Good News York by Growth Mode Content - GNY 25 Feat. Candice Jarrett Author & Co-Founder of XKOVA

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Interview with Candace Jar: Revolutionizing Payments with Blockchain | Good News York In this episode of Good News York, hosts Mike Brindisi and Matt Maer kick off the week with exciting stories and news. Mike shares his experience at a recent Metallica concert before diving into an engaging interview with Candace Jar, co-founder of Ex Cova. Candace introduces her tech startup that is simplifying blockchain payments and discusses the transformative potential of this technology. The conversation also touches on her background, the company's public beta release, and how Ex Cova aims to make cryptocurrency as user-friendly as Venmo or PayPal. The episode wraps up with news highlights, including Syracuse restaurants making it to the top 10 burger list and local heroes saving lives. 00:00 Introduction and Metallica Concert Recap 00:49 Introducing Candace and Ex Cova 02:35 The Vision Behind Ex Cova 04:02 Simplifying Blockchain for Everyone 05:09 Public Beta and Future Plans 22:53 Candace's Multifaceted Life 27:22 Candace's Farewell and Show Transition 27:32 Welcome Back to Good News York 28:22 Metallica Concert Experience 33:06 Burger Supremacy in Syracuse 37:44 Red Robin's Promotion Fiasco 39:24 Paramedics Save a Life at Daniella's 42:44 Show Wrap-Up and Future Ideas

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your sign. Start free at RSS.com. You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com

Hey guys, welcome to Good News York. It's Monday. We're awake. I don't know if Mike's awake. I'm not. I went to the Metallica concert. Oh. I'm wearing the shirt.

He's wearing the shirt. So it's official. Yeah. So you know I went. You had to prove it. Yeah, but this is my first time going to see Metallica in my 40s. And we'll talk about it. It was vastly different.

Old man, Metallica? Yeah. But I mean, I was the old man, too. Yeah. It wasn't just them. No, I understand. So I don't drink anymore, but I think I'm hung over. Like, I literally feel, I told my wife, I'm like, I think, I feel like, the last time I felt like this was when I was hung over.

And that was two nights ago, so I'm still reeling. Listen. But I'm excited. You know, you get old and these things happen. But enough about that. We have an incredible guest waiting on the line. we don't want to make her wait any longer. She's being incredibly courteous for joining us.

Danny, if you want to pop her up there. Hey, oh, there she is. Welcome to my very, I don't want to say old friend, because that doesn't sound right. But my very long-time friend, Candice, Candice, you've got, I'd love you to just kind of introduce yourself. And we're going to talk a little bit about this really cool new thing that you've got going on. I genuinely don't know anything about it. which is why I wanted to have you on. And please, tell us who you are, what you do.

Okay. My name is Candace Jared. I'm the co-founder of Excova, which is a tech startup that uses blockchain to completely reimagine the payment system. Now, what that means for, like, regular people is that we're going to make frictionless, very easy payments that have extremely low fees that are super fast and secure that you can do cross-border. I mean, it not only... It has benefits for a whole spectrum of people, but you can think, you know, small business owners, I don't know if you guys know about like Pay Pinal Stripes fees are like ridiculously high. Like upwards of 3% nearly you lose right off the top of all revenue coming in.

So our product not only fixes that, but also fixes instability for places in the world that are hit by, you know, economic uncertainty, rampant inflation, stuff like that. So I don't want to get too boring with it. You know. No, it's all right. We're passionate about it because we really are on multiple levels changing the world. So that's our goal. That's awesome. And I want to learn a little bit more about the details.

But before that, I'd love to hear just, how did you come to this? How did you get into this sort of venture? It's been a winding road. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess how we arrived. All right. I don't know if I want to start back at the cradle.

Right. Black we. And don't worry. We can edit this if you need a moment. Don't. No, no, it's okay. I guess I'll start here. So we had originally created a different,

invention, which is like a decentralized wireless to allow blockchain transactions to happen without the internet. Oh, wow. Which is huge because that could really help like last mile places that have problems getting access to the internet. Absolutely. And with very inexpensive infrastructure. So so we invented this thing. And then as we were talking about the logistics of creating blockchain transactions, we dove deeper into that and thought, well, we need an app to do this.

So we created like a super app. See, here's the problem. My co-founder, who's my husband, we're a husband and wife team making this. We really believe that blockchain is too complicated from normal people. I mean, we've both been in the world for many years,

but it's very hard. to even onboard somebody who has metamask, who is in the space. It's difficult to onboard them from one chain to another, let alone somebody who's never touched it at all. It's intimidating. It's complicated. It's easy for people to get scammed. I've even seen people who are really, like, good at crypto get scammed.

Absolutely. So we decided that what we were going to do is create this product that is completely abstracted and what we mean by abstracted is that it looks like Venmo or PayPal. Like you don't even see the cryptocurrency in it. It just runs on blockchain underneath. So this is solving a big problem. People who want to get the benefits of blockchain like without the complicated learning curve. Sure. So this is what we set out to solve and we really did it. So we've got our public beta up, which you released like maybe about two weeks ago. Very exciting. So it's up. I can say where it is.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. It's beta. dot Excova.com. So B-E-T-A.

dot X-K-O-V-A. dot com. Anybody can go and try it out. So basically what you do is you can send cryptocurrency with an email address. Right now, it's running on a stable coin. So stable coins are cryptocurrencies that are pegged to a fiat currency like the U.S. dollar, euro. And when I talked earlier about,

solving the idea of economic instability in places hit by rampant inflation, this is how they would do it. They would choose to, if someone was hit by war or like a crumbling government or even just, you know, for other factors, their currency was very quickly devalued. they could choose to transact in a more stable currency, like the dollar or the euro. So we're talking like in, you know, South America, you know, Southeast Asia, Africa, these places. So that will give them, you know, freedom, really, and stability. So the app that we have up now transacts on a stable with a stable coin called USDC, which is pegged to the US dollar. But Excova is not just an app, it's infrastructure.

So there is another instance of Excova being developed right now on this thing called Bitcoin L1, which would allow people to send and receive Bitcoin with just an email address. So you go to the app, you log in with your email, and then you can, right now with TestNet, you just hop up from a faucet, but you'll be able to connect your bank account and your cards and stuff in the future. just hop up and then send cryptocurrency anywhere in the world instantly. Wow. Yeah.

There's got to be like massive competition for this, right? There's two big competitors. But we're better than them. Yeah? Yes. And the reason why we're better than them is that nobody right now anyway has the commitment to abstraction that we do. See, they have the infrastructure, like, for the consumer side.

Like, for example, one of the things our app does is if you have, like, an e-commerce, just say Shopify or WooCommerce, you can use a plugin to just in a couple clicks, connect Excova. So when someone's, like, checking out on your website with a hat or a t-shirt or whatever they're going to buy, but instead of seeing, like, they'll put in their payment details. And instead of seeing pay with PayPal or pay with Stripe,

they see pay with Excova. Sure. Or pay with whatever it is, like the instance of Excova. And so that then saves the, you know, e-commerce store upwards of 3% on our payment processing base. So, yeah, it's a pretty crazy. So other companies do that as well as the P2P payments like we were talking about, but none of them do what we do,

which is the extraction part of it, which is to make it look like PayPal or VimeO and just hide the blockchain engine. So it's pretty exciting what we're doing. That's awesome. It sounds like you've taken something that is incredibly complicated, and I'm a full-time nerd,

and even I would not try to speak expertly on these topics at all. So exactly what you're saying to me is, if I've got an app as simple as all those other payment apps that everybody's come to love, that I can just send this guy some money and make him grab us some coffee like that.

Yes. That's awesome. I'm wearing, Candace, I'm wearing headphones not because I want to hear. It's because I'm keeping the smoke from pouring out of my ear. Because I represent the population that has no idea of what's going on

with cryptocurrency. So I almost sat out this interview for that reason. I was like, there is nothing I can compare. Now you're the target audience. But I am the target audience. And for that, I don't, I don't want to take us a step back in this interview. But just,

just for the people out there like me, is there a brief summary that you can give on what, what exactly is crypto and blockchain and just, again, I'm sorry. I'm dumbing us down here, but do you mind doing that for, mostly for me?

I love to you. This is something that actually I'm very passionate about is, I do believe that this technology is going to change the world, but I also believe that it's extremely complicated for people, and so that there needs to be a bridge over this gap. You can't expect everybody to become like a, you know, a tech narrative, I guess. Absolutely. Lifetime commitment. Lifetime from that. So I believe. So when we're talking about blockchain, we're talking and in cryptocurrency,

and see we can think about blockchain as the underlying technology. Okay. Now, when you visit a website, do you care where it's hosted? Not at all. If the website is using AWS. Matt does because he's a nerd, but I don't. I do not. I wouldn't even know to find that.

I mean that lovingly. Most people don't. We just want the website, yeah. Yeah, you're just visiting a website. You don't care what technology the website is built with. Now, when we talk about blockchain, I believe that. that that is the future, that you're going to be using all kinds of products that use blockchain and you won't even know it. It is just going to make things fast, cheap, secure. It's like

rebuilding the internet and technology as we have now. And it's not just industries like payments. Like when we think cryptocurrency, we think currency. But it's, you're listening to a podcast right now. driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With RSS.com, starting your own is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and hundreds more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads like this. Even with just 10 listeners a month.

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Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at RSS.com. It's so much more than that.

It's like anything that would be able to have a database would be able to shift. Now, I mean, I don't personally believe that every industry is going to change to it. But a lot will. You know, the California DMV is using blockchain now. Basically, blockchain is what we call an immutable ledger. Like you can't mess with it. It is super secure. It is transparent.

So if we think of like, you know, I guess a good example would be like a like a government. If you want to be able to track government spending, well, then we can have this immutable public ledger that you can literally see where all these payments are going. So it gets a little bit more complicated in that because there are technologies that allow you to have. encrypted transactions for privacy. So you balance that depending on the application. Right. So, but I guess we can just say for normal people, blockchain is technology.

You may use it without even knowing that you're using it, but just trust that it is going to change the world. Okay. I trust your word. So I think an interesting thing is that a lot of people, have you guys dabbled with AI at all? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Very much. This is something I think is, extremely interesting. So AI has reached, you know, the masses a lot more quickly than than blockchain and cryptocurrency has. I mean, not that AI hasn't been around for a long time. It's been, you know, it's been many, many decades in the making. But, but to see how it's being supercharged now to be used in social media, I mean, in all kinds of applications from law to just making a funny meme, you know. Yeah. It's wild the applications of it.

So we've seen a brand new technology being adopted by people very rapidly. And why is that? Because it's so easy to use. It's easy to just type in a little thing and click. And all of a sudden you get this cute picture of a lion riding a unicorn in outer space. Like it could be anything. And it's also fun. So I do believe that blockchain needs to get there.

It needs to get to a point where it's easy and fun for people to use. That's another thing. So in our app that we have, it's not just the payments. Of course, payments are extremely important. That's a problem that we think is important to solve worldwide. For sure. But also inside of Excova, we have an app store so that people can build apps on top of our network. And those things will be like games, bill pay, trading, you know, whatever you

like to do with it. So there's a lot of blockchain games now that you don't even know are using blockchain which is really wild. So like when you win something in the game, like you win a skin or you win a weapon or whatever you win, it's actually like an NFT, which is a type of token when we talk about cryptocurrency. Sure. I get two in the weeds.

No, no, it's great. No, we love this. It is great. Yeah. I'm learning. I've learned long ago that anytime you can get in and talk about crypto, it actually becomes some of the best content you can get because there's so many people like us that just don't understand

and want to absorb as much as possible. So we very much appreciate that. Yeah, and I'm someone that prides myself on, I've always been good at saving and investing money and kind of staying on top of that stuff. And this is kind of the one category where I'm really lack. and I feel like I'm missing out on some possible investments because I don't understand it completely. So I don't really think there is the weeds here. I think it's really relevant.

So Candice, let me ask you a little bit, kind of some business style questions. What's your goal with this? Is it to, are you going to need to raise a bunch of capital? Is this something that you can bootstrap or eventually sell? Like, what's your goal here? So right now we are applying for grants. So we've gotten, so we were part of an incubator. I don't know.

That's great. So the incubator that we were in is called Codebase. It's specifically for blockchain startups. It's like the Y combinator of blockchain. That's awesome. Yeah. So we were in that last year and we graduated in December. And then the company, so now that we're graduates of the, we have, you know, people that are helping us on these next stages.

So we're just heads down building. applying for grants right now, but after that we will need to apply for funding. We'll definitely need funding, you know, for this type of product. But, however, we've been able to get really far with just our internal resources. Like, we have to be made it up for people to use. Yeah. The product is built. So it's just next steps into getting it out to the masses, really. That's incredible. What is the best way that people can participate? Is it? Is it just to go to the beta and sign up? Yeah.

What should we tell folks to do? Yeah. Yeah. So if they go to the beta, all you need to do is just put your email address in. Awesome. And you log in and then you can just explore the app. You can just go and see how you would top up. And then if you want to send, you know, test funds to a friend, you just click send.

And then you put your friend's email address in and it will, however much you want, like you send them a dollar. Sure. And then it will just send them. They'll get an email that says, hey, somebody wants to send you a dollar. Awesome. It's so easy. Like I know I'm talking all these like abstraction, blockchain, like all these complicated words. But the point is that we're making it so that you can send crypto with only an email address and you don't even need to know anything about blockchain at all.

So it's easy if you go to the beta. That's absolutely the right solution. Is it? It's so much. I don't, I don't even necessarily understand all these folks that really want people to get into these things. And they don't see that, which is just the most obvious. in any business. Make it as easy as possible

for people to do business with you. Absolutely. And again, because I'm a little behind the eight ball on this, is it fair to say that you guys are kind of the Venmo of cryptocurrency? Is that what it is? Because I don't know what it takes to,

I guess I assumed that crypto was easy to send anyway. I didn't realize that there was kind of a hole where it needs to be easier. Is that kind of what's going on? Yeah. I would say Venmo. PayPal because, you know, yeah, of, of cryptocurrency. Like, if you can use PayPal, you can use Xcola.

I mean, there's, if you can use Venmo, you can use Excova. It's, it's that easy. It's just kind of, kind of just like a normal app. So it's just to give you some, I always assumed it was the same thing, right? It would be very easy to do these things. And to some degree, if you have all the pieces set up, it can be pretty easy. Right. But even just setting those up and I've messed with that, you know, you got to have wallets.

you got to move things around. You got to be connected to the right networks and have these different pieces. And then the other side's got to have all the same things for you to properly interact with them. Or you're doing something where you got these crazy fees and you lose half of your money in the transaction that, you know, your buddy doesn't even get. It's a crazy. And if you click the wrong thing, suddenly you fucked yourself. Yeah. You know, like exactly like she's saying.

And, you know, it's almost surprising to me. And I mean this respectfully, because it's an amazing idea. How has this not been, because crypto's been out for a bit now. No, no point intended. I'm surprised that there's a hole in the market for this, which is amazing for you. And how did you, did you have to do a lot of research for that ahead of time just to make sure? Well, yes. And yes and no.

So as far as the competitors are concerned, our competitors have only been around for like two to three years. Right. Which is baby for a company. It's an open space. Yeah. And one of our competitors, Heliopay, has only been around for two, three years. And they just sold in January for $175 million.

Wow. Yeah. So that's, that's, you know, and they are. You're up next. Because they, you know, as I said, don't have the commitment to abstraction that we do. Sure. As far as the abstraction is concerned, there are other, like there's abstract change. and there are people who are recognizing this now at the same time as we are,

that abstraction needs to be, when I say abstraction, I mean, making it easy for everybody. Yeah. Yeah, so like hiding the blockchain underneath it. So, I mean, I understand people who are, because I'm the same, people who believe blockchain will change the world and want people to learn about it. And I've also spent time trying to help people understand how to use cryptocurrency in the traditional way, like with MetaMask. What Matthew said is absolutely correct that, you know, it is complicated. It's easy to accidentally lose funds.

I mean, there's so many scammers trying to steal funds, like asking people for their seed phrase, which is a phrase that protects your... It's your password basically. Yeah. And even just installing it in a web browser is difficult for a lot of people. So we made it as easy as humanly possible. Just put your email address in and that's all you need to do. There's nothing to install. There's nothing to download.

There's no learning curve. But I do understand the ethos of wanting people to learn the right way, not the right way, the regular way. you know, because, like, you know, you want people to get excited about this technology, but that's just unrealistic to expect everybody to uproot their lives for this thing. I think cryptocurrency should serve people, like make people's lives better and not make people frustrated about learning this new thing. I mean, I know there are some things that I don't want to learn. Like, for instance, I was at my friend's house and she had kids and they were playing this game and they wanted me to play it.

And I didn't even know how to plug in the console. I'm just like, here, child, here, make this work. And then I will use it. So, yeah, I mean, but so you don't want to always learn new technology. And especially cryptocurrency with the fact that you can lose a lot of money. You know, there's an added sense of stress there. using it. So we take that away. People only got so much time.

You know what I mean? You can't expect everybody to be on top of everything. So that's great. During Lowe's Pro Savings Days, the job works in your favor. My Lowe's Pro Rewards Members, buy more and save more of materials they rely on every day. Get up to 25% off select molding when you spend $1,000 or more and up to 25% off Pergo Evercraft Laminate, Florida.

Put Pro Savings Days to work for you. Members give more at Lowe's. Valid through 327. Selection varies by location while supplies last. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Visit the pro desk or Lose.com slash terms for more details. Subject to change. Candice, we're running short on time, but before we dip out of here, I got to just ask you,

aside from crypto, you're an author and a musician and all these other things. Do you have time for any of those activities while you're building this company, or is it nose to the grind here? Oh, I would say the, well, like, I haven't done music for a while. I'm kind of retired in quotes for that. But the books, yeah, I mean, I think that it's important when you're doing something as intense as this to have another outlet that allows you to kind of relax and put your brain in another direction. I really enjoy reading. Like, I read a lot for fun.

not blockchain books. Yeah. Read science fiction, fantasy, you know, I just, I enjoy losing myself in good fiction. And so I also enjoy writing. Don't have as much time for it as, you know, I would like, but I am working on the sequel to my first published novel. Amazing. Just take one minute. Tell us about that.

What is that book? What's about? And where can people get it? Oh, thank you. Yeah. So it's called Mortal Tether. It is on Amazon. It is available as a paperback, card cover, or e-book.

It is for ages 13 and up. So it is really for a teenage audience, but adults really do enjoy this book as well. Cool. It is kind of like Stranger Things meets the Hunger Games meets the Last of Us. Okay. Post-pocalyptic, dystopian. All the adults on the planet have been turned into monsters

and now kids inherit the world and they have to remake it and survive. I like that. I dig it. This is awesome. I dig that. It was fun to you. That's so cool. Check that out.

And I'm guessing that's actually the one right behind you, right? I realize as we're talking that you just mentioned that like, there you go. It's actually your book on the shelf. More brother. That's so cool. Wow. I love that. Fantastic.

I love that. Candice is a woman of many talent. Yes. And I'm really excited about about this that they've got going on. It's a pretty cool thing. One more time, the website, I know it's beta. Dot Excova.com. Oh, he's got it already.

I wrote it down. Am I right? And that X-C-O-V-A? X-K. Oh, no, X-K-O-V-A. Beta. X-K-O-V-A.com. Beta.

I got to ask, where did X-C-O-V-C-O-C-V-O come from? Oh, so, well, X-Well, X is like the Roman numeral 10. Sure. And COVA in Inuit means like strength and courage and determination. Love it. We are a small team that is very passionate. So we knew that if we're going to succeed, we need to be 10 times more determined and courageous than anybody else. That is fantastic.

And I think we are. I love that. See, I love that because that's like a real meaning behind that. Yeah. That's inspiring. Sometimes you ask people, they're like, well, my first dog was named Daisy. So when we created you, you know, and that's fine too. Yeah.

But this is got some stuff behind it, you know? No, I love it. It's a great, like a drive. You get to remember that there's a mission baked into your name. I do love that. That's pretty brilliant. It's not just a random, you know, startup word that you threw letters at a board. Yeah.

You know. I love those. Yeah. It's one of those things. Now, now I'm even more, like, I'm even more interested in checking it out based on that, on that backstory of the name alone. See? You know? I appreciate that.

that. She's also a marketing genius. You didn't realize that. She does it all. She does. She does. Candice, it's been incredible to talk with you in catch up and we shouldn't make it 30 years next time. Yeah. But I'm so excited and glad to see you. Anything that you have along the way, you've got different things that are happening. Milestones, new versions you release and whatever. Hit us up and we would love to have you on and talk about it anytime because it's a blast. Yeah. That would be amazing. I appreciate you guys so much. Thank you. Thank you for having me on to them. We appreciate you.

Candice Jarrett, Excova. Again, check it out, beta.xcova.com. Author, marketer. What would your title be? CEO of Excova? How do we... Co-founder. Co-founder of Excova.

Yeah. That's it. That's it. Candice, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. And guys, we'll be back with more Good News, York in just a minute. Hey, guys, welcome back to Good News, York. And, you know, we got thinking we started this show a while ago.

Yeah. The idea of being good news. And we're talking a lot of good news. And we've been doing a lot of interviews and we've been, you know, going crazy with that. But this is a news show. Yeah. Technically, we're a news show. So we got to talk about some news.

So we should probably do some news. And good news. So without further ado, we will eventually, Danny, you're going to have to make us like a news show jingle. You know, it's news time. You know, whatever. Don't don't ever cut that out. That's it right there. Cut it.

That's the song. It's news time. There's our sound bite. We haven't really prepared this, but, you know, fuck it. We'll do it live. Fuck it. We'll do it live. Mike, without further ado, tell me what is the good news, my friend.

Well, first of all, let's talk about what happened over the weekend right here in Syracuse. Yeah. It was a crazy weekend. Yeah, it was. Because not only is it WrestleMania weekend, not in Syracuse, but it's WrestleMania weekend. On top of that, Metallica came to the JMA Wireless Dome and set a record for attendance. The last time a band or artist had that many people at the JMA Wireless Dome was the Who back in forever ago.

Which actually surprised me because Billy Joel's played there. See, I would have assumed they had increased capacity since those years. You know, they might have with the renovation. I'm not sure. But amazing show. Then again, they can put for shows, they put people like right down in front, right? So it's not even just the stadium seats. Yeah, there's a crowd on the floor, I guess you would say.

I mean, it depends on the artist, but yeah, there's definitely. So they fit more than the bleachers. That is actually why, I think part of the reason they did set the record is because there was actually floor seating available. But concert, phenomenal. And I'm going to talk about. How are your seats? That's the thing. I had floor seats.

and I'm 40-something. So I was terrified. I'm like, I don't want to get smashed around. I'm an old dude. Like, I just want to sit there and enjoy the music, rock out. And here's something I didn't take into consideration. Everybody else is your age? Yes.

I had all this anxiety about going there. You know, the last time I saw, I've seen Metallica probably eight times. The last time being in 2003. So I assumed that I'm going to get there. Everyone's going to have their shirts off and sweating and screaming and banging on cars. That's what I used to do. And I thought, man, this is going to be tough for me because I'm older and I got kids, you know. And I looked around the Metallica starts.

I'm like, everyone's low energy. And I'm thinking, no, the burnouts are burnt out. Fucking old. The burnouts are burnout. We're all old and we all just want to watch. So it was a, there was a lot of emotions that came with it. Another thing I did notice, and I wanted to ask you about, remember in the 90s, at least it was, I think it started in the 90s. Remember that whole don't be that guy thing?

Don't wear the shirt of the band. You're wearing the shirt of the band you're going to see. Right. Don't be that guy. That's it. It's a line from PCU. Here's the thing. I didn't wear my shirt for that reason.

Sure. So I wore it today. There were a lot of people wearing Metallica shirts. And it was mostly with the younger generation, you know, that heard master of puppets on stranger things. And so I'm wondering. The kids that have been wearing the Metallica T-shirts and had their chops broken because they never actually heard Metallica.

Pretty much. They're going to earn their chops to. I guess when I'm asking, maybe it's a poll for our listeners, our viewers, is that a thing now? You do wear the shirt to the concert? Or is, are you not that guy? I've always followed the ICU rule. I don't know. Not me too.

But I get it, you know. And to be fair, when I saw the Grateful Dead a couple weeks ago, you know, everybody was wearing Grateful Dead outfits. But to be fair, most Grateful Dead fans only own a wardrobe of Grateful Dead outfits. So I don't know. It's true. Hey, oh. That's really a good example.

Here's the thing. And I'm going to recap this a little bit better on Thursday. We have a guest coming in, Daryl Harrington of Be Kind, also my former bass player of my band. And I went with him, so we have a lot of stories. But I turned into someone I hated this past weekend at the concert because I had floor seats. and then a buddy of ours You wanted to sit? Well, that

And a buddy of ours messages me. He saw that I was going to the show on Facebook. He's a tour manager for a lot of different bands. He's like, I got a guy that works for Live Nation.

I'm going to text him. I was like, dude, you don't have to do that. A few minutes later, we have a private Live Nation suite in a box. Wow. And we get up there and the lady's like,

yep, hot food comes out at 7. Dude, I ate a hot dog, chicken tenders, brisket sandwiches. They had free drinks. Nice. And so I thought, I'm going to watch the show up here.

This is more of my speed because, again, I thought I'm not getting down there in the mosh pit. Yeah. Well, there was no mosh pit. There were a couple of mosh pit. But by the time, you know, about three, four, five songs left, I go, I got to go down and experience the floor. So I went down to the floor. I double dipped. And that's why I hated who I've become.

I double dipped. I did the suite. And then I went down and I did the floor. All right. But it was great. It was great. So without further ado, let's get into some articles, some stories, some news stories I heard. This is kind of exciting.

Three Syracuse area restaurants have cracked the top 10 in the annual battle for burger supremacy, including a newcomer to the local restaurant seat. Now, here's the thing. Wait, hold on. This is a nationwide thing. This is the nationwide. In three places in Syracuse.com, okay? According to them.

A little biased, but I'll hear it. But here's the thing. I have trouble putting stock in some of these polls because, you know, who created them? The nationwide poll taken by people in Syracuse. Exactly. This is actually taken by the, where is it here? Oh, the New York Beef Council. So I feel like that's pretty reputable.

They would know. I mean, they're going to promote New York. If they're going to do like the best taco joints in the nation and they're like, and the Taco Council came up with it, would be like, okay, these guys kind of know what they're doing. Fair. So the finalists that came up, now there were burger makers in, you know, Rochester, Utica Corning, and Port Jervis, which didn't even know that was a part of New York. They have cracked the list.

The top 10 finalists selected were based on public votes, and they're in alphabetical order. Alan Angus in Syracuse gets... Hold on, hold on, hold on. Are they ranked? Is this like a... Not here. This is listed in alphabetical. Okay, so these are just...

In no particular order. In no particular order. Alphabetical, I guess. The Syracuse folk, we've got Get Smashed. We've got Alan Angus. And I'm not seeing the third on here. Where is the third one? Probably on the next page.

Probably on the next page, possibly. No, it's not. Well, they have Ben and Fresh, Ben's Fresh in Port Jervis, Brewer Union in Brewerton, Butcher's son and Corning. Brewerton is the other Syracuse. Okay, then there you go. Matt, they, I didn't realize they were doing outskirts, okay.

Madison Hotel and Ilian. Get the fuck out of it. No, I'm not kidding you. R&M and Corning. I didn't even know that place was still open. Roosters in Utica and the Tapit Bar and Grill in Rochester as well as Wendy's Diner in Cassville. Rooster is great.

Hold on. We back up for a second, though. The Madison Hotel in Illian is technically barely in. I mean, it's in the end of the Ilian gorge, it's borderline Cedarville. And no one listening to this show knows what the fuck I'm talking about, but only to explain what you're talking about. And I'm reading it. This is a place like in the middle of the nowhere.

It's an ancient old hotel and bar and the fact that they are rocking and rolling and being known for a good burger is awesome. It's not only awesome, but it kind of gives both parties in this situation more credibility because obviously if they're finding this hidden somebody's going out of their way someone's really looking yeah but then i but then that kind of contradicts what i was just going to go which is the best burger i've ever had in my entire life was at the ithika ale house as well as their wings if you want great wings and the best burger what makes the burger so good first of all everything's fresh uh all the ingredients are fresh they're thick they're juicy you saw the cow off front

You pulled up. It is just unbelievable. I don't know how to explain it. Okay. But the Ithaca ale house, best wings and best birds. They're not on the list. Do they plain broil it? They do not.

All right. Tell me if you remind. And we're going to get off this topic. But tell me if you remember this place. Okay. You remember Luz Dary Isle in Mohawk when we were kids, the ice cream place in Mohawk? Oh. On the main street.

Yeah. Yeah. The only fucking street in Mohawk. Yes. I absolutely remember. In the summer, that's where. You remember they're burgers. Did you ever eat the burgers? Never did. Only ice cream.

For as long as I live, that'll be the standard by which I gauge all burgers. You know what I miss? Have you ever had TP driving? TP driving is phenomenal. The Papa Mexican burger. And that's a different type of burger. It is. They had the, what do they call it? They call it the Mexican. The Papa Mexican hot.

And it was their own blend of onions in the ground beef. And incredible. The word on the street. My dad was the mayor in her a few years back. And even then, they had great chicken tenders, too. I don't know. Everything they had at that place was great. Even then, they were...

Shrimp basket. Even then, my father could not get the recipe for the tea. They have a hidden recipe. Fucking trades here. Nobody can find. It's great stuff. I'm getting the rap sign for Danny, but I had a couple other news stories. Basically, Red Robin.

Wrap it up. Red, right. Yes, kids. Wrap it up. Red Robin did a thing in other burger news. In other burger news where they were giving away a pass which cost 20 bucks. It allowed customers to get one free burger with a bottomless side every day in May in honor of National Burger Month. Okay.

Everyone went on and the entire website crashed. They melted it down. Yeah. That's one of those things where you have like a promotion that works too well. So, exactly. So people in Syracuse are boycotting Red Rockies. Robin. But Red Robin is choosing 12 of its royalty members to get free burgers for a year and you can enter to win by purchasing both a burger and a beverage while logged into your account between May 1st and May 31st.

So hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. To protest the fact that they couldn't buy the coupon, they're not going to go to the restaurant. That's correct. That's not a protest. I couldn't agree more. that is there's no room at the inn and clearly that ain't gonna hurt Red Robin

because they fucking sold out exactly it didn't help Red Robin never went on social media they'll teach them they never apologized I think that's why people are so the website crashed people spent over an hour

trying to get this thing and they kept getting error messages and finally they just were like we're boycotting they haven't answered and I'll end it on this because again we're getting the rap they're boycotting until the next promotion Yeah.

In June, they're back. So a couple that are both paramedics were dining at a place in Gettis called. Where is the name of the place? Danielis. Danielis. They were just on an... Great steakhouse. Why is this all about food?

Well, I didn't need it. Were you hungry this morning? Should I feed you breakfast before this show? This was my cry for help. I need breakfast. Are you hungry, buddy? I'm hungry. I'm very hangary.

I'm sorry. Let's get back to the life-saving. Yeah, I don't know why they all had to do it. And you know what's weird? They all had to do with burgers pretty much. Anyway. This case, somebody was choking on a burger. Yeah, so it turns out this couple.

You don't know that it was a burger he was choking on. We do not. We can't confirm that. Don't do you for that. But this couple was on their anniversary dinner. They're both paramedics. They heard someone yelling, you know, this woman's choking. They start doing CPR.

They clear the area. Call 911. Ended up, they couldn't. She passed out. And they ended up doing chest compressions. Very scary. come to find out they saved her life. It was an elderly woman. They saved her life.

And she was a regular there at the restaurant. And the restaurant owner has been really shaken up because she's a regular. Yeah. He said they confirmed they got a picture from her in the hospital. She's fully recovered and she's fine. So, I mean, I figured. She'll be back next Friday. Good news, York.

What's better news than people in Syracuse saving them? You know, just it's a friendly reminder. Everybody thinks, you know, choking. You talk to your kids. Don't take big bites, things like that. Yeah. Every person of every age can easily choke on something. Easily.

It's incredibly common. I, uh, sometime I'll have to read you my bucket list on the air because it's pretty goddamn hilarious. You want to choke on something? No, no, no, wrong. Opposite. On my bucket list, I want to save somebody from choke.

Oh. I just, I've always wanted to do that. Ever since the city, Mrs. Goutfire. Are you Red Cross certified? I was. Yeah, that expired. I think it expired.

Yeah. When I was in college, I had to. No, it's honestly, it's a great thing. Honestly, I think everybody should. It sounds like I'm kind of joking, but in all honesty, it is something that everybody should do. Years ago, I've worked at a couple places where they've offered CPR training and first-aid training. And even though I've had it before, any time you can take that, do so,

especially if your employer's willing to foot the bill for it. I couldn't agree more. The problem with me is all that training goes out the window when something. I'm like, I got it. I'm studying for the test. I nail it. Someone starts choking. I'm like, what do we do?

I don't know. You know, take their shirt off, cut it. Start doing chest compressions. Sir, you don't need to do chest compressions. They're breathing. I just, I freak out. So I, there's no amount of... I mean, that's something you should probably work on.

But kidding aside, again, preparation is what gets you over those things. That's right. You know, when you know what to do is ingrained in you enough, even that freak out instinct, you're going to jump to action. One of my favorite quotes from my 11th grade English teacher. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail, which is why I suck on this show. That's like a dad-isom, if I ever heard one. It's a dad-ism.

But anyway, that's... Is that the news? Is that all about today? That's, you know, that was a start, yeah. All right. It was all food-related, but it's a start. And we'll go over, you know, WrestleMania and, of course, the Metallica concert throughout the week here on Good News York. Awesome.

Yeah. Awesome. Thank you, Candace, Jared. I promise. Yes, thank you to our guest. Thank you to Danny. I don't think I've ever thanked Danny on the show. Have we ever, we've got to.

We got to, you know, here's something fed me and a little, uh, Danny. We'll do a little live, uh, working on the show here. Okay. Um, I think we got to organize some of our segments a little more. So yeah, yeah, like we do, we'll do the news. We'll get a nice little jingle. Okay. And we got a, I know we got the intro.

Yeah. Right. That we don't hear. I think we need an outro. Yeah. Or maybe even just like a close. closing, some sort of thing. Tagline or, you know, spay and neuter your pets or, you know, some kind of.

Well, if it's time to, let's do it. Because I've been just kind of following your lead, man. What do you think? What should we say at the end of this show? I think we should say, if you can't be good, be good at it. No. I don't know. I don't know.

I mean, I think it just kind of naturally happen. Don't sweat the petty stuff and I won't finish that. Don't fry bacon naked. Matt's piece out. Peace out. Peace out. That's what we should do. Don't fry bacon naked.

I mean, it hurts. We get, you know. But again, I think we just got to let it happen. Daily bit of it. What if we did this? Oh, I got a great idea. You got it. If you're listening to the podcast,

you tell us if this is a great or the stupidest idea I've ever had. We need to do a Jerry Springer-style final thought. Remember Jerry Springer's show? It's not bad. Did you ever stick around to the last minute of the Springer show? The reason I... Because that was the gold. A lot of people skipped over that part.

I always listened because I just loved the dynamic of going from people fighting with like live fish and hitting each other over the head to now Jerry's telling you something very serious. You've got the moral of the story. Yeah. You know? I love that man. It's great. By the way, did you see the documentary on that? No.

Oh, God. It's fantastic. I think it's on Netflix. It's absolutely phenomenal. Jerry was the band. I've got one before we go. My dad still watches the reruns of his show every day. I had an idea.

Danny's like, I want to go home. This could be, shut the fuck up. No, no, no. Hold on. This could be an amazing idea or horrible. What if we start proposing to the public? We'll facilitate it. People can come here and try to attempt to break a Guinness Book World Record.

We'll facilitate the filming of it. We'll get a hold of Guinness. And we'll start like once a month. I don't know. I mean, this is the most random thing you've had. ever come up with. I'm not even opposed to it, but we got to figure, you got to, we got to like pre-screen the, you know, there's a whole process we got to talk about.

But I thought about it over the weekend. Something that we could possibly do here. I was going to talk about it off the year and then I saw Danny said rap and I wanted to piss him off a little bit. I just started talking about it. This is great. This episode's going to be called Danny's Pissed. Danny's Pissed.

I love it. Mike's hungry. All right. This is good news, York. Happy Monday. Mike Brindisi. Matt Mazer. We'll see tomorrow.