Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - SSS and Genghis Cohen - Dark Desert Defense, Machine Guns, Helicopters, and Strippers

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

Stephen is a recently retired Navy SEAL with 24 years of active duty service. Immediately upon graduating from high school he enlisted in the Navy and went to Basic Underwater Demolition School BUD/S. Stephen was assigned to SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team TWO where he specialized as a SDV Pilot, small arms marksmanship instructor, and scout/sniper. In 1999 Stephen successfully screened and went to Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team 6). During his 11 years at the command, Steve successfully completed 10 combat deployments to both OIF (Iraq) and OEF (Afghanistan). During his combat tours as an assault team sniper and team leader, he was awarded the Silver Star and five Bronze Star medals for heroic actions while engaged in National level HVT combat missions, among other medals and awards. Before retiring he started his own consulting business, (TIER ONE Global Consulting LLC) specializing in soldiering skills, combat shooting, austere high altitude jump training, and lead climbing rock courses to private clients and government agencies. In 2012 he was the Today, Stephen is the owner-operator of Dark Desert Defense. Stephen also owns Six Shooters LLC. This company works specifically in the entertainment industry, film, TV, and video games. Genghis was born and raised in New Zealand (NZ). At the age of 17 he was accepted for Officer Training with the Royal New Zealand Army. After serving 7 years with the military Genghis moved to the US where he studied at San Francisco State University(SSU). Genghis grew up around firearms. From an early age he was shooting and hunting with his father. His time in the military led to a greater understanding or firearms specifically in a combat environment. In 2008 Genghis moved to Ghana, Africa where he owned Gold and Diamond mining operations, he also worked as a consultant at this time in security and aviation. In 2010 Genghis returned to the US and decided to teach part time as a firearms instructor, after a couple of bad experiences with the facilities and training offered in Las Vegas, Genghis and his partners decided to open their own range offering training and firearms experiences. Genghis went on to train more and more clients offering a bespoke approach to defensive firearms training. Genghis now owns and operates multiple tourism attractions as well as being one of the principles for Dark Desert Defense. As a veteran himself Genghis also founded and is the chairman of the Veterans Training Fund, a 501(c) 3 that assists veterans in assimilating back into society.  https://www.darkdesertdefense.com/  

What up, everybody. Welcome back. Today's episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. Shocker, I know, right? I'm at their website right now. They're having Black Friday stuff, and I'm going to skip over that because Black Friday is over at this point. And it's all about Christmas. It's a few weeks away. I think literally three. Start thinking about what you want to get the people you care about. Coffee is a great gift. You know if they drink coffee, it's not going to go bad. You know they're not going to not use it.

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patch or a sticker. Thermoses, I mean, Yeties, whatever you potentially want. Coffee is, this hopefully surprises nobody where you would go to get the coffee beans. Okay, I'm going to, I don't even know if I'm allowed to say this yet, but I'm going to, the clear. hot coffee is coming back in 2025. And nobody tell Evan that I told you that because, well, he said it's going to happen. So I guess you could tell them if you want to. But if you've never had the clear hot blend, it's ridiculously good. I don't know what medium I'm going to use to actually sell it on, but it is going to be back and it's going to be awesome.

But until you can actually buy that, if you have friends, family members, loved ones that like coffee, go to black rifle coffee.com. It's the number one way that you can help support the podcast, other than telling somebody about it or leaving me a review on one of the platforms. Support the brands that make this podcast possible. That's it. My guest today, two of them, Triple S, also known as Steve Sanders, and Genghis Cohen, not Genghis Khan, even though that's what I want to call him. C-O-H-E-N, not K-H-A-N. It's really close for me, though. So I'm going to call him Genghis Khan.

Triple S has been on the podcast before twice. And one of my oldest friends is a retired Navy SEAL, spent a substantial amount of time at an East Coast command that would be considered a Tier 1 J-Soc unit. Highly decorated, Silver Star, Five Bronze Stars, absolute asshole. I say that because he's probably the most technically proficient seal that I ever serve with. He's so fucking disgustingly good at the job. It makes it hard to be around sometimes. He came up here with his business partner in Dark Desert Defense, Genghis. Genghis is the owner of Machine Guns Las Vegas, or Machine Gun, Las Vegas.

And they partnered in this training course before I get into that. Genghis is a veteran himself. You will notice instantly on the podcast that he has an accent, which is not from Alabama. It is from New Zealand. He's a Kiwi. served in the military in New Zealand, got into rotary wing flying. I think Genghis and I are going to have some adventures as life continues. Came to the United States. Holy shit, this guy is an entrepreneur. Multiple businesses, multiple different genres as well. I mean, we're talking managing

nightclubs and strip clubs to going into the gold and diamond business in Africa. I mean, not exactly the same thing for sure. Then coming back over, getting into the gun range. business. It's wild. We did talk about what Dark Desert Defense offers, and they offer firearms training. Stephen Genghis did a good job describing that. But what I'll say to you is this. This is not, it's not cheap, and it shouldn't be cheap. And it's not a large group class because the training that they're trying to offer, not that they're trying to, the training that they are offering, it takes time. And you need to invest in your student. And the student needs to invest in the instructor as well, because these things are designed to take life and they should be taken seriously.

And also people who are looking for instruction, they need to be careful who they take that instruction from. Because not all trainers and coaches are created equal. They talked about on the show potentially running some courses up here in Montana. I will harass them to make sure that those courses are online. And so hopefully if you are interested in visiting Montana and sharpening your game from a weapons perspective, you could come up to Montana and do so. Episode number 364 with Triple S and Genghis. Enjoy. Okay, copy.

Wists of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. What do you fuckers want to talk about? Dark Desert. Dark Desert Defense. Do you want to talk about how, like, poor of a name that is? Where do you want to be getting as far as? I know what I like.

I like the word, the letter D. let's put three of those in our name and then figure it out backwards. Dickless Dark Desert. Dark Desert what? Dark Desert dongs? In truthness, like, I was telling him, we were having some stupid conversation

about what's better than a girl with a set of double days? And we're like, a girl with a set of triple D's and that's how we sort of... I feel like in some scale in that, though, it becomes problematic. Yeah. The name? No.

Double Ds versus, like, just pure size. management issue of Yeah, no, I mean. Michael's already lost because he's just like, I've never seen any of those. No, I mean, like, one's too big. I'm sure ladies steal the same thing. Oh, yeah. Like, I don't think they want something that's the length of this fucking microphone arm.

Exactly. Only for like a badge on their fucking Girl Scout outfit. I suppose. No, Brandon is important. You got to have, so not Riley, but Tyler started two businesses. And the only thing I did was help him with the names. So he has peeping Tom windows. He does window cleaning.

And then Epstein's Christmas lights because they're not going to hang themselves. No way. Yeah. And he fucking slays. So it's so funny because we were... We're not going to hang themselves. We were having this whole conversation. That's fucking hilarious.

Like this branding that's to the point of being offensive. It's like this T-shirt. Like when I was walking through the thing, I was walking through your... You got to talk into the mic. Sorry. Like, I didn't even remember. No, like, not that crazy. We're always recording.

But, like, like, Like, you know, I could have sold it five times over just walk into the bathroom when we're at breakfast. You will instantly know, like when he knocks on somebody's door and says, hey, I'm Tyler with peeping Tom windows. They're going to light up like a Christmas tree. Yeah. Or they're going to tell you to get the fuck off the property. Mason. So you're very clear, is this your target demographic?

Yeah. And, yeah, do he made like $30,000 over the summer doing windows? Jeez. Wow. Yeah. He had Michael working for it. Wow. That's fucking awesome, man.

Which is embarrassing, given that Michael's older, more distinguished in his career. So, yeah, how'd you land on Dark Desert Defense? Good question. I think we, I think we spent, what, two or three months, first of all, coming up with the name. And then secondly, I think the most difficult part was coming up with the logo. but because we do not like to have any sort of like military, you know, we're not out on the range with cargo pants on and 5-11 doubt, you know, we're not. Why?

Just because it's- What's wrong with those people? Why are you being so judgy? I'm not. I'm not. I'm just, well, at first I want to give a shout out to 5-11, no. No, but like, because a lot of people, I think in our experience, once you get into the whole military thing,

these people start getting intimidated by it. because people are usually our demographic, a lot of, they go through our course, they are already intimidated by the guns of themselves. So it wasn't when it would make it feel like they're out on the range with, you know, a couple of drill instructors, you know. So our training style is very laid back and chill. But in our logo, like, I think I, I have just like getting us, I'm sure, got so many compliments just on the low. Because my truck is logoed out. You know, it's all, I've got, you know, multi-camera app. But everybody's like, dude, that logo is so cool.

And that's why we decided like, hey, we're going to start selling merch. Con, have you ever seen pictures of the Shaggin wagon? This is the vehicle that Steve had when I met him. No. Oh, yeah, you saw it. My lower dully. Oh, yeah, that thing? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah. And he called the Shagginwagon. We used to drive that thing straight to Starbucks for iced mokos. Back in, like, 0-2,03. And coffee cake, of course. Yeah. Crum cake. Crum cake, yeah.

Why did we do that? I don't know. I know. I was just starting to drink coffee then. Always. We always had crumb cake, whatever the fuck you want to call it. It was crumb cake. Coffee, crumble cake.

And we ate it super weird too. We always ate it out of the bag like usually everybody does. And yeah, but we'd always go there post-workout. Post-workout, we go in there and get our, you know, lot-teens. snacks. Lates, yeah. And some coffee cake. Yeah, that's the Steve that I first met. The first time we rode together,

looking at this truck, like, what the fuck is this thing? It's like, I'm East Coast, right? East Coast. And, uh, dude, have you seen his new truck? Yeah, you're seeing. With his 26 inch wheel? No, you and I both kind of go through trucks at a rapid pace, so I don't

really know what you're on at this point. I might have seen it. It's a, it's a 21, a 450 duly on 26s. 26th's wheels, icon suspension, totally deleted. I understood it at 450. All the rest, you know this about me. I'm like, what? The trucks are rocket.

Are 26-inch tires big? The wheels are 26s. Is that good or bad? So on your truck, they're probably either 18 or 20s. The rim or the wheel? The rim. Same thing. It has the ride of a shopping cat.

No, it does not. It's on icon, bro. Dude, there's the reason your son was wants to ride with me out to the rats. No, just because he doesn't want to talk to me. Do you think the era of the military-based firearms instructor is coming to an end? Yes. Wait, one more time, my question. So how long do you think people are going to be able to trade on the G-WAT as a better way to describe that question?

Not that they shouldn't. I believe people's experiences are to do with what they want to do. but in 2035 are people still going to give a fuck about anything that we did in 2005 or want to see guys wearing multi-cam and the plate carriers or are you finding people who just want to be safe, current, and competent with firearms? That's what we're finding. A lot of our clients come to us because they are, you know, we're just talking about this this morning, you know, especially, you know,

women come in, they're like, hey, you know, my husband and boyfriends, I live alone. I'm alone a lot. It's traveling. And, you know, lately, you know, our current events, you know, people just aren't safe. And they don't feel safe. And they're like, hey, you know, I want to. It's funny because I want to get a pistol for a home defense. And our first things out of our mouths are don't get a pistol.

You don't get a shotgun. But if you do want to get a pistol, if you want to go into concealed carry, then go through a pistol course. And then we will make you competent enough to, number one, carry concealed, you know, safely. And then number two, use it for home defense as well. But a lot of our clientele are women. Yeah, we get a lot of women. I think the big thing is, at least what we found in training with the, like, the really military guys, is, you know, there's that old story of the gun store commando.

You know, you go into a gun store and there's this guy who has never seen a gym in his life. But, you know, he's dressed up like he thinks he just came out of Baghdad or Iraq, you know. And I think Baghdad, 2006, once it's pants back. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

So I think. D-R-M-O bin just fucking had to tell. Totally. So I think that just intimidates a lot of people, right? And so, you know, one of the things I love about working with Steve in particular is, dude, we'll rock out there and Steve's got flip-flops on and shorts. I've experienced this. But he can shoot the shit out of anyone. You know, I mean, he, you know, and so when you.

And a cowboy hat. Yeah, in a cowboy hat. And when you. I don't like that part of this. When you, when you sort of show up like that, like people just, it brings the whole level, because they're stressed out already. I mean, it's so funny, we have the gun sitting on the table and you can just see the fear in their eyes of like, I've got to, it's like a pile of rattlesnakes. Yeah, that's the best way to put it. Which is wild because it would sit there on the table harming nobody until it rusted to the point where it wouldn't function anymore.

Right. But it scares the ever-living shit out of people. Yeah. And to go back to the military training, I mean, the vast. majority of the shit, the training that we received has no applicability whatsoever for 99.999% of people. So I see some of these courtses where they try to, it's basic knowledge and they're like, all right, cool, we're going to go do room clearance.

I'm like, that's going to be spicy. Exactly. Let's go live. So our, so our beginner, our, we basically have, like our beginner course is basically a level one, level one pistol, right? And it's very on our website and it, it covers all the course of jobs. but it's very simple. And we're not teaching room clearance.

But at the end of the course, like we just did one last weekend, you know, we take somebody that's never shot a gun before. And at the end of the second day, they're moving and shooting. Yeah. You're talking about probably like two-dimentially, just laterally forward and back. Yeah, totally. Yeah, just basically forward. That's it.

Just walking forward and shooting. And then they're like, wow. So we basically take somebody that has never shot a gun before. and by the end of the second day, they're moving and shooting, and they're blown away. And we go through draws, everything. So the amount of information they get, I mean, they're like, they're drinking out of a fire hose

the entire time. And people are just sometimes are overwhelmed. And which is a good thing because we want people to, you know, stay, like, focused and sharp. And they really never, nobody here comes to our course and ever gets comfortable. They're always, because once we... That's good.

Once we get people going through and they start proficient, you know, getting you started like, all right, this is what we're going to do now. This is what we're going to do now. We just start adding. All you even need to do for most people is like, let me introduce you to Mr. Shottimer. Oh, yeah, that is exactly. You thought you were doing good? Let me introduce you to Mr. And you're about to fall a fucking hard.

You know what we call it the automatic fuck-up device. Yeah. And so we introduce people to that like halfway through the first day just because neither one of us want to sit there and talk that much anyway because they're already sick of listening, no, talk. So we introduce a shot timer and that's what we do. It's like, all right, just mind you, this isn't a speed drill. We're just using it to get you kind of like, you know, used to it. Because the second day, now we're doing time drills with them. But it's a lot of information in this last class we just did.

We had seven, six, seven people in it. And yeah, we got, I'm usually surprised at how far we can get. especially we had like a legit group of people that had never touched a gun before. It's probably, you'd probably be able to get them farther than people who already have. Exactly. Yeah, the number one enemy's eager, especially with like guiseal shop and then like, I'm a man, I know how to shoot a gun. Dude, how often do we see that teaching on free fall together? You'd get somebody who had like 50 to 100 jumps.

You're like, fuck. Okay, I need you to actually unwind what you have been doing because you're doing it wrong. And it's, even though they haven't been doing it wrong for the. that long. It has its hooks in. And it's hard to get that shit out of there. Yeah. I mean, when I was in the, when I was in the military, one of the things that the DS always used to say to me, it's so much easier to teach a good habit than to unteach a bad one, right? So, you know, that's what, that's why honestly, I love it when

people come in and they're scared, but they, I've never touched the gun before. And I'm like, great. Because you're not going to have any bad habits. So we can, we can sort of start teaching you the good ones and we don't have to unlearn the bad ones. Yeah. And I like the shotgun for home defense as well. Yeah. Do you guys teach them the advanced technique? If they hear anything, just smoke around to the ceiling just in case.

I call it the flush out move. And you listen. As long as you know a good drywall guy. Yeah. And you don't live on the bottom floor of a two-story apartment. It's like ground hunting. You've got to flush them out. You'll see if anybody's hiding on you.

Yeah, exactly. Recon by fire. Totally. Recon by fire. Yeah. I'm coming out. Hey, Steve. Pull that mic a little bit closer.

Okay. Yeah, fucking take that. But yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it. Check, check. I tell you to lower the seat, but you're already so tiny anyway. I don't want to make you look like a midget. It's a fucking microceal. Yeah.

Put some weight on, dude. It doesn't help you with height. Yeah. Yeah, no. Nobody's ever accused me being tall, that's for sure. That is true. Genghis, how did you find your way to the U.S.? We've got to tell your origin story.

For the listeners, let's just assume your last name's Khan. Yeah, okay. That's fine. I'll live with that. That's his alias. So, I really, I was in the New Zealand military, and they sent me... Born and raised in New Zealand? Born and raised in New Zealand.

What's military service look like there? Is it kind of like a common thing, an uncommon thing? Kind of an uncommon thing. I mean, our army is like we can barely field a soccer team. You know, our army is so small and our defense force is small. But we do, we actually work a lot with U.S., Australian, British. You know, we're a Commonwealth country. Yeah, yeah.

So we're Commonwealth countries. So a lot of our guys will train, you know, in different parts of the world. So I got on this course to come to the U.S. and I was in the US for a little while, and I did some courses here, and I just really liked it, and I went back, spent a little bit on time in the military there, and I was like, I'm just going to go to America

and sort of showed up with a backpack and started bartending and going to college. And that's sort of how I started going here, and then sort of went down the road. I sort of didn't do a lot of military stuff for a while. Went down the road of, you know, I worked for casinos and hotels in Las Vegas and, you know, had strip clubs and nightclubs

and restaurants and did a whole bunch of stuff that was non-military related. I feel like you saw a wild amount of shit. Yeah. I was going to say even in the hotel business, what is the strip club business like? Let's spend two hours talking about that. It's funny. I met a guy the other day who's a professor at the University of Connecticut.

And he's actually working with me to write a book about strip clubs because he specifically works for entrepreneurs, teaching them business strategy. And we were talking for about an hour. And he's like, I want you to write a book with me about the lessons learned on managing people and events. business from the point of view of someone owning an operating a strip club. So we're calling, the name of the book's going to be called Hurting by Polar Cats. And it's, it's, it's really just, I had, so I had 1,600 girls working for me at the time. What? Yeah, because they, because they roll in and they roll out. So how does the economics of that work? Is this, I mean, I'm assuming this is a 1099 type thing. Yeah, yeah, 1099, but are you just getting a scrape of what they bring in? Do you pay them? How

does this work? No, so the way it works is that, so the girls pay to work there, right? Okay. So they pay you to work there. It's called a stage fee or house fee. And then actually there's a house fee. So that's what they pay to sort of work there. And then if they don't want to have to go on stage, then they pay a stage fee as well. Okay. And then usually the customers pay to come in the front door.

And then of course you make money off the drinks. And then most customers will pay the girls with a credit card. So the way that that works is that, you know, the club usually charges. 10 to 15% surcharge on a credit card transaction. Strong. Right. Yeah. But guys pay it's a nice scrape.

You know, when they've got tits in their face and they're drunk and $300 bud life. Yeah. Yeah. She loves me. She loves me. I literally had my car, let it ride. I literally had a 45 minute calm debate with Quentin Tarantino because he bought, I don't know, like 30 lesbians into the club and took the whole VOP room and he had this monster bar tab.

And he said, look, I will pay for everything, but I am not paying $12 for a Diet Coke. I'm like, dude, you're in the champagne room. Like, it is what it is. It's not 15. And it was actually quite interesting. At the end, I said, okay, if I take care of the $6, $12 diet coax, will you pay the bill? Yep, no problem.

What? Yeah, that's, yeah. I ran into him one time. He's an interesting cat. At a Mariah Bar in, like, just north of Santa Barbara. I said nothing to him because he was. was sitting in the, like, at the bar on the far edge, appearing to have a pretty shitty night,

or maybe that's just his resting bitch face. But I rolled in there, and I think I was ordering some food to go, and I looked at him like, that's fucking Quentin Tarantino. Okay, I'm out of here. Yeah. That's my Quentin Territon. Sorry. Thank you for being a part of my TED talk.

Good talk. 30 lesbians. That's how he's wrong? It was some sort of movie project he was working on, because then we sort of started talking about what he was doing in Vegas and stuff. Okay. Yeah, but it was interesting. I mean, I got so many stories, dude.

I mean... But that's a tremendous amount of people working for you. So you got to remember at any one time, the max on the floor would maybe be 180 girls. So you've got 16... 180 on the floor? Yeah, 200, 50, 180. How big was this place?

Not big, dude. It was only 5,000 square feet. I mean, you go to a place like some of the big clubs in Vegas, like Sapphires and Rhino, there's a thousand girls rolling through there in a day. Because that, don't forget, it's 24 hours. So you got two shifts, and they can have three... That doesn't even fucking computer.

Three to 400 girls on the floor. So if you have three shifts, you know, on a busy, like if it's Super Bowl weekend or like the F1 now. Yeah. I mean, those. Is that counting like the servers and? No, no. That's just dancers. Jeez.

What would a high end earner on a peak like F1 day? What do we, what are we looking at take home? I had girls that work for me that made over a million dollars a year. What? Yeah. I had girls that might work for me to might over a million dollars a year. Holy shit. Yeah.

I had a girl at work for me. And she, super smart Korean lady, she would, she'd make money at the club and then she'd put it away and then she'd buy real estate. She was still working at the club and her real estate portfolio was over $20 million. And I'd go, why are you still at the club? And she goes, I've been working here for 18 years. She's like, you know, what do you want me to, you know, this is my life. These are all my friends. So they just stayed working there.

We're not in the right line of business. I don't know if there's a male version of this, but I'm a little bit let down. Not that I have the fucking self-confidence to do that. But I'm like, a fucking million dollars a year? God damn. Yeah. You go try out for a Thunder from Down Under or whatever. They would just, you know, it's really interesting.

Like, probably my most successful girls really never took their clothes off. It's all about talking. Yeah, yeah. It's a really, yeah, it's interesting. I have a friend who's very big in the only fans business. and only 30% of it has anything to do with sexual stuff. The rest of it's just, what are you doing? Hey, can you send me $5 for a coffee?

Yeah. And then, but she's got like, you know, 100 guys sending her $5 for a coffee that morning. So she's drinking one coffee, but she's getting $500. You know, it's a lot about talking and feeling they're part of the person's life. It's a really, it's a really interesting. So it's a scam. I don't know if it's a scam. I think that's how detached our society is.

Yeah. Actual relationships. Yeah. With people sitting down. I don't know. How old are your kids now? 22, 17, and 4. So you're probably seeing it more in the...

So Julie's my youngest, 16. She is more comfortable communicating with this between the human being than by the way I'm more comfortable communicating, which is by putting this down and just fucking bullshitting for hours. So there's that aspect of it. But man, there's fucking lonely.

people out there. First off, I've never been on OnlyFans. Here's my thing. Do whatever the fuck you want to do. As long as it's consenting adults, I don't care. Right. If you're like Michael and you want to fucking fist other dudes while you're doing jelly beans, go ahead. But as long as you're not hurting somebody and it's like, it's consensual, whatever. I don't understand the OnlyFans thing at all. I don't fucking get it. It's incredible, man. I got to, I know some people that are working the tech side of it, so the back end side of it. The numbers they throw up me are just, you know. I've seen people making millions.

To give you an idea, a number that was given to me. I don't actually know how the site works. So I don't know if it's live interaction or like people. Yeah, it's live and everything else. But like this friend of mine that works in the back end of the industry, like the technical side of it. Pun intended. Yeah, yeah.

Totally intended. He was telling me that only fans paid out more money to content creators than the NBA played out to all the players in the NBA. which is a big number. Yeah. It's like the numbers are staggering. Because I didn't, I didn't understand how,

like I didn't really understand the financial model, but when I sort of became friends with these guys, they helped me understand the financial model. Yeah. And it's, it's crazy. Like, because it's exponential, right?

So one of the things that really hit the strip club business was only fans. Because these girls are like, well, I got to go into the club, I got to pay to be in the club, I got to do my hair, I got to do my makeup.

I got to ask, you know, 20, 30 guys to give me, to give them a dance and then one guys. And then I've got to work that guy to get him into three for a hundred room or into the VIP room. And then I go, or I can just set up the spare room in my house with a couple of cameras and set up this only fans and then, you know. By a fucking Bugatti. Yeah.

What's the craziest thing you ever saw happen in the strip club? Dude, that's a hard question. John fight? Yeah. Well, okay. That's what I'm talking about. I know. I was like, that's pretty crazy.

I want to see that. The craziest thing. Without mentioning names. I mean, you can't if you want to. It's just the internet. Yeah. I don't want to get sued. I don't want to get sued.

Someone's going to find it. A very famous female personality, celebrity personality. So let's just say this person's name is, I don't know, Susan. So I get a call from my security and they go, there's someone passed out in the woman's bathroom. I said, well, you know, pick them up and just take them out. No, no, they're passed out in the cubicle and the cubicle's locked. It's like, fuck.

Okay. So I walk in there and I say. There's no key? Yeah, and I say, okay, who is it? Because I thought it was one of the dancers, right? Because we don't have a lot of girls in the club. So this thing's completely content. Yeah, it's like in a cubicle.

the woman's bathroom. Like you can't jump over the top or anything. No, you can. Oh. But I'm like, so I go into the woman's bathroom and there's just a set of like girls' legs out the bottom of the store. Fuck yeah. It's a little nap.

Yeah. And I'm like, I said, who is it? And they said, Susan, which if I'd use the name, everybody would know who it is, just a very famous celebrity. And I'm like, I don't remember that name as a dancer. Which one? Because we have three dancers with that name. name, I believe. And he goes, no, no, it's the one. And I'm like, what do you mean? Well, is she

here by herself? No, she's here with a bodyguard. Actually, she's here with two bodyguards. I'm like, well, where the fucker are bodyguards? They're in the VIP room. Well, fucking go get the bodyguards. Yeah. And first of all, do your job. Handle your shit. Yeah. Like, go get the bodyguards. Because, of course, imagine, imagine a celebrity passed out in a stripper's bathroom with 20 strippers with their, with their phones out, you know, so I'm like, that's going to hit the old intranet. Yeah, this is going to be a disaster, right? So I'm like, I'm like trying to cover this, you know, I'm trying to keep this down so now I can see what the fuck's going on. My, my lead security guy comes back. He goes, he wanted to know if he needs to come now. I'm like, yeah,

he fucking needs to come now. She's unconscious wrapped around the toilet. What's he doing? And he says, well, he's paid a girl for an hour and he's still got 20 minutes to go. I'm like, I'm like, Well, you know what? She will probably reimburse him for the 20 minutes of his hour. Well, at this point, at this point, he's fired. Yeah, yeah, rather than this. So sure shit, they come rolling in and wrap this girl up. Did they just like drag the feet out from underneath the store?

Grab the feet, pulled her out from underneath the store. Nice head crack on the way down. I actually said to him because they started doing it. It's like, stop. I'm like, everyone out of the restroom. And, you know, all this strip is like, what would me? Get out of the goddamn restroom. Couldn't get the door open?

No, no, dude, just like from the inside. And someone's who'd right and you kick the door open. I'm like, no, I'm not breaking my fucking door. So they just... Or smack in the person in the face.

And she's literally lying on the floor. I mean, you could have like jumped up over the top with your hand. You could have commanded it underneath and like it. Dude, I was way more worried about 30 strippers with cell phones. So you're basically just trying to get her the fuck out of there. I'm trying to get a hell out of it.

Because I'm just, in my mind, we're going to get sued. Like, we're going to be all over the internet. Like, this is going to be horrible. Might be good advertising.

Maybe. I don't know. But, So, true enough, the security dragged her out, threw them over her shoulder. And then he starts to walk out the front of the club. Like, it's a Saturday night. I'm like... This is day one shit.

You need to go out the back door. I'm like, out the back door, dude. Those guys are 100%. Yeah. I mean... Most celebrity bodyguards have, from my understanding, it'll be the polite way to put this. They're not always the top shelf choice.

Yeah. With experience and background. This was one of those celebrities that just hires guys that can eclipse the sun. Oh, so massive black dudes. Yeah. but absolutely worthless. You know, they're very intimidating to most people. Yeah.

But like I was to, I was know someone, no security when their security guy is like, you know, five foot eight slim guy, very, you know, very, you know, very. Jason Stephen. That's, like, that's the, like, that's the, like, that's the dude you have to be, like, that's the dude you have to be worried of, you know. But yeah, that's, that's just one of like, I could, dude, I could tell a million stories. Like, were there gun fights in the strip club? So this is a true.

So one time a... Do you guys have metal detectors? No, but they start... I think they have them now, but we didn't. But there was one time a famous rapper came to my club. And we had this, you know, call it racist or not, but it just, it is what it is. We didn't play a lot of hip-hop music at the club because it just, it just doesn't work. You know, just reality.

I had a very famous rapper come to the club with this big party bus. You play a little like nickel back and stuff, right? Yeah, that's what we played a lot of equipment. So I said to... Actually, that's not true. play hip-hop music but just really tough on the door like you know you have to be tough on the door there because things can turn bad real quick so anyway like they call me to the front door you go rocking up to the front door and this guy goes to me he's like uh yeah the celebrity the

famous rapper he's like yeah um what kind of music you guys play here and i'm like blah blah blah blah you know i'll give you guys 20 000 right now just to play hip-hop for the rest of the night i'm like no he goes dude i got a bus full of you know 20 guys we're gonna come in and and no sorry man we're not going to do that so they went to another club in Vegas and it ended up that there was a gunfight and a security guy got shot one of their bounces got shot at the other club it's damn yeah it's and and there's this whole underworld like people don't realize there's this whole underworld like when you go to when you go to Vegas and you're getting a cab that cab driver's getting paid 30 dollars for up to 70 dollars for every person in a cab so limo rolls up with 10 guys

he's getting $700 cash from the club. Oh. So in one year we paid... Really? Yeah, one year I paid up $3.5 million in cash to taxi drivers and limo drivers.

So if they hop in and say, take me to a strip club, you're paying them to bring them to your establishment. Yep. Yep. And that's, yeah, so... Things I've never thought about.

What if they say, take me to, you know, whatever place? They still... Say they have a particular... No, no, no, they'll divert you. So, so... Yeah, it's a big deal. So if you're like, take me to this place and you end up at another place?

Yeah. Oh, dude, some of those, in the old days, at least the cab drivers are really. It's like, if you're paying $70 and I'm paying $50 a head, like, you're going to be the busy guy. And someone gets in a taxi to come to my club. They'll go, no, it burnt down. It's a gay club. Doesn't exist. I don't know where it is, you know.

They just rated it. Or I won't charge you a cab fare because I want you guys to have a good time to go to this other club. you know but he's taking you for like I know man it's this whole underground this whole underground thing of the way that the strip clubs work there and how much do you spend per day on like uh chlorox in a place like that you just do like misting foam that comes down or you get in there with fucking chem bios yeah you know what it's it's funny like

like people think that strip clubs are like these super dirty sleazy places and And some are, but the majority, I mean, because it's super regulated. Like, like getting an adult use license in Las Vegas, it's not quite as bad as getting a gaming license. Does that mean a strip club license? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they call it a cabaret license. But to get it, it's really tough.

Like, and it's, and vice and metro, the police are always in there doing sting operations, solicitation of prostitution, like all that kind of stuff. So, you know, I mean, there's shit that happens in strip clubs. But honestly, that same shit happens. in nightclubs in Vegas. For sure. And way more of that shit happens in high roller rooms.

I mean, it's just, you know, Vegas is what Vegas is. I mean, I used to work at a hotel casino. I've worked at a few of them, but, you know, where the prostitutes walk in and like the security guys like, hey, Susan, how's it going? Hi, Ken, how are you?

How are the kids? Oh, they're good. How about you? Oh, the kids. Like, you know, it just, it's, they can't be overt overt about. it. Yeah. But yeah, it happens. But it's a whole, I just thought like the most successful girls that work for me were usually psychology, people with master's degrees in psychology.

I had some PhDs in psychology. I had some sociology PhDs. And they would just, they just knew how to, and I kind of ran it a little bit like the military. So I had like four or five girls that were like my like, you know, unit commanders. and I wouldn't tell all the girls what had to happen. I'd just tell those four girls. And like I wouldn't charge them a house fee. And like, you know, they might be able to, they'd get a tall locker in the locker room instead of a short one.

So I'd take care of them. And then they would disseminate the information. And they were literally like, you know, they were like NCOs. And they ruled their little unit of girls, you know, and they made sure everybody made money. And they made sure no one ripped anybody off. And they made sure no one was dealing drugs

and all that kind of stuff. Fuck. Yeah, it was around it just like a milking. Wow. Why did you decide to get out of that particular? I do.

I just, it's just running, managing those girls. Oh, I bet. That's why it's cool like hurting bipolar cats, dude.

It is like the, like people were counting, man, you have the best job in the world because everybody thinks like you're just sitting in the office

getting blow jobs all night. Is that not the case? Fuck. No. No, like, dude, the number of times

I literally had to run into the dancer's dressing room and literally grab naked women and pull them off other naked women because they were just fighting? Oh my God.

How was their striking? How was their stand-up? Those all nails and hair pulling could be turned into a martial art. Like they could all be black belts. Yeah. Unreal. Just ribbon extensions. And like I'm like

you know they're like you know I'm six three and two 40 and I'm like holding this good like holding this little five foot two hundred and ten pound dripping wet girl. Tasmanian devil though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like crazy shit, you know, and so.

That happened a lot. Oh, dude. They would always get in fights. Like, they'd always be fights or, I remember one time, I get called, Genghis back door, back door, back door. And like, when they say that, I'm like, are we getting robbed? Because we have cash at the back door and shit. Nope.

It's one of my strippers on the hood of a taxi cab with her heel, smashing the, because the taxi cab driver pissed her off. And she's smashing. This taxi cab driver's, like, shitting himself. and this little five foot, 110-pound drip and wet strippers, like on there, driving a heel through the windshield of his car.

Like, if you could figure out how to, maybe... I won't see that. That would be. Like, like, unit to,

like, drop in somewhere to kill people because they've all got the killer instinct. I'll tell you right now, like, you don't have to teach them to be killers. You just have to kind of manage them, but, yeah.

What would you estimate as the average time in that occupation? I had a mother-daughter working for me. Oh, boy. So I had a daughter... I don't know how I feel about that. I know. You know it was weird?

Like we, at one point, we had it, we had a midget working there. Oh boy. They are the, like, they make so much money. Like, for any, like, I'm almost afraid to ask questions. For any, I don't know what the politically correct term is, but dwarf a midget who's thinking about getting into the stripper business, you will make a fortune. Yeah. Got, like, it's such a novelty, you know, I mean.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the shit are you stiff. Dude, like, we used to have to, yeah, you do like make a fortune. Like, you know, and then the girls, when the girls come to do auditions, we'd like. I don't think midget is politically correct either. Sorry, Stephen. Little people?

Yeah, the little people. Anyway. I don't know. I just, I heard that on a, I've, in a movie. Yeah. It was just like a whole different world. You know, I would have to, I remember I was, when I first started there, you know, because I came from a corporate world.

So I was working for a large corporal. and a hotel casino running nightclubs for them. And I kind of, through a series of funny stories, I got enticed into this strip club business. It had nothing to do with the women. It actually had to do with just the owner was super cool. And it was a long story. But when I first started, like the girls would come in the day

and they'd audition, right? So, you know, it's the only job I've ever had in my life. We're the legitimate part of the job interviewers. Okay, sweetheart, you've got to take your top off. I was just, yeah, because that's a legitimate part of the job. Yeah. And we would like, like the girls would come in, they'd get on stage, they'd do this like little pole dance, they'd take their top off.

And we go, okay, you're good or okay, no good, you know. Oh, you can't come back. And I never forget this girl come in. And she goes, you know, I'm kind of new to the pole, but I've been practicing a lot, so I'm not perfect at it. And I'm like, I'm like. How did you not start laughing immediately? Well, it was like, anyway, like, wait, you're new to the pole?

First of all, what are we talking about? Okay, so I'm like, I'm new, I'd only been there a few months. I was like, I didn't know where this was going. And I'm like, okay, sweetheart, yeah, that's fine. You know, don't be nervous. It's cool. She goes, okay, well, I'm just going to get ready and I'll do my routine. She goes, but if it's not quite right, I promise you, I'll practice and get it better.

I'm like, okay, she fucking walks out of the room, comes back in, she's got a full fucking motorcycle helmet on. What? Safety first. Yeah, safety first. And I'm like, I'm like, looking at him. And now I'm trying not to laugh. She's protecting her head for the potential fault. Safety first.

No, sure is she. She does this whole routine, slides down the pole, cracks her head on the stage. If she hadn't been wearing the helmet, she probably would have knocked herself out. And I said, well, you know what? Good call. And I said, too, I said, you're hired because at least you had the smarts to think of wearing a crash helmet. And that girl actually ended up working. She was still working there when I left.

But yeah, I was just like, so many interesting people, man. But how, I mean, a couple years, would they, if they got in that line of work and they were making money, would they stay for a really long? 30 years. 30? Yeah. I had girls working for me that were, well, the mother daughter, I think the mother, Asian mother daughter, I think the mother, this is going to sound, it's going to hard to believe, she was, I think she was 60.

And I swear to God, she had the body of like a 25 year old. It was absolutely, it was like a, she was like a genetic freak. Like if her and her daughter danced together, you would think they were almost twins. Yeah. that likely probably get us removed from all platforms right there. Yeah, but I know girls that work. But you know, I know girls that work for 25 years in the strip club business, you know, and they ended up with, well, that one that had that massive real estate portfolio.

But the smart ones would have, you know, 10, 15 homes all paid for generating, you know, they'd invested in the stock market wisely. They had side businesses going, you know, so a lot of them actually did really, really well out of it. There's a lot. You would be amazed how many female lawyers and doctors and professionals put themselves through school or paid to put themselves through school through working in a strip club. Michael, are you 23 or 24? 25.

Okay. Have you ever been to a strip club? Nope. I mean, if you come to Vegas, you will. Do you have any desire to go to one? Not particularly. After these stories?

I mean, it sounds really exciting. Does your generation talk about strip clubs at all? Not really. First time I went to the strip club, I had no choice. I was putting a Navy fucking 12-packed van and I was literally carried inside of it. The night that I pulled the fucking knife on the guy, the first time I lost my Trident, we started off at a strip club at like 10 a.m. In Tucson, it was fucking rough.

Wait, the first time we lost her Trinan? Yeah. What? What? You've known me a long time. You didn't know that? Downtown Tucson. I pulled a knife on the

bouncer and then I ran away from the cop cars and helicopter Nope No, I don't recall Oh, that sounds like a fun story Was that, were you in gold or? I don't know, I was at Team 5 I was in my first platoon after having received my Trident Oh

Yeah, new guy? First trip. That's a good new guy move. First trip after receiving my Trident All that shit went down And my CEO just slides a fucking pair of scissors across the desk Because I had just got in the patch

Put on my earphone He goes yeah, I want you go ahead and cut that right off Fuck. Yeah. Strip clubs is even a thing for your generation? Now that I'm thinking about it, I do have a really good friend that does like strip clubs.

Does he live here? No. I was going to say, are there even strict clubs in Montana? Not in Calispo. I think there's one in Missoula. Probably Bozeman and Billings. But I don't know how much I would trust those.

What's that supposed to mean? Yeah. Alice. Let me go. I'll give you a $300 stipend and I'll drive you there. I may not spend it at the strip club, but if you want to give me $300, I'll go there with you. The requirement is you leave with no money. Leave the strip club or leave Missoula? Strip club. Okay.

I'm just curious if it's still a thing. Like my introduction to it, like I said, I had no choice whatsoever. Yeah. It was just part of the group of guys literally in a Navy fucking 12-pack, a Conaline van. And that's where we ended up getting white. Totally 100% white. Yeah. And then we all had govy plates. Yeah.

And a huge van fight on the way home from that. People choking each other with fucking seatbelts. Dude, the van fight is like we would, in sniper school. Yeah. Dude, we leave Atterbury and go up to Indiana on the weekend, Indianapolis, and, you know, go bar hop and just if we get hammered. And we had our, you know, during sniper school, they have a new guy come up. It's like, he's like the, basically the driver.

He makes food. He's like a new guy, whatever, you know, still team two, ate, whatever. And we'd all jump in the same thing, 12-back van, and go up there and just, you know, party all night. And then all get in the pellet of like, all get in the van, you know, we're out of here at 2 o'clock, X-Fill. Get in the van, and it's like 45-minute drive at least back to Atterbury. And just the van fights were just ridiculous.

We're talking about legitimate caged animals in a fucking moving forward van. Like with like over the seats. Knock down, drag out, fucking beating the shit out of your friends. Legitimately seatbelts wrapped around fucking necks. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh God. Yeah, those those were hard to explain sometimes on the damage on those vehicles. And it was like it was fighting, but it wasn't. It was like wrestling. But, you know, sometimes, of course, you know. There's a little escalation on one side. So somebody else bumps it up a bit.

They bump it up and next year you're just swinging. Yeah. Yeah. Or you might have like a little, you know, like issue with some dude. And then the next thing, you know, he's getting ganged up on. Yeah, working it out. If you can't beat the fuck out of your friends, who can you beat the fuck out of? I think that's the way the friendships are formed at least. Man. How many times have you guys been in a fight and then the guy that you get in a fight with ends up being like a friend for life?

Zero. Doesn't it have any of you? I haven't to me twice. No. I mean, I think we were just talking about last night that Andy and I am in a fight with Steve but against other people. But dude, that was like, I mean, how many dudes were?

It was basically, it was a wedding party. The odds were not in our favor on that one. No. But so. As usual, the violence of action will generally see you through the day. Pretty funny. So we're in Salt Lake and we're like Andy and I just went downtown, just him and I. And we're probably laying like four or five blocks away from our hotel. We're like, we just went in there and have a couple cocktails, you know, nothing serious.

And on the way out, I'm like, I'm starving. So I walk over and I forgot about this part. I walk over and I'm going to get a slice of pizza. It was like pizza place right there. They'll get a slice and like a Diet Coke, whatever. And he's like, hey, I'm going to get a cap. So cool. hail a cab the dude pulls up i still have the pizza my hand and there was this like wedding party and

it's like all the group of people and i remember this dude walks up and he's got a bow tie on he's like dressed up and there's a lot of people man you know wedding what a wedding party looks like and um the dude walks up and he jumps in front of me he's like oh yeah this is this is our cab and i was like uh no it's not it's my cap and so i sell my pizza and the guy like totally gets in my face and next thing you know I just, freaking, the dude's like in my face

I just blast him and take him down and next thing you know like three of his buddies jumped me and then at that point I think Andy's like probably getting a pizza

or whatever and he looks over and next thing you know I'm get jumped I'm in the gutter I'm in between the I'm literally between the taxi in the curb

in the gutter and this dude's on top of me and next thing you know I look up and then Andy's like ripping this dude off. It's like, dush, just pounding his head. So I jump up. Another dude comes over.

Like gets to my face and I already had this dude. I had my hands on this guy and I just head butt this dude right in the face and his face explodes. Like just blood. And Andy grabs me. And now there's like 10 dudes. And as soon as the dude's head explodes, like his face explodes, they're kind of like, oh, fuck. Yeah, okay. We're not into this.

Yeah. So Andy's like, get the fuck out of here. I'm like, good call. So we like kind of fast walk and there just happens to be this, you know, they have those bicycle rickshaw things. And Andy runs out there and he's like, hey, so we jump in the back of this rickshaw and him and I just start laughing uncontrollably. I started telling this guy, like, I'll give you more cash if you pedal faster. But gearing on this thing is like a fucking 10 speed going up goddamn San Francisco. Yeah.

Yeah, he's like, he's fucking just, his legs are blurry. They're fucking spinning so fast and we're going like four miles an hour. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so he's ripping back and Annie and I like, I don't know why, but we just could not stop laughing. Because you're a fucking rickshaw on a fucking rickshouldishol. We couldn't stop laughing. The fact that that just happens. And we ended up like, you get and jump like 10 dudes and just like destroyed these dudes.

And then now we're in a rickshaw like heading back to a hotel. Dude, that's crazy. And the dude in the rickshaw is like, he's freaked out because he kind of like saw the whole thing. And this dude looks like his face exploded. And we're on this rich shot. And we laughed all the way back to the hotel. And in, like, we're walking in the lobby. And Annie just bust it up.

And we're kind of, we're trying to recall what happened. He's like, and he's like, what happened? I'm like, I'm not really sure, dude, because I'm fucking loaded. Like, I'm not really sure what the fuck happened. We're like, we're going to have to try to do some memory recall in the morning, which probably isn't. You probably weren't even, you didn't even, you probably weren't even away of it. I looked over and people were on top of my friends. And so I just started peeling them.

off one at a time. Yeah. And like we're literally in the car the next morning because we like, you know, Jumpmaster Brief, because we were on a jump course at like 530 the morning. So we're like literally in the rental car. And Andy's like, what the fuck happened? I'm like, I don't know. What happened?

I don't know. You tell me. He's like, I don't know, dude. Like, I don't know what happened. But next thing you know, look over and there's like four dudes on you. And yeah. So probably an interesting set of wedding pictures. Can you admit?

Yeah. Yeah. The wedding was the next day. Groom's nose is all. It was the groom. It was the groom. I remember this. Remember these.

That's kind of what shut it down. They did that level of, I guess I would say, violence and the result of that. I think they probably had that feeling of like, oh, fuck, we got to take pictures tomorrow. Yeah. And I remember the, I don't know who it was. Maybe it was one of the bridesmaids. Who knows? But I remember like, that's the groom screaming on me.

And I don't know. God knows what I said to her. Dude, I'm sure it was classy and professional. Exactly. Like, I'm so sorry. Did you guys ever get in trouble when you're in the military with the, with the future wives of other team guys? Because of what you did to them before they're waiting?

No. We did one time. Oh, hazing you mean? Like doing stupid shit right before a wedding and almost fucking the wedding out? We had a guy who did not gel well in my first platoon. And right, we were in Nileand, the training facility. Yeah. The last time I saw him, because I was in my first platoon as well,

He was zip tied inside of a shopping cart in the shower area with water running on him. Both of his eyebrows had been shaved and they put a halo into his head as well. So I don't think those wedding pictures were great either. Yeah. Well, I remember, so hazing doesn't happen anymore technically. And I remember, it was back in the day, like, hazing was normal. You got hazed. If it was your birthday, if you got married, like any reason?

We should be clear, though, too. it was actually, it was not punitive, it was good-hearted. Exactly. It was almost, if it wasn't happening, you're like, do you guys not like me? Exactly. So if you didn't get hazed, you weren't liked. They weren't trying to hurt you. Physically, emotionally, perhaps.

Or we hazed a guy, he's now deceased. Freaking Fred Platt, R-A-B, bro. He was my shooting buddy in Santer School. But, yeah, if you didn't get hazed, there was something very wrong. And you knew, like, you knew what was happening because as much as you tried to hide your birthday or the fact that you were getting married or, like, any excuse to hate somebody, it would happen. And, like, for some I got married. Yeah, I ended up, um, they spray painted me. Like, they spray painted in my own, most my entire body.

And spray painted, taped up, thrown in a dip tank in Little Creek. So we have these, we have these big tanks. About the size of this table. Almost. Yeah. And, you know, that's where we did like pre-diver rigs. And you had to put your rig in the dip tank, make sure you have it leaks. And so in the winter in Little Creek, like, when you went out to the dip tank,

there was probably like a one or two inch ice on the top of it. And it just so happened that I was getting married on February 1st, a long, long time ago. And sure enough, I'm in the... the dip tank and they're like, hold on a second. You know, there's somebody's in there with like a hammer break in the ice and then off. I'm already taped up. And then in the depth tank, I'm already spray painted. They'd spray painting me.

They'd take me up to one of the poles in the back, the back 40 there. Tate me up, spray painted me. Literally, I was, I remember going to the wedding or like a couple days before. And I'm like trying to get spray paint off. You were trying to get spray paint out of the inside of your ears? No, because I've never had it in my ears. Yeah, exactly. Not to me to be able to, but I'll remember like, what the hell am I going to do?

So I had to go like buy nail polish remover. Like in there with a Q-tip, trying to get spray paint on my ears. And it was in my hair. And we used, we had it. The only reason I was asking is because I just remember one time when I was in the military, we had one of our buddies was getting married. So we, you know, similar. I think it's every, it doesn't matter which country are in.

It's all militaries is the same. Yeah. But similar story to that. We thought, like, what can we do to really fuck with him? And so in New Zealand, we have these little, it's like a little cocktail sausage called a chereo. and it's like red. Like a little cocktail weenie. Yeah.

Why do you call it a Cheerio? I don't know. That's what they call it. All right. So we went to a butcher's shop and we bought like 20 gallons of the dye. And we thought, how funny would it be? Like, we'll get him really drunk and we'll die him so that the next day he's red. Seems funny.

We got like a week for the wedding. It'll be fine. While us being dumb asses, we didn't really know much about the die. It's true shit. we get him like hammered and then we fill a bathtub full of this dye. Shit was permanent, wasn't it? Well, yeah. What we didn't read is it was a concentrate.

Yes. Oh, no. So we literally got him drunk and then we had a snorkel in his mouth, I think, and we were just like dipping him in the bathtub, right? We were dipping him. And so we wake up the next day and we're all fucking hung over. And all of a sudden, like his wife calls, his wife to be calls.

You motherfuckers are uninvited from the wedding. I can't believe you. And we're like, what, we couldn't figure it out. Dude, that. It was like a month. He was like fire engine fucking red. He had to wear makeup for the whole wedding. Yeah, because your skin recycles about every 30 days.

That's excellent. I'm sure you're like really normal with makeup on. Oh, dude. Yeah. He had to wear gloves. Like he had his uniform mom, but he was in gloves. And it's like all makeup. That's great.

She was so pissed. Yeah. If none of us had been in the wedding party, we would all been uninvited. It was pretty close. She hated us for like two years. Easy. It's worth it. It's so worth it.

The story like it. So what did you do after the strip clubs? What did you get yourself into? You've lived a story to entrepreneurial life. I have. I moved to Africa and got in the golden diamond business for three and a half years, which was. I mean, that's a little. bit of a lateral shift between Vegas strip clubs. What the fuck? Well, I was just, I was sick of,

like, I'd had enough of Vegas. I hadn't had enough of Vegas, but I just, I wanted to do something different. And there was some security opportunities over there and some aviation stuff. I could like, like, I knew some people in the aviation world. I knew some people in the security world. And I was like, ah, and then I had this opportunity to do some gold mining stuff. So started out in a place called in Accra, which is the capital of Ghana, and based out of Accra. And then I would go to Sierra Leone and I do but you know when you're in Sierra Leone you've got like you know neighbouring countries so you've got Monrovia next door and you know you've got sort of stuff around there so I was buying gold and I was buying gold there and then sure as shit wherever you buy gold

there's diamonds so we started getting into the diamonds stuff too but that was that was super interesting man I mean you know just I'd spent time overseas but never like in deepest, darkest Africa. Yeah. And that's a whole other fucking world. Like, I know you... When you had the shotgun ended up in your mouth.

Yeah, I got kidnapped once when I was there. It was funny. Funny at the time or funny now? It wasn't funny at the time. It's kind of funny now because I sort of think about it. But yeah, I had like eight guys

with shotguns and machetes like break in the house. And all I had was a machete because it turns out my lawyer who I was like, I need a gun. And he's like, well, I can't get you a gun until you get residency. And I was like,

well, and he was just trying to fleece me for 15 grand to get the residency. So I was like, fuck it. I don't need it. I've got, I had security guys and stuff. Yeah. Well, as soon as these guys came over the fence, like my security, you know, you guys have worked with Indage security.

Go on. See you. See you. I actually have to do something. They may well have been the ones who told them what time to come off the fence. Well, that's exactly. For being honest. Yeah.

Yeah. That's actually what may have happened. So they broke in the house and I'm going to go to lunch. Yeah. And before I knew it, I like had a shotgun in my mouth. And they were like, trying to, you know, it was funny because I had this crazy South Africa. They thought you were somebody else, right?

Well, they thought, I think they thought I was my business partner. I'm not sure. But they knew, they knew we, we never kept money in the house. We never kept diamonds in the house. And we were looking after diamond. A guy had said to us, hey, I've got to go. This was in Ghana and Accra. They were like, hey, I've got to go to Sierra Leone.

Can you put my diamonds and my gold in cash and you're safe while I go? I was like, yeah, sure. My business partner was sure because he was going with him. Very next night we got broken into. So we were pretty sure it was, I mean, the police said, yeah, it's a total insight. But yeah, I mean, I'm no Sherlock Holmes,

but I think I can connect the dots on that one. Yeah, I got, it was like, it lasted all of like an hour and a half. They beat me a bit with a machete on the back. And then I just sort of said, look, I said, because they thought I knew how to get into the safe, but actually I didn't. I didn't have the code.

My partner, my business partner did, which is kind of dumb at the time. I don't know I didn't have it. But the crazy thing, too, is I had this, like, crazy old Afrikaans, South African. We'd been drinking that night. And he was so fucking drunk that these eight guys smashed in the house, yelling, screaming, kicking down. He never woke up. And it's a good thing he wouldn't have because he was one of those guys that you're pointing a gun at him and he's got a butter knife.

He thinks he's going to win the fight. He was that kind of guy. Yeah. So he would have probably, it's good he didn't wake up because he probably would have made the situation worse. Yeah, but after that I managed to get a gun because I went to the local police and they said the local chief police says, just give me $600. I'll give you a gun. And then I started changing the whole other business after that. Because what I learned is that, you know, Africa seems to have these political systems, but they really only work in the towns.

Once you get out into the country, Paramount Chiefs pretty much run the country. And then they have sub-chiefs. And after I started working with the Paramount Chiefs, then it was really safe, like super safe. Like no one would touch me. When did you get out of that business? Just before I started the gun range in Vegas. Okay. I broke 12 years ago.

Yeah. I mean, that's, again, a large and drastic deviation from what you were doing. Yeah. How'd you go from Golden Diamonds to back to Vegas for a gun range? So a buddy of mine, two buddies in my partner in the Golden Diamond business, he was big into the martial arts world. And then a buddy of mine, Tim was also big into, he was a big, big into self-defense world. And they just said, like, we said, hey, you know, one day we'd like to open a training business and teach shooting and teach self-defense and that

type of thing and just sort of have it as kind of a fun business. So we thought, you know, so one of Tim's big clients was Tony Robbins. And Tony wanted us to just get his wife Sage comfortable with handguns. So set up for him to go shoot at a gun range in Vegas and we're like, hey, you know, we're bringing somebody in and, you know, they're a celebrity and he just wants a private area. He's not here to, you know, to do anything for publicity. He just wants his wife, because they have a big place up in Idaho. And a lot of times she'll be at the place in Idaho and he wasn't there. That was at the time. And we said, okay, so we did it. And it was just a shit show. We go into this gun range and the owner's there taking pitches. And, you know, I don't know if you've ever met

him, Tony, but he's like, I know, he's six, eight. I've heard. It's impossible to not recognize as he. Yeah. Yeah. He's a giant. Niceest guy in the world. So, um, actually remind me later I have a great Tony Robbins story too but he um back from the strip clubs I get it yeah it's actually it's an interesting story and humility to be honest with you but um but but yeah so we took him in there and I was just like this is a shit show you know we can't but like and I was starting like we were starting to train some celebrities firearms training and stuff and I'm like so I said we need our own range I said so let's make let's build our own gun range what year was this uh 2011 Yeah, yeah, 2011. So we built a gun range and what we didn't realize is the amount of business that's in a tourist gun range.

So we decided we're not going to sell guns. Like when I started out, everybody thought I was absolutely crazy. So they're like, you're going to open a gun range that doesn't sell guns and doesn't sell ammunition. I'm like, yep, what are you going to do?

I said, we're just going to train people and we're going to do shooting experiences. So we put together, like we have a Seal Team Six package, right? And that's all the gun. that as the guns that you guys would carry. Yeah. And that's a package and someone would buy that package

and they come to our gun range and shoot it. And I'd try to hire as many veterans as I could. So we put a lot of veterans in which was great because I'd hire veterans as much they can. So we got that going. What we didn't realize is we thought the training would be like 90% of our business and this little tourism thing would be like 10% of our business.

Probably flipped. Dude, well, it was like one, training was like 0.5% like 0.5% and 99.5%. I mean, in our busiest times, we were doing 40,000 tourists a year. Yeah, yeah. And especially when there was like, damn.

Yeah, and that was a really interesting business because we get, you know, like probably the most interesting with the Chinese, like the Chinese would book to come and shoot and then show up in a 40 passenger bus and they'd all, and I couldn't figure it out

until I started talking to the guy who ran the tour company, but they would come in and they'd shoot maybe one or two, two guns, but they'd take a pitcher holding each gun, and then they'd just get back on the bus. And I'm like, what's going on? He goes, they need to show that they have done something touristy while they're here. He said, they're really just here for the shopping.

The shopping and the gambling. Okay. So it was, you know, you'd see all different types of people coming to. It was almost an expense justification. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, an expense and a political one. If they ever got questioned or they were, you know, they were so worried about going home and

everybody known they went shopping and gambling. You ever had somebody come into your range and. off themselves? Yes. I've had it happen twice. That's fucking gnarly. I don't think people realize how often that actually happens.

Yeah. It's very gnarly. And, you know, it's sad too because it really affects the people that are there at the time. Yeah, they're not there for the Picasso experience.

No, I mean. I heard all the stories. Yeah. I appeared to deal with it twice, one outdoor and one indoor. Yeah. And it's weird. Was it men both times?

It was men both times and they were both from foreign countries. And they specifically flew from a foreign country to Las Vegas to kill themselves. One was from Germany and one was from India.

What was their weapon of choice? Both use glocks. So for example, if you come to our gun range, we won't rent you a single handgun. If you want to come and just rent a single handgun, we won't do it. So if I come.

Because of that? Yeah, because of that. My gangas, I need a Glock 19 one round. Yeah. And a range. Just five minutes. You guys have a five minute block? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Red flags. Yeah, huge red flags. So. People don't realize how often this actually happens, though, at gun ranges. Oh, yeah. It's huge. Which it fucks everybody. The owners don't want to deal with that. People at the range don't want to deal with that.

It's horrendous. No, and it's, at the time, I had a guy helping us out with managing the business, and he was an ex. No, his ex-ex, X, Green Beret, and then worked for some of the three-letter agencies. And a super good guy. He's still very, very, very, it's weird. he's still very operational in that world. And, um, but you know, he's a, he's an old, he's an old school guy, right? So yep, this guy, this guy shot himself.

So we got to clean it up. So like I wasn't there at the time. Just like 20 minute call. Yeah. Like, so he's there and they're all like, you know, sweeping up like bio hazard shit. Yeah. And I'm like, oh. You mean brains?

Yeah. Brains and fucking blood and stuff. And, you know, I got a $25,000 fine from OSHA for it because. What were you supposed to do? We were meant to shut the range down, call a company that was licensed to remove biohazards. But, you know, we're military guys, right? Yeah. We're like, hey guys, it's a fucking mess.

We've got to clean it up. Let's clean it up. That was his. He didn't, like, that was any. I never even knew that existed. Yeah. Those types of. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. And that, like, that's what that company does. They do body cleanup. I'm sure they do more than that, but it's in the biohazard. realm. That's one of the services they offer for sure. Yeah. I'd imagine the same thing happened in the hotel world because people die in hotels, right? People have absolutely no idea how many people die in hotels. Really? Like, like, like,

shit tons of people die in hotels. What? How does the hotel room deal with that? They clean it up and just during the next desk comes in? Yeah, very quiet. Do you have to declare like, hey, just upon check in, um, we know you have the sweet book. We just want to let you know that somebody, so-and-so just died in there five minutes ago or maybe two hours ago. They'll just put somebody else right in there. One thing Vegas is very good at is protecting the casinos. And not from a like illegal perspective, but just from a things that might like might make it look bad perspective. Yeah. It's definitely bad PR. Yeah. Yeah. But they don't stay in room 1301. I mean, when I was working, I was working, I was running at the time was arguably one of the most popular

clubs in the world at that time. And and there's a place in the in the in the MGM called the mansions. right so at that time you couldn't pay to stay at the mansions you either had to be a celebrity or i think you had to be getting you had to be putting at least 100 to 150 000 a day across the table a very well-known person yeah yeah so they're all caught yeah so huge comp guys so i would get calls from the mansion all the time and say hey you know so-and-so's a mansion guest they're coming over can you reserve them a table and i'm like yeah no worries it happened all the time so i had this guy and his wife come in super nice well-dressed you know and the mansion had called and said hey we have a very important mansion guest coming out was great so i said

you want one of the best tables on the floor he goes no my me and my wife just want to be chill you know if you can give us one of these tables up here so you know what I give us table and um and I get a call on the radio ginkas ginkas we need you downstairs we need you downstairs like fuck okay what is it so I go downstairs and it's this guy and he said uh like I need to speak to you really quick uh there's a problem I said yeah no problem so I walk walk outside with him he pulls out a hypodermic needle and he's like um when we sat down my wife sat down in the chair and this jabbed her in the backside and I'm like shit and he goes my wife's freaking out she's worried she's got like hip B or something um can you help me and I'm like yeah no worry sorry immediately call security immediately call medic because they have

everything in the casino right so immediately call medics his wife's freaking out like I've got AIDS I've got this so we pull her out of the casino so anyway I'm managing this whole situation right so this woman's going nuts we've now we've got gurneys over there and an ambulance has showed up and all the shit's going on and this is at the back of a club on a Saturday night when the Sino's cranking. Now you got a call from the security office, Genghis Svin, you in the security office. I'm like, dude, I'm dealing with this.

He goes, no, you need to come over and see this. I said, okay. Shit's popping off. Yeah, so I go to the security office. She planted it? Oh, yeah. So what he ended up happening was, this guy had just lost a few million dollars.

So you see on the security camera, you see it pull something out of a purse, she had been in the couch, and then she starts bouncing, you know, back on it like it's a fucking bouncy ball. Or incredibly believable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Depending on how fucking jaded you are about the human species.

Yeah. And then they were literally going to try and leverage the casino to get out of the two million bucks that he just lost. Versus a lawsuit. So they got arrested. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Vegas is huge on that.

If you do anything like that, like I'd have guys come to the strip club and they'd be literally, I mean... What would the church be? Fraud? I don't know. Jeez. Probably. Yeah. But, you know, we'd have so many guys would come to the strip club and then,

they'd drop three grand, five grand, ten grand, twenty grand, whatever it was. And then they'd get home and the credit card bill had come and their wife would see it. And, you know, oh, that wasn't me. That wasn't me. So what we ended up doing is, they didn't realize, but when they signed, I had a camera here, a camera here, a camera here, and a camera above them. And they would go, they'd dispute the charge. Yeah, try to charge that shit back. And then we'd just send that to the credit card company and that'd be over. But sometimes guys would refuse. I said, look, you agreed to this. Here's where you signed to greet it.

And they go, no, okay, we just call Metro. And in Las Vegas, it's called theft of service. So Metro come up and go, you don't pay your bill, you're going to jail. And so the whole system in Vegas is very much in favor. Like, I just say to people, when you come to Vegas, don't fuck around with casinos and don't. Like, just don't try and pull shit like that. The multi-billion dollar industries are not there because they don't know how to do business. Yeah, exactly.

They will fuck you up. Oh, yeah. If you want to mess around with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, especially back in the day. Like, they weren't called Metro. They were like, No, they were calling fucking Johnny Two Fiss.

Yeah. Brass knuckles. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And those days. Somewhere on the East Coast. Yeah. Well, when,

with an accent. When I ran the strip club, it's kind of funny. Like, like, like, the guy who owned the strip club was Italian. Born, you know, lived south side of Chicago. Yeah. Owned strip clubs in Chicago. You know, very, very Italian. one of the best business mentors I've ever had in my life,

like it gave me some of the best business I've ever had. Like we're still, I talked to him last week, and he's got to be knocking on 80, I would think. He's least in his late 70s. But such an amazing businessman, but this is the stories he would tell about, like, running, like, peep shows and massage parlors and the south side of Chicago back in, like, the 70s and 80s.

And, you know, and even the story. And so when he did that, he introduced me to, like, this whole, sort of group of Italian guys in Vegas that were like the old school Vegas Italian guys. And this like I would go to these lunches, right? So I'm this, you know, at that time I was like 32 guy from New Zealand and I'm surrounded by these like guys in their 50s, 60s and 70s, these old Italian dudes and like the stories they would have about Vegas.

Oh, I bet. Back in the day, it was just incredible. Yeah. How that city was built was incredible. It was the wildest thing you ever saw one of those nightclubs other than the syringe. And then, well, I just, the amount of money people sprained was, was the biggest tab you've ever seen in one of those places? I think two and a half million, bat tab. Two and a half million.

Yeah. Wow. Is there two and a half million dollars worth of liquor in that fucking place? Oh, yeah. What the fuck? Yeah, if you're ordering bottle service. Yeah, you're like eight grand apiece. Oh, no, there are bottles that are 400,000, 500,000.

Of what? Champagne. What would it be if you went to a fucking liquor store and bought it? 200 bucks. Well, this is shit that you can't even get at a liquor store. Okay. Yeah. But if you were able to source it on the street, what would the fucking street price be?

It'd still be up there, but not that much. Yeah, of course. You could understand. I mean, you know, a bottle of Tito's at somewhere like excess. I haven't been there in a while, long time, but it's probably $800 to $1,000 for a bottle. I mean, you buy it for $40 bucks. So it gives you an idea of markup.

What do you pay a $2.5 million tab with? Black Amics usually. some with cash damn cash yeah yeah like duffel bag bro oh yeah yeah they they I've seen some crazy tabs

like like you know I mean I mean I know you guys have probably seen the movie um oh fuck hangover

oh yeah but like some of that shit happens like like like like I know an Arab an Arab client came to town and he told one of the night club owners

hey you know if you have a tiger in my room when I come to Vegas, I'll spend, I don't know what it was, $2 million, $1 million, $3 million, what the hell it was. When you got there, there was a tiger in his room. Why didn't he just get a pet tiger where he lives? Save a couple million dollars.

These people have so, I mean, you know, you've got cocktail waitresses. The biggest tip I've ever heard of, that, well, semi-witnessed, because I was at the table and my buddy told me what. he tipped was $275,000. For a tip. Well, that's the biggest tip I've seen to a cocktail waitress. How much of that would she actually get? It's pooled.

Yeah. So it goes to everybody. That's way rough. But the biggest tip I've personally ever seen was a buddy of mine and he was gambling. So he's very superstitious. And no matter what happens, he always tips 20%. So we were at the Venetian and he won four and a half million. so he tipped $900,000 to the dealer.

Is that pooled as well? Yeah. Like we're walking. Holy fuck, man. We're walking out of the Venetian. That's my Mongolian, buddy. Hmm. And we're walking out of the Venetian and literally, like, people are coming out from behind the table to shake his hand and all the dealers are clapping.

Oh, yeah. You know, because I forget what they're out. Like, can I forget how much they may, but each one of them, I was like 20,000. a 30 grand each out of that. It was some number. I can't remember how the split was. It felt good for them. Yeah, but it's all between the pit bosses and stuff. But I mean, they'll have competitions. They'll have like a big

high roller from England and a big high roller from UAE and maybe a big Russian high roller and they'll have a comp, they'll have like a big Russian flag up and their big, you know, flag and then they make the guys like these beautiful silk robes and boxing gloves

and they have like this who can spend the most money in four hours at club and then or well over a million dollars. Again, we're in the wrong fucking business, Steve. I sell lattes at a pretty fixed price. Maybe you should have a who can buy the most lattes. Is it better than Starbucks? Is your pricing?

Uh, I don't know. I'd have to go take a look. It's comparable, I've imagined. You have the nicest coffee shop I've ever been in. It's fucking awesome. I'm not just saying that, dude. Well, look, the coolest. Coolest.

For like, for like, usually when you go into a coffee shop, it's a bit feminine. Yours is not at all. No. Like it's... And I'm in, not in a bad way. It's not a misogynistic. It's feminine in the mornings because Michael does security there. You probably...

Very feminine. You probably don't get a whole lot of limous rolling up in the black rifle coffee, I imagine. It's not often I want to video a coffee shop, but like, like, it's bitching. Yeah, for sure. Like it's, and that's why I said to you, dude, if you put that in Vegas, holy shit. Well, let's put one in Vegas. Yeah. Trust me.

I got the keys to the design. I mean, at this point now, like I said, I could tell them what works, what doesn't, what you want to focus on, the layout. Like, it's, the design is actually turnkey. Yeah. Yeah. I got some ideas, too. You can switch up. I'll sell some stuff that I could switch up.

Like what? Um, Mr. fucking triple D, fucking dark desert defense. Fucking hacks over here. Dude, I could put a little gun range in it. Uh, that would be cool. and I don't know I'll be used speak to that better than I can't

in terms of in terms of lighting in before and they were against Have a cup of coffee go to the gun range and kill yourself Well they're maybe not that

But the liability part of that Would be like I'm not interested Well that's a big thing You know like we don't Just build it right next to MGE And you're fine But you need it in a casino

Because you need I mean you know When there's like imagine shot show How busy would you be in Oh dude You'd be booked out You'd have to put it in a casino Yeah you would literally be booked out

for all of shot show Yeah. That would be it. Well, I like the idea of a content studio as well because people do travel. And I have travel kits and it becomes inconvenient depending on the type and the quality. You're like, do you want to travel with mic stands or do you want to do wireless shit or fucking tripods or all. I mean, you can go as big as you want. Yeah.

Or pay 500 bucks or whatever they would charge there and say, hey, here's a full studio for you. Just bring your people sit down and. So, oh, charge it like you can run out a podcast studio. So we were going to. I mean, imagine this room that we're sitting in. Mm-hmm. Anytime I'm not doing a podcast. I mean, I would of course

to ask Michael to like be here to make sure they're not making gay porn on the fucking table that'd help. Yeah. But like it's, I mean, we'll talk for a couple hours today. There's 20 plus hours of it not being used. I mean,

why not monetize the rest of that time if you could? Exactly. We have one in our office and we've just set up to rent it. And they rent for $2.50 an hour. Yeah. That sounds about right. Because so many content providers come to Vegas

and they want to do podcasts. And exactly like you said, they've got to bring a mobile kit and they've got to bring a tech. That's pretty cheap, actually. Well, when you're not making anything out of it, like you said, for 20 hours a day and sometimes you don't use it for three days. Yeah. Like, anything's good, right?

Yeah. So, yeah, so we're moving offices and we're building an even better one in our new office. I'm down for the casino coffee shop podcast idea. I'll just put that back in your court to make that happen. Yeah. I mean, the tricky part would be fine in the real estate for it. No, not right now. Really?

No, because the casinos, like, casinos are kind of at this funny spot where, you know, gaming doesn't generate the most revenue now. Entertainment does, which is why we're starting to get sports teams now, which is, I mean, the nightclubs make more money than anything. That makes sense. You know, I mean, any DJ that's DJing at a big club in Vegas on New Year's Eve, I would think is at least making a million dollars, minimum, I would think. And back in the heyday, because a lot of the DJs used to come and shoot at my gun range. you know like a lot of the big like aoki avici afrojack um a lot of those guys you know Anderson silver part of his pre-fight ritual was to come and shoot at my gun range so you know a lot of those guys will come and come to Vegas and they the money they were getting was insane like like I know

one of the DJs he's in Holland he wouldn't DJ at win unless they wrapped his name on one of their jets and flew it to Amsterdam to pick, or Holland to pick him up and fly back. Otherwise he wasn't killing. That was, it's kind of an asshole request. Yeah.

They're just making like, fuck you money. I guess, man, I don't understand that level of money and wealth. And it's super smart because I started to, like I got to know these guys just trying to come out of shit at my gun range.

And it's fucking the greatest business in the world because like you cut a track and I'm a big name DJ or I'm going to play your track for you. And then you're going to play my track for me. And so they all, they're all friends and they all play each other's, stuff and it just, it just boom, boom, boom, and that's how they would get their songs, you know. I mean, it's, you know, if you like the music, it's a great music, but they work really well together to help each other out and, you know, create that, that sort of cash flow.

Well, dude, let's get into the important shit. The only thing that matters. How did you get into flying helicopters? Yes, thank you. Fuck all, everything else. Let's talk road to wing. Steve's just going to be like, yeah, I'm going to go. I'm going to go take this.

Now, I... You would be good at flying. I want him to fall. I would be good at it. I would start with fixed wing for you. Really? Here's what, okay. Here's why I say that.

And granted. So I have a good amount of fixed wing time. Very little rotary wing time. I looked back at the rotary flying that I did. It literally was I would show up and focus on that helicopter, the systems, the knowledge of that helicopter, and flying. Because I took all the knowledge tests. when I got my private pilot fixed wing.

It would be looking back at it. The flying helicopters, it's not hard, but it's not easy. It's complex, but not, it's not insane. But trying to do that, in addition to the basic knowledge test and learning about airspace and radio calls and all of that stuff, I think personally that it would be easier to learn those things in a fixed-wing aircraft. That's my personal opinion. I feel like from a control perspective, airplanes are easier to control than a helicopter.

Then you layer on the knowledge base on top of that. Because for me, I was literally just, I would go there, helicopter only, none of the other stuff I had to talk about because all of my... Because you knew it all that stuff counted. Like, I didn't have to take a knowledge test associated with that. I knew the airspace, you know, all that started. It was a quick oral, and I think my check ride was 45 minutes. Yeah. Dude, like, I remember when you first started flying and you get your puzzle, so I was like, oh, yeah, you know, I really had...

I wanted to do it. As a matter of fact, I was considering before I left the command, I was considering going over to teeny wee and getting, doing all that stuff. And, um, but after, after you started flying and talking with you and flying with you, you're like, dude, you're like, dude, this is so fucking boring. And literally I never pursued it because you're like, dude, this is so boring. And flying with you and stuff, I mean, we would. Those flights were fun because we, I would pick you up and we'd go do whatever we wanted to do.

Right. Flying for somebody else where they're telling you when to, and especially when I was flying like the Gulfstream, the bigger the airplane, the bigger the sea. suitcase and you're spending awesome holidays and weekends and anniversaries, not your own, with somebody else in a cool place, but you're by yourself. So you're traveling on somebody else's schedule. And it totally turned me off. I was like, fuck that.

I ain't you're going to do it. But like with Gingis and he's like, oh, he'll have a comfortable pilot. Like I've always thought it was so cool. Just like working with TF, you know, like the little birds. I was like, this thing is. I mean, those things are so tiny. I'm like, this thing was like, I could just push this thing into my garage. What will blow your mind.

So I look back now, now understanding how these things fly and what some of these noises mean in vibrations. Like when you're, this isn't going to make any sense to you, but like you're coming into land and you're like the transverse flow effect where it's chattering where you want it to chatter because it's clean air and dirty air when they get lift and when they don't. I look back. I'm like, oh, you motherfuckers almost killed us. I bet. Many. Oh, yeah. I bet.

And they were on the razor's edge of performance. And you and I are just sitting back there like fucking. retards listening to Metallica and our fucking earbuses list, man. Exactly. I'm just like, I'm on the helm in the 47 in the back, like on, you know, ICS like listening to Disturbed. I'm like, yeah, yeah. I'm like, oh, that's a weird noise.

Anyway, you know. Now that I have an understanding and the little birds being an example, holy shit, dude, they are working, because they were rock solid, stable. The work they were doing up there to make it that way for us is unfucking believable. Yeah. Unbelievable. That's why ruddering, I've always like kind of like,

eventually I always want it. And I will. That's like on a bucket list, but that's definitely on it. But if I did. But yeah, I always remember like just being on the Littlebird, especially when I was in a sniper cell.

I mean, it was like this thing. So it's like a little toy. Yeah. And you're sitting on the, you know, on the skid or on the, on the benches there.

You know, I remember going out to the range and it was so fun, I'd go out there and like, we had Leroux set up and boom, come in a little bird. I'm like, it's so cool to be able to fly one of these things

and have it. Because when it was on the deck, we go out there and like, yeah, and stuff, it's like, this thing's like a little toy. Yeah,

it's tiny. It is tiny. Like, I could throw that thing in the back of my drug. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And especially like,

you learn on the Robinson. It's like, I started out on 300s and then switched to Robin. Have you ever flown a 22? No. Yeah, fuck. That's like,

I have no desire to. That's like flying a fucking beer can with a sewing machine engine in it. I mean, it's an amazing a little helicopter for what it does. Unless you get an under speed on the fucking rotor.

Oh, yeah. You will die. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean. You got to have really quick tolerances if there's an engine failure. You have to let the engine spin or the rotor blade spin with the air as you fall down. If you're not quick on it, it will go so slow. It'll stop and then you can imagine.

No, it won't stall. The rotor will stop. And you can imagine the flight characteristics of a helicopter without a rotor blade spinning. Yeah. Not good. Not good. Yeah. So, so I, you know, when I started out, at four years old, my dad took me to this, like, county fair in New Zealand.

And we went in an old Bell 47, you know, the old mashers. helicopter. Yeah. And that was it. I was sold. Like, that's it. I'm going to fly helicopters. That's it.

So when I was, when I was probably 16, I think, another long story. I'll tell you over dinner because it's a too long story for this. But my father was very tight with the Israelis, for one of a better term. So he got me in, because my last name, my real, my very close to Khan, but it's Cohen, which obviously is a very Jewish name. So, I'm not, yeah, yeah. I'm not, I'm actually not Jewish, but, but my father was, I'll tell you the whole story, but long story short, he'd done a lot of things for the state of Israel when he, he was a naval

officer in the Second World War. And at the end of the Second World War, he did a lot of stuff for the forming of the state of Israel. So he had a lot of good friends in Israel. Long, anyway, he got me in to be a helicopter pilot with the, to train to be a pilot for the Israeli defense force. Oh, fuck yeah. But my mother was like, absolutely no fucking way.

So he can fly, she goes, she goes, no problem, but he has to stay in New Zealand and he can go here. And I was like, okay. So I thought I'll join the New Zealand Army and I'll become a helicopter pilot. Well, I just happened to join when the New Zealand Army got rid of all its helicopters and gave it to the Air Force. So I kind of got screwed out of that. So then I just paid and did it in civilian. And I started off with 300s, then R-22s, then R-42s, then I started flying turbines. and, you know, now I fly turbines, as you know.

And turbines are the way to go. Economically, they're out of range for a lot of people, whether it's from the acquisition or operating costs. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, not that piston engines fail that often. No. It's just the turbines fail less often. Yeah, well, it's just more simple, right?

It has less moving part, so. Oh, yeah, you get the thing spinning and you're good to go. And it's not constantly trying to bash itself apart. Right. And I think, you know, so for me, I just like aircraft. Yeah. I'd always love flying. helicopters and I'd always wanted to do it.

And once you start, you know what it's like dude. Once you start, you start looking at the world different, like, oh, I could go over there. Oh, why don't I just go load this thing up with my fucking camping gear and go camp up there or that little apex that nobody else can get into? Like, let's go check out this lake. What else can I fit here? Fishing gear, motorcycle? Like, what do we got? It's the most versatile tool to get you access to things that people just don't, can't normally get it.

Oh, you know, you'd have to be on a horse for like three days to get to, right? So that really what got me into it. And now what we do with a helicopter is we have it in a veterans nonprofit and we actually provide free search and rescue for the community. So we support police and we support local search and rescue. And we're just about to get our second aircraft, which is great. So, but yeah, it's great, man. I mean, I love it.

I've been trying to talk, Steve. I'm like, dude, I want to start teaching you to fly. Like, I want to start getting you. There's some good aviation schools in Vegas, too. Dude, he's never used his GI Bill. So his GI Bill would pay for it. I think it kicks in after private. Oh, does it?

I'm pretty sure it's after private, because I've looked at this a little bit. Yeah, because there's a school in Utah called SSU, and they're an aviation school. And I met a guy the other day, and he was a medic in the Navy. Yeah. And he did his commercial license with them. And he said, I don't know if his guy pay, maybe you're right. Maybe he had to pay for that. I feel like, because I was looking at this when I was doing my private pilot fix.

I thought you used yours when you got to San Diego. Mm-mm. CrossFit paid for all the upgrades. Oh, that's right. I did pay for my private pilot. But initially when you first got out there, you didn't work for CrossFit. Correct.

I just did it at Gillespie Field in San Diego. Yeah, yeah. Because you were still active. Yeah, because I checked into Buds as a Buzz instructor after leaving the command. And I get there and they're like, hey, we're doing this new thing where there's no winter hell week this year.

Okay, that's super dumb. But also, what does that mean for me? Well, we don't have a class for you for four months because you're in second phase. So I'm like, okay, So what do I do here? They're like, check in once a week. And I was driving home by Gillespie Field in San Diego.

And I look up on the fucking freeway and there's an airplane that looked like it was about to crash. And I was like, fuck it. That looks interesting. Took a left-hand turn, did an intro flight and then just started flying. Pay for it on my own. And then afterwards, I had not flown for a couple of years when Glassman hit me up and was like, hey, here's the fucking credit card. Go get all your licenses and all that stuff. And I was like, okay.

Yeah. So it was like, private. it. So what do you... Do you... What do you guys' thoughts on the new, um, these new, like, drones that you can get in and jump in and fly around? Like that's...

A drone that you can get in? What are you talking about? Oh, yeah. Yeah, these drones now, you can, they're, they're basically jumping this thing. I thought you were talking about the Ukrainian drones. No, no, no, no, they're, they're out. You can buy one now. Yeah.

I'm pretty sure. A drone? Well, you, I don't know. Basically, you sit in this thing and it's four blades. Yeah. You sit in it. And basically, you fly this. thing around.

With that, you'd be considered a drone, I feel like the FAA would certify that as an aircraft of some kind. It is. It is.

But all you need is your recreational pilot's license. I don't even know how you get one of those. A recreational pilot license? Yeah.

It's easy. It's easy. So, for example, like, when I was back in AirOps, you know, when we started testing the powered parachutes

with the carts and all that stuff and myself and who, you know, our buddy that we were talking about earlier, you know, we went through,

and got a recreational pilot's license and started to learn how to fly in those fans because we were testing them for like an operational capability. Of course, they ended up being no way. I was just like, I buy ax that project. Yeah. Just because they're so sensitive to like wind conditions, wind conditions.

I mean, but no, he flew. I mean, we probably ended up getting close to, you know, 150 to 200 hours. Yeah, I mean, a private pilot license, fixed wing, I mean, I think the minimums are 30 or 40. hours. Most people it takes longer than that just because you need the cumulative time. I bet you a recreational license is probably half of that. Dude, we did, we had, you know those guys who stripped like fucking fan to the back with a

parachute? Yeah. Was it just a written test? That's a parameter. It is written test. So we went through and we got an, I mean, literally, we went through the class, went through like probably four or five hours of classroom. And we took the test. It was, what's his face and I and I? And we took the test and here you go. There's your recreational pilots license, and then we just started. Okay. Yeah.

I mean, I'm not against people exploring their aviation, you know, passions to their heart's content. Just know what the fuck you're getting into. Yeah. Everything is awesome in aviation until it's not. So you crash. And then you better have your shit dialed in pretty tight. Yeah, because when it goes wrong, it goes wrong.

But the whole drone thing, like, it's, you know, like being inside this thing, and it's like, okay, these things malfunctioned. But there's, in my opinion, and I don't know anything about rotary wing, other than the helicopters I've read. on thousands of hours, right in one, obviously, as you know. But I feel like this thing, you know, malfunction is catastrophic. I mean, you're better have a base rig on. Yeah, I don't know if they have parachutes in them or that's one of my

because I've literally got friends who have got deposits down on these things. And they said, yeah, I'm getting delivery like two years from now, three years from now. But I just, I think it's, I just think it's going to be way more regulated. Yeah. I don't know the FAA. That's the thing is I don't have a FAA is. going to regulate that because it's that's going to be a shit show. Could you imagine?

There's going to have to be some level of coordination and restriction because you can't just be buzzing those things around. Like they won't be able to fly over cities. I mean, at least not, I mean, look, a car which to me is far less dangerous at this point in time, like they can't even have these autonomous cars without someone sitting in the

driver's seat right now. So I just think, I don't think, let alone some dude in a drone flying over your neighborhood. Oh, dude, imagine like you're in your private drone and all of a sudden there's a software glitch and it decides to fucking fly into an airliner. thousand feet above you.

Like, there's just so many things that can go wrong. You know, at least, you know, you know, flying, like a plane is a stable platform in the air. It's inherently stable. Yeah. Helicopters are inherently instable. And they glide. Yeah. And they glide in.

Helicopters actually glide more than you would think. When we started doing auto rotations and not that I'm an expert in this, even in the R44, the angle that you look out that you can make it to, it's farther than you would think. So. Farther than, like, being under a parachute? No. Okay.

What's your glide ratio in a parachute? Depends on the parachute. I mean, they have high glide parachutes. Depends on the material. It depends on the tailwind, headwind, like all sorts of stuff. Density, altitude, all the same shit. The parachutes, like, we jump, glide ratio. Yeah.

Yeah, they're coming out of sky. So on a 44, like, I've done a shit ton of rotations in 44s, but I'm sure there's going to be someone out there who's going to correct me. But I think it's one to six, I think. It's about a 45 degree angle. Okay. Have you done the 90-90 rule? I have you had to stretch it out more?

Yeah. We talked about it. I didn't actually do it in practice. Yeah. So it's actually really good to practice it. Yeah. So if you get an opportunity to do it, it's great. But he's talking about getting the maximum glide.

Yeah. So the most I've done is nine miles at it from, I think I was at 5,000 feet or shit. Really? Yeah. That's insane. So he's at 90% rotor RPM, which is the bottom limit and a 90 knots. Yeah, 99. So you're asking, you're pulling up on the collective a little bit,

you're asking the helicopter to give you a little bit of that energy that you would normally use for a flare, and you're pitching it forward. So you're trying to get that optimal glide. It's farther than you would think. They don't just fall out of this guy. Yeah. So, for example, like a parachute, if it was wing-loaded one-to-one, right?

Or maybe even like a 1.5. You're going to get, on average, you're going to get either, like, somewhere between a 1.2 to 1.35. glide ratio. Yeah. And obviously the bigger the wing, you know, you're going to get a lot more glide out of it. But a lot of those factors are in there, like, you know, air density, altitude, altitude, wing loading, obviously.

But, yeah, that, like 1.9? Dude, I've done. That's insane. Have you done, like, real low-level auto rotations? Have you done those? Yeah. So that's another one that's interesting. Like, even at, you know, 100 feet, as long as you've got to.

enough the S-B, you can get it to the ground safely. But when you, like, get close to the ground, I mean, are you actually have enough energy to do a flare? Or are you moving? So like a jet ranger? You get old jet rangers? You get one chance. Yeah.

Like, they made a jet, I've actually seen, this old guy in San Jose. Well, they probably flared it, lifted it up and turned it around. Yeah. Three-hand. He, he, engine off, comes down, does an order rotation, touches the jet range down, lifts off, rotates to 360 degrees. And the motor's not running.

It just has enough contained energy to spend. In the rotor blades. It'd have to be a turbine to do that. There's no way a piston's going to allow it to spin like that. Oh, 44's. I mean, don't you remember, 404s, Robinson's a great helicopters.

You know, there's a great story. I don't have ever gone. Like, this is a story I was told. I don't know how factual it is, but you can ask the Robbins factory girls. But so when the Robinson came out, Frank Robinson, Frank Robinson went to New Zealand

because he had an inordinate amount of Robinson helicopters crashing in New Zealand. And he was like, man, like, why is the number of crashed helicopters in New Zealand so much higher? He's like, is it atmospheric conditions? Is there some, is it like, I don't know. I'm going to guess it was crazy fuckers. No. He knew. He knew the minute he landed.

He said he was in Auckland airport and a guy walked up to him and said, you're Frank Robinson. He goes, you, I am. And the guy goes, I'm a helicopter pilot. I fly your helicopter. And he goes, oh, wow, what do you think of it? He goes, well, you know, there's a lot of. stuff in the book you say you can't do and we do it all the time and we're fine.

That's why his helicopter. That's 100% how it fatality rate was so high. Wait, what? They were flying the aircraft outside of its designated parameters. Oh, okay. Like, I can show you videos of guys in R-22s with like

six deer hanging off the bottom. And they can't lift off. So they put the deer near the edge of a cliff and then they lift off and drag the deer off. And you see the helicopter go like this. And then it just gets enough lift to get out of the end. Yeah, that's kind of like, you know, the tandem systems, right?

So the manufacturer recommended maximum weight of an exit with a tandem rig. I think with, I think it's like four, like 450 pounds is like, you know, their manufacturer recommended ratings. It's like, and we use them in the military. Like, we're exiting the plane and our suspended weight of our load is over 400 pounds. And upwards of 400. I mean, we did that deal with the bundle. With the bundle and with a kill.

With you at the moment you're the killcliff, I mean, I did a test jump because I was like, dude, I've never jumped a six foot by 36 inch barrel ever. Because we never had them. We always had like five by 30s. And I'm like, dude, I needed to do a test jump. So we went out and we loaded this thing up. And I'm pretty sure the weight of that barrel was probably close to 700 pounds. Yeah. And your shoot was rated 400?

Well, so, yeah, we had the basically same parachute. It was a TP 400. Yeah. And 400 square foot. So the wing loading, the wing loading on that alone was like, it was probably at least a 1.5, 1.8. Because when Andy was videoing my test jump, he was on his head. Meaning like, the fall. So you were up.

I was a vertical. Yeah. With a six foot drogue out, because that's the bundle drug. Six foot drogue out. And in free fall, and it was, the fall rate was so fast, the drogue was vibrating my body so much. I could barely even see my altimeter. How was the opening sequence on that? So much, oh, so I really, when I released a drug, it was like, it was a car accident.

Really? Yeah. And thank God. Thank God that it was an on-heading opening, no big deal, pointed towards the drop zone because the toggle pressure was so heavy. I opened up on-heading, thank God. I'm flying and I'm trying to like, I'm seeing stars after the opening. And I'm like, oh, thank God I'm flying towards the drop zone right now.

And it basically flew straight towards the drop zone. drop zone and made a left turn and landed into the wind and just the the barrel was so heavy that I barely got through the whole flare and the the barrel broke apart. Jesus. How fast I was going because we were experimenting at that time. Yeah. Because here's the thing I was worried about. This this barrel was so big that you know, you're always worried the worst case scenario

with jumping a thing that big is floating on you. So the last thing I want is to leave the plane and now the barrel is above me. Like now we got a problem. Like if it's as long as it's below me, we're fun problem. We're going to go. We're doing it. Gag, yeah,

because when a random course. I mean, you know, self-set Fridays was like a big deal. God, I just love those videos. Oh, asking people in the debrief.

Like, so talked me through your eggs are like, yeah, I rode that fucking thing out, got vertical, let go, pitched. You're like, cool.

Okay, let's watch the video. There are two feet back in the aircraft. just like, ha. Shopping carting. Like, they released,

they let go of the thing before the barrel is even off. Like, it's still on the ramp. It's like, we call it the shopping car. Oh, God. All they want to do is like,

let go to this thing and reach back and throw their drug. Like, dude, you almost hit the aircraft with your drug because your feet were still on the ramp and your hand was reaching back,

like throwing your drug into the side of the CASA. I feel like I was the best problem passenger of the tandem course I ever saw. Yeah. You and, you and,

uh, what's his fitness? he would remember you'd get out of the plane. And so at the end of the course, we did this thing. It's called problem passenger. So it basically is like, you know, you had to control your passenger. You take an experienced tandem instructor. Yeah.

And the instructor's job is to show you how fucking gnarly it can get if you have a problem passenger. Yeah, right. And so we'd take them up and, you know, they'd be getting the gear on and, you know, as instructors, it's so fun. Because you're like, what's this strap doing? You're like, undoing your chest. No, no, no, no, no. Touch that. in the aircraft, you know.

As instructors, we get up in the aircraft, like, we'd get up and stand up like, hey, this is the ramp, you know? And they're like, whoa, whoa, you know, sit back down. Put your seatbelt back on and just total nightmare. Like, we would, like, we would just, like, intentionally, like, take our goggles and, like, throw them under the seat.

Yeah. And they're like, oh, my, oh, my contacts. Where are my goggles at? And they're like, oh, shit, where are your goggles at? And we would just fuck with the students so much. And to the point where some guys, like, what's his face would take? He would put,

split pea soup in a Ziploc bag and have it in his jumpsuit. And like in free fall, he would take the thing out and just release this split piece soup. As if he was as if he was vomiting, you know, like, and the split piece soup would go over the Tannamaster's face and you'd go out of the plane and like, you give him problems in freefall too. A non-compliant passenger. Oh, yeah. So instead of like having your feet knees together or their feet back, we'd go out to the plane like just with your feet straight out like in a pike to try to just to try to.

try to get them unstable on the exit and... I used to always do the same thing. I would tell the guy who was the Tandemaster, like, hey, the straps are a little bit tight. Just crouched down here just for a second. Because they're supposed to hold you up. And as soon as they would take the weight off, I would dump underneath them and then lift them up on top of me.

And then leave. And they'd just fucking cartwheel out of there. And then leave the plane. Yeah, and leave the plane. And I would, like, be bent over and they're like, ah, and we would just, ah. And you're never supposed to bring your hands in front of students. And they do.

And I would just fucking grab a hold with their hands. Yeah. It was so funny because like that was actually part of the jump reef. Like, okay, you know, emergency procedures. All right. You're down, you know, you're down at the bottom end and you reach in and your your passenger grabs your left arm. What are you going to do?

Yeah, like, you know, release the drovia here or because they all had, all the rigs are meant to release the drug from the right and left. You can cut away from the right and left. And anyway, so we'd do all these things and we'd actually do it in free fall where they would go in because at the bottom end of the free fall, you're supposed to put the passenger back into position one. Position one, position two. And every single time they'd tap you, position one,

and they had reached down. And every time like, what? Grab one of their arms and go, all right, dude. Which is exactly why you don't fucking bring your arms in front of the student. Exactly. Yeah. So every time, like grab an arm and like, all right, dude. And then you're hoping, like, I hope he goes for a secondary.

Wow. But I was always paying attention to my altimeter when they did that. Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. So I want, just a question I had was, when you guys are training, when you're like seals and your training tandem, is that like if you're jumping indigent or you're jump? So it would be equipment.

It could be rucksacks. It could be, fuck, you could jump at a mortar tube and rounds. Right. Whatever you want to fill in the tube, as long as you're in the weight requirement's cool. And then just think of somebody who would be an enabler or an asset who isn't free fall qualified. Yeah.

Yeah. Like most of the time, it's an interpreter. Yeah. Did you guys jump a lot with interpreters? I have a few experiences. I was going to ask. He must get some fucking stories about that. He's got a good one.

He jumped to turp into, uh, eastern Afghanistan. Yep. And dude probably, it was horrendous. He probably, I can't believe the guy didn't have a hard attack. He was, why he was just shitting him. So think about this. So Andy takes, and I'll let you tell you over here. This is, so Andy, like, they're going to jump into this target.

And, and this turp, like, like total indigenous guy, Afghan dude. And imagine showing up and you're like, okay, cool, I'm going on an airplane ride. And next thing you know. And his little hat and his sand rolls in his... He's got this harness on and the ramp opens up. And the ramp opens up and there's just nothing but red lights.

Yeah. And the ramp opens is completely blackout. Oh, yeah. Oh, he started throwing up about 20 minutes before the ramp came down. So he got him on oxygen. Completely black. Like the back of the ramp, he's just jumping out of the plane. He's never been in a plane, mind you.

It's fucking the middle of that. He's dropped to this dude. jumping into the blackness. He's only ridden donkeys this whole of life. And he's like... Yeah, it was fucking wild. And they're like, hey, so yeah, you got the turp.

And I... Did you get to draw straws to that? Every single tenor master... I was the only one who was, I think, qualified to do it. Every single tantamaster, like, we'll tell you, I would rather jump a bundle all day long. Yes, Asner.

It all, any... I'd rather jump a four to 500-pound barrel at night on nods in the middle of nowhere then I will to passenger any day. Because the passenger, you don't have to talk to the bundle. It, it's going to calm it down. The bundle's going to be, the bundle's going to leave the plane just the same way every time. Just up to you to get it out correctly.

Passenger, you don't know what you're going to get. You don't know what you're going to get. You're going to get. They can have a lot of impact on how your day goes to. Exactly. Yeah. This is like doing it. I don't know how people, you know, drop zones to do tantums for a living.

It's just like just such a It's a rough line of work We I mean, Danny and I've both done it But I think the majority of our tannums Are just taking like friends or family That's all all due to know Yeah I have no interest in going And just hucking drugs at a DZEA

No, absolutely No nothing against people are doing that full time But just at this point, hard pass Yeah, exactly Yeah I'd rather just go fly helicopters at this point Yeah What's your dream helicopter?

412 Why that one? What's that? It's not a 60 bro? It's not a black disqual Pull up a bell 412, Michael. It's just... Four blades?

It's a four bladed Huey. Okay. Okay. Twin engine. And it's just... Huey? Like the ones in Vietnam? Yeah.

That was four blades and the ones in Vietnam. Oh, fuck yeah. Oh. Yeah. That's my... If I don't have a budget, that's what I'm getting. I mean, I feel like it's super cheap. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, it's not... Suicide bird go for? A couple hundred thousand? I mean, well, you get it. You got to ask yourself, is it going to be new or used? New has got to be over double-digit millions, right? I don't know.

I'm not sure. You wouldn't go for a black hog? No. No, why? 1.5 million to 11 million. So there you go. Yeah. Oh, you're right.

Yeah. So a new one's 11 million. So a hawk is 11 million. That bill for $4.12. You can buy a blackhawk for $350,000. And then you've got to put two million into it. Yeah. Michael, Google in there, what does a black hawk cost?

And then we'll put together a go-fund me. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I'm sure they'll be able to raise a couple hundred bucks 15 million to 40 million Yeah Yeah So they're not cheap

But you know you buy a surplus one I mean I like your idea Steve You just go to Afghan and fucking steal I remember that the TV show Dude that'd be a great reality show wouldn't it I mean you'd have to get that fucker across the border And refuel but I'm down for that Yeah

We had a TV show It was like called I think it's called Echo 3 But um We had a hawk out there And I believe the blade hour rate was Six grand That sounds about right. Yeah.

That's actually cheap. And they did, whether the thing flew or not, they did. Minimums. They did like, I think a four hour minimum or something like that per day, whether it flew or not. Just sitting there on the deck? That's what we had on the 6 grand and all. C-130 that Steve and I rented for a few hours. Dude, I'm so glad you posted that picture.

It's hilarious, man. Fuck. That was good times. Yeah. Yeah. So we did. Steve and I in a C-130, multiple lifts, 10 grand an hour. Yeah.

just him and I in it. Yeah, totally. And that was it. It was ridiculous. Yeah. With our sport rigs and. You just for the two of you. Yeah.

Correct. Small a plane wouldn't you? So we didn't want a small. No. No. We did a commercial. It was for real. Steve was rogue.

He's like, no, it's got to be a C-130. Because when Andy hit me up, he's like, hey, do you want to do this commercial? I was like, fuck, yeah, let's do it. Of course. You know, the answer's always yes. No matter what, no matter what, no matter what it is. And I'm like, dude, does he really want to rent a C-C-1-1-1-1. And he's like, yep, he absolutely wants a C-130.

I'm like, all right, cool. Yeah. So we had our guys up down there in Phoenix who basically when I was running the tandem course. Like, I wonder if most people know, like, how big a C-1-30 is. Like, it's, if you know- They would probably recognize it, but I don't think, like, the relative scale of having only two people back there jumping is just ridiculous. It's like an infantry, I think you fit a, how many people? Probably 50 people, a minimum. Yeah.

In a C-130? Yeah. Oh, I think it's might even be more. Oh. You'll cube out before you wait out. You can put 100 people in the back of that thing. No problem. I mean, no problem.

I mean, it's a massive four-engine turbo prop. Yeah. I mean, we used to put APCs in them. It's perfect for two jumpers. It's very roomy. Our climb rate was robust. Very robust. Like, literally, like, we take off and the crew guys, like, four minutes.

Like, all right, yeah, we're going to 13. Yeah, but like, hey, we're still on the, we're still on the runway. He's just like. Totally. Totally. Yeah. And they were just like, burr. Because we would, we flew out of Phoenix and we were jumping in Coolidge.

So it was basically a straight shot. So the guy's just climbing. And we were already at altitude like way before we even over Coolidge. Yeah. And yeah, it was freaking. Dude, remember that time? So we landed in Coolidge. So check this out.

So. Even that guy yelled to you? Yeah. So literally we're jumping into the Coolidge. And at the time. What's that? It's an airfield. Oh, yeah.

It's an, it's a, it's not. It's not a private airfield. Like Coolidge is... It's public. It's a public airfield. So I called up the guy that ran CPS and I was like, hey, bro, like, we're jumping in there. And Andy and I are coming in and he's like, yeah, yeah, whatever, no problem. Well, what he didn't do is he didn't pass on the information to the guys that worked there running military jump courses.

So Andy and I are... Boon fly over the top. We open up and I'm under my whatever, like VK... you know, I think I was jumping at 79E now, whatever. So I land on the drop zone and this dude comes running out. Man, I think it was Mike. But I knew these dudes. All these guys worked for me in the basic course or the tandem course.

And I run out and I have my helmet on because I have my video helmet on because I was video on Andy. And I land, he runs out. He's like, he's screaming at me. Doesn't know who I am yet. Doesn't know who I am. He's screaming at me. And I've got my helmet on. And there's a sticker on the side is like on the side of my helmet that he recognizes.

And he's like, Steve? And my palm of helmet off. I'm like, hey, what's all, bro? And he's like, what the fuck? Where's you come from? And I was like, an airplane, dumbass. And then Andy lands, right? Andy lands.

And he's like, what the fuck? What's going on? I'm like, dude, I called Freddie, man. Like, he didn't tell you. He goes, no. Nobody told me shit, man. I was like, freaking out. Who the fuck is this landing in my drop zone?

Yeah, but he was like, what are you fucking guys doing? But it was hilarious. We just out of the blue, like, we're talking in the middle of the desert. Like, Coolidge is in the middle of nowhere between Tucson and Phoenix. And it's just this nobody jumps there except for those dudes. Yeah. So when we were like, next thing you know, he sees his dude landing under a, you know, 90 square foot parachute.

And he's like, what is happening right now? Yeah. And they weren't even working that day. So he was really freaked out. But it seemed to work out, okay. Yeah. I think there's a good expenditure of somebody else's money. Yeah.

He's like, who are you guys jumping? I'm like, we got a C-130. He goes, a what? I go, yeah, there he is. Yeah. Oh, this is it. Is this you guys? That's me, yeah.

Yeah. It's basically just over the top of the desert. But yeah, that's the... There it is. For anybody's able to watch... I would say we were maxing it out for jumpers. For jumpers, safety and, you know, comfort. That was maximum, you know, we couldn't have any more.

Who is that? That's me. Oh. Who is that? What? You don't recognize them? Yeah, we did two jumps. Yeah.

And are you videoing, Steve? Steve's video, yep. There's some cool pictures of him hanging out off the back. We don't need to watch the whole video, Michael. Yeah, that was fun. That was a fun project. Two of you in a C-130. Yeah.

I mean. Oh, we loved it. Yeah, it was fucking amazing. So what do you guys want to do with Dark Desert Defense? I mean, right now you guys are doing shooting courses? are you, walk me through the suite of what you guys offer. So level one introduction. Mm-hmm.

What else you guys got? So, well, let me back up a little bit. When we first started it, we were pretty much our clientele was, it was one-on-one. Usually more people are like a little high net worth because of the price. So we were training guys that it was all one-on-one, and our level one, of course, was basically like six hours of training. And then we started getting a lot of interest, but I think we're just playing around with our price point. So we were like, hey, let's just try. Let's start doing groups.

So we did a pilot course about a month ago. And then so now we're kind of gearing up towards doing like groups. And because I think mainly just because our price point, we weren't getting a whole lot of volume. And the other thing too is like, you know, you know and Steve knows, but that whole train the training. concept like we pair people up so you know it's so you can learn a lot from doing but you also can learn a lot from watching right so what we do is we pair people up and we say okay we're going to be standing next to this person but you're also going to critique them as well like a shooting buddy like a shooting buddy you know and and so they work together and then it gives us also the opportunity

to create some unique environments which which apply a little bit of pressure like like one of the drills we do you know we we basically and this is one we did in the military but basically we we we We line everyone up at the end of the day. And we say, okay, like there's six steel targets. The first person shoots that target. And the second person can't shoot their target until the first person hits their target. But then the second person only gets one shot.

If they miss it, everybody moves down one target. The person who's on the last target goes to the front. Right. So if you're the last guy and everybody hits their target, if you miss... I would miss that shit intentionally. Yeah. And then everything rotates around.

And so, you know, that now they're hyper-focused, right? Because when you're shooting in a line and everybody's shooting, you kind of fuck off a little bit. Yeah, you're in your own world. You're in your own world. Now, not only is anybody watching you, but they're relying on you. Now it's a team effort. So it enabled us to sort of create these environments by adding, by doing multiple people. And you really get sort of a camaraderie.

And we found it works really, really well. As long as we don't put husbands and wives together, works great. And it's true, dude. It's so true. So, so, you know, and what we've sort of started to find now is that by,

by creating these things and adding some, some competitiveness to it. And I, like, I've done a lot of things with Steve. One of the, you know, we did a,

Steve set up this dirt bike ride where we pre-ran the Baja 1000 on motorcycles. We did like 1,400 miles on dirt bikes through fucking Baja in seven days. And it's funny, you know, because I come from military background. But all of these other. guys don't. So, you know, I could tell, like, every day Steve was just making it a little bit harder and a little bit longer and a little bit longer. That's the key, though. Progressive

resistance is the key. You can overwhelm anybody at anything. Yeah. Those are the best coaches, the ones that always get you right to, you fail a little bit and then you're like, okay, you feel better about it at the end of the day. Yeah. And then there was, there was like that on that ride, for example, when the very last day when we were riding in a La Paz, that was almost a 300 mile day. Yeah. That's a long day on a phone. And we're talking all for our. And we're talking like mostly two track off road like the thousand course, which it's gnarly. It's rocky. It's sandy.

Oh, I know. I've gotten satellite telephone calls from people on those fucking courses. Yeah. Yeah. That was the one where my boy got paralyzed. Yeah. Literally was on the phone. Sat phone with Andy like, dude, can you get.

I'm trying to fucking spin up like international air response. I'm like 800 miles south of the border, you know, just south of Sunny Nacho. and I need Meta back down here. And he's like, okay, let me see. I'm going to call you back. And it didn't answer. But yeah, so, for example, the last day, like, at a buddy mine that was sweeping for me,

and dudes are just melting down. Like, fucking Steve this and fucking Steve that. And this is like the baton, death march, death ride down here and all this shit. But here's the thing, at the end of the day, like, we finally got to La Paz. Dudes are like, you know, like you were saying, like guys are, like, patting themselves on the back.

And that sucked, but it was so awesome. And it was, it has to suck for it to be awesome. Yeah. And what he did, which I thought was super fucking smart is he, like, there's this one section. I don't know where it is, but it's literally four foot sand, whoops for 66 fucking miles, right? So. Yeah, it's just brutal. But it's right next to a road.

So you can just, you can just quit. You bail out anytime you want. So, you know, when you're in the military, you know, and the D.S staff are like, dude, you don't have to carry on. Fuck, it's, you know. Just get on the roads. Just get on the trail. truck. Just slop me up.

Just ring it three times. Yeah. Exactly. No one's, you know, you guys have your version. We had my, you know, we had our version of it. You know, they'd just be really not. These are people that are screaming at you for months. Now of a sudden they're like your best friend.

No one's going to worry. You know, no one's going to think less of you. Just bucking on the truck. Just, you know, go home. Live the easy life. You know, and so he set that up and it was, because that makes it even now more of a struggle. Because if you know, like, hey,

I got to go through the, I just got to get through it no matter what, and that's that. But if you know, oh, I can just ride 300 yards that way, and I'm on a tar seal road, and I can just cruise. And so that added even more pressure to it. But then they're like, well, what are the guys going to think of me? Yeah. Right. So there's the peer pressure. So we get down, we're like probably like, probably only 30 miles out from La Paz, but we're taking all the whole, on the off road course.

and it's probably one of the gnarliest sections. And the sun is just going down and we're basically doing a road crossing, just like English is saying, where you could take the road out, basically like five miles, hang a right, and you're in La Paz in like freaking 20 minutes.

Or jump on the off road course, and it's another hour and a half into La Paz. But you're taking the man route or you're taking the pussy route, right? And so we get to this spot, and guys are like, oh, cool. So everybody shows up with the road crossing. I'm waiting for everybody.

Everybody showed the road crossing. They're like, Yeah. We're just going to slab it down. And I'm like, all right, you guys ready? Cool. Like, all right. So I crossed the road, jump on the course, take off.

And they're like, dudes are like, like, now they instantly hate my guts. They're just emotionally broken. Exactly. They're like, oh, my gosh. Like, why can't we take the road? And I'm like, dude, this is the ride, bro. Like, yeah, you could take the road if you want. But, you know, like all the men are taking the course.

Like, we're riding. Dude, we're dirt bike riding, man, bro. This isn't a street bike ride. But it was cool because when we finally got in an El Pasat and I got to the hotel, guys were just like, you know, patting themselves on the back because it's like, yeah, I do, you know, I rode the whole thing, man. You know, because I wanted to because I fucking had to. Yeah.

Yeah. But no, actually, ironically, nobody's asked me to do another ride. Chuck. I have been saying we have to do another ride. But yeah, it's. Yeah, yeah. Of course you have, but. But, you know, I think when you, you know, especially when you're retired,

and I'm sure you feel this like, like when you've left the military, like, one other thing, there's just that, you know how when you're doing something and you know it's fucking hard and you know it, you know it's not going to be fun and you know, you're going to be miserable and you all that. But once you've got through. I had a great time. Yeah, I had a great time on that. I actually had a great time on that, Roy, but you know that, there's a certain sense of achievement

you get by, by black. lasting through a barrier. Yeah. You know what I mean? Making yourself uncomfortable. Yeah. Like he says it all the time. He's right.

Like just reaching that level of, of uncomfortableness, where you want to quit and pushing through it. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure you guys see it. I mean, you know, where, you know, everybody shows up for a course and everybody's sort of sizing everybody else up. And it's usually the guys that everybody thinks are going to breeze through it.

Who are the guys that don't? Yeah. And it's the guy. that everybody think will be gone the first day that are there at the end, you know? You feel that in Jiu-Jitsu too. The guys that you look at, like this dude is bigger, stronger,

like he's just going to crush everybody, they fucking mentally break. And the fucking nerd accountant assassin that you would never think would just be folding people in half you're looking over there like, okay, all right. Yeah, it's the ones that you don't think

are going to be the performers that shock you more often than die. Unsuspecting, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the accountant assassins are fucking real, dude, in Jiu-oh. You must see a lot like right So you see a lot of like I used to teach martial arts

But you know you see a lot of like You see a lot of that where there's just some people just have it And some people don't and you think But we're not all created equal Yeah I know everybody wants to live in this world where we all We can all do the same things And I hate to tell everybody

But that's not the world we live in No Some people can learn faster than others Some people have attributes You might have had a chance of playing in the fucking NBA Guess what? I don't Yeah Michael never will

He'll never be a professional In any sport of any kind It's just not athletic. Absolutely not. Those are the cards you're dealt. You can be an academic who plays chess instead of doing security at the coffee shop. And sit on the couch. Yes, with his fucking feet up.

The last time I was in there, I caught him doing that. Yeah, it's not an equal playing field. Yeah. And I wish it was. I have more respect, though, for the people who stick with it who aren't naturals than the naturals who can just kind of crush and dominate everybody else. I think, you know, I was raised under this thing. It's better we've tried and not succeeded than to have succeeded without trying.

you know yeah i think there's a lot of people who don't try a lot of things yeah probably just because of the social optic of failure yeah which i mean that i think that's true probably of all of us to some degree but if you i mean if people are feeling that fuck that man i say lean into that thing that's making you feel that way a little bit yeah you know it's interesting i've mentored a couple of young entrepreneurs and and i what does that even mean um just like can anybody be an entrepreneur what if you just want to call yourself an entrepreneur for social media The way that I explain being an entrepreneur is there are two kids, right? And they both climb a tree.

And their goal is, is they're going to fly. And one kid jumps out, flaps his arms, and he fucking crashes to the ground in a heat. And he says, fuck that, that's not going to work. And the other kid, he just keeps going until he flies. Just keeps climbing and climbing. In climbing and climbing until he figures out how to fly. Yeah. And the entrepreneur is the kid that keeps climbing and climbing until he figures out how to fly.

You know, they're usually not. they're usually not very good academically. You know, they're usually, they don't fit well into a traditional academic role. But they, I just don't quit. You know, people say to me,

well, how many things have you failed out? And I'm like, fucking tons of things. Like, they always want to focus on the wave tops and they forget all the valleys that are in between that actually make you capable of appreciating the wave tops.

Yeah. If you take a failure as a lesson, as a lesson in getting to the next level, that's what I think is the best way to do it. I think so too. You know? How big do you guys, want to make the company triple D, if you will.

I mean, I think we should announce now some summer courses in the Montana area. Oh, yes. Absolutely. Yeah, we were just talking about that today. And that's one of the issues we do with in Vegas, obviously, because... Is it traditionally warm there in the summer? Yes, it is. Did you fucking sweat, sweats, sweats in Vegas?

I don't understand how I understand. Actually, you don't sweat because it evaporates before it even comes out of your body. So it's... Why? Why does anybody live there in the... the month of June, July, or August. I mean, dude, I'm building house in Utah, so I don't have to do. That's what I think a lot of the people do.

But the reverse snowbird. I mean, I personally, it doesn't bother me. I like the heat. But, you know, when you're out there trying to train clients and it's 110 degrees up, you know, the level of concentration only lasts for about maybe an hour the most. And then. The label of diminishing returns, right? Yeah.

Then people are just, all they can think about it's how hot it is. And it's kind of like the winter, too. you know, you're in the winter. We visited a course last week and a beginner level one course. And, you know, we were purposely taking breaks like every hour and a half just to get people back in the house and, like, get warmed up. Yeah. You know, refocus. Because if they're on the range and they're freezing and it's cold, all they can think about is like, I can't fill my hands.

It's cold out here. It's windy. It's so, you know, it's crazy. So we purposely would, you know, take breaks like people get warm, refocus. and then get back on the range, you're going to shoot. But that group in particular, they were freaking awesome.

That would great good. That's great attitude. How far will you guys go with it? Like, do you say, I mean, there's people who want to just be proficient on a range, right? Understanding.

But like, what if somebody wants to go all the way through like fucking vehicle tactics or shooting at an helicopter that type of thing? Shooting out of, we shoot through windshields, we'll do.

We have clients that do that. Yeah. Like, we have some clients that are hardcore. So it's a little bit more of a buffet. Yeah. It's like, how far do you? want to go. And, you know, and we say like, Jason Boren package? Totally. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, we, we,

or Janet Boren. I don't want to be misogynistic here. I don't know what the fluid, uh, fucking version of that. We used to actually, in my gun range, we had a bond package. And we had a hot girl pick you up in an Aston Martin and then drive you to get a custom suit fitted, which had a hidden knife pocket in the sleeve. First off, why did you get rid of this program? You know, we couldn't sell a fucking game. Which was surprised me. Like, I was, I was, I thought we saw a shit of it, We didn't. And then we build them a custom gun and everything and then we teach you shoot it. So it was like this whole thing. But to Steve's point, yeah, like Steve's kind of designed it so that it's prerequisites. Because the problem is, is that you do like a Jason Bourne package and you get someone show up and they've never held a gun and they want to be Jason Bourne.

I'm like, you know, you got to start somewhere. So you can't do our level two until you do our level one. And it's not it's not because we're trying to scam you out of more money. It's because you need those fundamentals before we can take you to the next level. Yeah, helicopter world. So for example, you guys can relate, right? you're not going to like in the first week, you're not going to be able to learn on a fly helicopter and then do backflips in it. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Not all students. Not voluntarily. So, you know, it's just, it's, you know, you gotta put the time in to get to that level. And we have,

we have clients that are absolutely, we've done that with, like some of, like one of my great friends. Like, I've been training him for over three years now and I took him from literally never holding a gun before.

Now he's, you know, doing transitions with a long gun and he's just like, he's, yeah, great. Awesome. So people like that, like they, They get a passion for it, and then they pursue it.

Just like, Jitsu or precision rifle stuff. Do you do long-range shooting? Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. So we've had, we've had-ranged out to a mile. Yeah, we've had clients that like, hey, listen, we just want to do all long-gun stuff.

We've built their guns for them, came up, like taught them how to zero the guns, ran them through basically a real quick, you know, a two-day down-and-dirty sniper course. Yeah. And I think a long-term goal for us, too, one of the things that we've always wanted to do is to actually create a platform that we can take, because I think one of the big, the reason I started my non-profit

is that I was seeing a lot of veterans were getting out of the service and they have these amazing skills, like the skills you guys have, right? Like, it's not like, well, you know, I can kick indoors, I can, you know, jump out of planes, I can, you know, drive a submersible vehicle

outside of a submarine. How do I use that shit in a civilian world? You don't. Yeah. Right. You serve coffee. You pour coffee over a, our water over coffee grinds and mix it with some milk,

and I'll hear you fucking go. But, you know, what we could do is we could take ex-military guys who have some confidence with firearms and we could teach them to be instructors under our program and, you know, give them a clear, concise, formatted program of learning and they can go and start their own businesses,

you know, and we'll help them do that. And we'll, so that's, for me, that's an end goal. Underneath our business. Yeah, underneath our business model. That's a cool little idea. They're helping people with something they're passionate about. Yeah. I mean, I can say this for myself personally, too.

I mean, there's a lot of things I'm passionate about, but have no fucking clue how to make it something that would be sustainable from a business perspective. Right. Like the helicopter stuff we're talking about. Like, I love it, but, and I'll figure it out. Yeah. But I'm going to really fuck it up along the way somehow.

But I will figure out a way to at least have a net zero cost helicopter that I can fly. Right. You know, how I don't know. Right. I'm not to climb that tree a few times. But, you know, our sort of thought process is if we can, if we can have like, oh, there's a guy from Chicago

and he's an ex-victron. you know, and he wants to start a little school and he wants to run a course every weekend and we'll train him how to do that and he'll come out and we can sort of set that up so that's kind of one of our big goals is to do that. Kind of like, you know, essentially just, you know, have the company, you know, like US-wide,

like have these courses that veterans can, you know, own and they can run their own courses. And it's kind of like a... And we just give them the platform. You know, we give them the, you know, the curriculum and everything else, and they just, they just run it. And under the, under our curriculum. Under the triple D banner. Yeah, exactly.

Which Steve has tirelessly written. But, you know, he, he told me about these, like, these TSCs that you guys would use, right? And, and, and I thought to myself, TCS. TCS is so. Task condition standards. The task condition standards. And he would, and I said, you know, imagine if we could create something that, you know, I think do jitza as an example right you you guys have this system and you have a belt system

and in that system you're interesting though is that the belt system is very different at different gyms i've asked every black belt coach that i've ever met yeah walk me through your white to black criteria it's fucking different really yes there is no you cannot go online and find a white belt to black belt journey or curriculum. Like if like this is what you have to do to be a blue belt, purple belt, brown belt, black belt. It's it is there is a lot of overlay like there's a Venn diagram overlay for sure. But I have yet to get the same answer out of the probably close to 50 black belt coaches I have asked at this point.

Right. So that's interesting because what we want to do is the opposite of that. We want to say to go from level one to level two, these are the standards. You have to be able to draw. The skill sets on the firearm are I think they're a little bit, they're a little bit more objective. They're, you know, like size and strength matters in jujitsu. Not really much with a pistol.

You know what I mean? No. You're hitting the target or you're not. Yep. Your shot timer is doing this or not. And a lot of what I'm saying, I'm repeating what my wife says because she knows a lot more about fucking jujitsu than I do. Because she, you know, she teaches the evening class.

She'll be teaching tonight. And she has, it's a mix of men and women, diverse backgrounds from professionals who just want to do jiu-jitsu in the evening to get some exercise to young kids who think they're the next Connor McGregor. And a young athletic kid is going to beat, like a young athletic white belt who's in their 20s is probably going to beat a middle-aged purple belt who doesn't have an athletic background. But does that mean the white belt should be a purple belt?

It doesn't. It means that their size and strength and probably aggression is, you know what I mean? There's this meshing. Like that's where the subjectivity comes in. And in talking with her, it's like, yeah, that doesn't matter what. what matters is how does that white belt do when somebody who is his age, his background, his belt, his time in. That's when you can really see it.

So the art form is, though, a lot of times that person doesn't exist in that class. So you have to watch this person's development and figure out how they're doing against other people with all that diverse background and experience and then grade them upon that. It's interesting to watch. Yeah. And some people it takes, I mean, they say an average journey to Black Belt is somewhere between 10 to 12 years. And for other people, it's five to six.

So it depends on how you can learn Well I mean kind of the same thing with shooting right Like yeah I mean for example You know like my son Jay Like I have very Very limited time I've spent with him like training

Like actually training him Of course I have I've done it But like he made Such a leap in like a year and a half And it's because It's dry firing And he literally went from

Like being in an okay shooter and now like he can out shoot my clients that I've been shooting with for three or four years and he out shoots them and I spend a fraction amount of time with him and it's just it's just you know and I'm sure it's probably the same with jiu jiu jutsu like some people pick it up a lot faster than others you and I know this from teaching a lot of people not everybody learns at the same rate exactly and our old job rewarded the ability to learn quickly and that actually it upsets people, my journey was a little bit faster than most people's. And all I, here's the key to learning.

Do exactly what you're fucking told and nothing else. Exactly. So when they say, hey, put your hand here. I go like every time and they say yes. I'm like, okay, I'll just put my hand there. I'm not going on to YouTube to research a fucking video of, well, what happens if I put my hand over here? Yeah.

What if I go like this and make a duck wing with my, like, yeah. My theory is, okay, so you've been doing this a long time. You're the head coach here at the school. You're saying you should always do it like this. Roger that. I'll just do it like that and focused on the fundamentals. And that's exactly what it's interesting because that's exactly what Jay did. And I think his training came from watching me and doing exactly what I do.

And it was funny because this weekend we had one of our clients and she came up to me. She's like, oh my gosh, I just watched your son do this drill. And she goes, he moves exactly like you do. Yeah, that makes sense. And I was like, really? She's like, yeah, exactly like you do. Yes, because you model that behavior for it. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And then he just dry fires his ass off, which usually none of our clients. No, and that's what we say to people like, dry fire, dry fire, and they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, sure, sure. It's fundamentals. It's not flashy moves. Exactly. I didn't have any offense for probably the first two or three years. Leah was my first coach.

I was doing, she was teaching the foundations course at the time, and I was traveling a ton, so I would do private lessons. And I asked her when we started, I said, just teach me from the absolute worst positions uphill from there. So it was all fucking defense, which sucks because you're just getting fucking smashed for a long time. But then eventually you have a defense that's really hard for people to deal with. Yeah. And then you can start experimenting because it doesn't matter if you get into a bad position. I'm like, oh, I know what to do if I'm here. And then you start fucking people up. That's what I'm talking about. You know, it's interesting because it seems like everything, you just like flying helicopter, anything you do fundamentals. I mean, we teach five fundamentals

when we're shooting and they're probably the same five fundamentals everybody teaches. But, you know, and And then we prioritize those fundamentals. And I tell people all the time, I'm like, if you're not hitting the target, slow down. Yeah. Go back to your fundamental. It doesn't make you more accurate. No, nope. It makes you less accurate.

You just miss the target faster. Especially if you don't have the fundamentals down and you try to go faster. Like I always told people like, listen, I don't care about your speed. I care about you actually hitting the target. Accuracy is final. I don't care how fast you can miss me. I will take another quarter of a second, let the site settle and blow your fucking fix. Exactly.

And that's what I tell it. Hey, listen, if you're in a gunfight, if you miss, that's, that's a bit, that's not good. Yeah, and also don't get in a gunfight, you know, avoid it. Largely avoidable. Yeah. But if you're in one, you should probably win. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, that's one of the things I think, like you guys know from just your backgrounds, but it's been really interesting to see that. And we have, like, we had a friend of mine, Christine, she was out on the course this weekend. And, I mean, you just see these people excel, like, she's just a natural shooter. Yeah. She's just. Yeah, it's impressive. You just. everything you tell her to do, she does.

You know? And it's this, you know, attractive girl with nails and everything she doesn't look like a shooter. She just listens. And it does exactly what you just said. Okay, Gingas, you want me to put my hand there? I'm going to put my hand there. And that's what I'm going to do. That's all right.

That's all right. I mean, Michael, how much YouTube shit do you watch Jiu-Jitsu? Not a lot. How long have you been training now? Five years. Yeah. So Michael's a purple belt, probably knocking on the door of his brown belt. Yeah.

And we roll all the time. And it's, he's very, very good. in Jiu-Jitsu. And I would not describe your game as flashy. No, I, especially after going to that seminar with you guys, Henry's, and then just rolling with you a lot. It's the opposite of flashy. Yeah, it's literally just pressure, pressure, pressure.

I just lay on people. Yeah. I mean, why? Here's the goal. Only one person can be comfortable, which is going to be me. Yeah. Why? How about I make you carry all of my weight at all times?

And it just wears the fucking person down. Yeah. and it doesn't cost me much. And even if they get out of that position, they're so, because they have to explode and they're like writhing down there to get out. And then you can let them out a little bit,

just to toy with them emotionally, because you should break them emotionally before you submit them. But it's wild. The best jihitsu I've ever seen is not flashy and dynamic. It's the application of weight and angles and pressure, and it fucking cooks the people underneath.

They can try all this flashy shit. And it's just, So there's two energy bars. And your goal is to keep your energy bar up here while theirs is just diminishing. Yeah. So just burning fuel. Yeah. Like literally, it's like, well, I'll just take my knees off the ground.

So you're carrying all of my, little things like that. If you're rolling with somebody in your knees are on the ground, you're applying less pressure. So they have more chance to recover. Well, it just doesn't cost me anything to put my weight on you. So let's just do that because that sucks more for you. And like Steve said and like you actually brought up to, you know, for us, I think the big thing now for us to is traveling.

Like, what I'm noticing is, like, there are a lot of people in California who want to do our course, and there's people in Arizona who want to do. There's people everywhere, and you can combine it with destination type stuff. I mean, there's so much bullshit to do in California as well. I mean, Steve and I both lived in SoCal for an extended period of time. I mean, you'd have to get more, you'd have to get away from the areas that we lived more, more up like the towards the Tahoe area and stuff like that. But, yeah, I mean, up here, like literally 30 Minutes Glacier National Park, the largest

freshwater lake west of the Mississippi down in flathead. Canadian border is 60 miles. way Idaho's quarter lanes, three and a half. It's fucking crazy. Yeah. And there's four legit seasons

and there's activities for all four. Just go to town. That's why, you know, Steve and I was saying today, we want to, I think we're going to move

all our summer courses here. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, we'll just, like, be here for three or four months. I like it.

Yeah. And we'll just run our summer courses out of Calispell because number one, it's a destination. People want to come here. It's, it's gun friendly.

That's one thing that's a challenge about California. Very gun friendly. It's very gun friendly. I'm not interested in going to California. Yeah, he doesn't want to do it. But, you know.

I was born and raised there and I don't want to go there. No, no. I mean, we're lucky we have access to a great range there, which most... Everything gun related there is just such a fucking nightmare. I don't see it getting any better either. No. No. No.

But so, you know, for us, like, I think that's a big part of it too now. It's just like we said to you, you know, we'll just roll up here and we'll post up here for, you know, three, four months. And the summer's here fantastic, right? So, like, that's one of the problems with Vegas. it's fucking like 120 degrees. The hot day up here in the summer. Mike, what do you think? Peak summer.

Like high 90s, maybe. For about a week, it'll be in the 90s. But it's not like the Vegas 90s. And honestly, it's usually in the 80s. Yeah. It's like California 90s. Dude, do you remember when he came up for the wedding in August fucking picture-esque, white, puffy postcard, cloud?

Like, that's the shit you're going to get. Yeah. We're out there in a full suit. And, you know, it's just comfortable. Yeah. It's just comfortable. Yeah. Yeah.

And flip-lops, of course. Yeah, obviously. And so that's what we think. He didn't believe me when I was asked if I remember him telling me. Yeah. Yeah. I remember. I was like, wait, flip flops.

He's like, yeah, suit into flip flops. I was like, awesome. Yeah. Really? Really? I was like, yeah. I mean, they're really cool flip flops, but yeah. Oh, yeah.

And then you ran into AG at some dive store, he said. Yeah. Totally. Dude, I went in there like Jay and I were out with Scoot up and my son Jay was a return of some tanks. And I had those fliplops on and I was at the counter. And the guy's like, those are cool fliplops. And I looked at it.

I'm going to look down and he had the same ones on. I'm like, yeah. Like, yeah, they're cool. And he's like, you were, uh, you were an indie's ordering, weren't you? And I was like, I'm looking at this dude. Now I'm like, who the fuck are you, bro? And he's like, yeah, I own the company. I'm like, no, no shit.

Yeah. Cool. So he started bullshit and he's like, yeah, yeah. He runs him out of Vegas. The company's based right out of Vegas. That's cool. So I was like, oh, yeah, these things are freaking awesome, man. Yeah, I was good to go.

No, that was, yeah. I remember I'm showing me the shoes. They're like, what, 600 bucks? Those ones were, yeah. I think he just sold a couple of pair that were about 2,500. What? Yeah, like white alligator with like some gold shit on there. I lost mine and I think I lost them in Arizona.

Are you serious? I'll get you another pair. What's that sure are you? 11. No, you're not. 12. Well, I'm at 11, but the ones I ordered. My shoe size right now is 11.

But when I ordered them, I'm like, You're going to be 11 or men's? You don't mean that's a lot of question. But yeah, because I like the, my leg, full of lots of the room. Yeah, I usually go, I usually go a size up. But, um. I get you another pair. I know a guy.

But no one is, yeah, cool. Sweet. Customs. But the cool thing was like all the guys that were in his wedding party, like on mine, it had SSS, like engraved. Yeah. Triplus on the, yeah. Tripl S on the, where, uh, we've been at it for almost three hours. Oh, shit.

Yeah. Where can people go to find more information or book you guys? So our website, it's probably the best place to go, which is your favorite dark desert defense.com. WWW.W.W.W. You can go right in there. You can look at all the levels. You can look at the course, book it, pay for it, everything. We'll have the Montana courses up there within two weeks. Which is about when this will come out.

Yeah. Yeah, we'll have it up there in two weeks. So we'll, yeah, we'll make sure that it'll be up there. But in the meantime, we are doing two courses a month. Cool. So, and all that stuff will be up on our website. And usually we're about like a month, a month or two out as far as when we put, we start putting courses on the calendar. So it makes sense. A month or two out. Just to give people enough time to plan and, you know, so.

Yeah. Not so last minute. Plus, we're stoked about coming up here for three or four months. How could you not be? Oh, we're going to bring dirt bikes, helicopter. It's going to be a great. I don't fuck the dirt bikes, we're going to be a lot of fun. You can't put my dirt bike on.

Yeah, I can't actually. That actually would be fine. That's acceptable. Yeah. We'll get you typerated in that thing. I mean, just show me how to turn the thing on. Yeah. I got it.

It's actually like turning it on is literally, turning it on is the scariest part of flying that fucking thing. I got about a thousand hours of turbine time. So, I mean, you'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what it's, well, this is a modulated start.

So, you know, you're watching your TOT, like you're watching N1, TOT. Yeah. And, you know, it's funny because people who are new to turbines. Does it give you just the classic double peak? It comes up down and then it spikes again. So one engine will double peak, one engine white. And this aircraft. I'm going to be honest with you.

I don't even pay attention to that. Just throw the gas at it. Like, it sounds good. Yeah. Spiking on ice stuffed it up. Yeah. Just kick the tires and light the fires. Yellow is caution.

Reds are like, maybe do something about it. Maybe don't. Yeah. Yeah, turbans can be get, they can get a little bit for people who are new to them. Yeah. But once you're used to what you're looking at. Yeah. I mean, because honestly, as you know, you're looking at a hot start or a hung start.

Yeah. Other than that, there's not a whole lot that's going to go wrong. And if you know how to deal with that, you're going to be okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like when they're starting, like I'm trying to go to fly 105 next weekend. But he's got 3,000 hours of helicopter time.

Yeah. You know, he's coming out of a 500 end. So the guy knows how to, he knows how to fly. He's going to be okay. Yeah, he's going to be just fine. Yeah. I'm just teaching him simple things like how to marry engines and talks and that kind of shit. Yeah, dude, I need to start going up there with you and flying with you.

Dude, I invite him up. We're planning to go. It just never quite worked out. And we wanted to do stuff like two. We wanted to start doing more stuff. Do some content stuff. Yeah. Like me just basically hucking it out of the, out of the helo with my base rig.

Over the top of the drop zone. Or excuse me, over the top of the range. Over the lake house, which is where we should do that. Over the rain. Oh, yeah, yeah. We could do some great content up, that high. I have like six base. up there too. I need to bring your own. I got all my

shit up there. Nice. Yeah. Dude. Well, I need to get mine out of the closet. Don't pack it though. If it's packed, just send it. You know it. Surprise. Of course. Surprise. I'm like, I don't even know if I got a slider on it. Slater up, slatter down. So, like, if you're at, how high is your

lake house? That's the height of elevation? Call it 3,000 feet. It's plus or minus here. So, like, if I go to 9,000? Oh, you could go to 3,500 feet. Oh, okay. For Steve and I. Exactly. So do you need to go any higher that? Like 40 knots.

You need me to. You can go zero air speed. If you're going to go zero speed, maybe we'll take a thousand feet up just to get, knock the whole rust up. I mean, honestly, in a helicopter, if you were going 50 knots, that would be like the most buttery exit for somebody just stepping off the skids. If you go zero airspeed, which I love doing that because I know how to deal with it and a lot of people don't.

So I can just fucking laugh at them as they're like, ah, like Tim Kennedy is a good example. He's not good at exiting aircraft. that way. But like 50 knots, you would just step off. You'd have a little bit of relative. It'd be like the smoothest transition to vertical. Yeah, I mean. Slater up. Yeah. Yeah. Because zero, that thing's not going to do an out of ground effect.

Hover at like 8 or 9,000. You don't need it. And then heat, yeah. But yeah, no, it'd be fun. I'd love to do that. Yeah. Have you guys jump over your fucking bitch. If we could all sorts of stuff. There's probably a couple hundred thousand acres of dirt bike trails right from the house. Literally can lay in the fucking helicopter right there. Yeah, my buddy, I'll have him bring out his little fuel truck so we can get jet A right

at the house. Really? That's awesome. Yeah. No, we'll solve all those logistical issues for sure. Totally. You know what I'd like to do, actually, if we bring it up. We just need a parker to come up.

Like, if you have local search and rescue, it's one of the things we do is I do a Helo marshalling course. So you know how a lot of these little towns have like local fire departments? Yep. Like it's a volunteer. So we'll go out and we'll land the helicopter out there. And they love it. And then we like teach them how to marshal them.

We give them like a little certificate that they're, you know, and little, you know, because they all have like a little Velcro Patches. The little Boy Scout badges. Yeah, like Hello Marsh thing and people love that kind of shit. I am shocked at the number of people who are unsafe around helicopters. Clearly that thing is making a lot of noise in certain areas and things are spinning. Why would you approach that?

Where is your basic human survival? Like, my God, that tailroader looks amazing. Let me go take a real close look at that. The fuck is wrong with you. Best one is when people are getting in a helicopter and they want to take a photo and jump and throw the hands. Totally fine with that. Completely fine with that. Well, do you remember like the PJ courses we were doing, remember?

And so we would get out, we'd do hayhose. So, you know, the guys get out, open up, and be flying around. Well, by the time they were getting ready to land, the, or whatever aircraft, fixed wing aircraft, was taxing back into the ramp in front of the hangar. And here we go. They're landing right in front of it. And we've got these fucking dudes that are like,

ba-p-p-pah, blah, blah. Overflying, like, the otter or something. And, like, we get down on a debrief of like, okay, what don't you understand about this, aircraft on the ground. Spinning blender. Spinning meat blenders. And you just think it's cool like,

yeah, I'm just going to fly right over the top of it. Dude, like, are you serious? You don't need to be even remote. It would be like, I'm not an expert in yard maintenance, but I know not to spin my fucking lawnmower over and turn it on and be like, what's in there?

It's, yeah. Dude, the number of times I've like had people getting out of a helicopter. And I literally, when they get in the helicopter, Do I brief them? When they're in the helicopter flying, I briefed them. And when I land, I brief them. And I'm literally like, okay, when you get out of the helicopter, think of it, you know, here's 3 o'clock, here's 9 o'clock.

You do not want to go anywhere behind 3 or 9. You want to be in front. They get out and walk towards a bit. And every one of your senses tell you that from the 3 to 9 o'clock position southward is not awesome. Yeah. And they send it. And if you want a photo, don't try and jump up in 3.

You know, girls love this pose where they jump and throw their legs and hands in the air. I'm like, yeah, you're going to lose your fingers. Like, yeah. Or arms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And fuck up my rotor blades,

which I'm probably more concerned about than your fingers. But, you know. Yeah, I remember years ago when, as a matter of fact, I was going through selection command,

and they were telling us about, there was a couple, like, I went through Green Team in 99, and there was an incident where some green guys were coming off, actually they were getting back onto a little bird,

and the bird had landed on an angle. Yeah, pitch, true. And they were coming. up, up, up the thing. Because they're on the angle, you know, the rotors were that much lower and it lopped off like two dudes, heads, like right off the bat. Approaching, getting back on a lower ground.

Yeah, and those are people who used to be around helicopters. You just got it. There's so much going on. I'm sure they were on nods. At night, on nods, you know, coming up and they didn't really realize the angle, you know, where it landed because that shit's, I mean, again, I don't have that much helicopter time. That angle landing stuff, holy fuck, dude, like putting a skid in. you'll be very aware

even 47s some of these rescue helicopters the pictures they have of nosing in on snow and the rotor is like inches from the fucking snow and they're rescuing people on the sides

oh my dude yeah gnarly yeah no we I remember we were on a we were doing an exercise was a field exercise and we had this big

Samoan kid he was an infantry exercise and he was probably six eight and he gets out of the Huey and he had his helmet on but thank God he didn't have his chin strap done up

and the blade came down and hit the top of his helmet and knocked it off. Fuck. And you know, Hughie rotor blade is like, the cord on it's like 24 inches. Yeah. Massive.

And he had like a concussion, but how he wasn't killed as a miracle. They reckon if his chin strap had been on it would have taken his head off. Yeah, taking his head right off. Fuck that. On that note, what do you guys want to close that with?

Oh, man, I'm stoked to be up here in summer flying helicopters and teaching guns. It would be cool. Yeah. And, you know, like, if anyone has questions, someone thinks, you know, for me or Steve, like I said, like, I'm really just the coffee maker.

Like, I do what Steve tells me to do when it comes to shit and stuff. I mean, so, you know, Steve, Steve wrote the course and everything like that, so he's probably going to answer most of the questions. But, yeah, you know, we know, like, we, we, you know, we said, our favorite clients are the ones that really have never touched a gun before.

But, you know, we take all kinds. Like if, you know, if, if ego's not an issue, then come on, come on. We don't really, you know, we love people that have never touched guns. And we're actually gearing up to do, I think one of our next courses in the near future is going to be a female only just because of the intimidation factor and all that stuff. But plus it's good. It'll be much easy for us to teach it. Yeah, 100%.

Yeah. Make our job a lot easier. Yeah. Not that there's guys out there that are hard to teach, but sometimes, you know, you who gets in the way. But like our last course, we just did, we had a pretty good dynamic of male, female, and people who have shot a little bit.

One thing that we found is that, you know, you ask somebody is like, hey, you know, have you shot before? And they're like, oh, yeah. And then you start getting a little into details. You're like, okay, so when? When was that? And they're like, oh, about seven or eight years ago.

So basically what that translates to is you haven't. And it's, they shot it. Which is okay. Their dad shot gun, exactly. Exactly. It's not a big deal. And I think people, they, sometimes they feel like they need,

the answer needs to be yes. They've shot before. And in which case, we're not looking for the yes. We're just looking for just the honest answer. And we're hoping that the answer is no. No. Like I haven't really shot.

And that thing too, like we're really honest with someone. Someone comes to us and says, hey, I want to do your course. And the first thing I think is, okay, how much time can you commit to shooting a month? Oh, you know, I'll probably shoot once every single.

six months to spy shotgun. Yeah, you know, you know, you know, you know, because it's, because the reality, you know as well as anyone,

it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a deteriorating skill if you don't keep it up, right? So, it's one thing's we do is,

is we, try to tell people, look, if you're not going to shoot, I mean, I just made a gun the other day, it's a judge with a, I've got an optic on a judge, and I just say to people like,

revolver, by the way, for those of you. Yeah, it's a, it's a revolver that shoots, a 45 long, or a 14-10 shotgun. But if you want to leave your wife with something that's not a shotgun

where they've got to learn, it's super simple. They just pull it out, get behind the bed, pointed at the door, someone comes through the door, just keep pulling the trigger till it stops going bang. So it goes click. Click, you know?

And then you're going to hit something. Jesus, man. You said it. Yes. You said it, man. Nobody fuck without Jesus. Perfect. I pull the trigger till it goes click.

You guys ready to get the fuck out of here? Yeah, totally. Right on. Cocktail out.