of things
I want to talk about. One of them is the
story of Arctic frost. Aron, have you heard of the

(01:10:11):
Arctic Frost investigation?

Speaker 2 (01:10:13):
I sounds familiar, Well, it's sounds.

Speaker 5 (01:10:15):
Familiar because I've mentioned it a couple of times. Arctic
Frost is the code name for the FBI's twenty twenty
two investigation into the scheme, as they call it, by
Donald Trump's campaign to present fake slates of electors to
the House of Representatives for the official certification of the
twenty twenty election. Now, remember, none of those fake electors

(01:10:41):
were certified. None of this actually happened, but the FBI
decided they were going to investigate it. But it's starting
to look more like Arctic Frost was an investigation looking
for a crime, and it was an investigation looking for
a crime among only Republicans. So weird, so weird. Now,

(01:11:05):
the fake electors scheme never went anywhere, and the Free
Press has written about it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:09):
Here.

Speaker 5 (01:11:10):
I am sharing some of this with you. Mike Pence,
the Vice President, said no, he was not going to
go to the fake elector's route. He certified that Joe
Biden was the winner of the election in the early
hours of January seventh, twenty twenty one, after it was
delayed by the riot at the Capitol, and Trump himself

(01:11:30):
was never charged in any way, shape or form. After
the Supreme Court ruled that the president could not be
prosecuted for official acts when he was in office. Now,
in January, there was some emails that were released about
Arctic Frost by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The New York
Times concluded FBI investigators took normal bureaucratic steps and precautions

(01:11:55):
when opening the extraordinarily sensitive inquiry into mister trump'st to
overturn the election, but that was a lie. Senator Chuck Grassley,
the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has not let
this go, and last week he released hundreds of pages
of new FBI documents. The show the FBI wanted bank records,

(01:12:19):
communications and fundraising data on more than four hundred Republican
and conservative individuals and entities in the course of their probe. Now,
when they asked for it and the judge said yeah,
I'm gonna need to see more justification, they were like,
never mind, never mind. But some companies never said we

(01:12:40):
need to see more justification.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
We now know that.

Speaker 5 (01:12:45):
The FBI's Arctic Frost team obtained access to the telephone
metadata of Republican lawmakers. That means they know who called,
they know how long they were on the phone, but
they don't have recordings of the conversations those targeted Senators
Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Mike Kelly, Bill Haggerty, Josh Holly,

(01:13:05):
Dan Sullivan, Tommy Turberville, Ron Johnson, Cynthia Loomis, and Marsha Blackburn.
Crew said last week that at and T declined to
supply with the subpoena for his phone records on the
advice of their in house counsel because it violated the
speech and debate clause of the Constitution. But because of
an order by Judge James Boseburg. Oh boy, he's the one.

(01:13:29):
He hates Donald Trump, at and T was prohibited from
telling Cruz the federal government sought those records. Cruz and
other GOP senators have criticized Judge Boseberg for signing off
on the sweeping subpoenas, and now Cruz is calling for
Boseberg's impeachment, and rightly so.

Speaker 4 (01:13:48):
So.

Speaker 5 (01:13:50):
Surveillance of sitting members of the Senate of any kind
is unprecedented. In twenty fourteen, we can go back this way,
the CIA spiled on Senate Intelligence Committee staffers who were
reviewing internal documents of the CIA's probe of the agency's
Enhanced Interrogation program. They published phone data obtained from subpoenas

(01:14:16):
and wireless carriers that showed private contacts between journalist John
Sullivan and Ukrainian officials. Now, this all happened in twenty nineteen.
That happened under the Trump administration. In twenty fourteen, the
CIA happened under the Obama administration. So we've got what
rogue agencies. As a general rule, the federal government is

(01:14:36):
never supposed to conduct surveillance on members of Congress. It
violates long standing constitutional norms about the division of government,
but also the right for legislators to conduct unfettered debate
inside Congress. Chuck Grassley said the FBI's actions were an
unconstitutional breach, and he's not wrong. The reason I bring

(01:14:56):
this up is that a vast majority of people have
not heard word one about Arctic Fox. The networks not
covering it, not at all. I googled Washington Post and
New York Times coverage of this. Not one story other
than the original New York Times story that was like,
no big deal, they did everything right, which is clearly wrong. Now,

(01:15:18):
this story in the Free Press goes on to talk
about how this weaponization of the DOJ was now followed
by the weaponization of Trump's DOJ, and that the tit
for tat is going to eventually erode every bit of
faith in the system. But I'm gonna go one step further.
I'm gonna say that if the FBI, and the FBI
especially has been weaponized at this level, that they are

(01:15:42):
spying on Republican members of the Senate with impunity. By
the way, they didn't, we don't know that they had
any reservations about this, then the FBI needs to be
absolutely gutted in the leadership area. Everybody remotely attached with
any part of this, with any working knowledge, needs to
be fired, and they need to be fired today. And

(01:16:04):
then I want to ask you this one question. Imagine
imagine if the headline said Trump spied on Democratic senators.
Imagine what the news media would be doing right now.
I can assure you it would be nothing else but
that story. Any update on if New York City is
going to be under mom Donnie, I'm not really paying attention.

Speaker 3 (01:16:26):
I don't.

Speaker 5 (01:16:26):
The returns won't start until five pm Eastern time. I
think their poles close at seven, Our polls close at seven.
If you have not dropped off your ballot. You still
have time, please do that. And please, if you vote
for nothing else in Denver Jeffco, Cherry Creek and Dougco,
vote for the school board people that I put on
the blog today at mandy'sblog dot com, we have some

(01:16:48):
awesome videos. Can I please tell you of the video
I love the most day, Rod that you sent me
is the video of Dave Logan calling the Courtland Sutton
touchdown with his glasses perched on the end of his nose.
Looks like he looks like the school principal calling the game.

Speaker 6 (01:17:03):
Works.

Speaker 5 (01:17:04):
Love it, I know I love it.

Speaker 7 (01:17:05):
Yeah, it's it's.

Speaker 5 (01:17:09):
There, you go it And it's really cool to see
him make that call. Are you an Oreo guy? Do
you like Oreos? Rona Oreo's doing something that I we
all know it flavor. We all know it's just to
get us talking about it. So mission accomplished.

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
Oreo Frank's Red Hot flavored.

Speaker 5 (01:17:26):
No, it's even worse. No worse, trust me.

Speaker 2 (01:17:31):
This is oilet bowl flavored Oreo.

Speaker 5 (01:17:33):
Thanksgiving Dinner inspired cookies so you can enjoy your six
Thanksgiving inspired Oreo flavors like turkey and gravy, sweet, potato cream, corn, apple,
caramel pie, pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce oreos. They are

(01:17:55):
only available at oreo dot com because who is gonna
buy these in the store?

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
I hate that?

Speaker 5 (01:18:01):
I mean me, you gonna buy it?

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
I am intrigued?

Speaker 5 (01:18:05):
No stop it?

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
Yeah, put respect on thanksgetting in the Oreo form. I'm
kind of interested.

Speaker 6 (01:18:12):
I just saw that.

Speaker 5 (01:18:15):
Have you seen the Selena Gomez inspired Oreo? And I
was like, what does s No? I won't say that
on the air because it sounds really dirty, and I
was about to say it, well, like we're making cookies
out of Selena Gomez. Now that's horrible.

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
You see the pumpkin pie one looks good.

Speaker 5 (01:18:28):
The pumpkin pie I can see, maybe even I could
even see the logic for the cranberry sauce one.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (01:18:37):
Turkey and gravy. No turkey and stuff, sweet potato, no cream,
corn no.

Speaker 2 (01:18:45):
No, I'm intrigued, and get the whole ten for twenty bucks.

Speaker 5 (01:18:50):
The poles are open until nine in New York City,
so we won't start getting returns until seven. So there
you go.

Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
Do you create your own cookie online?

Speaker 9 (01:19:01):
What?

Speaker 7 (01:19:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:19:02):
Design your own oriol cookie?

Speaker 5 (01:19:03):
Start, But is it the outside of the creek cookie
or the inside? Like, can I make my own flavor?

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
I mean says select your cream filling sprinkles there from
one of their uh design the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (01:19:15):
Yeah. No.

Speaker 6 (01:19:15):
I went to a.

Speaker 5 (01:19:16):
Wedding where they had personalized Oreo cookies and they were
pretty cool. It was really cute. That was their little,
you know, their little table gift that they put on
there for everybody to take or whatever. Everybody's like, I'm
saving these, I'm like, I'm eating this. The cake wasn't
that good. Hate bad wedding cake. I hate it when

(01:19:36):
people go to the bakery in town. Oh, we gotta
go to this bakery, and that bakery doesn't make good cake.
They're pretty, but they're not tasty. Tasty is far more
important to me than pretty. As a matter of fact,
I make a delicious chocolate cake that is almost the
ugliest cake in the world every time I make it,
but mostly just because I can't bake Mandy as long

(01:19:58):
as they're not all in the same cookie Mandy. If
they only had this technology way back at the first Thanksgiving,
then we could have wild turkey, we could have acorn stew.
When I was in What grade was that? I don't know,
maybe high school one of my teeth. No, it was

(01:20:19):
it was in junior high because I was in Homeck.
In Homeck, we made a traditional like original what they
ate the colonists ate at Thanksgiving meal? It was No,
there's no sugar in anything. I mean, you know, we're
so used to it. Anyway. Mandy lived in Kentucky. Did
she like pumpkin pie from Big Boy? I like pumpkin

(01:20:44):
pie that I make, but generally speaking, I don't like
other people's pumpkin pie because I'm not crazy about pumpkin pie.
But the way I make it is really good. I
used the Southern Leving pumpkin pie recipe and it's just
it's so good. But I never order pumpkin pie when
I'm I never order pie. I'm not really a pie person.
I'm a cake person. I love cake, cake, brownies. It

(01:21:06):
goes for me in this order. Hey, Rod, what order
is it for you? I like cake, I like brownies,
I like cookies.

Speaker 3 (01:21:12):
I like pie.

Speaker 5 (01:21:13):
If I've got to rank them one to.

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
Four cake, brownies, cookies, pie, cookies one brownies, two pie,
three cake last really not ca and.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
Cake and cupcakes all the way in the cellar.

Speaker 5 (01:21:28):
Do you not like the frosting or do you not
like the cake? Or do you not like the combination thereof? Yes, okay, terrible.
I love the cake parts, but I don't like cake
with a lot of frosting.

Speaker 1 (01:21:37):
I like a thin layer, is mid Most cupcakes are
not good. You mean cupcakes and brownies all day over?
Cookies and brownies. You said cupcakes, cookies and brownies.

Speaker 9 (01:21:49):
All right?

Speaker 5 (01:21:49):
When did we get back? Someone I've known for a
very very long time, actually my almost my entire life.
I've known this guy. He's written a new book called Escaping.
It's quite good. It's my brother. So I need you
guys to do me a favor. I'd like you guys
to ask some serious questions on the text line, but
I need enough of you to ask obnoxious questions that

(01:22:10):
are just about me. Okay, just a mess with my brother.
Hook a sister up, help a sibling prank. You have
your marching orders, We'll be back.

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):
This interview is with.

Speaker 5 (01:22:21):
Someone I've known for my entire well almost my entire life,
and he has known me his entire life, and unfortunately
for me, he has gone on to do great things
and is now got me in his shadow because he
wrote a book first, and the book is called Escaping
the Drift. And the guest is my brother, John Gafford. John,

(01:22:41):
Welcome to the Mandy Connell Show.

Speaker 9 (01:22:44):
Well, first off, I just want to start out by
saying how proud we all are of.

Speaker 7 (01:22:49):
You from Lake City, Florida, because we just you know.

Speaker 9 (01:22:52):
Anytime you just done so good for yourself and you know,
it's amazing.

Speaker 7 (01:22:57):
What And I'm just kidding.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
I don't really talk like that.

Speaker 5 (01:22:59):
You guys have to understand John, that my long ago
accent is something of its own character on this show
because I've never hearn actually played the audio of of
me and I don't even know if you know this,
Like Chuck. Right after Chuck and I got married, I
found one of the videos from this and Lusty Festival

(01:23:20):
and I showed it to him, and you know, my husband,
he's not a man A few words. When I got
done showing him the talent portion, he sat there and
it kind of looked like he had just watched me
murder someone. It was so crazy and unfortunate. And he said,
I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't
that so for you to bust on the scene right now.

(01:23:40):
With that, it's just a little taste of what we're
looking at.

Speaker 9 (01:23:43):
Well, well, the only the only time I use that
accent anymore is when I try to sneak through your
passion producers on your birthday with that exact accent yearly,
And I figured, you know, this is a freebie. I
didn't have to spepac anybody today, so I would just
go for it.

Speaker 5 (01:23:56):
So what about you made you want to write a book?
Where did the book come from?

Speaker 7 (01:24:00):
Well, a couple of things.

Speaker 9 (01:24:01):
Number One, As you well know, I didn't have a
lot of success in my life until I was in
my early thirties, and I spent so much of my
early life drifting along just with the currents, and much
of my life was decided by the whims and just
what other people wanted to happen to me. And that
included when you know, I worked for a corporate restaurant
chain that would just pick up the phone and move

(01:24:23):
me all over the country every three months.

Speaker 7 (01:24:25):
It seemed like it. You know, it was always me
wanting somebody.

Speaker 9 (01:24:29):
Else to kind of save me, jumping from girlfriend to
girlfriend where it was like, okay, yeah, we've been dating
for two weeks.

Speaker 7 (01:24:34):
Yes, we should move in together because that seems like
a good idea.

Speaker 5 (01:24:36):
I mean, John, I stopped learning their names at some point.
It was like, I'll just when one sticks, and one
finally did and she is a stellar human being, so right,
the right one stuck. But yeah, you did scharn and
burn through some some you know girlfriends then now they did,
So if I could go back, you know, everybody says
what are your regrets?

Speaker 9 (01:24:56):
And I love when you hear highlight entrepreneurs say I
have no regrets because everything that happened to me in
my life has gotten me to the place where I
am now, and.

Speaker 7 (01:25:03):
I love that. I don't subscribe to that.

Speaker 9 (01:25:05):
I look back and I say, man, if I wouldn't
have spent so much time just drifting along, where would
I be now? Like if I would have gotten serious
in taking control of my life prior to when I did,
where would I be? And so this is like if
I could have a time machine and go back and
smack myself in the head. I always say, this is

(01:25:26):
my user's manual to my dipstick twenty seven year old
self and just say just do this and everything will
work out the way that you want and not to
mention that. But I think feel like ever since COVID,
there's been this apathy that just runs through everybody, and
I don't know. It doesn't get talked about a lot,
but I don't know if it's just like people just like, man,

(01:25:47):
if the government can lock me in my house and
just take everything away, I want to do, like when's
the other shoe going to drop? And I talk about
restaurants a lot, because it used to be, especially here
in Vegas, because we have every unbelievable restaurant on the
planet here, and it used to me every time you
would go out, you would just have impeccable food, impeccable service.

Speaker 7 (01:26:04):
It was amazing.

Speaker 9 (01:26:05):
But now it seems like those experiences are few and
far between because people are just going through the motions.
And it's not just restaurants, it's everybody you deal with,
from retail to my business in real estate.

Speaker 7 (01:26:15):
People just seem to be going through the motions.

Speaker 9 (01:26:18):
And this is my mission, is to wake as many
people up from that as I can, to take control
of their life, because now if you look at what's
happening with AI coming down the pipe, if you're not
completely in control, of your life. I promise you you're
not gonna like where it winds up. I mean, did
you see the new the robot thing for your house
the other day? Did you see this thing come out?

Speaker 7 (01:26:37):
What do you see this?

Speaker 3 (01:26:38):
No? What?

Speaker 7 (01:26:38):
Okay? There is now a show.

Speaker 9 (01:26:40):
Okayhead, there's a robot you can buy shipping Q one
that you can buy for either twenty thousand dollars like
flat by it, or you can release it for five
dollars a month and it will do all your household chores.

Speaker 5 (01:26:53):
I want that so bad.

Speaker 3 (01:26:55):
I want it now.

Speaker 5 (01:26:56):
That's what I went for Christmas. Buy that for your sister.

Speaker 7 (01:26:58):
Dude, we're here, like Justin's time is here now.

Speaker 9 (01:27:02):
So if you have a job where it's or or
you're living a life that other people get to decide
what happens to you, you got.

Speaker 7 (01:27:10):
To figure it out right now. And that's a lot
of what the book is.

Speaker 5 (01:27:12):
So the book is fantastic, although it does scamp on
significant details about the genuinely powerful influence of your sister.
I feel like I got a glancing blow, but you
probably could have thrown in a couple of chapters there
that would have really sales, would have taken off like
a shot.

Speaker 6 (01:27:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:27:31):
I mean, well, here's the problem, right, You've got to
have some it seems like anymore, you've got to have
some massive setback to really sell a book, And in
this one, it was everything that I did to myself.

Speaker 7 (01:27:41):
Book two will be everything.

Speaker 9 (01:27:43):
You did to me, including hitting me with the Seers catalog,
which you struck me with that living locked me underneath
that iron table is a baby like jail, and.

Speaker 5 (01:27:56):
I couldn't jailing. You were smiling in that.

Speaker 9 (01:27:58):
Photos, No I would. I was grinning my teeth with
terror in me is what I've done. So yeah, that'll
be booked two. But yes, it does talk about you
in the book, particularly when it comes to telling the truth, which,
as we both know, is something I struggle with a
lot a lot as a kid, right, And I'm very
honest about that because step one of kind of getting

(01:28:20):
from where you are to where you want to be
is radical honesty, and that's where the book starts. And
as a kid, you know, you'll remember our father kind
of did a number on our mother in the divorce,
and it was kind of a weird dichotomy where we
lived in.

Speaker 5 (01:28:35):
The richest neighborhood, we were fake rich.

Speaker 7 (01:28:37):
Yeah, we lived in the richiest neighborhood. But we were broke.

Speaker 5 (01:28:39):
Yeah we had we complently broke. Yeah, we had no
We had a really nice house and a really nice
neighbor we literally had no money. I've talked about that before,
and it creates this weird situation and I think you
probably got it more because you were so young where
you were running around with all these kids that had
no idea about those difficulties.

Speaker 9 (01:28:58):
Yeah, and so you start lying about stuff, and when
you start lying to other people about things, that leads
to then lying to yourself and not being honest with
where you really are. And so you know, the book
is kind of a journey talk Stories from my life.
It's not, but it really is a user's manual based
on the stories from that. So starting with radical honesty,
you know, if you don't know where you are and

(01:29:19):
you're not honest about where you are, it's like when
you're in the parking garage and you have your phone
and you're trying to get directions but it can't hook
up to the satellite. You can't get directions on where
you want to go because it doesn't know where you are. Right,
So you've got to take through radical honesty, decide where
am I and what did I do?

Speaker 7 (01:29:36):
What influence did I have to get here?

Speaker 9 (01:29:38):
You know, one of the first things about this book
being radically, honestly radical honesty.

Speaker 7 (01:29:42):
I love it. So when we write a book to
a publisher, you get reviews from it.

Speaker 9 (01:29:46):
Some place particularly called Publishers Weekly, and I got a review.
I got a call from my publisher. I said, we
got a review on the book. It's coming out tomorrow,
he said, he said, bear in mind before it even
comes out. They're normally pretty hard on nonfiction self help books.
I was warned about this, and I read the review
and it was not exactly kind, and I was kind

(01:30:06):
of bummed about it.

Speaker 7 (01:30:07):
And then I went to Ben and I read it
again the next day, and I love this review.

Speaker 9 (01:30:11):
And I'm gonna tell you I love it because obviously
it was written by a human being that has their
own view and their lens of the world.

Speaker 7 (01:30:18):
And one of the things that they said in the
review is this quote.

Speaker 9 (01:30:21):
It said that my advice can cometimes sometimes come off
as trite because I refuse to acknowledge the myriad systemic issues,
and I present all problems as solvable and I was like,
you better believe I do that.

Speaker 7 (01:30:39):
Absolutely I do, because much like.

Speaker 9 (01:30:41):
On your store, your show, right, I have the podcast
that'm I doing now for four years and I have
had people sit in a studio with me and go
over unbelievable stories of wild success that, according to the
myriad systemic issues, they have no business being anywhere near
this story. Right. So I absolutely believe that all problems

(01:31:02):
are solvable. And if you don't believe that, I'm gonna
be honest with this book is not for you.

Speaker 8 (01:31:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:31:07):
Right, If you are somed of the beliefs, you can
save yourself because nobody's coming to save you.

Speaker 3 (01:31:12):
Now.

Speaker 7 (01:31:12):
That was one of the mistakes that I made, and.

Speaker 9 (01:31:14):
I talk about a lot as a kid, you know,
I was it was kind of like John c Riley
from Stepbrothers, where I was like, I'm going to get
in the family business. Yet I didn't go to go
to law school. I don't know what the hell I
was thinking when I was younger. I don't like, no,
I'm just going to work with dad someday doing what
he was gonna He's a lawyer and you're an idiot,
so I don't know what you're going to do here.

Speaker 7 (01:31:33):
But yeah, you know, as soon as I got to
the conclusion that nobody was.

Speaker 9 (01:31:36):
Going to come save me, then that's when I started
really saving myself.

Speaker 5 (01:31:41):
I have some questions on our text line for you.
And by the way, the book is Escaping the Drift.
It comes out when two days Tuesday.

Speaker 9 (01:31:47):
It'll be about Tuesday everywhere everywhere books are. Yes, you
can buy it everywhere, including the audio book, which I
will say was one of the most difficult things I've
ever had to do in my life.

Speaker 7 (01:31:58):
Oh, you don't knowe how quickly you speak until you recorded.

Speaker 5 (01:32:01):
You should have let me do it. I would have
added really interesting inflection to the whole thing, and I
probably would have added some stuff about me. But anyway,
Escaping the Drift you can pre order it now. I
did put a link to the Amazon and a link
to John's Escaping the Drift podcast page, so you can
listen to the podcast, even though I'm pretty sure it's
not on iHeartMedia, where your sister works. I'm just throwing
that out there. Don't worry about me. I'll handle it.

(01:32:23):
Although my companies succeed without you.

Speaker 7 (01:32:28):
I don't know if it is or not.

Speaker 5 (01:32:29):
Here we go, Let me ask some questions. You're ready?
From little to a speed round of questions from the
text line, are you ready? Mandy? I don't know who
the heck this dude is. But does he know you
have your own theme song? Did you know I have
my own theme song for the show?

Speaker 6 (01:32:41):
Oh?

Speaker 7 (01:32:42):
Yeah, Do I know you have your own theme song?

Speaker 3 (01:32:44):
No?

Speaker 7 (01:32:45):
No, I didn't know that.

Speaker 3 (01:32:47):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (01:32:47):
Here's one Mandy. Did your parents like Mandy better than you?
So that's a question for you father?

Speaker 7 (01:32:54):
Yes? Mother?

Speaker 5 (01:32:54):
No, that is so accurate. That's true. Accurate?

Speaker 7 (01:33:00):
Is that fair?

Speaker 6 (01:33:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:33:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:33:02):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (01:33:03):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (01:33:04):
Hey, John, was Mandy really a problem child?

Speaker 4 (01:33:06):
No?

Speaker 5 (01:33:06):
He was the problem child. He was the one who
couldn't go. And here's the thing. Let me just say
this about John, and this is he talks about this
stuff in the book. But I think you almost gloss
over the way you were careening through life when you
were younger and John started working. How old when you
got your first job? Oh, I was a kid, I
was young, fifteen, were hustling young. Yeah yeah, so he's

(01:33:30):
been working this whole time. But there was a period
of like twelve years where you would have like five
different W twos every time you filed your taxes because
you have that many different jobs so to nowhere where
he is now And I didn't even like sing your
praises about the fact that you're one of the most
you know, successful real estate brokers in Nevada, and that
you've built this massive business and that you invest in
all these other companies and that you're incredibly successful. But

(01:33:52):
if you have someone in your life that is kind
of limping along, and I feel like there's so many
young people and John, I'm just going to this book
should speak two young men. It should speak to those
eighteen nineteen year old who's honestly their teen years were
screwed by COVID. This is the kind of book that
you buy them and say, someday you're gonna go I'm

(01:34:13):
sick of doing what I'm gonna do. Pick up the
book and read it. It's got the it's an instruction manual,
it really is.

Speaker 3 (01:34:19):
It's a yes it is.

Speaker 5 (01:34:21):
Uh, Mandy, what is your favorite memory of your brother.
I'll tell you my favorite memory of my brother. It
was when he was I believe in fourth grade. He
was in the play at Epiphany Catholic School and he
needed a costume. So my mom, being the theater person
did what she did. She went to Goodwill and she
got a bunch of different pieces to make this crazy
professor of costume and she brings them home and she's

(01:34:42):
showing John here, I got you all this stuff, and
he's like, this is so cool.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
Where'd you get it?

Speaker 5 (01:34:46):
And my mom said, I got it at Goodwill? And
my fourth grade brother says, did anyone see you go
in there? And I will never forget that. But you
know what, John, that's because you were one of those
people that you always want the finest things in life,
and you've worked your butt off and you've got it.

Speaker 9 (01:35:03):
Oh no, that that speaks exactly to the problem we
had growing up as candids, which was we didn't have
any money and you and and it would have been
mortifying for those kids in the country club to see that.

Speaker 7 (01:35:15):
Oh oh, they would have.

Speaker 5 (01:35:16):
Been well, I don't know. I mean, I I shot
the years.

Speaker 7 (01:35:20):
I could I could carry. I could care, dude.

Speaker 9 (01:35:21):
One of my favorite things to do now is you
go to the thrift stores on Melrows in La. I
just look for the most random things.

Speaker 5 (01:35:27):
That's like, what, I will ask one more question before
we wrap this up, And I'm not gonna should I
make him play out the day? Do we have somebody
to play out the day? No, I've got somebody to
playut the day. You're off the hook, Oh, I can't
because you're you're slightly behind me. This texture ass to
hang on one second. I'm trying to decide who talks faster,
you or your brother. We should have a speed race.

Speaker 7 (01:35:49):
Oh man, Well, and they didn't get the other one
on here either.

Speaker 9 (01:35:52):
In our house, if you didn't talk this fast, you
did not get a word in x ys ever, So
this is a learned behavior.

Speaker 5 (01:35:59):
It was a competition household. No, I would like you
to sort of point out Donald Trump. You have an
interesting relationship with Donald Trump. Tell people about that.

Speaker 9 (01:36:10):
So I was one of eighteen people that was chosen
to be on the season three of The Apprentice. We
got through that, and again that was probably the first time.
I talk about it a lot in the book. Not
a lot, because that's kind of at this point. It
was twenty years ago talking about how many touchdowns you
scored for Polkai.

Speaker 7 (01:36:27):
But I do talk about how I got on the show,
and it was the.

Speaker 9 (01:36:30):
First time that I was ever really around a lot
of people that were just excelling at a different level. Sure,
And it was one of my biggest way to coat
calls because I can honestly say, and this is not
from a place of ego, it's just from accuracy that
I was probably one of the top five smartest people
there when I was on the show, but net worthwise,
I was probably in the bottom three easily, just because

(01:36:51):
I hustled my way to get on there, right. I
just I talked my way on and being in that
experience made me be like, Okay, wait a second, you're
really not living up to your own God given potential here,
and you got to change what you're doing. And I
talk about that and how to analyze and get around
the right people, and how to find the right rooms,
and how to level up by partnerships, mentors, mastermind groups, meetups.

(01:37:14):
I mean, anything that you can do that's like that.
And I give you really detail instructions on how to
locate those things. But the key is you've got to
go locate them. Nobody's gonna if you're waiting at home
for somebody knock on the door and say, hey, I'm
going to take you to this thing that's going to
change your life.

Speaker 7 (01:37:27):
It's not going to happen. You got to go get it.

Speaker 5 (01:37:29):
Last question, was Mandy always as cool as she is now?
Obviously my audience invested, I'm just kidding. I made him
do this.

Speaker 7 (01:37:35):
John.

Speaker 5 (01:37:35):
I was like, you have to ask questions only about me,
and they've delivered.

Speaker 9 (01:37:38):
Well, I'll tell you this when we were many many,
many many years ago, when Manny was at Florida State
and I was a high school I was in high school. Oh,
we're telling it, Oh we're telling it. Oh yeah, So
many worked at Mandy worked at a place called the
Flamego Cafe, and some guy had decided when they got
off to just buy the staff a million drinks.

Speaker 5 (01:37:56):
We only eight hundred bucks that this guy was like,
whatever it was in.

Speaker 7 (01:38:00):
Our box, just buy everything.

Speaker 9 (01:38:01):
And so Mandy as with back in the day when
you were, you know, nineteen years old and didn't have
an ID, Mandy, we could buy us beer. So me
and my friends would go get Mandy to buy speer.
So we were to her house. She wasn't there, and
she's like she saw at Flamingo. My friend and I
went there. We went and got her. She's so drunk.
We carried her out of Flamingo like carried her out

(01:38:23):
Like weekend at Bernie's Arm of Arm.

Speaker 7 (01:38:25):
We walk into Mike's beer barn.

Speaker 9 (01:38:27):
I take her id, I place it between her fingers
of her right hand, and then I just kind of
we flick it on the counter as we're holding her
up completely fast out the guy sells us the beer.
And the best part of the story is we're trying
to get your get her upstairs into her apartment after
this fiasco and get her home, and we can only
get her halfway into the door.

Speaker 7 (01:38:47):
So for some reason we just left her there.

Speaker 9 (01:38:49):
And she still talks to me after that, which so yes,
she is the coolest person.

Speaker 6 (01:38:54):
She left me laying in the open door of my
parting left me there, all right, Buy the book by
the book John Gafford Escaping the Drift.

Speaker 5 (01:39:05):
I put a link on the blog today. Could you
talk to you a little brother. I'll talk to you
again soon.

Speaker 7 (01:39:10):
Yes, ma'am, I'll see you soon, all right.

Speaker 5 (01:39:12):
That is my brother, John gafferd. It's gonna say recording
stop the oh there you go, okay, uh wow. I
forgot about that story. It was full on weekend at
Bernie's too, because I was passed out drunk and they
took me to buy them beer. Ryan Edwards is my
little brother.

Speaker 2 (01:39:27):
I was just talking to him. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, wait,
they took you.

Speaker 5 (01:39:35):
They came to have me buy them beer. And I
was drunk because we'd gotten a huge tip and everybody
got wasted at the restaurant that I worked at, and
they dragged me across the street, like, put my id
in between my fingers and held it and then flipped
it on the counter and the guy sold the.

Speaker 7 (01:39:48):
Beer to us.

Speaker 3 (01:39:49):
Yep.

Speaker 5 (01:39:50):
God, the eighties were glorious, and now it's time for
the most exciting segment on the radio of its.

Speaker 4 (01:39:55):
Kind in the wo.

Speaker 6 (01:39:58):
The day.

Speaker 5 (01:40:00):
What's our dad joke of the day? Please?

Speaker 2 (01:40:01):
What do you call a doctor who is half man
and half horse?

Speaker 5 (01:40:06):
Doctor centaur?

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
He's the CDC a centaur for disease control.

Speaker 3 (01:40:13):
Wow.

Speaker 8 (01:40:13):
I like that.

Speaker 5 (01:40:14):
It's got a highbrow. A highbrow there, Okay, what is
our word of the day please?

Speaker 3 (01:40:18):
It is a verb and it is in geminate in
spell it I n G g E M M I.

Speaker 5 (01:40:29):
N at erect in geminate. I'm I'm gonna say that
means to fertilize something.

Speaker 2 (01:40:34):
That's what feels like. No, No, it means to repeat
or reiterate.

Speaker 5 (01:40:38):
Okay, there you go. In the Tower London, there is
a stairwell known as the Two Princes Staircase. How did
it get its name? I know this since I've been there.
According to legend, King Edward the Fourth died, his brother
Richard the Third murdered Edward's two sons to cement his
claim to the throne. During the renovations of the Tower
of London, the skeletons of two children were discovered in

(01:40:59):
this stairwell. It's widely believed to be the remains of
Edward's son.

Speaker 2 (01:41:03):
So not a spind doctor, sir.

Speaker 5 (01:41:05):
Nope, nope, Okay? What is Jeopardy category?

Speaker 2 (01:41:09):
Burger joints?

Speaker 5 (01:41:10):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
Hamburger University? This chain's training center? Mandy, what is McDonald's
That is correct?

Speaker 3 (01:41:18):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:41:19):
The catchphrase where's the bee?

Speaker 8 (01:41:20):
Mandy?

Speaker 5 (01:41:21):
What is Wendy's?

Speaker 2 (01:41:22):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (01:41:23):
In a nineteen eighty TV commercial, this burger joint blew
up its iconic speaker box clown Ryan Ryan, Who is
a commercial?

Speaker 2 (01:41:32):
Who's carls Jr?

Speaker 5 (01:41:33):
No, Mandy, what is Jack in the box?

Speaker 3 (01:41:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:41:36):
Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1 (01:41:37):
In the seventies, the title figure of this franchise got
some companions.

Speaker 2 (01:41:42):
Sir shakes a lot in The Wizard of Fries. Who's
burger king? Correct? Zero? The craving for.

Speaker 1 (01:41:49):
Burgers from this chain is so strong that it was
in the title of a Harold and Kumar film.

Speaker 2 (01:41:55):
What is White Castle is? Correct? Still one though, still one?

Speaker 5 (01:41:59):
That's okay, a okay, Ryan, What is the most annoying
sports fan?

Speaker 3 (01:42:05):
Oh?

Speaker 10 (01:42:05):
Boy, you know, Boston fans tend to be at the
top of my list.

Speaker 5 (01:42:09):
I'm really thinking more general, like the super drunk guy,
guy who never shuts up, guy who doesn't know anything
about the sport he's watching but thinks he does. You
know that this Yeah, yeah, yeah, the worst sports fan every.

Speaker 7 (01:42:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:42:27):
On apart five, that guy.

Speaker 2 (01:42:29):
Wow, it's way up there.

Speaker 10 (01:42:31):
Yeah, it's in the whole guy on apart five, You're like,
come on, dude, you just don't don't yell at Rory anyway.

Speaker 5 (01:42:38):
What's coming up on Kaway Sports?

Speaker 2 (01:42:39):
Oh my gosh, it is bananas.

Speaker 10 (01:42:41):
So it's the only day for practice, to which means
it's the only day for all the pressors. We have
the NFL trade deadline that was wild today, all sorts
of stuff with that.

Speaker 2 (01:42:51):
We're gonna have Garrett Bowles. At three thirty, we have
Shelby Harris.

Speaker 10 (01:42:55):
At four thirty we have rod Smith and Studio five,
so all coming up next.

Speaker 5 (01:42:59):
Keep it right here, you're on ko A