Julian Dorey Podcast - #26 - Luke Cervino

Episode Date: December 16, 2020

Luke Cervino is an athlete/celebrity manager, marketer, and business consultant. Cervino, in partnership with one of his clients, (media personality and former NBA player, Kendrick Perkins), is also an avid investor in sports trending cards. You can find Luke on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/lukecervino/ ***TIMESTAMPS*** 5:40: New York City (NYC) talk; The Bunker Artwork; Post Malone; Luke’s life in South Florida 15:36: Luke gives early background on Kendrick Perkins; Oklahoma State in the Tony Allen days 19:54: How Luke built his relationship with Kendrick Perkins and what the extent of their relationship is; Perk’s fast transition from NBA player to media superstar; Perk’s current work on ESPN 27:26: Recounting the end of Perk’s career; remembering the late, great Kobe Bryant and how he took his player personality seamlessly into the business community; Kobe’s final extensive interview with Patrick Bet-David; Kobe & Michael Jordan’s relationship 37:41: Perkins network of close friends in the NBA; How Luke handles Perk’s endorsements and marketing; Perk’s LinkedIn game 46:36: Sports trading card market; Luke & Perk’s sports trading card investment partnership; How the market works on a day-to-day basis; PSA and their role in the marketplace; Card “breaks”; NBA talk 1:14:24: Long-term effect of Covid on sports in America and on the sports trading card market; Why NBA players are more marketable than NFL players 1:23:36: Luke’s own extensive network; how he built his Instagram following in the early days of Instagram; How Luke builds relationships with influencers and prominent individuals via social media; The Instagram algorithm; How Luke met and became close with Remy Boy Monty 1:38:22: Julian discusses Luke’s empathy; Luke recalls how his father taught him; Star-****ers; “Don’t burn any bridges--just build them”; The problem with seeing people as dollar-signs 1:55:31: Other businesses Luke’s been keeping his eyes on during the Pandemic; Florida vs. NY   2:00:15: How Luke keeps his mindset clear during the Pandemic with exercise and focus; Why it shouldn’t take a Pandemic for you to formulate a special new routine 2:07:51: Julian tells a story about how Luke “got out of the game at 13”; Wolf of Wall Street tidbit; “Cool Hand Luke”; reacting vs. responding; Luke discusses accepting that others see the world differently than you do 2:21:17: Luke tells a story about a bar fight back in the day 2:30:08: “The Place Beyond The Pines”; Julian & Luke discuss their favorite actors of all time; Leonardo DiCaprio; “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood”; Ben Affleck’s weird career path; “The Departed”;  2:51:16: Critics and Dave Chappelle; What music Luke’s been listening to during the Pandemic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's Truck Month at GMC. Tackle the open road with added confidence in a 2025 Sierra 1500 Pro Graphite at 0% financing for up to 72 months. With an available 5.3 liter V8 engine, 20 inch high-gloss black painted aluminum wheels, off-road suspension with available 2-inch factory installed lift kit, plus a towing capacity of up to 13,200 pounds, You'll be ready for anything this truck month. Truck month is on now. Ask your GMC dealer for details. Is this bulletproof?

It's not bulletproof. Please don't drop that. So if I shoot a bullet at this, this car is fucked. Yeah, but also you're fucked. By you or Perk? Both. but also you're fucked by you by you or perc both there's one i can take that i don't know no offense i don't know just don't tap me on the head what's cooking everybody i am joined in in the... Yeah, you can tell. I am amped.

Amped right now. I am joined in the bunker today, nonetheless, by the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Luke Cervino. Luke is an athlete and entertainer, marketer, manager, and business consultant. And over the past several years, one client that you will hear about a lot today, he can talk about a couple, I guess, but the one he's working with the closest

is none other than another legend, Mr. Kendrick Perkins. Perk was a 15 or 16-year NBA veteran and part of the 2003 draft class with none other than LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, and Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh. But I digress. And Perk in his second career has become an absolute media fire flame thrower. I mean, outside of Stephen A. Smith, there's nobody in basketball, including Chuck, who's talking it like Perk is talking it on ESPN and on the internet too. His Twitter's amazing. Go follow that. Anyway, this conversation with Luke was awesome. I was actually very surprised that he agreed to do it. Luke is a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. He is not somebody that likes a ton of attention, but

nonetheless, he came down and we shot the shit for like three, three and a half hours. And I actually went to end the podcast twice. Once at about 2.25, I was about to end it. And then Luke said something about my shirt that I was wearing in the podcast. And that turned into a whole conversation about movies and actors and stuff. And then I went to end it another 25 minutes later, and we went back to something we had covered extensively earlier on, which is none other than the sports trading card industry. You did hear that correctly.

It is, believe me, blew my mind too. But Luke and Mr. Perkins, over the past year or so, I think a little bit before COVID and then especially during COVID, have partnered in a, call it investment management firm of their own, investing in sports trading cards. And what's going on in this industry is insane. If you're familiar with StockX at all and what happens in the sneaker industry and how that's basically, like things are turning into stock markets on their own and collectors items are certainly a part of that so luke blew my mind on a few things with this no doubt about it and had some really funny conversations in there as well we got very personal on luke's mindset and

you know look this guy's 26 years old and he's running some serious circles and made some serious friends over the years and obviously has to trust the guys like Kendrick and Remy Boymonte and some others as well. I think he did mention a few other names, but I don't want to say anything myself right now. But, I mean, it's a pretty amazing thing, so getting him to open up on that a little bit, also surprising to see him do it on camera, which was cool.

But, yeah, we rambled on. We had a good time. This was an exciting reunion. We hadn't seen each other since before COVID when we were doing a lot of work together. So it was nice to bring the homie down. And yeah, good time. But let me just check my notes right here. See if I missed anything.

No, I didn't. Just the regular ending right now. So if you're not subscribed, please subscribe. If you're watching this, we would love for you to subscribe on YouTube. If you're not watching this and listening, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Google Podcasts, whichever one you're listening on. Or both, you know, subscribe on the video side, the listener side, whatever you want. And keep those reviews on Apple Podcasts coming. They are flames, people. You're doing a great job. You're doing a great job. Let's keep that going.

And any other things here? Oh, yeah. The thing I started last week. If you would please, pretty please, thank you in advance, share with one friend who you think would like the podcast this show this week. I said that really messed up, but we'll go with it. who you think would like the podcast this show this week i said that really messed up but we'll go with it if you would share the podcast with one friend there we go that would be amazing i i think if that's just something that the listeners do each week we're going to grow this thing pretty quick and hey everything that's happened so far is thanks to you guys so i i really appreciate it and keep And keep on keeping on. Wow, words are hard today.

And, oh, yeah, the clips are coming up pretty much every day on YouTube, so keep checking those out. I know that's kind of new, so a lot of you aren't familiar with that, but you know what to do. And other than that, you know what it is. I'm Julian Dory, and this is Trendify. Let's go. This is one of the great questions in our culture.

Where is the nuance? You're giving opinions and calling them facts. You feel me? Everyone understands this, but few seem to do it. If you don't like the status quo start asking questions weather of course but um don't get me wrong there's nothing like you know tri-state area no the action's not the same no you think that's going to change after COVID, though? I mean, so many people did leave New York City and they fled the metropolitan area and they moved to places like Florida.

Some people obviously moved to the suburbs in Jersey, New York and stuff, so they may stick around. But there's people that went west. I mean, what do you think? I mean, I think definitely people are leaving New York, like you said, and going to migrate down to either Florida, New Jersey, wherever it is. But New York's going to come back strong. New York is going to come back strong. It might take a little bit, but they're going to come back. New York is New York.

There's no place like New York City, the Mecca. Dude, I'm so happy to hear somebody say that. I'm right there with you. New York is like, I mean, it's not just America. New York City is the world. Yeah. And so when I, I've had a bunch of the guys from New York in the studio so far. I've got some more coming down.

And every time they're here, I'm like, dude, how is it? Like, what is it? What's the vibe like? Like, how is it? And a lot of people, you know, they have hope if they're still sticking it out and stay there the whole time but other people are like i don't know man like a lot of people moved streets are still empty and they really just fucked up the city i guess like politically or whatever but it's it is an absolute landmark of a place that the second i can get back up there i'm getting back up there all right

no i i agree with you i think it's going to take a little bit of time and right now it still is a ghost town to new york city of course but new york is new york bro there's no other place ever going to be like it and there's no place ever going to just how new york is and the way it operates and the people there it's going to come back i mean they had a bad decade in the 70s if you remember like it was it was kind of bad in new york like crime was all-time highs we'll have to check this after but yeah they literally made a show out of it too on hbo i remember what was called james the deuce that's it james franco was in it and you know they talked about how you could walk

one block off Times Square and it was like a war zone I mean so there there have been downtimes before and whenever we get into these things we're always like oh no it's over like the worst is now going to happen and I don't want to do that and look I mean we're still sitting here waiting on a pandemic to end waiting on getting this damn vaccine out and all that shit so people are they're they're still stuck in the malaise and the negativity is still going to be there and the political unrest and all that it doesn't help no it doesn't it doesn't but i got a question for you yeah can you explain like what the all these pictures mean to you in a way either individually or just as a whole right because these are these are awesome and and i love the way you put everything together thanks brother

thank you yeah i if you're not watching right now and you're listening luke's pointing to the studio walls here and some of the artwork because you got muhammad ali you got i mean kylie jenner up there you got mcgregor post malone rihanna you know so you got some classic people up there it's the artwork in this studio was my biggest like nerd out making it because you know you're going to be in the studio it's it's a vibe you're bringing in people you want people to feel like it's a little bit of a different spot and you want to have your inspiration around you so you know there's all kinds of people that i'm inspired by all kinds of people but to get it down to like all right who am i going to put on this wall you know where maybe i have room for 15 20 total pictures it's not

necessarily like i picked the top of the echelon of exactly who i love but i picked among the ones that i love like what made sense and so a theme that I really fuck with that I wanted to get across within here was the idea of like parallel realities so it just kind of came together where the black and white went over the color and I went with old school stuff over new school stuff so besides the one wall over here with the eyes from Great Gatsby, Dr. T.J. Ekelberg's eyes. That's awesome. Yeah, that was like its separate thing.

I always knew I wanted that. I found this great artist, Kelly Jean, who did a great rendering of it, and I kind of wanted that overlooking the studio. And then the other three walls, I wanted to put old school versus new, like I said. And so over here, we have one of the original

atom bomb tests that we did right after world war ii wow and then over that we have a re-rendering of the hand of god of adam and you know like that famous michelangelo picture except the one hand is replaced by a robot hand so it's kind of like the last frontier was we were facing potential nuclear war like are humans going to kill themselves and And now it's like, oh, are we facing potential machine war where humans create something that kills them? So that was like the deep existential wall. people who had some weird parallels in a lot of ways. So, you know, like when you see Kylie right there, I put Grace Kelly above her, and Kylie's is literally a screenshot I did from her Instagram, whereas Grace Kelly's on the cover of Vogue. And it's kind of like that's what used to be the it girl marketing.

Now it's the modern. Exactly. What is the, yeah. Exactly. I like that. Mom and Aunt Lee. You got some great people up there i mean thanks man post post malone that's i mean post is he's awesome dude he's he's just a cool guy like

you can't not smile when you look at him he's he's the man bro he's got swag he he's got the music i mean he's just he's living life isn't he doing that beer pong league now too he does do that beer is that live yeah i don't know if it's live but that is i seen a clip of it and it was just it's post malone when you when you say post malone what do you think of you obviously think of his music but you just think blood light and cigarettes exactly yeah you know it's just post malone he's the man he's the man he's got such he's got such a cool story in that you see this guy with all the tattoos on him and everything and he's way different than you in that way oh yeah but he's kind of just like everyone else like he's just he likes to fuck around have a good time and like he doesn't think he's good at anything even though he's this great artist yeah it's it's he's just

a guy i admire a lot and i think like you think maybe some of the things that he does, you're kind of like, oh, why would he do that? But you're not him. No. We all have these ideas of, oh, if I were that person, this is what I would do. Fuck that, dude. Yeah, no, exactly. You can't think like that. And those people that are like that, they don't think about the next person and what they're thinking of them.

So you can't do that. No, no. But how was the drive down here, by the way? I forgot to ask you. Oh, it was a little hike. the next person and what they're thinking of of them so you can't you can't do that no no but how was the drive down here by the way i forgot to ask you oh it was a little hike but i got i gotta ask you something yeah what what state are we in like i i took the drive i'm like i gotta go see julian gotta come check everything out but you know on the maps like i kind of lost where i was going in a way but i got here i made it have you ever seen the other map of new jersey no i never have the one would like where it breaks down the section is not by the name of the region but by what it actually is no uh so like i might get this one wrong but as an example monmouth county is like bankers hookers and something and so where you are right now where

i grew up around philly is we are right on the top edge right here about one minute into the top edge of what's called basically alabama basically basically alabama so i've never been to the real alabama state but i could kind of get what get what I'm at. This is what it would look like. So what did it take to get down here? Like two hours? Yeah, almost two hours, about an hour and 50 minutes. Yeah, two hours. Not too bad.

And you've been, I mean, we talked about Miami before the podcast and maybe when we started the podcast too, but you've been back in Jersey more of the time, right? This year, yes. Like during COVID, have you been pretty much jersey more of the time right this year yes like during there have you been pretty much here most of it yeah i came back uh a week before covid and the pandemic with the lockdown in new jersey happened um and i've been here so from march to we're in oh my god we're in december now um so i've been here from March to like November. And then I went down to Miami for the last three,

a month, I went down for a month. Got it. At your place? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in Delray Beach. And I mean, it's beautiful. I, you know, Atlantic Ave is seven minutes away and Atlantic Ave is-

Don't take me back there. Atlantic Ave down there is, you're familiar with Hoboken it's washington street but you know i hope no one gets offended but it's a nicer washington street it's cleaner and you know but it's the same type of vibe where you restaurants bars you know you got everything on that on that one strip yeah for people that haven't been to miami atlantic ave is where they shot some of the most famous scenes in scarface and it it's just like, you know, it's magical. Yeah, Atlantic Ave is great.

And even down in Miami, like South Beach, and, you know, I was down there. So it's where Miami and Atlantic Ave are. I mean, Delray Beach to Miami is about 50 minutes, 45 minutes north. But, I mean, and I go down to Fort Lauderdale, which is 30 minutes. Fort Lickerdale.

Get it right. Fort Lickerdale, which is 30 minutes. Fort Lickerdale. Get it right. Fort Lickerdale, which is about 30 minutes south. And then down in Miami where everything's happening. My dad, he went to University of Miami, which is in Coral Gabriels. And I love that area too. So one day I'll be back down there living full time. Yeah, well, you can kind of work. It doesn't really matter where you work. It's what you do. Yeah, you know, one day I'll be back down there living full time. So. Yeah, well, you can kind of work. It doesn't really matter where you work, what you do. Yeah, I know. What's been the latest

and greatest? I see your boy Perk blowing the fuck up. Tell me about that. Perk is, Kendrick Perk is, me and him been working together for about four or five years now. And, you know, I honestly got to say it's an honor. I've worked with plenty of athletes over the last couple of years. And, you know, me and Perk definitely have a special relationship, a bond. And, you know, when you're working with somebody, you know, it's always kind of like that back and forth. But, you know, me and Perk really, really formed that great friendship. You know, I went out to Houston two months ago, spent time with him and his family his kids i mean his kids are awesome his wife is great vanity and um it was it was it was awesome houston's a great city so never been down there it's it's nice it's nice yeah and he's like right outside the city yeah he's right out he's

about 40 minutes north of of houston of houston city so he's in tombow yeah yeah yeah that's like where jimmy butler's from yeah really yeah i remember that because he would have like on his on his twitter bio like tombow or something like that yeah yeah so no houston's great we went out to uh damn i forget the restaurant uh we went to but we were tony allen who who they played on the Celtics together. 42, baby. Yeah. TA, so we were out there with TA. Dude, he was a locked-up defender. Kobe said he was one of the toughest guys he went up against.

Yeah, I believe it. That's a great Kobe Bryant, RIP. Yeah, RIP for real. But, yeah, he was an underrated player. Oh, he was. He could play. That 08 Celtics team, too. You know what college he went to?

Oklahoma State. You're right. You're right. Yeah, I like that. Johnny Lucas at point. Yeah. I remember that. Who was the coach?

Eddie Sutton? Eddie Sutton? Yeah. I think so. Yeah, you're right. That was a good team. I know them because we were all fans of St. Joe's that year. Yeah.

A little Philly team with Jameer and Delonte in the backcourt, which, by the way, very cool what Mark Cuban did with Delonte. Very cool. But they went to the Elite Eight. They were the number one team in the country that year, and they lost, I think, on a buzzer beater from John Lucas. But I remember that team, and I was like, damn, Tony Allen could ball.

He could ball. And then he was kind of under the radar coming into the NBA. He was. And then he had a really good career. I had worked out with Jermaine Nelson a couple times. Really? Yeah, yeah. How'd that happen?

We were working out at a facility in Fairfield, New Jersey. Up there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sports University. And this was... Is that off Kulikav? I think that's exactly the street. That's it.

Dude, that's right next to Lombada's warehouse. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's hilarious. It's kind of on the opposite side, but right there. Yeah. Yeah. And we were working out with Johan, the trainer. Awesome guy.

And, you know, Jameer was there. So, you know, we trained together. And, you know, he's was there so you know we trained together and you know he's a great guy yeah yeah yeah they were they were heroes i was a big fan of him because he's he's a smaller guy you know he's a little yeah i wouldn't use the term little but but sorry i'm not i'm not supposed to say midget i'm not supposed to say no i'm only fucking with you but dude people look at you and they go all right what this is a 26 year old guy from north jersey how are you running in circles like that like when when did you meet perk you said a few years ago i met him well my brother

was chas was talking to kevin garn. We were doing some work with him. And then KG had introduced us to, you know, a bunch of his friends, Chauncey Billups, Rayjean Rondo, Paul Pierce, and then, you know, Kendrick. And, you know, right from then, you know, me and Kendrick just hit it off. And it was kind of like a snowball effect. So what I do with him is handle his social media accounts, bring in endorsement opportunities and business opportunities, investments, whatever it is. So we really have a great thing going on. How'd you build that kind of trust though? And I ask that just because we all know the stereotypes and frankly, they're real. And that is these guys, these athletes, these entertainers, they have so many people coming up to them all the time in their face.

Oh, man, I got this opportunity for you. I got that opportunity. I'll be your guy, whatever. I can't even imagine trying to balance all that as them. But you, this young kid from New Jersey, meets him and suddenly is like, you know what? All right, you're my guy. I mean, that's a great question. And I think just when I was growing up, I always just felt

like I just had to be myself. And, you know, whether it was around friends or whether it was around a celebrity or somebody I wanted to work with or, you know, whoever it was, I just always felt like being myself, like whether somebody likes me or not, I'm happy with myself. So I just always felt like being myself, like whether somebody likes me or not, I'm happy with myself. So I just felt as if like, hey, listen, I'm going to bust my ass and I'm going to work hard. And but also, like I said, I've worked with so many guys that, you know, you want that same thing in return. You know, you don't want to feel as if you're working your ass off for somebody. And then, you know, that other person doesn't feel, you know, like like the loyalty or the respect that they're giving you. So, you know, with me and or the respect that they're giving you.

So, you know, with me and Perk, it was literally right off the bat. And, you know, I just kept it real and, you know, always has, and that's how he is. You know, he's one of the honest and realest guys that I've met and worked with. He's having a moment too, dude. Oh, yeah. You know, right after he retired, he, you know, he had took about, you know, maybe two or three months and just kind of cleared his head. You know, after playing basketball for, damn, you know, 20, 30 years, 25, 30 years, he went from high school to the NBA. And it's it's tough, you know, when you when you're giving up that sport that you love at a 34-year-old, 35-year-old age, you're thinking about your next move. But he took those two to three months off,

and he just dove right into the media. He was on ESPN, the get-up, first take, and... What was the other one? The other one is the jump. That's it, the jump. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he was on those three, and now he's going into his third year. And the first year, I think last year he was booked for maybe 70, 80 episodes,

and he blew that right out the water. I think he was on 105. Wow. Yeah. They love him. He hustled into it. And he's— Oh, he works extremely hard.

When I was out there in Houston, we're going out to dinner. We're coming back. We're smoking cigars, Lucia cigars, by the way. Got the little boy in the back, too. Yeah, yeah. We're smoking Lucia cigars. And then at 12, 1 o'clock at night, he's waking up at 3, 4 in the morning, putting his suit on and getting on the mic with ESPN.

Now, is he a top half suit guy or is he does he go the whole way because you know he's on camera like everyone's remote right now and all these guys you know they're wearing the suit and they got like boxers underneath there yeah they don't get caught like what do you got underneath i got shorts man we can see it from this camera over here okay Oh, okay. No fucking around here. Although I don't wear shoes. I've never worn shoes in this studio once. But is he a full suit guy?

I don't think he is. Sometimes I think he is. I think he might be lying. I don't know. I can't tell on Perk. You know, that's my man. But yeah, dude, he... Probably the best accomplishment that he's had is he's entering TV during the worst fucking time to enter it, like over the past five years.

And he has in some ways while operating underneath the FCC standards of what he's allowed to say and what he's not, he has found a way to morph what he does on TV with what goes online and it's seamless with the other content that's online only. So when he gives his takes, even when I massively disagree with him on something, it is must-see TV every time. And it ends up two, three-minute clips on Instagram. If he wants to get in a fight with Kevin Durant on Twitter, it happens.

So he's got such a good feel for it. No, he does. And that's the thing, too. Just how I was saying, you asked me a question on how do I build relationships with people. Perk is who he is on the camera, off the camera. He's going to tell you like it is. He's going to say his opinion, but he's going to have some swagger and a little taste to it. So Perk always throws a twist in there. He's going to say his opinion, but he's going to have some swagger and a little taste to it. You know what I mean?

So Perk always throws a twist in there. He always got some jokes, and he even came up with his own punchline, Carry On. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw that. You literally got an Instagram account called Carry On. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got the Instagram account, Carry On. That's hilarious. Everybody's saying it.

People are texting me. They're saying a statement. Hey, I'll see you tonight at 10 o'clock. Carry On. It's like, hey, we're still on for tomorrow meeting carry on like it's just lebron use it lebron did yeah yeah yeah so it's uh no it's awesome it's awesome perk is perks one of a kind and uh you know our success is our success together is definitely just in the beginning but we got a lot of work to do and And, you know, he works extremely hard. Like I said, he's a great man.

He's a great dude. But you also started slow, like in the sense that you were just for a long time there before you becoming his manager and doing all the business stuff. You were literally just doing his social. Oh, yeah. I was doing social and bringing endorsement deals. Yeah. Okay. So you were doing some deals early.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wow. So he gave you that trust right away. Oh, yeah were yeah no we we i don't know how in a way we built this kind of relationship but you know we talk almost every day uh whether it's text or phone call and um you know but it really exploded because in his last two years or last year he was he was on that bench kind of coaching uh player role and then after that that's when he jumped right into the media and things kind of exploded you know back in in 2008 when he won the championship uh you know we didn't know each

other yeah but then when he uh you know went to okc then he was with the pelicans then he went to OKC, then he was with the Pelicans, then he went to the Cavs, then that's where we met. And then from there, him jumping into the media, it really exploded. He took total advantage of that, and, bro, he owns it. He loves it. He loves doing the media stuff. Analytics-wise, you're learning more about the game, and he covered the free agency, he covered the draft. Preseason starts in a couple days from now and the season starts you know 22nd of december

so i mean he bro he he loves it and he really does yeah it's almost like his last cut because he had a long career because he came right out of high school he's a big guy too oh yeah like he's not just big like he's big you know that's a man. That's a lot of body to carry around playing 82 games a year for a long time. But you could tell his last maybe season and a half, it wasn't quite there anymore. He wasn't... Injuries. Yeah, exactly.

And the thing about him that I loved is I guess he did his last season with LeBron in Cleveland. And the final start versus the warriors and who's getting in the fight with the warriors it's fucking perk on the bench like i'm ready to throw hands dude like don't fuck around he's so like and don't forget about the drake one too what was the drake one oh you didn't see that one no uh he was he was going back and forth with drake they were arguing about something and uh over the raptors yeah yeah classic and then i think that no chill i think that's when lebron went and hit the the buzzer beater in game seven oh yeah

yeah that's like 2018 yeah yeah oh my god so but like i pointed out because we talk about it with some other things too but especially with athletes athletes. When their career ends, very often, number one, they're the last one to know. You're a great player in the NBA or NFL or whatever. You're that guy, whoever that is. And then one day, you very clearly lose a step and you don't realize it because you're that guy. You're so focused. this is your world and then at some point it just kind of the rugs you know the rug gets pulled out from under you and now it's like oh shit let's say i had a 10-year career in the nba and before that i was in high school or college it's like for the last 15 20 years of my life i've had one job to do very very hard i gave I gave my body to it. And I've never had to worry about doing anything for myself. Like everything's scheduled. Like we're playing 82 games in an NBA season. You're playing, you're going into playoffs.

Like there's no time for anything. People, your team organization tells you where to be. And like, you're there. And now suddenly you got all this time and you're also young. It's the only, I don't want to say the only one, but it's one of the few industries where it's like, when you're in your human prime, you're also young it's the only i don't want to say the only one but it's one of the few industries where it's like when you're in your human prime you're retired so you have all this time in front of you and all these things and suddenly you have all these interests and a lot

of guys struggle with oh will i ever be able to feel anything like i felt when i was playing the game and then they can't deal with it and what I like about him is that maybe maybe like he hung on a little too long at the end but to your point I mean what do you do take off two months and he's training that whole time and then he just jumps right into it and gets after it yeah well the first thing that I think about when when you bring that something like that up is Kobe Bryant because when Kobe Kobe Bryant went into being a writer and publishing a book, you know, people asked him, like, how did you do this transition? You know, how did you kind of, you know, put this in and have this passion for it? And he said,

I've always had a passion for writing. I've always had a passion for telling a story, you know, so it's, you know, for whether it's a celebrity or or an athlete or you know whoever it is like and your career is kind of over unless you're hitting that you know older older stage but you know you have to find something that you're passionate about and and perk really found it and he he loves it i mean he loves working he loves talking about basketball he's also the best at it all right thank you bro he's's awesome. He really is. He's awesome. People love him and ratings are up, you know, and it's great.

It's great to see him on TV. You know, he really kills it. He does. Yeah, Kobe was really a model for that, though. Yeah. I'm glad you point that out. Think about it. He won that Grammy, didn't he?

No, not a Grammy. He won an Oscar. He won an Oscar for his book, for his children book. Yeah, and he set up a venture a Grammy. He won an Oscar. He won an Oscar for his book, for his children book. Yeah. And he set up a venture capital fund, I believe it was. We'll get the name of that after, put it in the show notes. But he stayed so active with it. Oh, yeah. Like, I think about it all the time because you were, Kobe's your favorite of all time, right?

Definitely. And that's like legit. This isn't like after he's dead. Like, Luke was always talking about Kobe. And you were the one who turned me on to the patrick bet david sit down he did like last august that's one of my favorites unbelievable that that was like how detailed this guy is i mean how detailed you know kobe was and it just i i was heartbroken when it happened um But to see this guy work so hard,

and for people to kind of say, oh, Kobe, X, Y, and Z was the best player, but this guy's the best skill player. But Kobe worked the hardest. In my opinion, you have Michael Jordan, who's the best player ever. But to me, right next to him is Kobe Bryant. And Michael Jordan is is and now we really

know because of the last dance but a lot of people maybe didn't know because there wasn't social media when he was around but michael jordan has one of the bigger egos of all time all right it's obviously he's an icon he's the greatest player to ever play the game don't at me but he i remember there was a quote maybe i don't know this could have been like 10 years ago something like that like Kobe was a 5 time champion when this quote came out

and they were asking Michael because he doesn't do much media at all like the best he'll do is like you get to write something down like as a reporter

you don't get to video him and they were asking him you know what he thinks of some of the players and he goes yeah you know I think Kobe's one of the top 10 shooting guards of all time

yeah yeah and like you're like okay come on but he was you saw it like what he thinks of some of the players. And he goes, yeah, you know, I think Kobe's one of the top 10 shooting guards of all time. Yeah, yeah. And you're like, okay. Come on. But you saw it. Like, that's just Michael talking and whatever. But when you watched that memorial service in LA and you see Jordan talk about that, Michael Jordan does not feel that way

about many people in this world. No. I mean, if people haven't seen that speech he gave is all of 10 15 minutes it wasn't long but we've seen him cry yeah you felt it it's he had such a respect for how like it was almost like Kobe was like a net at the beginning like all right yeah this kid wants to be me like relax but then he just kept going his whole career and like a winner real recognizes real yeah it's great and michael did recognize that too at any point in time he did and it was just a matter of like all right you know he as much as he wants to be me he's gonna do everything in his power to be better than me yeah and and you know

that that speech that michael Michael Jordan gave at his memorial, I mean, it was great. Yeah, and to go back to the Patrick Pet David one you showed me, I guess that was like an hour and a half long or two hours or something. Yeah, I think an hour and a half. It was like four or five months before he passed, and you raised the point, like, he took you straight into his mind state. He did.

There's one part in there where he's like, you know, at I think it was 11 or 12 years old where he didn't score a point the whole season. And when he got older, I think 14, 15, he became a lot better. But then he realized at 15, 16 that nobody that he was playing against or nobody, the kids that age were using their left hand as the way that they, the kids that age were using their left hand as the way that they should be at that age. So he said, okay, I have a good jump shot.

My game is good, but my weakest point is my left hand. So for a whole year, he worked on his left hand, his left hand dribbling, with layups, whatever it was. And he said, by two or three years from now, while these other kids are just working on their jump shots or just working on this, I'm working on the weakest points in my game so that by 18, 19, yes, it helps when you're, you know, you're growing and you're going to be taller, you're more athletic. But my weakest points helped me become even better than everybody else. You know, like I said, his attention to detail was just, it was crazy. It was crazy. And that's, and look, that's what served him well post-career because he just took it and moved it to the next thing.

And he had it, I'll forget the name of the companies, but there's like one company he invested in, maybe it was Body Armor, for like $2. Yeah. Like, I mean, he invested a lot of money, but they were worth like $2 when he did. And now they're, I think, going public. Like, he, everything he touched turned to gold because that that was his approach he's like he didn't know how to turn off a switch like he didn't know how to not be that guy and he wanted to he wanted to conquer the impossible he did like he was he was one of he was one of those people about that i know yeah i know and he just he was just one of those people that just wanted to,

every challenge he accepted. But he also knew that, he even says it too. He's like, you know, if he's hanging out with Michael Jordan or, you know, whatever it is, and he doesn't, Kobe didn't play golf. He didn't play, like, ping pong, whatever. But Michael was the ultimate competitor where he's like, all right, you know, we're playing ping pong. And Kobe's like, bro, I don't know how to play ping pong.

Of course you're going to beat me. Let's play something that I know I'm good at. So he was modest in that way, where you have other competitors that are like, no, I'm better than you in no matter what. He wanted to be great at certain things. But look, I mean, back to where we started this rabbit hole, a lot of these athletes, they don't know where to channel that when the career is over. And I think a lot of them, that's where they get in trouble.

They get involved in bad investments because they're just somebody coming in for a quick buck like, oh, yeah, he'll throw money at this or whatever or they try to get into business and they know nothing about the business because they're not interested in it because it it has nothing to do with what they did their entire life and the other one is you'll see some guys be like oh yeah i'll just go into media they don't think about where legacy media is these days they don't think about the fact that every athlete that retires with half a brand or whatever like they're trying to do that too and so only a certain number of you are actually going to be on the places that matter and therefore making money and like also when you're doing it these days unless you're on the tnt crew or something like huge like that these guys make a lot less money doing that than

we realize. And I don't know what Perk makes, and you don't need to say that. But the thing about Perk is regardless of what he makes on there, he's leveraging it so, so well. So he can, I mean, he's so marketable off TV. No, just before the point where you were talking about, it's literally just finding a passion. After basketball, these guys that were playing, whether's football basketball baseball whatever athlete you know whatever sport you're playing it's finding that next passion you know some guys find it while

they're playing and then they're they're getting into it you know you got guys like spencer dinwiddie who's a very intelligent guy he's in the tech world you know he his thing is i'm a tech i'm a tech guy with a jump shot you know know, like, it's awesome. So you see these guys getting into things, business opportunities, while they're playing. But then afterwards, you know, you get some guys that are like, oh, what's my next move? What should I do?

So you just really have to find what you're passionate about, and it could be anything in the world, you know. These guys are, you know, after playing, they have a platform. You know, especially now with social media, take advantage of that. You know, put content out there. Put whatever you're passionate about,, they have a platform, especially now with social media. Take advantage of that. Put content out there. Put whatever you're passionate about, whether it's a business or a hobby, whatever it is, and that's it.

That's really it. Perk's also best friends with some of the biggest guys in the game. He's really close with LeBron. How are he and Durant doing these days? I think it's a very unique relationship can you give context there like discuss that a little bit tell people what the latest was there

I can't give too much details because honestly just like other friends me and Perk don't really talk about that you know he's not gonna say hey bro he's not gonna call me and gossip about somebody else. And I'm not going to ask him. That's not the type of person I am.

But there was beef going back a couple years ago and then even this past year just about Perk would say this. They had the beef but then they go on there and they ask Perk a question and they say, who's the greatest scorer of all time?

Perk's unbiased. He's saying Kevin Durant. People are like, no, it's Michael Jordan. Perk's saying, no, this is 6'10". Score from anywhere on the court to a three-pointer to getting to the basket, no one can score like this guy. But a couple months ago, they're arguing on Twitter. You know what I mean?

And Kevin Durant calls him a sellout. Yeah, that was the nature of it. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't take the smoke, though. He'll come right back at it. Oh, yeah. He goes right back. But at the end of the day, he even said it.

He came out, and he definitely felt some type of way about it, but at the end, he came out and said, listen, Kevin, you're my brother. Whatever it is, it is. But like I said, bro, Perk is going to go on there and speak his mind. If he thinks he's the best scorer, he's going to be the best scorer. You know what I mean? So it's like he's not going to feel some type of way.

I'm having an argument with this guy, but I don't think he's the best. No, Perk is not like that. Now you handling all the endorsements of him though. Yeah. At the beginning, before he was like getting big in the media and things like that, like how did you have a lot of these connections to come up with some of these brands that sponsored him? Because he had that right away. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, literally, I was reaching out to them. Email, direct message, you know, whatever it is. And, you know, I'm saying, hey, listen, I represent Kendrick Perkins. You know, we want to formulate a mutual beneficial partnership. You know, but many guys in basketball, sports in general, are an actual brand? You know what I mean? Very, very few. So I'm not going to say, hey, we want to work with 30 brands when realistically we know that we could create great content and build a following for a couple brands but have a long-term partnership with them. That's how I think about it. And me and Perk are very...

Perk's a marketing guy. He is. He is. He's a marketing guy. I don't think that carry-on thing just came and was an idea, but he rolled with it. And now it's a trend.

Now everything's out there that's... Wait, what pocket trying to fire oh yeah yeah yeah i like the little tie in there yeah but yeah the way you look at that is is actually refreshing because so many of these guys are just going after the bag like oh they want to pay me cool bet like i'm in oh they want to pay me cool bet or an influencer you know right influence yes everyone everyone who's high-end in culture. That's a lot of what they do. And you do see some influencers who really, really care about the products that they sponsor,

meaning it's got to be something they use and love all the time. But your approach with that, it sounds like that was pretty much a day one thing where Perk was like, hey, I want to work with stuff I fuck with, nothing else. It's definitely have to be organic. and creating content has to be organic yeah you know what i mean and uh whether you're working with a brand or a business or you know whatever it is you just have to feel like it's organic you know what i mean you don't want to have that uh you know that feel of approach when you're creating content of you know this is how it's going to be uh you know but there's people out there influencers athletes that hey you pay them enough money they'll act you know what i mean but at the same time perk is he's real so he he wants to work with people

that want to work with him and what else are you guys working on because obviously he's got his main brand being on tv and then he like i, he leverages that onto the internet so well, man. So that gets him his name and that's just kind of continued to grow. But he's on, from a business standpoint, like what kinds of endorsements have you guys been doing? And is he looking at doing any of his own business interests as well? Yeah. Yeah. But before I answer that, I want to tell you, because you always bring up, you know, years ago you were saying, Hey, LinkedIn, you got to take advantage of LinkedIn. So.

RIP LinkedIn in some ways. I've been talking to Perk and he created a LinkedIn account during the pandemic about maybe six months ago. He's doing well on there. Oh, he loves it. I do have to say that. He loves it. I'm not going to get into LinkedIn right now. Yeah.

But I want you to talk about what he's doing on there because he actually is doing very well on LinkedIn. No, he loves it. I do have to say that. He loves it. I'm not going to get into LinkedIn right now. Yeah. But I want you to talk about what he's doing on there because he actually is doing very well on LinkedIn. Yeah, no, he loves it. He loves it. I was like, listen, you got to get on LinkedIn. He's like, Luke, what is LinkedIn? He's like, bro, what is it? I'm like, bro, it's a social media platform. You have your resume up there, who you are, and you post content about what you got going on in your life.

It's kind of Instagram, but more business sense. And he was like, okay. He's like, you could connect with people. You talk to them and social media. So he starts posting on there. And I think the first five posts that he puts up there, one of them hits like 10,000 views. And he's two weeks into posting, two weeks into creating the account. And he's like, bro, this is awesome.

He's like, I'm connecting with these people. So he loves LinkedIn. But I had to mention that because I know you were definitely a big LinkedIn guy. Back in the end of 2018, beginning of 2019, LinkedIn had such a good opportunity to – It still does. A like button is the equivalent to a share button. Well, not as much anymore. That's why I say like you're a little jaded with – jaded is not the word.

But your view on this is probably a little different because Perk is doing really well on there. Like, I actually look at his because it almost makes no sense. Whereas some of the guys that I knew who were, like, LinkedIn influencers back in 2019, where they used to get 50,000 views on a video, they get 4,000, 5,000 now. Yeah. I guess Perk is, like, he's committed to that space so much. And he puts up content everywhere. But on LinkedIn, you can tell it's not bullshit. Like, he's putting to that space so much and he puts up content everywhere but on linkedin

you can tell it's not bullshit like he's he's putting out whatever's on his mind and it's so surprising to people to see that on linkedin they're like oh wait ex-nba players like actually not on here saying i used to play in the nba he's like posting all this stuff and his business interests like all right yeah so i think on his end he's probably getting a lot more help in the algorithm because people are genuinely surprised to see it. Whereas a lot of the rest of LinkedIn that was doing great on things, they're not anymore. Their discoverability is so down. There's guys who I used to follow their stuff all the time. They can't even show up in my feed anymore.

I can't even get them there and i see people making less content and i say like linkedin kind of blew it because they had a chance to become that professional true lead with good content platform and they never morphed to that they they kept their profiles as like you know that i don't even know what it is but it's got your resume on there it's like this compartment that too many buttons and bells and whistles they didn't go more simple like you know a twitter did or an instagram did and find their own niche there so it's nice to see him doing very well on it and it's kind of cool just because like he's doing it he kind of got into it at almost the worst time and and and he's leveraging it like crazy yeah yeah no it's awesome he loves it and you know he's putting content out

there like you said he he perk is not perk is not a uh he's gonna put content of what he thinks he he wants to put out there so yeah you know his uh is his son stone his nickname is stone uh kingston i thought his kid was named stone for a minute no no he's he's about eight years old and he's almost bigger than me so i'm not saying i'm that big but again but don't send me down that path you said it not me yeah but um but uh they they just won uh the championship for the uh i think it was eight and nine year olds down in texas and uh you know he put up there, and it was the whole team and Kendrick and the coaches. Yeah, so he puts personal life stuff in there too. Oh, yeah, yeah.

But other business things that me and Per got into are trading cards, sports trading cards. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about this. Yeah. So I'll say right up front, I know very little about the trading card business. I know— Wow, Julian, you know very little?

Believe it or not. About – oh my – There's some things I don't know much about. He's kidding. He's kidding. Yeah, right. But I'm aware of how much StockX has just exploded in the last especially five six years and so that created the concept of literally taking apparel to the stock market and making your own stock market

with it yeah exactly and now my understanding is that and I haven't looked into a deeply at all but the same thing is happening with literal trading cards and and is this strictly like sports trading cards what's what's the full story there it's sports trading cards i personally me and perk focus on basketball um there's there's enough guys in the nba to to buy and sell their trading cards you know football it's a lot um you have a lot of players you know really the guys in football that are worth something or you know quarterbacks or wide receivers and stuff like that but basketball the market is crazy if you see their face if yeah if you're not in the sports

card industry right now i'm telling you don't wait get in right now research learn whatever you have to do it's just like anything else you know but the thing is is that so when we started investing when my dad was buying explain what that looks like because like you're saying you know but the thing is is that so when we started investing when my dad was buying explain what that looks like because like you're saying you're in the sports car business okay so what does that mean what is what are you guys doing we're buying so so um let me let me just oh he's got some goodies downstairs look at this i remember pokemon cards Pokemon cards. Pokemon cards are back too. Are back too. Don't, you know.

Don't sleep on Pokemon, people. So I had bought back in February. I had bought a Luka Doncic Panini Prism. This is now the base card, right? What do you mean Panini Prism? So the card is the Prism. So Panini makes the cards. Got it.

So there's like Tops. There's Tops, Panini. There used to be a bunch of different ones. But the main ones for basketball, the only one for basketball is really Panini. I'm holding this up to the camera. If you're watching right now, if you're listening, I'll just describe it. It's a very shiny describe it as it's a very shiny card and it's got serious protection around this i feel like i just walked out of a

store and robbed something and we can we can open these i bought these from from stock x oh i can touch yeah wait you bought this from so stock x is in this business now stock x is in this business i did that you can buy and uh you know sell trading cards off their off their platform and what does this mean though because i'm looking at it it says verified authentic yes on there and that's from stock x and that's yes but so you can buy a raw card a raw card would be without this psa authentication so now we have have a great partnership with PSA. Shout out to everybody over at PSA. They really help me and Perk out with grading all our cards.

I mean, they're the best in the business. PSA all the way. Perk's slogan with PSA is, if it ain't PSA, don't bring it my way. I love that. So how many places are there like that that are so how do they choose yeah how do they choose like who's trusted to grade there's there's two I trust PSA those are my guys but there's another company called Beckett now now you can get your cards graded with Beckett or PSA I'm a PSA guy all the way me and

Parker are PSA and how do And how do they grade it? I mean, that's probably a stupid question, but how do they know... Nothing is a stupid question. If a card's authentic or not. How they grade it is by the print of the card if it's centered, if the corners are all intact,

and if the card is in good condition. Now, it's very hard. It's very hard to get. This is a Gem Mint 10. Now, I bought these graded already. You can also buy. Now, this is a Zion card. You can also.

When did you get that? Rookie of the Year, John Morant. Yeah. When did you get those? I bought these this year. And me and Perk have been investing a lot of time, money to the trading card world. And so basically, you can buy a card raw that's not graded. And probably a John Morant card right now, non-greatest, probably going for $150. Okay.

But you can go on eBay. I'm working a great partnership with Starstock. They just started their business about six months ago. Amazing, amazing platform. You've got to check it out. What's it called? Starstock. Starstock.

Yeah. Is that like they're trying to compete with eBay? Not necessarily. So what happens with eBay is you buy a card off eBay, right? Mm-hmm. Okay, now you have to wait until you get the card in order for you to sell it again. Starstock, say there's a game tonight. Now, 8 o'clock in the morning, you go on there and the knicks are playing or you know

john moran the grizzlies are playing you know a bad team and you're like john moran's gonna go off he's gonna have a triple double 30 point game his stock's going up you could go on there right now star stock at 10 o'clock in the morning buy 20 of his cards and not wait to get them there you buy 20 of them they go in your collection that night he goes off his you you bought his cards for a hundred dollars each right you bought 10 of them now now they're worth 120 each that's how the market moves just literally based off the latest game the by the latest game the trades free agency do you know how big this industry is now meaning like how many people are trading these things because Because that's what you have to have.

You have to have a marketplace where there's demand. So obviously there's a ton of demand. Like how many people in America are collecting trading cards now? A lot. A lot, bro. All right, we got to do better than a lot. Over like just, it's a crazy number. Just think about it this way.

I bought that Luka Doncic card card in february for three hundred dollars what's it trading in now eleven hundred seventeen seventeen hundred dollars and how many of these bad boys did you buy that's not doing much for me man i need some more i need some details here i bought three of them okay all right it's not like too for me, man. I need some more. I need some details here. I bought three of them. Okay. All right. So not like too many. No.

I thought you were going to be like, I'm sitting on like a million. I wish. I wish. But now they're going for $1,700. But you got to think about it also. The season didn't even start. So you are. He has the best odds next year to win MVP.

You are evaluating. This is very cool. This is the stock market for individual basketball players. And the way that you are evaluating the stock market is you are trying to figure out who's going to perform the best. This is literally like who's going to win the championship this year. That's what people ask on TV. Or who's going to win the MVP this year? Okay.

Now you take it to the next level and you can make money off it not just by gambling in vegas no you do it by oh okay he's got x number of cards out there i can buy some of these which is my next question do the card companies run this such that like there's 500 players in the nba whatever it is 450 500 when they make cards at the beginning of the year, they may make a supply of, I'm just going to make up numbers right now. They're not real, but just bear with me. Maybe they make 10 cards of LeBron James, but they make 1,000 cards of the guy on the end of the bench for the Rockets. Is that how they do it?

And then there's just less, like in addition to the demand of, of course you want a LeBron James card over that guy, like there's also less supply of it so it drives the price up i'm not 100 sure on each individual but there are different cards so this is a prism card right now there's about there's about 10 to 20 different types of prisms you have a prism orange Orange. You have a Pink Ice one. Pink Ice, Luka Doncic, PSA 10, could be going for maybe $35,000. And what's the difference? The difference is now Pink Ice is probably limited.

There might be only 99 of those out there. 99 of the card, but then also you have to think about the grade. There might be thousands and thousands of a Panini Prism Luka Doncic card rookie year, but there might only be a certain supply of Gem Mint 10s. That's a better way to look at it, how you're doing it. You're not looking at the entire market. You're looking a little more granular and you're like, okay, how many of this type of card is there for this guy? And PSA, they do the population for you. So when you're sending in, you know, me and Perk probably sent in, you know, 2,000, 3,000 cards in the last month and we're getting all those graded.

So all of those grades, like say we had, you know, 150 Zions and 100 came back Gem Mint 10s and the rest came back Gem Mint 9s. Now that's going into their population report of, you know, this type of card and it's going to be how many 10s are out there that they've graded, you know now that's going into their population report of you know this type of card and it's going to be how many tens are out there that they've graded you know so you can also see the population report if there's you know john morant prism cards and only uh there's 10 000 out there and only 100 of them are graded gem in tens well now the gem in tens just went for higher money you know like nowadays they they grade them on how good condition there is, though, too. Like when you gave me those four things, you said the corners and what else?

It's the corners, the condition, and then the centering of the print. You know, so back then when they were printing 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan cards, they couldn't print enough of them. You had the card looking – the Michael Jordan piece was over here. Yeah. Because they were just printing so many. So when they – so there's two levels to it when you send in the grade. The first thing they do is authenticate that it's real and not what you made in your garage. Yeah, exactly. The second level though, is like that Michael Jordan example you just gave, they may be getting a lot of cards that are real, but to your point,

they were fucked up versions of it. So then that takes away like all the value pretty much? You know, the grades can come back one through 10, but older cards that are less than, I would say, 2000s and lower, or somewhere around the 2003 mark and lower, LeBron and Kendrick Perkins, they were in the same draft class. 03 draft class, baby. Yeah, so you could get a LeBron card, an 03, and it's graded a 7 or 6 or 7. That's still going for $500, $600. You get a gem in 10, the price goes up to you know thousands you know you know i have a uh

you know my father when he was 10 years old he was buying 1969 uh you know basketball tops cards that you know we have a luau cinder wilt chamberilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robinson. We have the whole 1969 class. So those cards, those are vintage cards. He owns all them right now. Yeah, we're getting those graded. And then we invested our money into buying current guys, thinking that they're going to perform well. And it's the stock market.

Think about it. Chris Paul, I don't want to give too much information away, but Chris Paul got traded to the Suns, right? Now, whose stock on that team just went up? He's a third-year player, DeAndre Ayton. I'm a big fan of him. His card, I bought a PSA 10 card. I think it was $90.

PSA 10, Panini Prism, DeAndre Ayton at $90. By the way, I'm going to stick. I just want to make sure I say this for the listeners out there. I'm going to stick all this information in the show notes after with links. I'll let you give me everything so people can go on and follow some of this because you're really granular with it. I'd love to keep going. If anybody's got questions or they collect, I'd love to just talk about the hobby and everything so

you know deandre and when i bought his card it was 90 now i think last sold on star stock was 155 and maybe you could get it right now for like 200 but think about they haven't played yet you know chris paul's on there. We saw what Chris Paul did with Oklahoma City last year. Amazing. People weren't even expecting them to get into the playoffs. Yeah, they said he was over the hump and over the hill.

Yeah, yeah. I'm real excited to see what they do there. I'm a big Cam Reddish fan. I love Duke and everybody's very high on zion and rj barrett i love those guys i'm a big cam reddish fan he has to grow into his body that's his big thing he's like still 20 years old yeah no cam yeah cam's like 20 20 21 maybe not even maybe i don't think what do you like about his game he's a scorer man he's a six nine

he can get to the basket he's got a pure shot he could shoot the three i mean he's he to me and even other people saying this when he was in college he's the he's the most pure score out of zion and rj barrett you know he was picked i believe top 10 in that he was number eight yeah yeah so i'm a big Cam Reddish fan. I think he's going to do really well with this year and then going into next year too. He reminds me of Ingram a little bit. Ingram, yeah.

And Ingram took a while. Yeah. I mean, he was a baby when he came into the league. No, exactly. But it took him three, four years to really where you start to see it come together. Now look at him now. He's a 25, 26-point scorer game, and he's awesome. Speak about the Pelicans, Lonzo Ball, and now you got LaMelo Ball just got drafted.

Do you have any thoughts on him? My thoughts on them. For one thing, I'm very excited to see Lavar ball deal with michael jordan's owned franchise not that he's been a successful owner as far as like what's happening on the floor he hasn't been but i can't wait for the first lavar antics and to see if like we get old mike coming out of his shadow saying shut the fuck up kid yeah but i mean look that kid can play i remember watching videos of him when he was like 14 and it's like yeah i know it's easy to hate on him but like but at that point like you

know you know growing up in in north jersey in the tri-state area we got great competition yeah you know well you were a great player i was i was all right yeah don't don't hold that back you played in college right yeah i played at will William Patterson for a couple of years. And, you know, it was a great time. But, you know, growing up in New Jersey and playing, you know, basketball, football, those are sports, you know. And we're definitely known for wrestling, too, in tri-state areas. But not to take anything away, I mean, the kid was shooting from half court. Yeah.

Remember that pull-up? Yeah, but also he was scoring 90 a game. Yeah. You know, like Chino Hills, like who are they really playing against? You know, when they got older, he transferred. Chino Hills was the high school in California. Yeah, that they started at. Yeah.

You know what I mean? And they were probably playing decent competition, but nothing like, you know, we got the number one league here in, you know, with St. Anthony's that closed down, St. Benedict's, you know, know with with saint anthony's that closed down saint benedict's uh you know saint the patrick school now oh dude you know remember those guys yeah i mean cory stokes oh yeah cory fisher guys who went to nova villanova yeah um carl anthony towns is from up there yeah me and carl anthony played on the same organization with uh sports university oh i was gonna say he didn't play for the road runners no he was a year younger than me got it Yeah, me and Carl Anthony played on the same organization with Sports University. Oh, I was going to say, he didn't play for the Roadrunners, did he? No, he was a year younger than me.

Got it. Yeah. Carl Anthony, you know, he's going to be a great player. He is a great player. Yeah. But, you know, Corey Stokes I'm really close with. Chaz played with him. You still talk with him?

Yeah, yeah. He was, some people won't know, but he was a great shooter. Peter Villanova. Oh, yeah. But he kind of played the team role all four years and then didn't turn it into a career but he that that's that that's that uh you know jay wright system jay wright has a great thing going with villanova and he's a great coach yeah you know and uh another guy that i like from villanova is mikhail bridges that's on the suns yeah dude you know people I don't invest into him no I'm just kidding no you want them invested in there because you're already invested you

motherfucker you're right you're right no but I you know Mikael Bridges is good and you know but I talk basketball and sports cards all day but with the trading cards though because my mind is spinning I know on this right now yeah are, like, when someone's in the stock market, or let's say they're on StockX trading sneakers, because I've talked to people who have been doing that for a long time. They're looking at prices all day. It's like they're Robin Hood. Shout out to my guy, Scott, from Starstock,

because when they had reached out, like I said, I had my partnership with PSA. Me and Perk did a video with them, and great collaboration. reached out um you know like i said i had my partnership with psa we you know me and perk did a you know we did a video with them and the great collaboration so when we had posted that you know kendrick and i are in the in the uh sports card industry you know a bunch of companies had reached out star stock and you know those guys they build a great platform yeah and i mean you got to check out their website yeah we got it up right there perfect yeah I mean it's insane it's great

so you can do everything on here you're trading you're selling you could buy raw cards you could buy graded cards you could I'm buying cards on there for $3 well let me ask a question there that's that's something I'm not entirely sure of when you're trading

it's like the stock market in the sense that if that Morant card sold for, let's say, $100 yesterday, and now it's put up by the new owner for bids starting at $120 or something like that, then someone buys it for $125. Is the marketplace now automatically at $125 everywhere, or is it just where they trade because i see here if you look at the second tab right behind you on the screen up there sorry i have that up right there's also like just the straight up selling so my question is are there private sales where you don't know the price that it went for meaning meaning that they're taking. I believe they're taking the API from eBay and tracking the sales from there. Wow. So it's all in.

It is literally like the New York stock. It is. It is. So if you go on there, if you go on there and you see, you know, what cards are going for, like a raw card my buddy was buying michael porter jr that plays for the denver nuggets his base prism card for i think a dollar fifty last year now now if you look it up he he he made a good amount of money because i think he bought a hundred of them yeah because he also michael porter jr was out the whole year right exactly and Exactly. He was out in college. He came into the league. He played a little bit, but he was out for a long period.

He had the back problem. Yeah. And then he went off in the bubble a couple games, and his stock went through the roof. Yeah, so right behind you. He's got – how about you walk people through this so I don't say anything wrong? Go ahead. So a star stock A is a raw card,

and they have looked at it where they believe that it's going to grade from a PSA or a Beckett standpoint. It's going to grade well. Wait, so it hasn't been graded yet? No, but you could go to the PSA 10. Now, put your mouse under. No, go up a little bit. Right there? Yes.

So now, see, last sale for $260 last sale for 260 oh there's eight for sale for 495 wow you know now go back to the star stock a didn't that one i feel like the price just changed too while we were doing it well now go no go back to the put your mouse on star stock a to your left right there no left down a little bit. Down? No, no, no. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Okay, got it. So now a raw card. That's what I was looking at.

A raw card, you could buy 20 of them for sale for $80. But now you have to send them into PSA to get graded. You can also sell raw cards. You can keep them in your collection. You're buying 20 of them for $80. He might have a great first two weeks. They could go up a raw card to $120. So could you take a gamble on the card itself, meaning raw cards going for 80 bucks. You see

that a PSA graded one is going for 250. And first of all, can you see who's selling it to you or is it closed marketplace? You don't know who's selling on the other side. I believe it's closed marketplace. Okay. So you can't really guess then like oh this user's got a great history you can't bet on that but can you bet and be like i'm not 100 sure on that let me we'll check that after but let me buy this card for 80 and then get it graded and see if it gets graded you could definitely do that you know but then there people like... What if it gets a bad grade, though? Can you lose value off the 80? Right now, with the market so high, and the demand is so high,

back then, PSA 10s were the card that you wanted. A 10, the grade was what you wanted. So you either wanted to buy them, sell them, whatever. Now that everybody and their whole family is in the card industry. So now a nine is a 10 and a 10 is an 11.

You know what I mean? And you even see eights that are being sold for a good price. And this was, to be clear, this was heating up in like end of 2018 into 2019 throughout 2019. This isn't just like a covid thing

like this well this was happening before but this was definitely definitely exploded it covid took it over the mount everest got it literally if that makes sense why do you think that is besides an obvious reason people are at home looking for something to bet on especially when there wasn't sports it was like a stock market yeah and they have time on their hands yeah people were finding you know old cards in their basement and saying oh i think this is could be worth something but no matter what you got to get your cards graded by psa like no matter what because you know it's just the value of the card, whether it's from 1990 or 2019, the value is going to go up. You see it.

You could buy a raw card for $80, but a PSA 10 is for sale for $495. So basically, they're the Moody's graders. So Moody's is like they're like the big S&P grader. They rate stocks and bonds and stuff. So they rate companies. So you're saying they're pretty much, to draw a parallel, PSA is the standard in that way.

If you get a AAA rating from Moody's or whatever, that means your bond is great if you're Microsoft or whoever you are. I don't think their bonds are too great right now. I'm not sure about that, but we'll check it. But on this end, that's pretty much the same stamp of approval,

but in the sports car market. If you're getting PSA, AAA, like, all right. If you're getting PSA 10s, you know, and you're buying the right guys, you're in good hands. And so you guys started this. This was something you had been doing for a while on your end, like kind of learning about how this works and all that but then covid you and perk officially opened up the company what's the name of the company so

there's no company in a way it's like an llc kind of deal yeah yeah um but you know we we invest a lot into the cards we invest into grading the cards because that costs money that that it takes time to to get send them out the cards to get back how much does it cost i can't tell you really no because we have like you know some special yeah we got a great thing going on with that you know so but you send a lot at a time yeah yeah sometimes we send 200 sometimes we send a thousand you know so but with with the you know But with NBA starting in the next two, three weeks, the market is going to explode. Gary Vee put something out, and I know you love Gary Vee. I like Gary Vee. Yeah, yeah.

He's a lot. Dude, he was on this. I mean, he was on this a while ago and a couple years ago yeah so you know what he even said he's like if you think the card trading card market is hot now just wait for another you know month when the season the back opens and and you know you got guys playing and you got to think about it also when this 2019 it was it was booming right but then pandemic really took it up now you got to think about we didn't see Steph Curry play we didn't see Trey Young play and his you know in the bubble we're talking about

so now these guys are going to be back trades free agency draft picks now you got another whole draft class coming in so it's it's it's a very exciting time for an NBA fan a sports card you know collector and I mean I could go on and on. So your partnership is pretty much like some guys open up a venture capital firm, other guys open up, you know, a stock buying firm literally for their family office or something like that. And you're opening up a card buying firm. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to be starting doing breaks. So basically what a break is, you know, you buy a box for X amount, but then people come into the enter the contest of the break and, you know, they pay for a slot.

So they could be 10 to 15 slots. And, you know, say if it could be random sometimes, or you could pay a little bit extra to get a specific team. So say we're doing a box break for a 2019 Panini Prism, right? You just don't know who it's going to be. But you're like, I want the Memphis Grizzlies because I want to see if I can get a John Morant card. So you're paying X amount of dollars to be in that one slot. Oh, it's like little niches.

Yeah. Wow. So now I'm open. Now we're going live on Instagram. We haven't went live yet, but we're going to start going live. We just got the Break Nation is our Instagram handle. I like that. Yeah, Break Nation.

And we're going to be ripping boxes. And so basically you got memphis grizzlies we open up all the cards you could get two jama rants you could get no jama rants but you know we're sending you all the cards after that if you hit if you hit this card that all the other cards in there you know this one card pays for your whole your slot you know what i mean and but it could be this card it could be a john morant silver which is going for double the amount of this card wow you know but it's but but yet again when we do the box breaks it's all raw cards so you know when we send them to you you

know that's when you know we're gonna have uh you know people you know send them into the psa or you know wherever they get them graded, and then we go from there. But our thing is we're putting a lot of money into the trading cards. We love it. I mean, Perk's talking basketball all day, and me and Perk talk all day. So, I mean, it just makes a lot of sense. It's yet another market that is exploding during COVID. Just like you have the big winners and the big

losers. I mean, we're hitting on it, but this is obviously a huge winner where it just went to the next level, as you pointed out. But do you worry about the long-term effect of sports here? And the reason I ask that is because this market is completely dependent on the fact that these leagues and specifically the players within them have attention and that's not something i've really ever had to ask before i mean this especially in america but around the world people love sports it's a great escape but it's not a normal time right now and that's helped this market because people are still approaching it with the way they approach sports before covid when it comes to how they value this stuff. But we're not seeing the same attention on watching the games.

People aren't as interested. And I know that a lot of that has to do with the fact that, hey, the NBA basically played in a gym that was less than lifetime athletic in the sky from New York. I mean, it was literally like worse than that gym where they had to finish their season in there. So it's like kind of real, but kind of not. And then you look at the NFL, most of the games are played in front of few, if any, fans. And there's just a lack of a vibe. And when I've talked to a lot of people, they're not watching it. I mean, it's hard for me to pay attention to games right now.

And so my question is, I think that will change after covid like when people are back to being in the stands again and it's more natural there's tailgates there's everything going on and it becomes a social event but do you worry about well maybe it won't and then yeah i mean i've definitely thought about that but i think see the one thing that i think of it and this year is so crazy you know pandemic politics all this all these other things going on politics had a part in in the ratings in the nba as well just like we saw years ago that the nfl did you know with politics and stuff like that so uh you know the one thing that isn't going to change is that basketball is not going anywhere. It's starting up in three weeks and it's going to be playing every year, you know? So

I do think that it could possibly come down a little bit within the next year or two years and that, but I mean, it's honestly too much fun and it's something that I love. And I think other people in the hobby feel that way because the hobby's always been around. But yes, it hasn't been nothing to what it has been this year. Are you guys bringing other players into this to invest as well? Is there a lot of interest around that? There is. Well, Kevin Durant invested in Starstock.

Oh, really? Yeah. I didn't know that. When did he do that that i think it just came out a couple days ago so that's with his company with climbing yeah we're climbing and i believe uh aj um oh vaynerchuk's on that deal yeah yeah that's not surprising but but you also think about it and you know you you know at home Collective, we have, we got older cards graded. So a 19, I believe, I think it was 1960, 50 maybe, 19, around that time, we got a Bart

Starr card graded. Everybody knows Bart Starr, right? Yeah. You watch football. Packers back in the day, baby. So a Bart Starr, we got it graded. We're selling it for $30, $40. Wait, what?

Exactly. So now you look up some of these guys that are playing today. Their raw cards are going for $20, $30, $40, $50. How is Bart Starr going for $30, $40? How is his stock going to go up? They're not making Bart Starr cards. It's 50 years ago. He played for Lombardi, one of the greatest teams of all time.

I know, and I understand that. But in the collector's world, it's a little bit different, especially the younger generation of the collectors. They want to see the cards that they're buying, their players do better. They play better. How is your dad's collection of luau cinder and oscar robertson worth anything then well i mean you know the guys in the hall of fame the guys

that are bart stars in the hall of fame football is a little bit different but also it's who's collecting bart star that's not 50 years or younger but again like who's doing like a bart star you know yeah but you'd have to be a luau cinder fan or you'd have to be an oscar robertson fan i mean i wasn't alive when those guys played but you know what it actually could be i'm just thinking out loud here and this kind of goes back to the marketing around sports period one of the reasons like even if the nba hasn't been the biggest league in the country it never has been i think it's firmly number two right now, but it's never been bigger than the NFL. Their stars are paid the most because they're the most marketable, and it's by math and looks.

And what I mean by that is there are five players that are on the floor at one time. There's 12 players on a team. You look at the NFL, there's 53 players on a roster. There's 22 players on the field at a given time and 44 of them like legit play in the game. Furthermore, the NBA players, the camera angles are closer up and you can see their faces. The NFL players, they're behind helmets.

We're healthy here, by the way. We're using hand sanitizer, I guess. That's in Charlie's Steakhouse, by the way. Charlie using hand sanitizer i guess this is like charlie steakhouse by the way charlie's where charlie state in orlando i feel like there's a million fucking steakhouses around this country called charlie steakhouse like how many charlie's are that makes good steak you know do you even know what charlie i don't know any charlie's yeah i got an uncle charlie yeah an uncle charlie he's probably like 80 years old no he's my uncle but he's not you know he's not oh oh one of those kinds of uncles yeah those are the best anyway but back to it though you look at the nfl

literally the fact that their face is hidden there's only so many guys that can be put on that brand ad and there's only so many guys that actually like you know when they take the helmet off like i up in florham park when cj mosley signed i think i was in starbucks he walks in i knew who cj mosley was he was the best middle linebacker in the nfl he just signed for 90 million dollars he walked into a starbucks two miles from the facility that that his new team trains at you know fresh off all the press of espn and the internet going nuts that the jets had signed this guy nobody knew who he was now if LeBron James walks in and that's an extreme example let's say yeah let's say if Russell Westbrook walks in or Paul George or someone like that

people know who they are yeah because they can see their face so maybe part of it is like with the NBA there's more of that individual marketability rather than the NFL where there's less of it unless you're like I think you made point earlier, like Tom Brady or a big diva wide receiver or something like that. It's tough with the NFL. Unless you're throwing touchdowns or catching touchdowns, it's hard to market with some of the guys. But in the trading card world, it's like, I want to see the card that I'm investing in, that stock go up. So it's like, I don't want to use the term, I don't want to see the card that I'm investing in, that stock go up. So it's like, you know, I don't want to use the term. I don't want to use it. But think about Kobe Bryant.

When Kobe Bryant passed away, his cards went through the roof. You know? And now, you know. Demand. Yeah, exactly. So now, you know, his cards can still go up and fluctuate a little bit, but nothing like, you know, a Zion Williamson who's going into his second year in the league and could play for the next 15, 20 years.

Luka Doncic, he's got the best odds to win MVP next year. His cards could go up 1,000%. The market and the demand is out of this world. And I truly believe that it's not going to go anywhere. I think it'll, just like any other market market it'll take a little bit of dip but yeah i don't think it's going to be yeah you're holding them long term yeah you tell you know but some but some of them are we you know we're flipping some of them here some of them there but you know it's the guys that you really believe in you know and uh i mean luca he's everybody's on Luka. Yeah, so have a lot of his.

Yeah, I was talking about Luka before he got drafted. I said, this guy's going to be, you know, just the way he plays the game, the way he carries himself. I mean, he's got a good thing going. Yeah, watching him play is almost like watching a soccer player play basketball. Yeah. He's just, I mean, he's got that total ingenuity to his game between his footwork and the smoothness,

how he kind of glides down the court. Not the fastest guy, not the strongest. Exactly. You know, he's just, but LeBron said it earlier, a couple days ago, he said, he's like, when I was signing with, you know, when I was doing my deal with Nike recently, and I was gonna have Team LeBron under Nike,

he's like, my first guy, I wanted Luka. Yeah. But. Yeah, he's, dude, he's made good on that bet. Yeah. By the way, pretty much. Mark Cuban said, he's like, if it became, if it came between my wife and Luka,

he's like, I'm getting a divorce. Mark Cuban's all about his team, man. Oh, yeah. No, he's. I vaguely believe him it's a lot of fun it really is how are you leveraging your own network

with this that's the other thing you keep on talking about Kendrick because he's your partner in this and you do all the work for him as his manager but you got your own big ass network here. Like talk about real quick for some context,

who are some of the guys you've worked with in the past? Talk about some of your work in like the influencer sphere. I know you got a lot of hooks there. Like have you been, and the second level to it is, have you been going to some of these people to try to get them in on this? As far as like, whether that be investing

directly in your company or investing in in trading itself just to get people to the space like what's what's been your strategy there on on your side that's a great question and you know my network with athletes and influencers is you know probably in the last four or five years of, you know, influencer wise between, you know, fitness and models and, you know, just influencers on, yeah, let's cut that out. We're not cutting that out. But, you know, just influencers on Instagram. It's probably a range from, you know, 50,000 followers to 10 million followers with probably over 200 influencers.

And how'd you build those relationships? I was at a different agency than... Before I started my agency, A1A Media, I was at a different agency. And when I was working with them, this is when influencer marketing just came about in a way, this is five years ago. We're in 2020 now, and this was 2015 when Instagram just started three years before that. So now people were, oh, I could get paid to post, and if I have X amount of views, and I could create this kind of content, and things like of that source. That's when I was like, OK, the network of influencers and to grow a network.

You know, what's one thing that, you know, when you're reaching out to somebody of you want to do business with you, you feel as if you want to bring value to them. So my approach was, hey, listen, you know, this is what I could do. Would love to have a conversation with you, talk about, you know, your goals and your platform, your Instagram, your social media pages, and see where your goals are for the next year or two, you know, because obviously I want people in my network that are going to be putting out good content and, you know, being an influence in their space, whether it's fitness or music or fashion, whatever it is, I want to work with people that, you know, bring a value to me. And of course, I'm bringing a value to them, whether it's helping them with social media, building a website, endorsements opportunities, brand opportunities to, you know, paid for posts on Instagram, you know, because, you know, when you're an influencer, and you're posting on Instagram, you would love to work with, you know, a great company that, you know, whether it's a

startup, or whether it's an established company that's going to be, you know, paying you to create the content, you know, not every influencer can go out there and just, you know, have a, you know, create a following and then also create a product or something to sell. You know, it's very tough, but, you know, you align yourself with the right brands and businesses that your niche is in to create the content and also, you know, have the influence in that market. But you brought an existing network in some ways to that already. Because you're, I've talked about it on the show before, you've had a very big, you know, relatively for someone who hasn't been an influencer before or something like that, you have a very big Instagram following.

It's like, what, 50,000, 60,000? Yeah, about 50,000, 60,000. And you've had that for a while. So tell people how you built that at the beginning. This was going back probably 2015 and 16 where I was in the gym. I was everything that working out fitness was like i i did it i was in the gym twice a day um were you a fitness influencer i were you one of those chase all your dreams you know the motivational stuff the fitness thing i just i love doing it

you know for me and i I would, I was training, a personal training at one point. But it just, you know, I kind of saw myself doing different things and having a different vision for myself, you know, not knocking anybody in that world. But for me personally, I saw, you know, a different path. And I thought it was, I thought it was great, you know, and I I loved it but that's how I kind of grew a following years ago I was posting at least once a day and I was in the gym you know my body looked a little bit different than it was you know but but it was it was something that I loved you know and and I was young too so it just it definitely uh yeah it was a lot of fun but you were telling me about the the trends earlier in the days i think

you even said it was back farther than that like maybe like 2013 2014 where people would just go in and comment on like kim kardashian's post and then do like like for like and stuff Well, yeah for like things to like grow a following it was you know, Instagram The algorithm changed so much from when it first started, you know, you even saw so you even talked about LinkedIn Yeah, think about how hard you know, it's Instagram's already a tough crowd Right. So you talked about LinkedIn before and you used to see people with 50 000 views go to you know 4 000 views now back then you were able to uh you know on instagram you know a way of i would say maybe tricking the algorithm to have your posts show up more often than other

people's posts now it's super hard. How would you do that? You would be active on it 24-7. You know, you're liking, you know, thousands of photos a day. You're commenting on people. You know, I thought about it as if, okay, this is my platform on Instagram. Now some people think about like, okay, how do I market my Instagram page? Well, no. How do you market your Instagram page inside of Instagram?

How do I get 10,000 people to see my Instagram page? Nevermind in person. You know, you got some people going out there, Hey, follow my Instagram page. You know, you're on a podcast. Hey, you know, check us out. But at the end of the day, like how many percentage of people do you think are actually going to watch this podcast and then go to your Instagram page? You know what I mean? It's very hard that way, especially back then, you know i mean it's very hard that way especially back then yeah you know you had to take advantage of you know i think i had 10 000 followers or you know even a thousand followers then when it was a point of like you have a thousand followers yeah you know a thousand followers then was like 100 100k now you know where where that was six seven years ago when did you find out about instagram uh 2012 so like right when it came out yeah i i was actually in

no was it 2011 or 12 one thing's gonna start either one's a good answer because i was very early yeah yeah i think it was the 11 or 12 and i remember i was visiting my uncle down in las vegas and i i took i think it was like spring break or something like that and I was down there for not even spring break it was like a month I was down there and people were texting me or saying something like oh like and I was even late to the Facebook party because I was still on myspace I was like no myspace you were on myspace in like 2011 20 no no no not that but I was late to the Facebook yeah myspace ended at like, you know, maybe 2007, 2006. Yeah, but I loved MySpace.

I thought it was awesome. You could put a song up there. You got top friends. You know, whatever you were doing, it was like you could customize your platform or your profile in a way. You know, so, but then when I created Instagram, I remember I was in Las Vegas and I just started posting a couple times. And I was like, wow, this is pretty cool. And you get 40 followers.

And, you know, sometimes you're following people who don't even know, but then you start to meet them on Instagram. But now it's like, now people are following people they have no idea who they are

because they're putting out the content of either whether it's educational, inspirational, you know, or it's just something that they want to see. You know,

so back then it was more or less of like, I'm going to put anything out there. It was more, back then when they first started, it was more of the approach that you always talk about, that you always say, well, fuck what people care. Put whatever you want out there because if it's what you like and people are going to watch it because it's good. Obviously, create content that's great

but it's got to be what you're passionate about yeah you know so i mean to you know back then it was it was awesome so you're basically just in there living in comment sections oh yeah sending dms left and right yeah it was just and then people were looking at my posts and my videos back then they were like wow this guy's you's in the gym and this guy, you know, it was all because I was posting every day. Yeah, and there were a lot less fitness influencers. Yeah, but there was a lot less people that were so active on Instagram than

there was today. Anywhere you go now, what are you doing? Oh, I'm on the phone. I'm on Instagram. People are on Instagram more than they're in their text messages. Yeah, no, that's true. Sometimes I only communicate with people through Instagram because it's like you text them and they might not answer. Some people, they know that I'm like that too

because if they hit me up on Instagram, I might answer faster than a text message. Instagram's effectively getting someone's phone number now. Like, oh, what's your IG? Yeah. Like that's what people do. So you've had this established then for years, whether it was like 2013, 2014, somewhere for a long time. That's when I was growing it. Right. yeah like that's that's what people do so you you've had this established then for years whether

it was like 2013 2014 somewhere somewhere for a long time that's when i was that's when i was growing it right yeah and so you know it was grown by what like 2016 2017 you were in the 40s or something like that no probably like 15 i was in the 30s yeah wow okay so now looking at your own businesses like you have a network of some established people in there too. And you've already been able to build that into like for one thing, when you're DMing all these people working at your previous agency, there's also like a level of, oh, okay, like this guy is kind of a micro influencer hitting me up. It's not just some schmo with like 500 followers. Right. So you're getting in

front of more people. And then who were some of the people that you worked with as a result of that? Let's start there. Well, even before that, I'll definitely get into that. But even before that, it was, I was, I know people now that when I had contacted them, they had 10,000 followers, 8,000 followers, 20,000 followers. Now they have 200,000, 300, 400,000, you know? So when I had contacted them, they had 10,000 followers, 8,000 followers, 20,000 followers. Now they have 200,000, 300,000, 400,000. So when I had established a relationship with them, they weren't where they are now. So that's why I was like, okay, I like what this person's putting out content-wise. They're in this niche. Okay, let me reach out to them.

See just who they are as a person. It's literally an introductory call to seeing you know what they are what they're about you know how what what kind of content they're putting out there and what their goals are you know at the end of the day if they're in the music industry and i'm working with x y and you know different brands and i'm saying well okay this could align with them they're in the music industry i got a headphone company okay let let's let's put them and them together you know okay they want to pay you x amount because you're posting this content you're in the studio making music you know put these headphones on

we'll create this piece of content you got to tag them x y and z like that that's kind of how i thought about it and i didn't want to just be in one niche i didn't want to just be in the influence in the in the fitness world or in the music world i kind kind of wanted to have a diverse of a network. People that I worked with over the past couple of years, obviously Kendrick Perkins. My brother works with Kevin Garnett, Ray Lewis, worked with Lawrence Taylor, Glenn Davis. Glenn Davis. Glenn Davis. How's he doing big baby's awesome he's awesome probably by the way the funniest one of the funniest videos i've ever seen in my life

of all time was him on the private jet oh with all the weed what was he eating i don't remember like burgers or something yeah and he was just like licking his fingers but he had like two bags full of money yeah yeah the money in the weed yeah he just no i was that was i remember when that came that was one of the funniest things i've ever seen i almost dropped my phone i'm like no damn it wasn't he like under investigation for something small or something at the time? But I think he had a small role in Shameless in the past year. Really?

Yeah, yeah. Obviously, he's playing the big three for the past couple years. But who else? Who else? My buddy that plays on the Jets, Bennett Jackson. Okay. Who else have I worked with? Hassan Whiteside. He's on theide he's on oh yeah yeah he just got signed by the kings now he's a character yeah no sounds awesome and then influencers wise uh

my one of my good friends remy boy monty oh yeah how's monty doing monty's doing great that's he's monty's the best man he's that's that's been my guy for probably a good five years now. No, matter of fact, probably like four years, four years. It was kind of like very similar to Perk where we just kind of hit it off and built a great friendship. How'd you do that, though? Did you get introduced to him? So one of his best friends and was working security, Chris,

me and Chris had known each other through one of my good friends um and was working security uh chris me and chris had known each other through one of my good friends kumar kumar davis me and kumar oh i know kumar you know yeah yeah yeah me and kumar grew up you know training playing sports together and then you know when i had uh met chris i was probably around 15 like maybe like 16 years old. And then, you know, Chris knew what I was doing in the marketing and social media world. And, you know, me and Chris got in contact. And he said, listen, I want you to, you know, sit down with Mati and just introduce yourself. And, you know, we had, you know, a great meeting. And, you know, from there, we just, you know, he literally told me, he's like, listen, Luke, you don't have to have to go home. You stay with us whenever you want.

You know what I mean? So, you know, me and Mazzy just build a great relationship and, uh, it's, uh, you know,

we work together in a couple of different things and I've been telling him about the trading cards. So, what's he say about that? He, he, he didn't understand it at first. He was like,

what do you mean trading cards? He's like, so you can, you sell them like for how much? He's like, wait, you bought this for this? It's like,

wow. You know? So, but he, he's going to be investing so but he's gonna be investing soon and uh you know we'll be doing uh doing a lot of great things with mart so mart is he's got some music coming out soon and uh but you know that's that's my boy that's my man this is actually a really good place to bring this in but you've even used the word and we all use it because it's like the simple buzzword to go to but you keep on talking about network networking there's an aspect to which like especially when you're doing it on dms on instagram and talking with people you never talk to yes that's kind of what it is because you're not face to face in that way but you are a relationship builder and i like that because everyone likes to talk about, oh, I got this guy on my network. Oh, I got that guy.

Like they actually know these people. When in reality, they're just going after people for transactional reasons only. And they don't really actually have that like, hey, you know, I just take his call at like 11 o'clock at night and we talk about whatever the fuck. You know, and you,

and I hope the point is coming across enough. This is what you've done with guys like like monty this is how you've gotten into those circles like kendrick you obviously have the relationship with kevin garnett before then and so he introduces you to him but like how you get the relationship with kevin garnett and actually building up and building that trust on a guy who's i mean he is intense you know you and your brother going in there and and doing that and so when i look at some of the diversity of your relationships too like you're all over from working with the guys who you know run the wall street bank to working with athletes and entertainers to working with

guys who run big businesses that are private and there's there is an incredible need to be able to be a true chameleon to the situation and be able to understand exactly how people develop trust in other people. And working with you and Monty a little bit on the project we did and talking with him, first of all, he's awesome. He's just – he's a great dude. But you and Monty come from such a different reality and like even you and big chris who who you got the original intro through kumar with i guess because you knew chris a little bit too like all you guys you come from totally different realities and yet you know the trust that guys like that have in you speaks to your ability to understand that and then understand like exactly where these

guys are coming from all the time and i guess my point is the empathy you have to have in doing that is so real that it can't be networking it's not like oh i know this guy now oh i know chris i know monty no no it has to be like yeah what's going on man like like how are you like what's up like like it's before it's business or it ever even get to that, it's like, these are my friends. These are my guys. This is who I ride with. And I'm just, I've always been extremely struck by your ability to do that with so many different people. Yeah.

No, I mean, it's, I appreciate you for saying that. And for me, it's, you know, when I was growing up and playing sports and specifically basketball, you know, my dad would take me to the inner cities of, you know, Patterson, Newark, Jersey City. And, you know, no matter how much you spend the time in there, you know, I grew up in Wayne, but no matter how much you play basketball or sports or, you know, you never truly understand, you know, how people grow up, you know, in different cities. But I kind of saw things at a younger age where it made me kind of, you know, not question, but understand a little bit better. So I kind of had that sympathy. I kind of had that understanding where, you know, we don't come from the same world, even if it's 10 minutes away, 20 minutes away. Like, it's just, it's not.

That's the craziest part. It is. It's like right there, too. Yeah. It's 20 minutes, whatever time frame it is, it's two different worlds, you know? So for me, I just kind of, you know, I go back to what I said before.

I just always was trying to just be myself. My dad says that all the time. He's like, Luke, he's going to be Luke, no matter what. But I just always was trying to be myself and be a friend. But then also, if we're trying to do business together, bring value. I believe if you could bring value to the table and you could present opportunities, you know, they also have a bring a value to you too. So, but that's, you know, that's business. You know what I mean? If I'm bringing you a business opportunity, you're, you're, you obviously have some type of value that I'm looking at, you know, and vice versa.

So whether it's, you know, leveraging my network to, to expand the opportunity or to formulate a business partnership with you and, And we're working on, you know, different ventures. You know, for me, I just kind of, you know, never wanted to put my self in other people's shoes in a bad way, but I always wanted to just understand where they come from, maybe why they think the way they think and say, hey, listen, like, okay, let's think about this. And this is why, you know, this opportunity came about or or you know in in another ways like it just i kind of just had that understanding at a younger age and just always kind of you know kept it close to me but you also you're friends with a lot of guys where that's

not just where you started it that was your intention this is something that is definitely different about you than a lot of guys that work in the space you do. Because let's call a spade a spade here. You know this well. In the agency worlds and then specifically like in the personal management worlds, there's a lot of scumbags. There's a lot of guys reaching out for the dough. They just want to be around it. They want to be star fuckers.

That's what they are. You've never been that you are somebody who and i could even say this about kendrick where you kind of did some social for him pretty quick but you you're friends with these guys and then eventually you're so passive on it like there are some guys that to this day you don't do any business with i'm not going to name names where like you talk with them five times a week and you don't care because like you like knowing them. You like, like you like what they're about. You see them as people and you don't push that topic. Like you don't go to people where, you know, a lot of these guys are like, all right, where do I start turning this from?

All right. I met this person and we're hanging out a lot. And now let's talk business. You're not really the, you've never been the guy who, like, goes to that or is even comfortable with that. And what ends up happening is a lot of these guys then come to you very naturally after time, I might add. It's almost – it's very rarely it seems right away, though you can correct me if I'm wrong. They come to you after time, and they're like, hey, Luke, like, you know so-and-so. Can you do some work on that for me? And then it just kind of turns into into your point, like the value add. Right. Yeah, no, it, it, it definitely just, you know, I always just wanted to, if I'm generally friends with you, you know, I'm friends

with you, you know, in a, in a genuine way. Um, I really never thought about it where, you know, I should be friends with this person because they do X, Y, and Z, or they know this person, you know, or I can use them to get to that person, you know, if it happens like that. And I'm a very, you know, kind of organic person where, you know, if we're vibing, we're vibing, we're cool, we're cool. Then, you know, we can continue that. But, you know, there's a lot of people where, you know, I meet them and we try to do business off the bat, but sometimes it just doesn't work. But to me, that doesn't mean I have to, you have to not talk to that person or not be, you know, stay in contact with them. Because maybe six months down the road, you know, they could contact me or I could, hey, oh, I remember, you know, XYZ does this or he works with this company.

Maybe they could connect me or I could connect them with somebody else that I know. And then we could, you know, formulate a partnership there. But for me, it's, you know, I never looked at it as like, what can I get from that? I always looked at it like, there's one thing in life where you have control of or it's time. So you don't necessarily have control of it, but you have control of your time of where you spend it. You know what I mean? Like, I took the time out of my day. You asked me to, hey, come down here. I'm like, listen, I got to go down there and see Julian and, you know, see this whole setup. This thing, what he's got going on here is awesome. You know, so I wanted to do this. I appreciate you asking me, you know, as a friend to come down. But, you know, for me, it's like I want to spend the time with the people that, you know, I care about. And, and, and, you know, we're, we're friends in that way, but value wise, like I always wanted to just try to bring value or, you know, to anybody that I'm working with or just friends with, you know, and, you know,

that definitely comes from, you know, my father and helping, you know, a lot of people in sports. And, um, you know, it's, it's just how he kind of raised me in a way. So, well, yeah, you are your father's son and people don't know what i'm talking about but luke and his brother chaz their dad the legendary yeah bobby servino is quite possibly the greatest connector anyone will ever know when i tell you that this and and you just brought it up but he doesn't ask for anything in return he is just for the last 40 plus years always found people in his quote-unquote network of relationships i'll add the second level to it where it's like oh you would be great with this guy like let's set that up and there's nobody better and more genuine

about it and fuck i i ask like sometimes i'm like i wish you would ask for something on some things but he's like not about that at all he's like no no i just do this for fun and he's got 15 000 people in his in his cell phone and he's the guy i mean he's got the bluetooth on all day he's always talking with people and like in a lot of ways like you and your dad are definitely different like in your personality yeah yeah but your approach to that i can tell it's the same because the trust that these people put in you and it's everyone it's not just athletes and entertainers it's it's all these different people it it comes from that place of like oh luke just wants what's best for us. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

No, I mean, that definitely came from my dad. And, you know, that's one thing that I love that I got from him. So, yeah, I just love helping people and, you know, being around good people. You know, it's, you know, everybody, no matter who it is, and everybody's been burned and, you know, you just got to keep moving forward and keep staying positive. And know just because one thing went wrong or you know you feel as if one thing went wrong led to 10 things going wrong you just have to keep moving forward um you know staying positive and and really just connecting with good people what about some of the

guys in the past though that you've worked with that don't you know it doesn't end well and you don't have a relationship with them what is it it usually chalked up to, or is it just kind of different every time? Well, I mean, I really can't say because everybody that I've either have in my network or, you know, there's not, you know, really a lot of people that, or even a few people that I don't talk to, you know, even if I haven't talked to them in a couple years you know so it's you say hey do you know this person and if I haven't talked to him for two years I mean they'll probably pick up the phone you know so it's uh I don't know how to how to kind of explain it in that way but I mean I don't burn any bridges you know just because we

have an argument or just because we can't see eye to eye doesn't mean that I want to not be friends with you you know what I mean like you know honestly Julian I don't even fucking like you but no I'm just kidding no I really don't it's all good brother I know you gotta lie on camera to be funny

yeah yeah no exactly what the fuck am I doing here that's cool but no seriously I don't like burning any bridges. I don't want to. Somebody was saying, like, I don't burn any bridges. I just build them. I don't know who said it, but there's probably a lot of people that have said that. But it's true.

Like, why even create something you can't come back to? I mean, people change, too, for better or worse. Some people burn their own bridges. You know what i mean like you know it just it just happens but there's people out there that you know just because uh you know one thing my dad told me is that some always people always have a good side or good good things to to to give you know what i mean so you just got to find those good things and sometimes you just gotta you know it could be the first time you meet there or you know six months down the road or two years down the road where, you know, you keep in contact and just make sure they're OK and doing well. And, you know, maybe maybe they you know, they're on a new job in two years from now and, you know, they're working with X, Y and Z.

And maybe they could connect you or, you know, they're working at a job or they're looking for a job and, you know, somebody in their field and you can help them out. You know, and, you know, just like my dad dad just like you said about my dad he doesn't ask for anything in return but you know you just hope people will will kind of full circle that and you know give something in return but not you know not in that type of way like we're asking but it's just you want to help people out you know what i mean so yeah but you're that way too bro thank you thank you that's and and you know in a past life that was sometimes the problem too because when i was when i was working as a banker my job was to build relationships and i did but you know how many guys already have their long existing

relationships and you know they love to give me business but why are they going to do that when they're best friends with their guy and and he's been doing it for them for 25 years? A lot. There's a lot of guys that were like that. And my whole thing was I always met the people. I really fucked with the people. And so I'd have some guys in my network that like my relationships where I knew I was never going to get their business. And working in what i worked in

that's not what they want to hear they're like then don't talk with that person and i'd always be like so wait just because some dude can't give me his money you you want me to like not be friends with him or like not even that it's not that they would ask that but it's like so if i want to yeah if i don't if i want to spend time with this, you're telling me don't do that. That never sat right with me. And so for you, you worked at a place before. Now you got your own place. Was it ever, was there friction ever where like it was being pressed like, hey, go make that relationship, turn it into money right now.

And you'd have to be in your head. You're going, no, like it's not like that. I don't want to do that yet and they're saying okay well don't talk to that person anymore and now obviously you don't have that voice telling you what to do but was that something you encountered a lot um that's a good point and i think yeah you definitely encounter that when you're in sales and you're building relationships and you know you have to generate revenue yeah of course uh but you know there was there was different kinds of revenue that are different types of revenue that we can generate so you know for me i was building a network of influencers and athletes but then also reaching out to brands and getting those brands to

spend you know x amount of dollars on with this amount of athletes or even just one athlete you know so at that point yeah i had to build relationships with businesses and brands, but then also attract the athletes that aligned with those brands. And, you know, yeah, it was, hey, listen, spend less time on this or more time on that. And it was like, I see where you're talking about, but this is going to bring more value. Maybe not right off the bat, but in six months from now,

the network or the value that it can bring is a lot better than x amount of dollars that's going to be coming in right now but when you're running a business you got to keep the lights on you have to you have to generate revenue now yeah i totally understood that um but it just it's not a be all end all in the sense that you got to do all of one or all of the other and that's not my point it's not a be all end all in the sense that you got to do all of one or all of the other. And that's not my point. It's not like, oh, I want to hang out with only people that I'm never going to do business. No, it's not like that.

But there's also like, you don't know who those people know. You don't know how you make them feel too. And like you also genuinely get something out of it. You are legit friends with people. I mean, some of the best friends I ever made are people I met through business and never did business with. And to this day, I mean, they're going to on this podcast and that's that's a beautiful thing and a lot of people especially in this social media era where everything's all about what's the who who follows you who do you connect with who are you friends with people don't want to hear that

and they want to just be like all right yeah people either do business with me or that's it yeah i mean there's definitely people out there i'm just not one of them yeah um but it happens it happens and uh i just i just can't be one of those people yeah like i said i like i always say i just want to be myself and you know the people that want to do business with me the people that want to reach out and see the new things that I'm doing, whether it's sports cards or working with different athletes. LinkedIn is powerful. A ton of people reach out to me on LinkedIn, and I try to get back to all of them and connect

with as many people as I can. But you got to use your time wisely, especially when you're an entrepreneur and you don't have someone saying, you spend this amount of time on this or spend that amount of time on that. You know, when you're an entrepreneur, you're creating your own schedule every day, weeks ahead, months ahead. So, you know, you have to put in the time and you have to set aside time for the things that you have to prioritize for, you know, and things that you think are going to, you know, build revenue or, you know, generate revenue for you. Have you been looking at other businesses for the long term too? Like, you know, cause COVID created all these potential opportunities now and also some, created some trends for down the line is whether it's new school or old school, is there any stuff that you've been like, Hmm, that's interesting.

Yeah. I mean, you know, real estate is, mean, real estate is definitely a crazy market right now. You're looking at going old school. I like it. Yeah. Real estate is crazy. And especially during this whole year with the pandemic, COVID, you got people moving out of New York City, the Mecca, you know, where everything is to, you know, whether it's New Jersey or down in Florida, you know, my buddy, his parents, they sold their house. They got 50,000 plus asking within three, four days on the market. Where's their house? Wanaque, New Jersey. Yeah. You know, so, and that's 45 minutes west of New York. A New York family of four bought the house for 50 plus asking. You know

what I mean? And it's, you know, during this time, how are you going to say no, especially if they're wanting to move? It just, you know, definitely aligned with the time of the year and everything that when they wanted to sell. But, you know, I was looking at places down in Florida and, you know, I think it was two years ago, a lot sold for 50,000 and there's a house up there now for 400, yeah you know it's not sustainable though it's not that's the beauty of it so you're looking at it like price action's hot right now demand may very well be there long term because of covid and people don't want to be cooped up in cities as much and florida everything's open yeah they got a good

governor down there yeah yeah so he wants to keep everything open he wants to keep the economy going and but florida's always been that one state where it's you know it's in the u.s but they always kind of do a lot of fuckery in florida yeah especially south florida like yeah you know so maybe that's why i love it though there's there's the united states and then there's oh yeah florida yeah the one that's like hanging off the edge of america and some wild shit happens down there yeah yeah so but that's that market is inflated oh yeah obviously obviously i mean that's that's why you're saying 50 000 to a 400 000 a lot so it's not gonna last forever no whereas like new york is still seeing

price adjustment yeah so my buddy my buddy is a property manager at graystar oh yeah i think he said that you know 40 or you know maybe 40 or 50 percent of the building is not even there you know he he's dropping prices that's residential uh i believe i believe it's both i think it's residential and uh you know and uh residential and rentals. But he's dropping prices 30%, 40%. And they're like, oh, can we get a bigger discount? He's like, oh, hold on. Sorry, that's what I meant. You're saying it's purely residential.

I was saying, is it also commercial too? Oh, no, no, no. He's strictly, yeah, got it, got it. Got it, okay. And he's dropping prices for an apartment building in New York City, you know, 30%, 40%. And they're like, oh, we want a bigger discount. He's like, I can't. Is that on the sales side or the rental side?

Rental, rental, rental. Yeah, so it's, the market's crazy, you know? Because there's, I mean, I don't have it in front of me right now, but there's a lot of sales prices that haven't like you'd think oh that's got to be down 40 right it's not you know there's still people there's a lot of foreign money too in new york city real estate you know it's like they're hanging on like it you know it's going to come back and you and i obviously both believe it will but there's got to be some bigger adjustment at some point i'm not saying there isn't in some areas of the city right now, but I'm saying like just let's say property X is really only down about 10% right now,

and you've got to be thinking to yourself, shit, that's got to go down 30%, 40% value at some point just because so much money is flowing out, you know? Yeah. I mean, I think it's crazy. It's crazy. And, I mean, you would live in New York? You're a New York guy? Fuck yeah, dude. You know this.

I mean, I love New York, but I would never, I couldn't live there. You couldn't live there? I couldn't. Why not? I've worked in New York and I just, it's just not, it's just not the place for me. Not the place to live. I would live near it, but I would go visit. I would go, you know, whatever, out to dinner and stuff and go see New York City. But I'm a Florida guy. You know, like I just. Be very careful saying that.

I know. You say that. You're right. I'm a Florida guy. You know, I love South Florida. I mean, but don't get me wrong. I love where I grew up. You know, I love the people I grew up with, you know,

and I love New Jersey. But you know, where I'm at in my life, I like South Florida. But you're back in Jersey now. You've been in Jersey most of the time. As you said, Jersey's like mostly closed. So what's amazing to me is your mind frame, mindset, whatever you want to say seems to be really fucking clear and relaxed. And I know, like, things are going well business-wise for you, but you're dealing with the same shit here. We are here. It's not normal. You can't go places.

You know, everything's closed and, like, people aren't around people. Like, how are you keeping your mindset so clear? Enlighten me. I mean, that's a good question. And I just feel as if, you know, I'm not getting off track, you know, still exercising, still waking up and, you know, staying motivated, doing, you know, the things that I'm passionate about in business. And, you know, even though I can't go outside or, you know, go hang out with friends or, you know, do other activities that I would like to do, you know, you have to do, you have to stay motivated in other ways.

I've been connecting with people through social media and meeting people and getting on Zoom calls and just getting on business calls and talking with people and building relationships just like anything else. But you have to find the things that, you have to find little things that help you stay positive and keep going, keep forward, moving in the right direction. Whether it's picking up a new hobby or changing up your exercise routine, whatever that is, or picking up a new book. Reading is definitely, everybody has to read. I never read when I was young. You know, I used to read the first page and then read the last page and say I read the book.

You know what I mean? Or read the back of the book and say, you know, I understand what it is. But you have to pick up something new if you're feeling in that state of, you know, that stagnant or, you know, that stuck feeling. But, you know, other than that, it's really just, you know, you're right. The world didn't stop for my business and, you know, the things that I'm involved in. So, you know, it was a little bit easier transition. But, you know, being inside, I don't know if I could do it again, but I'm going to have no choice to, you know what I mean? So you just got to keep finding ways to stay positive.

Have you been making fitness a centerfold of everything like since the beginning of this um the centerfold i wouldn't i mean yeah it's definitely a big not a centerfold but like a priority yeah no definitely i mean fitness has always been a priority in my life and i love to stay healthy i love to eat healthy and uh you know, work out and work out hard. You know what I mean? So, you know, I wish I could play basketball more. But, you know, during COVID, you can't pick up a basketball. And now, you know, outside, you know, it's not the summertime in New Jersey now. So, you know, I'm going outside and playing basketball in 30-degree weather.

When the gyms weren't open, though, like what were you doing? Just push-ups and crunches type deal? No. Working it into every day? I would go in there and hit the weights um you know try to do some uh you know high intensity workouts and stuff like that but no i was working out hard you know so um but i mean i'd love to get back into playing basketball you know once everything opens back up i mean that's that's something that definitely i look at it to clear my head and you know to take a half hour an hour away of my day and just and just you know play hoops i mean there's nothing better well are people playing hoops like down

in florida where it's open like are they yeah yeah that's happening yeah i mean there's pickup games again yeah yeah pickup games that's nice maybe not five on five but you're playing two on two or three on three or something like that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Even in the summertime, we were trying to play up here in New Jersey, but it, you know, they took the hoops down.

Oh, yeah. They took the rim down. They took the rims. You know, like. Is that still the case? They're still down? Where I'm living, they haven't put them back up yet.

Well, I mean, now no one's going to go outside, but still, like. Yeah, I saw that in April. I was taking a dog for a walk down the street here in the park and i saw the rims down one day and i'm like they really really took the fucking rims down like the the the two cops that had to come there and do that or whoever it was exactly tax dollars went to taking the fucking rims down like it just and and that's my thing like there's such an overreaction on some stuff and it's like

they were saying at the beginning this stuff was on the surface of things and i realized after about a week with all the amazon packages going everywhere and everyone was fine in my building i was like i guess it's not on the surface huh all these fucking packages are touching all these people you know so like and then you look at like basketball rims and stuff like you should hypothetically i would think the science put back and i don't know people always gotta say this i don't fucking know don't look at me i'm not a doctor i'm not a medical historian or whatever but i gotta think like the science kind of has to back like yeah exercise probably pretty good for you yeah like if you're gonna have people doing something

let them be doing it outside playing pickup fucking basketball you know it just it it seems like some of that was counterintuitive so i i hope we get back to that too but have you been doing anything that's like you know morning routines or stuff to like just get yourself centered to be able to be like all right i know i woke up and walked around the corner from my room to my desk which is the kitchen table now and you know we got to do this and and be in the game today and and be able to be ready and primed to do it again tomorrow so i got to get my mind right to do that are you doing anything in particularly that kind of gets you in the zone nothing out of the ordinary that i haven't done prior to pandemic i mean it's it's literally

just what you're just you're so nonchalant about this i i kind of envy it but no but i mean you have to think about it like yes we're in a global pandemic or you know in the second stage of it but you know we're gonna we're gonna get past this you know and there's gonna be the next obstacle and you know how much are you going to be the next obstacle. And, you know, how much are you going to change from your routine? If you're changing your routine constantly, then you should probably just stick to a constant routine where you don't have to change it that much. You know, like if you never exercise and then during the global pandemic, you're like, oh, I think I should exercise. Well, a global pandemic has to happen for you to start exercising.

Like, you know, like you should have thought about that beforehand. But, you know, I'm glad something, you know, kick some something in your ass to say, OK, I want to exercise now. You know, like you should always have that even keel. You know, you never should get too high or too low on certain things. You know, most of the things. But like, you know, you should have that pattern of routine or regimen that you're following. And that's what I believe. There's not a lot that phases you.

No, really. Now I'm being serious. Because this is just icing on the cake for me. Because I've almost been digging for, I don't know, the last half hour or something. Waiting for you to be like, man, this one thing just fucking blows. And you're just kind of like, no, it's going to be at some point like it's it's all good like we're gonna fight you hear about the flute deaths don't hear about those yeah whatever leave that one there like you're so you're so relaxed about it but this is this is probably a really good example of some of the stuff that makes you good in circles like this because you don't get you don't

get starstruck you don't get like everyone is everyone like you know they take a shit the same way you do and and that's kind of how you go about life like with people and it's obviously like how you keep it even keel like just on a personal level every day even through the chaos yeah yeah i mean i don't know how i you know became like this or was like this or, you know, but I just, just always felt like it just, you know, this is how I am, you know? And people always ask me, like, you smoke a lot of weed. I was just going to say, how much weed were you smoking at a young age, you motherfucker? Wait, wait, actually, actually, here's a funny story. Here's a funny, one of the first times I met you, like, I had known you a little bit,

but, like, we didn't hang out or really talk. No, please don't tell me. But we used to work out at this one guy's studio up in Fairfield, not the one you talked about, but we worked out at JD, at Droz's place. And so I go in there after work to, like, change and get ready to work out, and, like, there wasn't a locker room. It's just, like, a straight-up fucking old-school bathroom. People just went in there and got ready to go. And Luke in there and i walk in and we start talking and but it was the weirdest thing because every time like you would be going entering the bathroom i would just be coming in so it was like every time of the same kind of every same day it

was like we found me a bathroom yeah fucking weirdo now you realize it right yeah now i realize it but at the time luke had you know this long ponytail like down his back like with the with the curly hair and shit i mean he looked like your prototypical stoner and he would just kind of come in there and like he's not a loud guy so again like we didn't talk a ton of time weren't friends and and just be like hey what's up and then go about his work and and not do anything so finally i'm like all right this guy this guy's gotta have like a lot of weed right so i'm like like you dealer and luke dead ass looks at me and goes laughs like does that same laugh and goes nah dude i had to get out of the game and i'm like oh so he was and i'm like damn like how long he's like when i was like 13 i'm like i'm like 13 i didn't know where my balls were no no no i i probably uh you know my this is this is bad to say but i i started smoking weed you know at a younger age and

um you know i was playing varsity sports when I went to high school, you know, as a freshman. So I was hanging around with guys that were 18, 19. And, you know, those guys were smoking marijuana, you know. So, you know, I was hanging out with those guys and, you know, kind of tried it then and then just started smoking weed. But by the time I reached college, I didn't want to do it anymore. Yeah, because I was going to say, you never do. I never. You just never lost that stoning.

It must have just had so much effect on me. When I was younger, it just had that after effect know, had that, you know, after effect. You've seen Wolf of Wall Street where he takes the pills. The Quaaludes. The Quaaludes. And he's like, ah, fuck it. It must be expired. They're 10 years. 20 years.

Like, pop two more. Two more. And like an hour later, he's like dragging on the floor. He's like, yeah. You know? So I don't know. Maybe that has something to do with it but um you know i just it's always just been like a chill you know laid back and you know try not to let you know things phase me whether it's a pandemic or you know things go wrong in business or life and you know um you know and you can't get too high on things either. You know, not talking about weed sends a high, but just, you know, just so.

But this is who I am. Some people, you know, they envy it. And some people are like, man, I don't want to be like that. But, you know, it's definitely just who I am. You know what I mean? And yeah, but people have always asked me, oh, bro, you smoke a lot of weed, right? I don't do that, nah. You don't exude stress on really much of anything, which is, anyone would be jealous of that.

Just because, yeah, you're, I think of you like that. Really. Like, if you're listening and not watching, I'm holding my hand up, like, dead center still. You're just right there the whole time. I mean, I do get excited. I do get, you know. You do, but it's not. But it's just, I don't know.

I don't know. I just try to stay at that even keel and just try to, you know, I'm always going to be myself, you know. So at that point, I just was like, all right, this is Luke, you know. And my dad named me after the movie Cool Hand Luke. I was going to say, you're Cool Hand Luke. And anybody that hasn't seen that movie with Paul Newman, you know about it? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's about a – but I would like you to tell it a little bit. But it's about a guy, and his name is Cool Hand Luke, and he gets arrested. He goes into jail and then, but he escapes from jail and then when they catch him, they start torturing him, they start yelling at him and he just stays at this, you know, this level that is just, nothing fazes

him, you know, they're making him you know, he gets out of, he escapes from jail again and he gets back in and they catch him and they're making him you know, bury his own grave and he gets back in, and they catch him. And they're making him, you know, bury his own grave, and he's there like, you know, just cool hand Luke, you know, in a way. And it's funny because I haven't seen that movie for so long. And then when I saw it the first time, I was on the plane actually down to Florida,

and they had it on the United flight. And I watched the movie, and I got off the plane and I called my dad and I said dad like how did you know I was gonna end up to to kind of like be like that guy in the way of his personality and the way he just was I didn't know I didn't know cool hand Luke and it just yeah like it just kind of I didn't know yeah i just named you you know and it just kind of aligned with how he handles things in life to you know not say i've been in jail or anything like that but you know like you know you just i wasn't gonna bring that up i mean you didn't have to do that i know i know you know only one night you know yeah yeah no i i think he kind of nailed that because there's just no – it's very hard to fuck with people or hold things over people who don't react.

Yeah. You know, the only thing they'll do is respond. There's a big difference between the two. Yeah. And you're not – like, you're the kind of guy that in that pressure situation, you're going to be like, all right, it'll work out or it won't. You're a realist about it, but I think you said this earlier, but you control what you can control.

It's a really admirable talent, I would say. It takes a while. It takes a pattern to get like that. it takes a pattern to get like that. It takes a mindset to get like that. A pound or two? No. Maybe three. Maybe three. But, you know, you really have to, you know, put yourself in that mind state of just, you know, everything is, stay optimistic and everything's going to be all right. You know, what you're going through now is you're going to look back,

whether it's a, you know, a three month phase of, you know, something bad that's going on, or even it's a one week phase, you know what I mean? Or even if it's a year, you still have to kind of think about it like, wow, five years from now, I'm going to look back. And that was such a small part of my life. You i might have took over you know a lot of my time and energy in that six months or whatever it was but you know overall you're gonna look back and be like wow yeah no that that did happen i went through that you know but wow look at look at me now you know what i mean and you see people that have changed or you know things thing people could turn around their whole life in six months you know and and

you know or or the opposite people their whole life in six months or the opposite. Their whole life can spiral in three, six months. You know what I mean? So you just try to stay at that even keel and always work hard and keep pushing forward. When something bad is happening in your life, do you step back? Like, do you find yourself in that moment having the ability to step back and say, hey, all right, this is very bad right now. Like, let's say the worst kind of things.

But this too shall pass. Maybe it's going to take three months or six, but like, not that long from now, I'm going to be all right. Do you have that ability to do that? I mean, everybody has that ability to do that um i mean everybody has that ability to do that they just sometimes they just don't know that they they can do it uh or they haven't tapped into it that's fair you know what i mean like i'm no different from like you or anybody else that that can change their mindset you know and there's there's a there's a quote that you

know i like and it's um change the way you look at things and the things you look at change. So change the way you look at things and the things you look at change. So I kind of just, like you said, I respond more than I react. So if something bad happens or someone says something or current events are happening in the next, you know, in this week, you know, and things are going bad. Well, no, I don't say to myself, oh, yeah, next week it'll be better. I just say, well, okay, well, why did this happen? What did I do to kind of cause this or did I do something? You know what I mean?

Like, I just feel as if, you know, you always try to, you know, I wouldn't say control the situation because I don't want to control anybody. the situation because I don't want to control anybody. I don't want to control situations. I just want to let people feel as if they can trust me and be open with me. You know what I mean? I don't want to have to, I really, at this thing, I just have this kind of overpowering mindset that just is like, all right, this is why it happened. It's not going to happen again. And if it does, well, I've been through it already, you know?

Do you get frustrated, though, at other people when they can't, like, let's say, you know, some of your trust? Yeah, not even just understand you, but you but like when they're going through shit and like they can't do that does it frustrate you no you can't you can't get frustrated with somebody else because if they don't understand if you can't understand something and i'm getting frustrated with you what are you going to start thinking about you're going to start thinking about me being frustrated at you you know like that's not going to help your situation you know you you just got to let that person you know when you go through things, you grow in a different way. Whether you're stronger or you feel as if you're becoming a different person, whatever it is, whatever you go through, it makes you a different person.

You know, bad or good. You know, and everybody has that choice, you know, to wake up and feel a certain way about themselves and to do good. You know what I mean? And to try to, you know, to wake up and feel a certain way about themselves and to do good, you know what I mean? And to try to, you know, strive for doing better in every day, you know what I mean? But I never feel, you know, a sense of frustration towards anybody that, you know, if people don't know right or wrong, then it's different, you know? But, you know, I'm trying to think of an example, but there's just... I mean, no, I would never feel frustrated with somebody

if they don't understand. I would try to make them understand, and if I can't, then maybe it's in time that they do understand. But I would never... Because their experience isn't yours, their environment isn't yours, no matter what. We only know where we're from and what we're about

and that's the thing when you understand you know maybe not where people come from a little bit about that but just more about who a person is and what makes them tick or what makes them not tick like then you could kind of have that conversation with them and say listen i i think we should do this this and that and you know this is a better business move are like, hey, bro, I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think you should keep doing that. Or, hey, bro, I see you're doing really well with this. Yeah, keep that up. You know what I mean?

There's different ways to definitely approach your friends and really have an effect on them, whether or not they think you are impacting them right now. You know what I mean? And they might look back and say, damn, Luke, you were right. on them whether or not like they think you are impacting them right now you know what i mean and they might look back and say damn like no luke you were right you know or it was like no i don't want to listen to luke like he thinks he knows what he's talking about but i i don't ever want to come off like i know what i'm talking about even if i do like you know what i mean it's

just no one wants to be around to know it all you know but you know if i'm giving my advice and that's like there's there's people that you know that, that I'm close to and, you know, and I'll give them my advice and stuff. Or, you know, sometimes people have to, you know, pull it out of me and say, what should I do? What should I do? You know what I mean? And I just, you know, give them my advice in a way of, you know, I always try to think of an unbiased opinion. You know, if they're if they're telling me, hey, listen, this this happened with this person and I'm trying to figure it out. Well, okay, I'm going to think about what is the other person thinking of, not just what my friend is, because my friend just wants me to say what he thinks is right for him or her. You know what I mean?

Like, okay, there's always two sides to a story. You know what I mean? So you have to think about what the other person could be thinking when you're going to say this, you know? So, you know, you have to be mindful of other people's feelings and emotions. You know what I mean? Like that goes into, you know, building relationships. You know, I can't build a relationship if I'm always talking to you and you're getting angry or frustrated with me, you know.

Or the things that I'm saying, you're just like, dude, I don't want to hear this. Like, you know what I mean? Like you got to, you know, put that into thought, you know. Yeah, you kind of know when there needs to, when there needs to be space on, you have a very good feel for when there needs to be space on things versus when you can be a little more vulnerable and direct about it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you ever get, I mean, I, I genuinely want to know this cause I really have never heard it. I can think of like one time where we disagreed on um on artistic direction or something which was kind of funny but even then only one time we disagree no no we disagree more than that but i can remember one time we were like god we're like god damn it you know, me, like, I tend to be, I can be here, too. Yeah.

But, like, not like you. Like, I can have my moments where I get real high-strung about something. Like, it fucking happens. No question about it. And I remember, like, in that, I was getting a little high-strung about it after a while. And even then, like, I could tell you kind of wanted to but you didn't you're like you kept on coming back and like you would re-center the conversation be like listen i know that's what you think i disagree this is what i think here's why and like sometimes it would be like you'd be repeating it over and over again and

then afterwards i realized like damn i never lost it and like he was just doing it to kind of like get me back to center over and over again telegraphing what he was doing because he wasn't gonna let me pull him into getting high strung like that like do you do you ever have situations though where you're like no fuck it like i'm i'm mad now i'm going in because i almost as hard as this is to concept like i almost feel like you're not capable of that. No, I mean, I definitely am capable of it. But it's got to, it's just got to be something that's just, like, you know, out there. Next level.

Yeah. Like, conversational wise, I don't think I, I don't, I don't I don't see myself doing that, you know, because when you take things to a certain level, whether it's, you know, a partnership and business or, you know, a relationship with a girl, like when you take things to that next next level, you know, and you can't get that back. You know what I mean? And you don't ever want to go there, you know? So it's, I think I do know what maybe situation you are talking about. And I mean, it would take me, you know, trust me, I got into plenty of fights and things like that, you know, and, you know, get angry and stuff like that. But it would have to be, you know, you'd have to say something about my mom or something like that for me to, like, take it over the edge or something like that. But even that stuff, like, you know, like there's some times when it just, like, whoa, like, you know, I remember this is a funny story.

So we're at, I think it was me, Chaz, you know uh my sister-in-law and we're out with a couple friends in hoboken and we go to a bar we're having a couple of drinks that's important uh i think it was madison uptown the madison oh the madison hotel yeah no i don't know if it was the madison madison bar or something like that you know where where City Bistro is? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so it's like right around there. It's on the corner. The Madison Bar or something. I don't know.

I don't think I know that bar. Go ahead. No, you've probably been there. You've probably been there. So we go into the bar, and then we see this other group of friends that we know. And we're talking with them. We're having some drinks, and we're only there for maybe 20 20 30 minutes and then another group gets into like a little scuffle with the group that we know

and then we didn't really kind of react but you know we were just helping you know control the situation and you know just make sure everybody's just back to having a good time. So then maybe the people that got into the fight, they thought I was involved or whatever. And then when they started walking out, one of the guys walked out and I had just got my drink. And one of the guys had walked out and he walks right by me me, and he just, boop, taps me on the head. I turn around. I threw my drink, started swinging. I mean, I flipped. When was this?

This was about maybe like three years ago. Luke Cervino. Luke Avelli came out. But that's the thing. I could be even-keeled. I'm not saying that happens all the time, but stuff like that. like you you know i could be even cute but like not saying that happens all the time but like stuff like that like but you just you don't disrespect me i'll put you tap your hand on my head you know what i mean and yeah especially not with three drinks in

me yeah i mean i only think i had two at that point like but you know what i mean and even take the drinks it was more or less of like you know the level of disrespect that this person showed me it just wasn't gonna go you know yeah i i think and actually i i think that's even a little more that's a little different a little more primal like when when there's shit like that especially when it's something physical like that like that's that's different but like you know when when you're in disagreements with people and shit like we can all wait but can i finish the story yeah yeah yeah sorry so we're going at it uh you know the bouncer's six five he's holding me back you know there's three of them so the

guy's holding them back you know we get back to drinking right now we're drinking maybe another 15 minutes go by the bouncer comes six five bouncer taps me on the shoulder he says can you go outside the cops are out there so no i'm not going you know i'm not going no please sir can you come outside the cops are here so i walk outside the three guys are standing there with the cop i walk out like you said i had my ponytail the time and you know so i walk out and the cop goes wait so it was you So you got you three guys call the cops on this guy. And I'm like, what do you mean? Yeah. Wait a minute. You know, but like it was like, oh, like the cop was in shock of that. These three guys, you know, that are that were six foot and above were like, you know, we want this guy arrested because he, you know, came at us.

And so, no, no, no, no. They started with me. They started with somebody else, then they started with me. They sent me a subpoena. I wasn't allowed to go back to the ball. Jesus Christ. No, it was bad. But then the subpoena was done. I got back. So the first time I ever walked back in there, I showed the guy my ID.

This was a year later, right? I showed the guy my ID. He looks... a year later right i showed the guy my id he looks oh my god you're a legend here i was like no not me man i walked out there like i don't want to talk to these cops cops look at you and go him and you go you won't fuck around and find out it's like zero to a hundred real quick yeah but uh but no that's all right so you got a little other side to you i do i definitely do draw a line but between that and you know just on a general day-to-day because like that's dude and anyone's gonna get pissed in that scenario yeah no one's fucking tapping me on the head with two or three in me yeah yeah no they're gonna learn real fast yeah that's the thing like we do some stupid shit

like people become new people in bars yeah everybody gets more confident when they get drunk you know yeah a lot of people why do you why do you think guys go out and they get drunk and then they start talking to girls it's like bro well yeah that's true you know but most of the time it doesn't work out for them well Well, it depends on the guy, but yeah. It definitely depends on the guy. Dude, and it can, to your point, it can definitely go for the worst there. I think we all got stories like that. Oh, yeah.

It's like something like a little primal happens when that alcohol gets in your system. Something a little bit primal. You know, like the little things suddenly you're tough about. You weren't tough about it 10 minutes ago. Yeah, yeah. You had a couple car bombs. Now you're like tough about you weren't tough about 10 minutes ago yeah yeah you had a couple car bombs now you're real tough yeah no exactly yeah yeah i just i stay at that even keel and uh you know i like it i like it you ever get into trouble out

in fort liquor now i haven't i haven't yet not yet you're on it. I'm not, no. I don't plan on a lot of things. But, you know, getting in trouble is definitely one I don't plan. But, you know, things happen, you know. You could be out and, you know, you never know what could happen. Especially in a place where, you know, the whole world is, you know, the whole United States is in lockdown. They're the only state. Like, wait a minute.

But, you know, everybody's good down there. You know, you got tough guys wherever you go. But, you know, for the most part, people are good down there. Yeah. You know, so. Yeah, fucking leave it to Florida, man. Yeah. Leave it to Florida.

It's like the Petri dish of literally. No, but I meant to bring this earlier. I like that shirt. Oh, thank you, sir. Yeah, that's a great movie yeah place behind the pines underrated movie oh yeah underrated fucking movie now he he ryan gosling is great in it uh bradley cooper i mean that was i think that movie went for over three hours right it's a long one i like i will bring up this movie and people will not know what i'm talking about and i'm like oh that's one of my favorite movies people that you know i love that that that's one of your favorite movies if people haven't seen that place beyond the pines it's like it's like a generational ballad yeah it's kind of how i describe it it's watch it yeah it's like

you can't just like watch that movie passively though yeah like you need to like sit down like gotta lock in exactly exactly and like ryan gosling in that movie is about who's on my shirt yeah that's about as good of acting as you will ever see in your life i mean it's like and his name is luke in the movie and his name is luke in the movie yeah so were you named after him no man it's it's i i love that movie and it's like i remember it came out in like march of the year it came out whatever year that like 2012 or 2013 or something no not that old you don't think so no i think Maybe 16. Check that on your phone. But it came out like in the spring, so it wasn't an Oscar season or anything. It kind of got overlooked.

But, dude, like if you just, if you like things that are. Wow, you're right, 2013. Yeah, it's been a while. If you like good storytelling and you're into like just a fucking artistically well put together movie oh yeah that's the one for you that's another yeah but his character in that movie is such a badass if you had to name i mean not top five but actors that come like you know five actors that come to your your head all time all time are you just like watching that you know haven't made a movie in a while just five actors that come to your head no i could who's the first one say one brando

yeah brando right there yeah 100 man brando was people and some people listening who know me will be like he didn't say al pacino al pacino's number two which is like al pacino's an incredible actor underrated um and legend but you know sometimes like there was like a thing in college where i was like someone didn't like al pacino so then it became a thing so everyone called me al pacino so i fucking loved al pacino but yeah al pacino's great but brando people don't understand like people a lot of people be like you know be like wait who's that and I'll be like the godfather the guy who played him

be like oh yeah that motherfucker but like dude the he was the original it guy I mean he was a pure form tour de force method actor who got so deep in his roles and was just i mean he was like tortured by

it so i think it was why he was like a weird dude so he's definitely one obviously pacino is definitely up there daniel day lewis who pound for pound one of the greatest of all time leo oh leo that that's my number one probably i love yeah, who are yours? I would probably say Leonardo DiCaprio. Who else? Who else is up there? I like Denzel. Dude, Denzel. Yeah, I got a couple Denzel shirts back there.

Denzel is awesome. Denzel's top up there for me, too. Will Smith is up there, too. You got to give it to him. He's a very good actor. But Leo in, what was it, The Revenant? Yeah. That was awesome.

Did you see the new Hollywood movie that he did? I did. Yeah, he was terrific, I thought. How did you like that movie? I think I've got to watch it again. No, really. No, but I laugh because that's the first thing that comes to my mind. I've seen it twice already.

What do you think? The first time, I just said, I don't even know what I watched. It was all over the place. And I loved, what's her name, Margot Robbie. She was awesome. Now, was she awesome because she's a great actress? Or you just like some Margot Robbie? I think it's a little bit of both Brad Pitt

he was great in it she's an unbelievable actress by the way yeah she was really amazing and I think I think what hurt me watching the movie

because I had a different expectation of it you know and that's one thing I don't like to do either how I stay on that even keel is you can't have you can't be

your expectations can't be too high for things you know if your expectations are too high then you're gonna come, you can't be, your expectations can't be too high for things. You know, if your expectations are too high, then you're going to come out of there and be,

ah, it's not that great. You know what I mean? Did you know, like, a lot about the Manson murders or something? No, no.

Just like in general? Just in general, like, those three together in the same movie, I was like, wow, this is going to be great.

You know, and then when I watched it the second time, I was like, wow, this is a really good movie. So you did. Yeah,

because, you know, the information that I researched prior to, or after the first one you know i watched it the first time i i was like all right you know now things are starting to make a little bit more sense and okay why did he do this and why was he hanging out with you know the one girl and going to those like you know cabin things or whatever and um but i mean what was it what was uh leo's name in the movie um i gotta look it up rick rick rick yeah yeah rick stanton no no it's that's it's it's similar yeah what's it called once upon a time in hollywood yeah once upon a time in hollywood

i mean the other thing the other thing we're not saying right now is, obviously, who made the movie. Oh, yeah, we haven't got to that. But that's why it was all over the place. Exactly. And that's his whole thing. All right, what was this guy's name? Rick, uh... Rick Dalton.

Rick Dalton. And Cliff Booth. Cliff Booth. That was it. Yeah. Tarantino. Who's this, your son? Nah, it's my stunt double And Cliff Booth. Cliff Booth. That was it. Yeah. Tarantino. Who's this, your son? Nah, it's my stunt double, Cliff Booth.

This is my stunt double. Yeah. But the best is when Leo's, they're in the car together and he's driving him, Brad Pitt's driving him to one of the scenes and I think he was having a drink and he gets out and he's kind of like, not looking too confident. And then Brad Pitt goes, hey. a drink and he gets out and he's like kind of like ah you know not not looking too confident and then uh brad pitt goes hey and uh fucking leonardo cavio looks back and he's like remember you're fucking rick dolton like yeah you know that was a great part but he's he's underrated for his accents too like leo's accents that he does yeah oh my god you ever seen uh you ever

seen the clip he was on ellen degen, and they talked about he had, like, these two crazy incidents where he was skydiving, and then he was flying, I think, to, like, Russia or something. And these two, you know, things that happened to him, he talks about them, and, like, it was, first of all, it was crazy what happened to him because talks about him and like it was it was the first of all it was crazy what happened to him because he was skydiving and they uh the parachutes broke the parachutes were tangled the first one and then the the the actor the uh the the uh what the what the hell you call the stunt double no no like this is a real thing like oh wait he was

doing this in real life yeah yeah he was doing it in real life but yeah yeah like he was skydiving but the instructor the instructor that was on his back he was like all right it's tangled like so we got to get the second one the second one was tangled and then like you know they're everybody's like you know getting the parachutes and all his friends and he's still coming down hard like you know and then finally they get the parachute and you know he lands safely but he was like oh i'm never doing that again but then he was on a plane he was that's my nightmare by the way why you would go to guide avenue no oh and if i did so how's it a nightmare if you would never do it if the fucking instructor went so oh wait number two's out

but but how is it a nightmare if you if you don't if you don't ever think you're gonna do it is i don't like heights yeah but and i'm saying like that's my nightmare like if i were doing it and they said like oh yeah you know backups out we'll figure it out well i mean i heard that the instructor will fall first and hit first so you know front luke from 30 000 feet in the air i don't know how much of a difference that's gonna make i gotta tell you man i there's enough hollow bones in a body that i think i'm pretty fucked yeah yeah so whether you fall first or say maybe still fuck you're right yeah yeah but back to it i don't know i don't know how we got there but tarantinoino's movies, that's the thing about him.

Like, he's such a genius. The amount of money I would pay to be a fly on the wall inside of that man's brain. Uh-huh. Oh, my God. I mean, because they're just, his movies are, they're crazy. But, like, are you a big fan of his? I'm a fan. Yeah, I'm a big fan are you a big fan of his? I'm a fan, yeah,

I'm a big fan, yeah. What's your favorite Tarantino movie? That's a good question. I can't think of a topic, can you give me a couple? Well, there was Kill Bill,

back in the early 2000s, a couple of those, a few of those. I'm not big into, like, horror movies. There was, um, Reservoir Dogs was the first one. Bill back in the early 2000s a couple of those I'm not big into like horror movies it was um Reservoir Dogs was the first one Pulp Fiction Jackie Brown

I know my favorite I'm gonna say Inglourious Bastards all right maybe I'm not a big fan I'm a fan but Luke's like I was thinking of it yeah yeah I'm like alright wait a minute fuck I shouldn't have had expectations for that movie yeah you ever seen Inglourious Bastards no no

woo Inglourious Bastards is Brad Pitt oh my god Brad Pitt Christoph Waltz who you may not

know by name but you'd know him right away if I showed one of the best pound for pound actors you'll ever see. I love how you used the term pound-for-pound actor.

Oh, yeah. Well, I'm from Philly. We're used to pound-for-pound greatest player, Allen Iverson. So everyone's pound-for-pound no matter what. It's just translated. Oh, so we're in Philly right now. We're pretty close to Philly. We're not in Philly.

We're in South Jersey. Let's make that clear. Oh, so we're still in Jersey. Yes, we're still in jersey this guy's still giving me shit but um who else was in that bj novak's in that okay okay oh funny story about bj novak he i wasn't there for this but he he came to our college to like do stand-up or like a speech or something and he gave everyone a chance to do a joke at the end and so this this kid gets up there right next to one

stage and goes goes so so three midgets walk into sorry with that word again oh man that was a good one that was a good one yeah that wasn't the joke but he goes up there he goes three midgets walk into the guinness book of world records studio or whatever to to get to get a world record and the first midget goes i am convinced that i have the smallest hand on an adult male in the world so he walks in the guinness people measure his hand and and they go all right confirm you have the smallest hand next guy walks in and goes i am convinced that i have the smallest toe in on a grown male in the world that's not diseased or something like that and he walks in they measure and they go oh congratulations you have the

smallest smallest toe third midget goes in and goes i'm convinced i'm convinced i have the smallest smallest toe third midget goes in and goes i'm convinced i'm convinced i have the smallest dick of any adult male in the world and they go in and measure and he walks out and they're like the other two midgets are like so and he goes no i i don't fuck they're like what's what's the story they measure your dick and it's not the smallest he goes who the fuck is bj novak so this kid this kid tells a joke right next to him bj novak goes like get the fuck off the stage like like didn't laugh at all and the kid's like oh i'm like i i thought we were i thought we were burning out here but yeah he's he's in that movie um uh what's the guy who played excellent actor michael fassbender the guy who played steve jobs

he's in it but that movie is like the thing about tarantino is his first scenes of every movie are like notoriously amazing like these slow burn things so that movie starts off with an ss soldier because it takes place in World War two. Yeah visiting some like Cabin out in the fields of France and visiting with this this guy who is the head of a household he's appears to be single and he's got three daughters and he's looking for hiding Jewish people and The whole scene is this guy sitting in his kitchen table Talking with the SS officer who's like a psycho And he's hiding Jewish people

Oh and like it's the you know about halfway through the scene you realize he is and the whole scene is just building up And it's just dialogue, but the entire time like you're sitting there like riveted I won't tell you what happens but yeah it's like it's got to be like a 15 20 minute scene just talking and that's what makes tarantino great because he has these scenes where it's not like there's even like a ton of action going on but you can feel that whole like brooding going towards it so yeah i definitely gotta watch the the hollywood movie again just because it was like all over the place at first. Yeah, yeah.

All the history in it too. Yeah. What other movies are you liking? Well, obviously The Rock is up there too for actors wise. He is a really underrated actor. You think he's underrated? Yes, because he's a... Here's why.

He's a movie star. He's viewed that and like like, beloved, right? But, like, he can fucking act. Yeah, yeah. Like, people don't look at The Rock and be like, all right, you know, he'll be up for an Oscar this year. Not that he does a lot of movies like that, but he's really fucking good.

Well, maybe it's just because, like... I don't know. I don't know why. But that is a good point, though. I never thought about it like that, but I always thought about it like, you know, he's The Rock. He's a movie star. But he's a good actor.

But maybe because it's tough for him to play different roles. Yeah, because he's so big. Not really. I mean, he's a human boulder. Yeah. Like Marky Mark. That's one of my favorite guys. Another great one.

You know, and he plays different roles. And even Ben Affleck, I like him. He plays different roles in a way. Did you see the movie he just did? I think it was The Way Back or Way Back. I haven't, no. He was a basketball coach. But he was a basketball player in high school.

And then he's working and he gets married and stuff. But then he gets a divorce and he becomes basically an alcoholic. He works a job. Then the basketball high school he went to, they ask him to be the coach and he becomes the coach and they haven't had a winning season since he was there 20 years ago or something like that. It was some crazy thing. But he ends up, I mean, he played a great part in that movie and he played a great role.

I mean, he was awesome. The movie was great, too. He's had a really cool career in the sense that he was written off as like a shit actor. Yeah. It was like he came up writing. The accountant, he was fucking amazing. Yeah, that was another one. Oh, my God.

Yeah. Yeah. But when he was young, because he wrote Good Will Hunting, I think, with Matt Damon, and people were like, oh, yeah, Matt Damon and his friend. And then Ben Affleck was a star because of it, but they're like, oh, he can't act. And then he does Gigli with J-Lo when they were a thing. You ever see that movie? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Woo! Not good. You know what I've just seen? That was last week. I've seen it again. The Departed. That's a great movie. Yeah, The Departed.

Leo's awesome in that. The Departed is maybe a top five for me. It's up there. It's definitely a top five. You know, and I like Matt Damon, but Leo, you could feel like he was stressing being in that being in when they're with uh whatever jack nichols name is in the movie but he was like like he would talk he would talk back you know when we when we talked to the cops like he was the informant guy he would be like man you gotta get me out of here they're gonna kill me like you felt like he was like that part you know what i mean and

but he didn't win anything for that i don't even think he got nominated but i will take this to my grave and i'm a huge leo fan i think he's incredible in pretty much every movie i've ever watched that's his best movie that's his best one i in my and that's just an opinion hot take but i know really i know i know it's an opinion i couldn't agree with you more he was i'll never forget seeing that movie for the first time and i was like wow like he really and everything was embodied in that also probably the greatest sex scene in movie history just because like movies can't show anything but that that whole in in the middle of vera farmago was one of the hottest fucking things i've ever seen not to get it steamy in here but you know yeah

yeah it's just a great movie no it's it's it's a very good movie and that's one of the top five definitely yeah something about like the setting too like when it's in like boston or something you ever see the town oh yeah it's one of my favorite movies because that's where that's where it like started to happen because affleck especially after g-leader like this guy fucking blows and then towards like the end of the aughts or whatever the hell they call it like he i forget what he did but he came out with like one or two movies there it's like oh all right he's okay yeah yeah and then he did the town and the town got appreciated after it was already out like on dvd like after it'd been in the

theaters i saw it in the theaters though really and i was like oh because they play it all the time on uh on tv and movies like wine people like it more every year yeah oh yeah that's it's gone from like oh yeah that movie to like oh wow good movie to like oh yeah great movie to like oh dude that's an all-timer yeah no you're right you're right over the years we didn't even bring so you think leo was better in the departed than he was in wolf of wall street wolf of wall street definitely i thought he was terrific in wolf of wall street i thought he was terrific in wolf of wall street i thought he was like stupendous out of this world nailed it from every aspect

everything before he got rich to when he was rich to when he was down like i just thought he part of it is the is the genre probably a little bit yeah yeah because like it's it's definitely do me wrong like it's got a lot of drama to it obviously it's a long movie but you know it's the part is just it's comedic the departed is like yeah and there's some funny moments in that short but it's like such a yeah you're like all right all right i mean yeah it's just such a every every kind of scene in a way with the depart it keeps you on edge whether it's you know with leo with jack nicholson or you know matt damon trying to find out who's the who's the you know undercover cop or you know just you know whatever it is and you

know then the cops are setting up trying to get jack jack nicholson and yeah it's it's it's all based on whitey bulger too oh really oh yeah it is yeah yeah you're right yeah and he he was such a what a what a bad dude but also like was he working for the government the whole time never know seems like it certainly seems like it but yeah marty i think that was um that was scorsese's first Oscar, too. That was his first one? Yeah. So, like, think about that. Scorsese, first Oscar, 33 years into his career since Mean Streets in 73. Yeah.

And then Leo didn't win his first Oscar until 2015, 2016 with The Revenant. Yeah, yeah. Like, 25 years into his acting career but i heard from a really really good source that all those rumors that people shouldn't even think of as rumors that like leo was shunned by the academy to win because the academy likes people a certain way they don't like the guy that rolls in off the private jet onto fucking the tarmac in miami with 27 victoria's secret models and like a lot of blow in the back they don't like that so they basically oh wait that was leo no yeah you're not but they basically like blackballed him for a long time so he'd get nominated but then you know yeah like

there were a lot of movies he should have won for there's a lot of movies he was nominated for like how many a lot yeah like a lot like i don't know the number but look it up it's got to be like eight something like that yeah no there's a lot of movies he was nominated for that he came very close to but yeah there's like there's something about like these critic clicks you know like we we rely on these people to tell us what's good and what's not but the people always end up deciding yeah remember dave chappelle last year yeah with that special no you didn't see that special no no oh my god he did his in 2019 he did his first netflix special i think it was his first one and when it came out rotten tomatoes rated it a zero or a 1%.

A zero? Yeah, like the worst thing it could possibly be. And it was written by like five critics who were like offended by what he said. Fucking comedian, they're offended by what he says. And then Rotten Tomatoes opened it up to the public to then create the score. And it went up to a 99%. No. Yeah, because like critics you know

they have a they have a point of view like imagine how much different and you know there's a downside to it but imagine how much different it would be if like people voted on the oscars or the grammys you know well that's what they do with the nba they people vote for the all-stars they do but then they don't vote they don't vote they do and then they don't vote. Is that true or not? They don't vote. They do. And then they don't vote for the end of year stuff. So like the writers vote for the MVP. You know, it's a kind of. Defensive player of the year, rookie of the year, stuff like that. Yeah.

And like the Hall of Fames too. Yeah. You know, like with baseball, they're going to let in Bonds and Clemens and all that. The writers control that. It's a slippery slope but i almost think like the fans should have a say yeah you should definitely have a say like that's the market it's our fucking money i'm fucking paying you know if you're going to the game you're paying for the seats right i luke servino i'm going to decide who goes into the whole thing

i'm paying for these seats? We all are. We all are. That's funny. You been listening to any good music? You never hesitate on music. You're always like, Julie, you got to hear this one song and then it turns into 35 songs. I've been definitely really focused in music. But, I mean, I've been focused in, you know, just work and stuff like that.

But music, I mean, you got to give it to him. He's the hottest one out now, Lil Baby. Yeah, man. I'm not even, I won't pretend to be a fan. Yeah, exactly, yeah. He drops something like every other day. Yeah, but it's, you. But it's out there. Think about the song.

I don't know if you saw it during the pandemic. I think it was called The Bigger Picture. He was telling a story. You're a big storyteller in the music, right? Who's your favorite guy? He's over there. He's behind the camera. So he was a storyteller.

If you listen to this song that he that he made during this whole time uh you know pandemic and you know what happened with george floyd he he spilled it all out there you know he was talking about what he was feeling at that point and and how kind of you know um black people feel you know so um you know i think he's up there and um you know i'm excited to see monty's music come out soon but um i kind of i don't know i've been kind of you know taking a break from music a little bit just to fucking bro i'm so into sports cards you have no idea you really don't looks like can we go back to that again i don't want to keep talking about it but it's i'm on it 24 7 yeah i believe it you know i mean we were talking before the

podcast you wouldn't shut the hell up yeah you're like fuck shit you know yeah but i mean it's it's looking at your collection it's the numbers kind of stress me out it's like yeah and you're a numbers guy that's a lot you are keeping track of like i can't imagine can't imagine owning four or five thousand stocks can't imagine that it's can't imagine it but you know yeah no i agree with that and it's just you know like i said before if you got guys that are older than 1970 80 those guys aren't their stocks aren't really going up that much so you can either hold on to it and see what happens or you could sell it and then you know make some money but it's the guys that are now that you're doing the the most research the most analytics on you know like from even last week,

one of the players that plays for Washington, Rory Hakamura, he was at his raw card on Starstock was at $20. I think right now it's at $30. It's a move like that. I mean, that's a 33% move. Damn. And you could own a lot of him think about it you could as many cards they have up there you could have bought yeah you know at a 20 you know some people might have it up there for 40 50 but you might not you

don't want to buy it for that much but if you buy you know say you bought 50 of them at 20 you know you just made 10 each on 50 on you know 50 of them it's a. You just made $10 each on 50 of them. It's a nice profit. You know what I mean? You could either sell half of them or get them shipped to your house from Starstock and get them graded. But it's

with the market and with me being involved in basketball so much and the media and with Kendrick and what we do. And, you know, it's a lot of fun, but it's a lot of hard work. You know, you're doing a lot of research. You're talking to people. You're, you know, seeing where you should sell your cards,

for how much you should sell your cards. You know, where do you think these players are going to go? And, you know, do you think they're going to get traded? You know, Russell Westbrook is now on the Washington Wizards. So what happened to his card value? There's a a good question what happened to his card value when that happened two questions on it not just his overall value on the market but like for example did his specifically his houston card get a lot more valuable because now he doesn't play for them anymore so then well no you you really go more off of the rookie cards.

So, like, you know, now, guys, you could buy their second-year cards and they'll still be worth something, but back then, you know, you're not really buying second-year cards. You're buying all the rookie cards. But even now, you've got LeBron James' cards that are still going for a good amount that are in his 10th year on the Lakers or 15th year on the Lakers when he's with them because they came out with different cards now. Now they have all different types of cards. Like this is a Panini Prism, but there's also, you know, Panini Select, there's Panini Mosaic, you know, there's so many

different kinds of cards. I love the names on this shit. Yeah, but, you know, there's so many different kinds of cards that you got to keep up and you got to know which cards are, you know, because there's obviously different levels to the card. Like Panini, the Prism, the base card, that's like, you know, the Prisms are like the highest kind of cards. You know, then you probably have like Select and then you go from Select to, you maybe donruss optic or but there's different kinds of select there's select concourse there's select premium level so and there's 20 different types of prisms you know so it's like you have so many cards that fluctuate that you know they might like i said they might make 10 000 of these but you know another card that might it might be you know one of 25 cards that could be an autograph that could

be going for twenty thousand dollars well wait how does that work i didn't ask about that so you get just say the best card in the world right and it's not autographed now it gets autographed whoever it is no no no you have to get the card has to be autographed um like before it becomes like right when it comes a card pan, Panini has deals with the athletes and that's how they get autographed. If I take this card and get it signed by Luka Doncic, it wouldn't mean anything, really.

It would only mean something if he signed it when it came out. Yeah, yeah. If it was an autographed card, you would have it, there would be a section here where you would see his signature. You know what I mean? But if he signed this like i don't know if it would be if it would mean that much you know me personally i might have to look into that more but you know i wouldn't i should have asked you this actually i just thought of this i don't know why but did you learn a lot about this business before you were interested in it because you were working with athletes where

you would set up deals like this all the time where they got to sign shit and you know signings yeah definitely but they were signing cards a lot um yeah yeah panini and tops and stuff like that yeah yeah interesting what was the one guy's name you did some work with the guy um stein you know i'm talking about no that was more uh chas lee stein? No, no. Not Lee Steinberg. That's the agent. The guy, Steiner Sports. Steiner Sports. Yeah.

That's like collectibles and stuff like that. So is he an expert in this stuff, I would take it? Steiner Sports, yeah. Like, I mean, like the actual trading of it now? Yeah. Actually, I don't know that much. I don't know that much about it. Steiner Sports.

I guess Chaz dealt with them steiner sports i guess jazz dealt with them yeah jazz definitely dealt with them more got it but but for you know signing purposes or or you know but they could pay a guy to sign like one of my buddies he talked to um tom brady's tom brady's guy who um does the autographs right and that didn't set up the deal for Tom Brady. Tom Brady said, you know, I think it's $1,000 a signature, but the minimum he'll do is $500. So what's that math? Wait, $1,000 a signature, but the minimum, so really it's $500 a signature and he might do it.

No. At the end of the day, I'm just doing some math here. No, no, no, like it's a thousand times 500,000? Oh, so he, oh, okay, I totally misunderstood. Yeah, yeah, so he'll only do a signature if he's doing it per $1,000

per signature, and the minimum he's got to sign 500 things.'s doing it per $1,000 per signature. And the minimum, he's got to sign 500 things. So does that equal $500,000? Yeah, something like that. So basically, if you spend $500,000, but you could sell. Say Tom Brady, you have 500 pictures of Tom Brady, and he signs them. At $1,000, you could probably sell them for maybe you know, maybe $2,000, $3,000. That's Tom Brady, you know what I mean? But maybe the market has went up for that because of the whole card industry,

you know what I mean? But, you know, that's Tom Brady that's getting that price. You know, other guys, some guys are at $50, you know, but you can still make good money because you're going to sign, you know, 500 pieces at $50. That's make good money because you're gonna you're gonna sign um you know 500 pieces at 50 that's still still good money yeah for a half hour you know yeah i totally missed that first time he said that i was like wait that doesn't make sense so he's saying his price is really 500 yeah if he's doing at least 500 that's a good day yeah that's not even for tom brady thousand dollars ahead and 500 of them I mean yeah it might be the opposite

it might be $500 at a thousand pieces or something like that like he doesn't sign either way that's not that hard yeah no exactly there's a lot of writing

but like yeah yeah throw in the headphones do it for two hours call it a day yeah exactly yeah it's gotta be worth Tom Brady's time

so they so it's wow this is like complicated so they it matters when they, it matters when they signed it too. So that they have signature experts who can say like I know that Michael Jordan

signed this at age 24, not 44. Like, or how do they prove that? Well, there's definitely like, like so you can get, like say you have an autograph card and you can get the card authenticated and also the the the autograph graded too so this card is graded to 10 but if there's an autograph in

there i can get that graded sometimes they say don't get the autograph graded how do you grade an autograph i don't know you guys psa but I'm saying... That looks like a bad squiggle. But no, sometimes a couple different guys are known for lifting up their pen if they're... Oh, my God. Yeah. Like at that certain... If they got an L or an O, but if it doesn't look like it's the full ink of the whole card, of the whole autograph, then it's not going to grade well.

So that's why you're better off just getting the card graded and having it autographed. This is just crazy to me. It's nuts. You remember the Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh days? Yeah. You remember the kids were upset even more like even more than i sent in 300 pokemon cards you remember the kids that were like obsessed they'll be like that's a great like they could read the code by heart on the card that's like what this is with like real people

and cards but it's like adults doing it and shit it's like it's crazy you got people that are 25 30 40 50 years old like 60 that are into this have you ever opened up a pack of trading cards yeah okay when was the last time 20 years ago okay if you opened it up now you would not want to stop like it's it's it's it's a great feeling why is that it's the excitement of getting a box of cards and you're opening them up and looking for the cards that you want or it's there's no better feeling like it's it's it's great yeah i mean i remember that feeling like when it's so different from when you're 10 years old to when you're now and you're investing money and you're like give me i i understand but like and don't get me wrong like i'm holding these and they're fucking cool.

And like part of it's this cute little, what's this plastic thing? That's PSA graded. Now, is this bulletproof? It's not bulletproof. Please don't drop that. So if I shoot a bullet at this,

this car is fucked. Yeah, but also you're fucked. By you or Perk there's one i could take that i don't know no offense i don't know just don't tap me on the head but like i look at this and it's something about my mind state goes to i don't even know how you say it but something about like where my head's at goes to in this covid technologically connected human disconnected world goes to like people want to feel something human in a time where everything's so tech you know but there's also trend i mean look the trends go the opposite way on stuff it's weird

it's like now you got digital art out there being auctioned off and shit. What do we know right now that's going to last after COVID? Physical things, yeah. I mean, like, you know. Yeah. I think it's just, I think it's something that, yes that that skyrocketed with kobe but nba season's starting in three weeks you know how much boxes of cards used to go for like in january of this year how many are in a box it depends because they're all different uh packs

but sometimes 50 cards sometimes 20 cards sometimes 58 60 All right, so what would a 60 go for? There was a box that my buddy was buying in January. And I think the box, maybe he was buying it at $100 a box. He bought 20 boxes. Okay. Now what would it go for? Well, now what is it go for well now what is it going for yeah i i would like i would like you to take a guess and i'll tell you it's not over 100 boxes 20 a box yeah it went for a hundred dollars don't even think about and you don't know who you're getting in there you just know like the

league and you have basically a five you have less than a five percent chance every time you buy a box to to get the card that you're actually looking for less than a 5% chance every time you buy a box to get the card that you're actually looking for. Less than a 5% chance. I like how he did that then. He bought 100 boxes. No, but 20 of them at $100. I'm sorry. Yeah, I had it backwards.

So literally, what's 5 times 20? 100. Yeah. So you have 100 outs, and you're thinking, okay, you're going to land your 5% there. That box right now, it's not over $1,000. I'll help you out there. 20 boxes at $100 a piece.

$400? What the box is going for right now? It's going for about $750. You bought those in January? Yeah. Maroon. Last week they were going for $600. I'm not going to give away the box because you know yeah yeah we don't talk about that last week it was going for 600 now it's going for 750 january is going for a hundred dollars who do you talk like you said obviously who do you know really like who do you know like sometimes like when i'll be talking about like a source on stuff people say

wait like who's your source on that info i'll be like my guy luke and they're like all right well who's he talked to him like luke is the one guy i will tell you as a source on something i won't say it's ironclad but like when he says he's talking to somebody he is that like he's it's like you could low-key come and be like yeah you know i got this guy and he said you know there might be like a little bomb over israel over israel i don't know it's just kind of in the wind and then like a year later it's like who were you talking to i was talking to the president like you're low-key about it but like garyvee was out there tweeting about this and being like come on man you gotta get in there i would i listen listen i would delta getting into cards right now you forgot the like the like the like in in in 2018 if you're not like

into cards man like do you know what this shit's gonna be doing in 2020 wait did we get a cut there we got a cut there all right yeah hold on let me do that again do you know what the shit's gonna be doing in 2020 like i i know he was out there doing this i guess like pretty good second podcast in a row i'm doing a gary v impression but like who are you reaching out to that's an expert on this like who was in this business besides like guys who like work you know behind the stand at you know a top store and and haven't seen their dick in 30 years like who was an expert like like are you going on linkedin and going like card so you have been to a card store recently i've been to a card store in fucking 20 years bro i'm just telling you that guy with a little more of a beard a a couple more slabs, and a little bit more of gray hairs, it's the same guy.

Honestly, I've talked to a few people that have been in the industry, but, bro, I've done my own research. I've seen what cards are selling for. I've read articles and watched YouTube videos and talked to a few people. Yes, you have to talk to people that have been in the industry to learn things, but they can't give you the whole, how I say it, the recipe to the answers to the recipe. So you're just watching price action all the time pretty much? Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I should have invested a lot more. watching price action all the time pretty much yeah yeah you know and you know sometimes it you know like i should have invested a lot more like i'm not doing i could have done a lot better

in february and march you know i only bought three lucas that that are going for 1700 now idiot yeah yeah you know what i mean like if i was but who the hell knew it would skyrocket 100 like you know so yeah you match you match your lifelong passion though with business and money though that's a pretty cool thing well that yeah exactly and it also plays in the space that you've already done that in which is matching it with working with players and working on deals like that's yeah that's what you got to find man i i remember one story that always struck me because it's like from your stereotypical business world but it's it's so true there's this guy steve cohen who is like an all-time great hedge fund guy he was like a big

goldman guy he's one of the greatest hedge fund titans of all time by the way huge art collector like an expert on you want to talk about like physical collectibles like he's got like a billion dollar collection but the way that he learned to be so great in the marketplace and people have talked about this like he's the best at it is when he went to college in philly he would walk into center city and one of the buildings would have the stock you know ticker going along the the the outside graphic just like they have in new york and everything and he would just sit there and watch the numbers over and over again every single day just watch just watch numbers and that's how we like to your point you're like you know i can go talk to some people and do some

stuff and there's no doubt he did some of that too but like you're in there looking at the price action and then matching like the okay well this player does this thing and so he's gonna have the shot to do this so what does his price do And it's a lot of just intuitive learning. It's instincts, yeah. Yes. You have to have the instincts. You have to know basketball. You have to, you know, obviously have the research and knowledge behind basketball,

but, you know, it's instincts. You know what I mean? Like, so anybody can predict, you know, these three guys. You know, he was picked, you know, top five, and all these guys were picked top five in their class. you know you got a good percentage of people that are are betting on these guys but it's the guys that are going for four or five dollars right now that you know can have a breakout year where you're gonna make you know a hundred percent of your on a profit you know what i mean like those are the ones that you want those are the sleepers that you want

you know so um but yeah it's it's funny that you said that story because I was talking to somebody else about the sports cards and they had said, you know, they walked in, I forget where the bar was located, but they said that they had something like that on the screen where if everybody was buying this beer, say it was Bud Light, if everybody's buying this beer, the price went up. And if people weren't buying Miller Lights, the price was going down.

And it was kind of like, cool how that bar did it, you know? It's all supply and demand, baby. That's all it is. It's everything in life. You got to have people that want to buy it and people that want to sell it. And what's the ratio? No, exactly. Dude, I'm proud of you.

You're crushing it in this, and it's a ratio well dude i'm i'm proud of you you're you're crushing it in this and like it's a whole new frontier as well like you obviously have already i mean when you and i became friends a couple years ago you were kind of at the crossroads like figuring out how to go on your own and whether or not you could make it happen with some of these relationships you built up and you know we spent a lot of today talking about perk and a little bit on mott and stuff and i i don't know what you're allowed to talk about out loud but i know some of the other stuff like you've worked on you're humble about it but it's pretty amazing i mean the the trust that you've built with

some serious people and you know not anyone can just do that and you find a way to not only do that but then really focus on getting into the businesses some of these guys want to do and and listening to you talk about cards for the first time like really extensively in person it's like jesus dude like relax but it's it is it's it's pretty you gotta get back to that even keel no no no but i i'm exaggerating i mean it like it's it's it's pretty fucking awesome so i always talked about and i know you always did too, a lot of guys I talk to would talk about, you know, when things get rough or something goes wrong, you got to lean in, right? And COVID happens, crazy, unprecedented shit.

And like there's people who lean in and get really good at shit and make a lot of things happen like you. And then there's people who don't. And I think you said this earlier, but that's something that's kind of in your control like you're capable of it yeah he's out of bullets all right dude well we've been talking like all day this is great thank you for coming down to basically alabama um fucking guy but um we'll do this again at some point um i think we might get together next week looking forward to that but um i appreciate you brother no this was awesome jules i missed you

i missed you dog it's been a great time yeah but um but no i appreciate you for having me and uh you know uh what you got set up here is awesome bro thank you proud of you and uh this has definitely been a great time all right well i'm julian dory this is luke cervino coming at you from the bunker and give it a thought get back to me peace