Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 443 - Atilis Gym Owners Ian Smith & Frank Trumbetti

Episode Date: November 5, 2020

Ian Smith and Frank Trumbetter are co-owners of Atilis Gym in Bellmawr, New Jersey. The two have recently has become a local celebrities for actively defying many of the mandates put in place by Gover...nor Murphy that are deemed unconstitutional and an infringement on the rights of business owners and citizens. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: https://drinklmnt.com/powerproject Purchase 3 boxes and receive one free, plus free shipping! No code required! ➢Freeze Sleeve: https://freezesleeve.com/ Use Code "POWER25" for 25% off plus FREE Shipping on all domestic orders! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's episode is brought to you by FreeSleeve. The FreeSleeve is a revolutionary cold therapy compression device that remains soft and flexible when frozen. The FreeSleeve applies cold therapy to any aching muscles or joint reducing pain, inflammation, and swelling. The FreeSleeve conforms to your body part you are trying to ice and doesn't leak or sweat. The FreeSleeve allows you to get your doctor recommended cold therapy treatment without limiting your movement. The FreeSleeve is self-applicable safe and comfortable for all ages so drop the straps wraps and ice packs just freeze it sleeve it and relieve it go ahead and head to free sleeve.com use promo code power 25 for 25 off and free shipping on all domestic orders my stomach's trying to get on the air.
Starting point is 00:00:46 It's like, yo, man, I got a lot to say. Did you eat anything wild yesterday? Nothing too crazy. I mean, kind of normal day. I had some sushi last night. Had some steak. And then my daughter made some of my mom's cookie bars. Oh, wow.
Starting point is 00:01:08 And I did pretty good. I only ate like, I ate three of them. Okay. I mean, normally I eat, you know, I eat like half the tray. No, they're little squares. They're maybe a little smaller than the phone. Okay, that's not bad. Maybe, yeah, maybe like that.
Starting point is 00:01:24 Size of an outright bar yeah there you go perfect go you guys you guys need to go to fixins i don't know i haven't told you about it yet you guys know what it is uh is this a barbecue place it's a soul food kitchen yeah yeah dude yeah in like downtown sacramento it's good damn i got some oxtails macaroni and cheese. There were these, what were those potatoes? They were these sweet potato type things. Oh man.
Starting point is 00:01:50 Collard greens. It was so good. It was so good. It sounds amazing. I love stuff. I love stuff like that. Those places are dangerous. So the calories that you get because of the,
Starting point is 00:01:59 like the fat and the sugar content just gets to be, you're like, oh, let's get me. I'll try to go get the tri-tip or something, but it's some sort of like brisket and it's like got tons of stuff in it or whatever. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:02:10 I introduced Tom to this place in Elk Grove called Tea Garden. It's just Chinese food. It's mind blowing. It's so damn good, but it's like Chinese food. There's nothing you're going to get there that's like, ah ah that's the better choice right teriyaki chicken i mean it's really really good stuff i don't even know if they have that there but like the orange chicken it's insane yeah orange chicken doesn't make any sense but it's so good it's delicious right like it doesn't seem like it should work but it somehow works really well chinese food is like a mystery it really is and you can never like it never makes you full
Starting point is 00:02:49 no yeah it's great you just keep putting it down i i think sometimes it has to do with how fast you eat stuff you know like sushi goes down really quick it does rice and fish combo and it's you know raw or the rolls or something like that. Like they just, they go down pretty quick. And so I think you eat it in half the amount of time that you would eat like a steak. And so it makes sense that, you know, you would be hungrier quicker. So it was all you can eat sushi places. Try to like fill each roll with more rice. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:19 You can get less fish and they can push you out of there. Yeah. Do they mess with you? Like that one uh what was it brazilian barbecue place that we went to oh yeah trying to give us chicken like who do you think we are i love those places though like that place is korean barbecue where they really try to like they try to start playing games when you're two hours in they're like you don't know who you're messing with.
Starting point is 00:03:50 I saw something the other day from just like an old clip of George Carlin, the amazing comedian. And he said, you know, the American emblem or whatever, or logo or whatever, shouldn't be a... What's that weird noise? That's the new studio. Oh, they're doing some work over there? Yep. He's like, it shouldn't be a bald eagle. He's like, it should be a bowl of macaroni and cheese with how fat everybody is. And all the different, you know, crappy food that we eat all the time.
Starting point is 00:04:14 He was talking about all the buffets and just all the just crappy decisions people make all the time with their food. I don't know. I think we find it prideful that we're the fattest country. I know. It seems like we wear it with pride. We do. Oh, God. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:29 The bald eagle. Have you ever noticed how angry that bird looks, though, bro? It looks mad. Because I saw this picture of somebody. I think they were rescuing a bald eagle. It's like a meme. And they put it in a blanket. And the eagle just looks so pissed.
Starting point is 00:04:41 I don't know if we could find it, but the eagle just looks like it doesn't want to be anywhere it looks angry that's our bird yes it's a wonderful bird you don't want to fuck with those things i know i remember how upset i was when i realized he wasn't bald that's true huh yeah i was like didn't seem to just find out but no i was just i never really thought about it but i mean yeah of course it's not bald it's a little upsetting what if we saw what if what does an actual bald eagle look like if you shave all this hair that's what i actually want to that would look really scary someone's probably done it uh look up uh look up an owl an owl without feathers terrifying god yeah i've seen this before it's fucking scary shit like a plucked owl or something like that. I forget what it is.
Starting point is 00:05:29 It's like a little alien baby. You got to show us over here. You're going to have nightmares. This is worse than LeBron's feet. What the fuck is that? That's an owl without... Isn't that wild? It loses all its majestic-ness.
Starting point is 00:05:46 Because owls are... There's a lot of owls out by me and they're kind of they kind of scare me didn't you say they tried to pick at date like if you leave daisy out there they're gonna save her up they do circle around whenever she goes outside i don't so wrong i don't think they have a chance to i think they're just eyeballing her they don't have a chance to be able to pick her up wow it literally looks like a little alien yeah dude i had a nightmare the other day and you're gonna have a new one now it was the day after i went to fixins okay that's kind of weird i'll keep it short there's this you know that comedian andrew schultz right yeah okay i was having this this this nightmare and i was i was going around holding something but i see Andrew. He's all bruised up and he has this big
Starting point is 00:06:25 chicken. He's like, you want my chicken? This is the night after Fixins. This is the night after Fixins. He's like, take the chicken. I'm like, I don't want the chicken. What are they putting their food over there? I don't know. It was like this big bruised chicken. He's like, just take the chicken. He started
Starting point is 00:06:40 chasing me and then I woke up in a sweat. I wanted to go to Fixins again, but I was like, nah. Not after that. There's something wrong with chicken right now. like that was a little weird what'd you get at fixings fried chicken oxtails the oxtail actually it comes with something else but i literally only got the oxtails because they're really good and oxtail is literally just oxtail right it literally is oxtail yeah the closest part to the yeah i've had it before and i'm like good i'm like what is they're like it's oxtail i was like oh okay it's it's just like fat and meat yeah yeah and then uh yeah mac and cheese uh collard greens and uh my girl had the salmon or she had the catfish and something else but uh trying to be all healthy she's off the team yeah she was like oh yeah let
Starting point is 00:07:21 me get let me get this small thing but then she ate like three quarters of your stuff took a bunch of my mac and cheese i'm gonna have the candy dms that's what it's called candy dms not sweet candy dms mac and cheese at a soul food place though yes it's it's on h&l like it's completely different it really is by the way people we don't i don't do we don't do this every day it's a once in a while thing. We're all about health. We'll see how much you fart on today's podcast. That's true. It was two days ago.
Starting point is 00:07:49 I got all my farts out yesterday. Oh, okay. A couple days. You're safe. A couple days ago. We got Ian Smith on the podcast. Yeah. And this should be really cool.
Starting point is 00:08:02 Owns a gym out in New Jersey. I'm sure a lot of you have heard about him But we all just think it's really cool That he's kept his facility open For as long as he possibly could I think he did have to actually Shut it down a couple of times But you know in the face of
Starting point is 00:08:18 In the time of this COVID-19 stuff that's been going on These regulations He's gone against the grain. And there's some people that, you know, there's massive disparity in beliefs that people have about, you know, wearing masks, not wearing masks. And are we having, you know, super spreader workouts and super spreader gatherings or what have you.
Starting point is 00:08:41 But I do think that what's undeniable is, you know, I think a lot of people are fearful that there's like, like, where do you draw the line? You know, somebody says, Hey, you know, please stand behind that line. You're like, okay, I got no problem with that. And they're like, okay, but no, you need to back up a little bit more. And no, you can't wear that shirt, you know, and you can't wear your hat like that either, you know? And so I think that's what people are worried about. And there's, you know, an old saying that either, you know. And so I think that's what people are worried about. And there's, you know, an old saying that's been around forever. Give me liberty or give me death.
Starting point is 00:09:13 And some people are like, hey, I'm willing to fight this cause. In this case, luckily, it's not fighting death because we're not we're not. Well, we don't always end up there. Right. But this is more of a financial thing where he continues to get fined all the time. And I think he's been fined upwards of $250,000 or something like that. How is he handling that? It's a business, though. Yeah, right? It's a small business, too. He owns a gym, right? Yeah. I've had a lot of friends, you know, a lot of friends that own gyms, and I've tried to encourage them to
Starting point is 00:09:43 keep their gyms open. What we have here at super training is just so much different. It's, it's more private. And so, um, while I was encouraging them to stay open, I also understood, you know, what they had to do. They just, it actually make, makes the members really upset too. So a good question for Ian is like, you know, what's the deal with the members? Like they don't, you know, they're just, you know, how are they handling that? I would, I would imagine that the people that are going to train just aren't fearful of having any real repercussions of COVID, I guess. I don't, I'm not sure. But it is interesting. And so like with one of my friends, she owns a gym and she has a lot of older people in there and so there's like a lot of concern about uh yes we want to keep the gym open we
Starting point is 00:10:29 want to keep people active but uh you know what what could potentially happen to some of these older folks that are training that are you know 60 70 80 years old stuff like that a lot of these gyms the commercial ones are doing things okay like there's a planet fitness right by my place um always see lines of people out there since they have to schedule out their workouts. And then some other places you already know have rented out equipment. Right. So if you rent out equipment to a few of your members, people are still able to work out. But it's crazy that the one thing or one of those things that helps you keep people healthy and active and helps your immune system is also being closed.
Starting point is 00:11:10 It helps you keep people healthy and active and helps your immune system is also being closed when there are definitely ways to do it in a way that if you're actually scared of COVID, people don't have to be all up on each other. Right. Yeah. And a lot of the times are just different. Right. A lot of children are home at school and a lot of people have been laid off of work. And so people's scheduling and timing is just way different. I think with having kids at home, it can make things really tough for somebody to even get out to a gym. If you have younger children, you know, if you have, you know, two, if you have two parents and, you know,
Starting point is 00:11:36 one could potentially stay home with the child, but it just makes everything kind of more complicated. Just the time that we're in, it makes everything more challenging and um you know part of this podcast and part of the whole reason for this podcast is to help encourage people to lean into fitness and to lean into uh you know some form of exercise and some type of diet you know just have some you know some structure to your diet and have some structure to your sleep patterns and have some structure with some lifting. And we try to make it easier for everybody. But this situation certainly has kind of, oh, John Cena just died. He just fell right over.
Starting point is 00:12:14 Sorry, John. But this situation has made it more difficult for everybody. Yeah. Everyone's having to get creative. Even we got creative during quarantine, quote unquote. Like I was doing kettlebell workouts. Andrew's working out from home. You were running.
Starting point is 00:12:30 Yeah. I forgot about that. So. Dang. I still run here and there. Yeah. No, I just, it seems like that was, I don't know, forever ago. And it's just like, oh wow.
Starting point is 00:12:40 That was all during, you know, quarantine, you know, lots happened during this time, you know? Yeah. Just a few months ago. Yeah. Like two. It's pretty crazy. Yeah, it wasn't that long ago I was dying in Bodega Bay. You know, you guys were killing me.
Starting point is 00:12:58 Oh, yeah. We were all, I think we were all dying a little bit. Yeah, it was tough. And today is Wednesday and it's the day after the election. We don't have a president yet. We're getting there. I would imagine by the end of the day, they'll have results of some sort. And then I guess we'll just go from there.
Starting point is 00:13:19 But I don't know what will happen. You know what will happen? Sound like like Trump was already kind of planning on being a baby, being a sore loser about it. If he does, if he does indeed actually lose. Oh, yeah. That's it's going to be if he does lose, it's going to be very interesting to see what happens for the next week. But I was thinking I was assuming because people were saying that the votes aren't going to be counted for like a week or something. Yeah. It doesn't seem like that right now yeah it i don't know um i do know that they like with pennsylvania they stopped counting a lot it's all really weird you know hey this is the most important election of our times uh but we're all gonna go to sleep uh wait really you're gonna go to fucking bed are you kidding me wait was that what happened
Starting point is 00:14:05 motherfuckers don't work you know you don't work for shit and then when we need you to work yeah you know talk to any of these politicians and talk to any anybody that's in in these uh offices and stuff like they work and they have time periods where they go in they work a lot someone like ryan spencer right like oh yeah but he'll also have a lot of times where he ain't doing much. But when we need you to do shit, we need you to do shit. You know, it's like, imagine being a cop and you're like, you know, breaking up an altercation. And then you kind of just push the people to the side and like, all right, I split them up. I'm going to go home now.
Starting point is 00:14:39 But you don't even, you know, you don't even fully take care of the situation all the way. You just leave it halfway fixed. It's like, what the fuck are you doing? Like a teacher that took all summer off and the first day of school, they're like, I'm going to head out early, guys. Right. You guys will figure it out. Finish that counting, man.
Starting point is 00:14:56 Let's go. What the fuck? Yeah, that's crazy. Do you guys know the structure of it? Sorry. I don't know what you're about to say but i was thinking that when i was watching last night i'm like i don't think anybody knows anything about voting no i and i certainly don't like the electoral college stuff like a lot of it's over my head i kind of get some of it
Starting point is 00:15:15 there's like bigger points from bigger states and so forth but i'm like they just really complicate the fuck out of it can't they they just call it points? You know, like they kind of will say electoral votes. Yeah. But just call it points like this guy needs this amount of points to win. And this is how you're accumulating the points. When I watched like four hours of this shit with my family last night and there was really no explanations of any on anything. I mean, it's not like, you know, take take everyone back to fifth grade or whatever but maybe you do like maybe everybody should know or maybe when you go to vote they should somebody should fucking explain it to you i'm just curious how they count
Starting point is 00:15:54 up all these votes like i mean obviously they're probably using a machine of some sort but like how the hell are you counting up millions of votes so quickly it's it's kind of crazy i mean it's cool but it's yeah it's kind of crazy it's completely chaotic yeah and you don't have to use a number two pencil so i don't know how right these votes are legit i mean is someone like taking the envelope and sticking in multiple people doing that with multiple little machines i'm really just like it sounds stupid i mean think about how bad people cheat on stuff you know, and they tried to on the news. They're trying to be like, oh, well, there's this.
Starting point is 00:16:28 They're not going to, you know, it's not going to be rigged. They try to, like, actually say that. You're like, how can you how can you honestly say that? You could say, hey, like they made a lot of you know, they set up a lot of rules that's going to negate a lot of maybe the stuff that's happened in the past. But you can never really ensure anything because people are always going to, right? Like, why wouldn't they,
Starting point is 00:16:50 they're kind of trying to lay it out as if like, Hey, it's, you know, it's going to be on the up and up. It's like, probably never been on the up and up. Heck no.
Starting point is 00:16:56 Did you hear about the, the guy that was going around burning the ballot boxes for the mail-in ballots? It was like a week and a half ago. Wow. He went around and burned a few of them. And like, I ballots it was like a week and a half ago wow he went around and burned a few of them and like i think it was a few thousand votes so the people that like didn't get their votes and apparently they're gonna get a notification so they can vote again or some shit
Starting point is 00:17:13 yeah it's it's crazy but by then it'll be too late anyway so i'm just like how are you going to count those votes yeah that's really i have a lot of friends that never got, you know, they never got like a ballot, you know, and then I like I myself got two because I have two different locations. And it's like they just like ask you like a lot of times they just kind of do the honor system. You know, like I mean, I think people are going to vote multiple times and that but that's probably been going on forever. And they probably are just like, hey, like, I don't know if they have ways of really blocking that. You know, I think they claim they do, but I don't think they really do. Yeah. How? I mean, Derek Chauvin, the officer with involved with George Floyd, he supposedly voted in Florida and voted like where he lived. supposedly voted in Florida and voted like where he lived, you know, like he had like some voter fraud going on. So it's weird, though, too, because if you have voter fraud and you get caught X amount of years later, what are they going to do?
Starting point is 00:18:12 Well, you can still be thrown in jail probably for a little bit. Right. But I know. But your vote was already. Yeah, that's true. That's it. I mean, I don't know if there's enough of that to, you know, really sway things that much.
Starting point is 00:18:24 I don't know. Some of enough of that to, you know, really sway things that much. I don't know. Some of it's just weird, too. Who decided that California is worth 55 and, you know, some of these other places are worth like three or four. You know, who determines that population size? Yeah, I know. It's population. Some of it's like, I mean, the population side is huge because like Alaska doesn't count for much, even though it's fucking gigantic. Right.
Starting point is 00:18:47 But even even that's just I don't know. It's all just kind of weird. Like who's to say that that California has that much value? Yeah, it's what's funny is the Electoral College and I probably got this wrong, but was put in place because way back forever ago, they actually thought that people weren't going to care about voting on a national level. They were only going to care about voting on a local level. So that's right. Like, you know, these idiots are not going to do it. So we got to help them out and do it for them, basically.
Starting point is 00:19:19 So they get to vote for the voters. It's all very complicated you know it's kind of complicated because if you only left it up to just people um there's there's some things that aren't great about that because people can be swayed you know and look how many people fall for those emails uh that you know that you just they just need you need to put some money in their account to get more money back or whatever man i mean i'm a nigerian prince yeah please yeah people fall for stuff all the time and they get duped by stuff um you know when you have infomercials and stuff that do that and there's all kinds of stuff like that that goes on i'll do anything on as seen on tv i'm in right but you know what's so crazy with this election man
Starting point is 00:20:01 this is the one election where i've started seeing way more occurrence of like election ads. Like I refresh YouTube consistently. And I think this is something that probably the Trump campaign is doing and the Biden campaign isn't doing as much. I get a Trump ad over and over and over again. Even as much as I refresh it, the top banner was a Trump ad. And I see those everywhere. One thing that I am just blown away and it's, I don't know how it attracts certain YouTube channels or whatever, but like the bots or whatever, they get straight around YouTube's like algorithm or whatever. To comment.
Starting point is 00:20:36 To comment. Yes. And we have tons of them. And a lot of them just happen. I think almost all of them are pro Trump. A lot of them just happen to, I think almost all of them are pro Trump, but I'm just like, dude, like how did, how did, how did, how did they learn how to get around getting caught by YouTube's, you know, like block ad block or whatever, because there's a lot and I'm like, damn, they're like, can you guys show us how to do that so we can promote stuff?
Starting point is 00:20:59 Cause you guys are really good. Yeah, man. Whoever, uh, I guess learns how to knock social media is going to be winning elections soon yeah absolutely that's what's happening right now pretty much yeah and i was going to say it's just it's with the times you know like maybe four years ago it just wasn't as prevalent eight years ago definitely not yeah and i don't i don't think these times are all that different from anything else i just think the biggest difference is just social media yeah you know and everyone just kind of loses their mind, you know, based off of that. And then, and then those
Starting point is 00:21:32 people are posting stuff and, um, kind of adding, adding fuel to the fire. But a lot of these issues have been around. I mean, uh, racial issues have been around, I think for a while, you know, seems like they've been, for a while. Seems like they've been around for a while. A lot of the issues and a lot of the main topics, this COVID thing is a little different than stuff that we've had to deal with in the past. But for the most part, it just seems like mass hysteria because you just get bombarded with so much of that in the news of what this guy said and what this guy did all the way to knowing what guy said and what this guy did, all the way
Starting point is 00:22:05 to knowing like, you know, what the president and the vice president's kids do and their laptop and all this shit. And you're just like, I really just don't, I don't care that much about any of that. I just want to know who can help the best with like running the country and just try to make the best decision you possibly can with voting for someone that you, you know, can get behind or someone that you, you know, can get behind or someone that you can believe in. But I think that it's just, you know, things have been crazy for a long time.
Starting point is 00:22:32 I remember every election that's come around since I've been alive. They're always talking about, you know, the importance of it, the magnitude of this one in particular. Yeah. It's always this. It's always this election is the most important election. But this election does seem like a very important election. Right. Hard to say it's always this it's always this election is the most important election but this election does seem like a very important election right hard to say it's not um well it'd be hard to it would also be hard to like predict you know like for example like when abraham lincoln
Starting point is 00:22:55 you know got in the office like you know did they know that he was going to be able to abolish slavery yeah you know and then there's stuff even like about abraham lincoln that people don't know like abraham lincoln lincoln basically said if it kept the country unified he would have kept slavery you know and if it divided it he would get rid of it you know or you know so i think it's uh it's it's just like it's so hard to say like what you know what whoever gets elected or or re-elected hard to say what they're going to do or be able to do or how they'll impact any of us, really. Do we know how old
Starting point is 00:23:32 Trump and Biden are? I know Biden's 78. They're both over 70, yeah. 78 and 74, I think, or 75. Seriously, we'll get what's coming to you in the end. Trump's going to win. We're going to take back this fucking country.
Starting point is 00:23:49 What are you listening to, Fester? What's up, guys? What's up? How are you? We picked up some audio from whatever you guys were listening to. Sorry. The Facebook ran on Frank's part there. That was fantastic.
Starting point is 00:24:08 Thank you guys so much for coming on today's show. We appreciate it. I think a lot of people around the country share the same idea as myself and some others that, you know, what you're doing is very admirable. And it's got to be tough, you know, to stick in there, uh, as a business owner. Uh, but I kind of wanted to kick things off with, uh, you know, this quote, give me Liberty or give me death. Uh, what are some of your thoughts on that? And, uh, why have you, uh, resisted a lot of the, uh, COVID-19 restrictions? Um, give me Liberty and give me death is kind of what we're living living by at this
Starting point is 00:24:46 point um you know when frank and i decided that we were going to reopen we we did so because we were looking around and we were seeing some pretty serious violations of our individual liberties um and it didn't didn't really matter who you were, um, where you came from, what you did for a living. Um, you know, all of the, the bulk of Americans, the middle, the middle class just kind of seemed to be getting trampled on. Um, so that's, you know, we, we did it through the vehicle of the gym, but it, it wasn't about saving our gym. gym uh primarily it was about standing up for
Starting point is 00:25:28 for our rights as individuals um and that's what the fight has been about and that's what it continues to be about and that's that's kind of what gives us the strength to to get through it because it has not been fun it's it's you know we have days, but we have a lot more bad days than we have good. That's kind of what keeps us on track is that this is bigger than us. And, you know, the fight kind of came to us, but it's our fight now. And it's something that we're as stressed out as it makes us and as hard as it's been on not only us, but our families. It's something that I think that we're both very proud of. And it hasn't been from day one,
Starting point is 00:26:12 it wasn't about just opening up the gym and actually a lot of people misunderstand our fight. You know, they, they, they've taken away our rights, but on top of that, our job at this point is to take away the powers of the governors. Actually they have overstepped their powers and governatory executive orders. They do not have the right to shut us down those type of things and we're not we're not fighting to open up our gym because in case you haven't figured that one out we're going to open up no matter what um but we're fighting so they can't uh shut anything down again you know whether it's the local bar the salon every other gym everything because they they
Starting point is 00:26:42 just want to destroy you know the infrastructure of what's, you know, the backbone of America. And that's the hard working man, because they want to create a socialist economy. And, you know, we figured out early, just by paying attention to everything that it was political, you know, it's like, initially, when when they did everything, you think, okay, well, you got to give them a break, because we've never dealt with a pandemic like this before. So they have to, you the side of caution as far as that goes. But when 11 days into something, when they ask us for 14 days, they pass a $2.6 trillion stimulus package, which gives people $600 a week for free to stay at home. At that moment, we knew it was political. You don't give people free money for 16 weeks for a virus that actually has a two-week incubation period.
Starting point is 00:27:26 It's that simple. And that's been our fight from day one. It's just like we need to open up. We need to get going back with our lives and let people realize that it's safe. As long as you do the right things and that small business can do better than big box, they pick and choose who the winners and losers were, which went directly against all of our constitutional rights. They don't have the right to do that. You know, they let all the big boxes be open and shut down everybody else. And then they expect us to sit there and be good little boys and girls. And, you know, we refuse to be that. From a mental perspective, I'm sure that it's been worth it, even though it's been very stressful on you guys.
Starting point is 00:28:07 And you mentioned the impact that it's had on your families and stuff like that. But the impact that it's having on your members and then the impact that it's having nationally and maybe even internationally, that has to first of all, that has to feel really good. But what has been some of the feedback from some of the people that do work out at your gym from a mental perspective, them being able to lift through it, them being able to lift through these times have probably been huge for them, right? Yeah, I mean, I'm sure both you guys can identify with the fact that, you know, as much as we all go in the gym and we like to bang the weights around. And it is about being physically strong and stuff like that, that there's an incredible amount of benefits for the mind and the kind of soul that you get from lifting. There's a story I tell almost anybody who asks that question is, you know, we have a
Starting point is 00:29:00 gym full of regular people. We have a gym full of full of military, active and veterans. We have war vets. We have a lot of police, fire, first responders. We're right pinned in between some of the biggest hospitals in the country. We have nurses who work in critical care units. All people who just need an outlet and need a place where they can come and just kind of forget about all the stresses of life and feel better about themselves. And I tell the story of a guy named Joe Logue. He's one of our,
Starting point is 00:29:35 he's one of me and Frank's favorite members. Sounds like a East Coast name. Joe Logue is a badass dude. He's somebody that you're very thankful that he is on the same team as you. He's a decorated Marine. Two Purple Hearts. He was blown up twice. Couldn't walk for well over a year. The guy is one of the most genuinely nice and kind people I know.
Starting point is 00:30:01 But he has been through a lot and he has seen and done a lot. And he comes in here every day at about 7 o'clock. and kind people I know. But he has been through a lot, and he has seen and done a lot. And he comes in here every day at about 7 o'clock, and he absolutely crushes himself. You know, he doesn't walk out of here, you know, dry ever. You know, his sweatpants change color. They go from light gray to dark gray every time he leaves. And he leaves every single day at, you know, about an hour and a half later and he goes home and he can be a father to his children and he can be a husband to his wife. And without that, he can't.
Starting point is 00:30:33 And the day, one of the days that we reopened, he was one of the first people in line. Um, and he walked up to me and Frank, uh, and I'll, I'll never forget it. And, um, you know, when we reopened, there was the, all the chaos of reopening never forget it. And, you know, when we reopened, there was the, all the chaos of reopening the cameras everywhere. And, you know, he looked at me and Frank and he said, you saved my life. Thank you. And this is, this is a man that should never have to thank anybody for anything. That's, yeah, it's that kind of stuff. And that's just one story of many. But that's, that was our biggest thing is people were so critical early on, like, Oh,
Starting point is 00:31:07 you guys just want to open your gym so you can get big muscles. And it's like, if that's what you think that this is about, then you've clearly never worked out in your life and you've clearly never experienced the benefits of working out. So, yeah, I mean, that, that's a huge, that's a huge part of it. And people thank us all the time for that. And it doesn't have to be some, you know, some highly decorated Marine. A lot of times it's just regular people who are,
Starting point is 00:31:31 who just need to deal with life and just need to get something out. And this is, this is where they do it. So we're, we're, we're happy and we're honored to provide that service for people. And we're doing it in a safe way. Like through midnight last night, we have 64,768 people who have walked through the door since June 16th, and
Starting point is 00:31:50 we don't have a single case of COVID. And I guarantee you, Governor Murphy has contact tracers just on this place because he wants to link a COVID positive case to us. They got 64,768 people who have walked through our doors since June 16th and not a single COVID positive case.
Starting point is 00:32:09 And we were even willing to test everybody that came through. We actually have 6,250 rapid COVID antibody blood tests that actually you'll know within 10 minutes whether you had the virus or have the virus. And the Board of Health won't let us implement them because we're not a health care facility. But yet the Board of Health actually has control over us because of the pandemic, because, because of, you know, stupid law. And it's absolutely insane. My wife's a nurse and is willing to implement them. And they said, no, and we're willing to test everyone.
Starting point is 00:32:37 So they'll know whether they have it right now or had it for free. And, you know, it's, it's, it's a joke, but it's very humbling to see that people come through here every day. We've been averaging over 600 people every single day, seven days a week, walking through the door from 5 in the morning until 11 at night, 12 at night,
Starting point is 00:32:58 on a few nights. To see everybody in here, we're getting fined $15,497 and 76 cents every day because we won't implement masks. Governor Murphy himself, his words in Executive Order 187, says that they don't recommend wearing masks during high-impact aerobic or anaerobic activities or wearing a mask during a time when actually your mask can become wet or damp. That's what the fuck happens in a gym. I don't fucking understand. And we're getting fined $15,497 every day
Starting point is 00:33:29 because we won't implement that. But the people are still walking through the door. It's the most normal place that we know on earth, you know, as far as that goes. And there are a few people who choose to wear the mask because they feel that they're protecting their loved ones at home or something like that. And they're all welcome. You know,
Starting point is 00:33:45 it's just like, it's, it's a fantastic community where it's brought everybody together stronger. The family we had ahead of time is just gotten bigger and bigger and stronger. There's so many things I want to ask you guys, but I think the first thing is the 15,100, what the, the $15,000, $ 000 15 487 a day 77 76 76 well didn't it i thought didn't it used to be just 2 000 like why why is it now 15 000 am i wrong yeah so um that fine originated
Starting point is 00:34:20 out of a contempt of court charge that we were found guilty of. That's kind of been what Governor Murphy has used to sink his teeth into us and then kind of take us out. And what's crazy about that is the fine isn't based on anything logical. Like it's not it's not as if they looked at our sales or they looked at our tax refunds and said, hey, they're operating against governor's orders. Let's hit them for 50% or something. In the motion, in the contempt of court motion,
Starting point is 00:34:58 the attorney general states that the fine has to be that much because of our GoFundMe account, which now it's surpassed it greatly. So they classify, they call it a war chest. So that GoFundMe is earmarked as legal defense money. So if I, if I go out and buy a new truck with that money, I'm going to jail. So it's legal defense money that we've been paying our lawyers with and that we've been just kind of using to stay open. You know, we have all these weird costs that come out of nowhere. You know, we have to upgrade our facility with cleaning products and stuff like that.
Starting point is 00:35:34 And they called it a war chest and said that if they do not drain that account, then they will not be able to shut us down. drain that account, then they will not be able to shut us down. But what's, what's really alarming about that is we've openly said, Hey, this money is designated as legal defense money. And they're saying, let's take it, which is a very, very clear attempt to interfere with our right to counsel, which is a major violation. But the judge, the judge seemed like that was okay. They're trying to get away with it. Cause part of our wording is that that money is for our legal defense and for monies to actually help us stay open.
Starting point is 00:36:10 And so they're interpreting to stay open since they give you the fines. They can take the money because in order to stay open, you got to pay your fines. So they're using that justification and, you know, how they always use different words when you're dealing with legal jargon and stuff like that. What would happen if you just paid the fine? Like what, what, like what if, what would happen if you just paid it every day?
Starting point is 00:36:29 Let's just hypothetically say we have nothing left. Yeah. Yeah. We'd be out of money by now, but they, they have started to try to collect that. There's a, a letter that,
Starting point is 00:36:43 that I received in the mail that was sent out. Oddly enough, it was only sent out to my PayPal account. It wasn't sent to our bank accounts, but they're trying to hold not only the business, but they're trying to pierce through the LLC and hold Frank and I personally responsible for the money. They have sent financial subpoenas to myself, to Frank, to Frank's wife. Actually, they financially subpoenaed my mother looking for information. And they basically said that they wanted the money paid in full by October 22nd and that if it wasn't, it would start collecting interest. And it has. and it has.
Starting point is 00:37:24 And they also tried to bribe us on October 6th. Judge Loogie, who is Murphy's lapdog and the Attorney General, called our lawyers and said that if Ian or I would sign a legal certificate after David saying that we would actually implement masks for all of our members, that they would stop fining us.
Starting point is 00:37:40 Let's just say we politely refused that one. Is anybody filming any of this? I know that you guys post a lot via social media, but like, is there does anyone have an intention of like doing a documentary type of thing on what you guys have going on? We've had we've had all different people come in and kind of document the journey along the way. Nobody kind of following it all the way through. It's kind of been bits and pieces and parts of other documentaries. We've had, at one point, we had a photographer pretty much living with us,
Starting point is 00:38:13 and he was here all the time. But, you know, we're kind of, now we're kind of at this point where we're out of the, I guess, the action. But there is being a book being written. Yeah, there's a book being written. There will be a couple different books. We've tried to cover as much as possible. We do utilize social media a lot because that has been
Starting point is 00:38:34 our saving grace through all this has been that people really care what's going on so that we knew we were going to get punched in the face for doing this. We did so willingly but we did so out in the eyes of the public so that when this is all said and done, they're going to have to answer for the way that they've reacted to the situation, you know, because we when we opened up, we didn't open up quietly. We didn't sneak about it. We announced it.
Starting point is 00:39:05 And we also put forth very publicly our safety protocol. And the message was, hey, there's no plan in place to reopen. And it's been two months. So here's our plan. And we really hoped that government would step in and say, hey, hang on a second. Let's take a look at this. Let's talk about it. And they still never have. So eventually they're going to have to answer for why they ran right to punitive measures instead of doing what government is supposed to do.
Starting point is 00:39:34 And that's work for and with the people. You know, it's been working against us from day one. And eventually they're going to have to answer that. We had a scientist come in who actually did an efficacy study of our protocol and to follow through with the protocol with our members and at the end of the study um the scientists and doctors actually were the lawyers actually wrote up a report and said that actually our protocol was basically the best protocol of any um in the entire country in any industry and then we didn't even have a necessity for masks you know as far as that goes and and the funny part about the mask thing, in any industry, and then we didn't even have a necessity for masks, you know, as far as that goes. And the funny part about the mask thing is
Starting point is 00:40:08 in New Jersey, I don't know where you guys are, all the executive orders here, they don't require masks. They actually mandate cloth facial coverings, which, according to CDC, is even worse because cloth facial coverings have zero efficacy, and when they become wet or damp, it's like waterboarding yourself.
Starting point is 00:40:24 So it's actually bad for you and you know grows bacteria much more you know efficiently and effectively and um thus causing a lot of the bacteria and ammonia and things that they actual the people are actually dying of instead of actually dying of covid you know it's just they they inflate their numbers saying that you know 226 000 people have died in the united states of covid when the you know the when the CDC has updated those numbers. And 131,000 of them have proven that they actually died from they all had. And the doctors use the actual words that all of them died of things that did not need any help from COVID, including, you know, and then on top of that, another 51,000 died of heart attacks while having COVID. 10,000 people died. They were in hospice. 71,000 died of bacteria, pneumonia, influenza.
Starting point is 00:41:11 But you don't see any of those numbers because they were COVID because of the CARES Act that was passed by Congress in March. There's 20 percent actual bonus that actually the doctors and hospitals get by actually putting COVID as a just as a diagnosis that you have it and as COVID as a death cause, you know, it's, it's, it's absolutely insane. The, the, you know, they've always said, follow the money where you follow the money. That's why everybody's got COVID, you know, as far as that goes, it's absolutely insanity. And, and, and I care about it. I don't know if you guys know the whole story. My mom died of COVID. You know, my, my mother,
Starting point is 00:41:43 my mother went into the hospital with diverticulitis and was COVID negative on April 19th. And she was healthy enough to leave eight days later, but she couldn't walk because she has a weak right leg. And they sent her to rehab. And that was on April 27th. May 1st, they called us and said, we're going to test her. And I said, fine. She was just negative in the hospital. And then on May 3rd, she was diagnosed as, you know, she was COVID positive.
Starting point is 00:42:03 The only one in the facility with it. And she died the day after we opened up. You know, so it's like I do take it seriously. But, you know, the fact of the matter is we know that healthy people aren't dying. Protect the old, protect the weak. And, you know, those that are compromised can get on with their life. You know, what I want to ask you guys is obviously it's not just about saving the money, because you mentioned that October 6th. Right. They try to bribe you guys saying if everyone wears masks, we won't find you anymore.
Starting point is 00:42:30 My question is, why didn't you just take that? I mean, I know I get why you don't want people to wear masks, but that would have saved. It seems like a crazy amount of money. Lose all credibility at that point, because then this governor, this governor is is is a tyrannical dictator. And if we give into that, he's going to come right out and say first of all, I believe that he would use it against us because we would have to sign a legal document. He's going to send somebody
Starting point is 00:42:52 in here and they're going to show that we're not actually implementing it and they're going to put criminal charges against whichever one of us is willing to sign it. I don't want him to sign it. I'm not going to sign it. On top of that, then they're going to go out there and say, hey, these are the only guys that had the balls to stand up. We got them to comply. Now you need to.
Starting point is 00:43:07 It's one of those things where we took up the fight, and it has grown into something, I think, much bigger than anybody thought that it would. But it's about standing our ground. And if you give what we've learned and what we've seen from other people is that when you give these people an inch, they will take much, much more. And it's a it's a it's a matter of character and principle for Frank and I. We stood up and we stand very confidently on our convictions that what we're doing is in the interest of every American to protect their civil liberties, to to to just do the right fucking thing. And that would feel like a surrender to us. And honestly, I'd rather die on this hill than wave even the white flag for a second.
Starting point is 00:44:08 You guys have children? I do. I have two of my own and three steps children. I think this is an amazing example to your children. I think this is a legacy. I think what you guys are doing is insanely heroic. I know some people are, or maybe a lot of people are against what you guys are doing is insanely heroic. I know some people are, or maybe a lot of people are, against what you guys are doing,
Starting point is 00:44:27 but I think quite the opposite. I think it's very heroic, and what a great lesson for your children to learn and other family members to learn. Hey, you know, you don't get pushed around by people. And I think even to a lesser extent in the workplace, I see a lot of people get pushed around a lot, and they say, oh, I have to immediately respond to a text message from work. I have to immediately respond to these emails. I have to, you know, and the boss treats me like shit. He calls me up every
Starting point is 00:44:54 other day and yells at me. And the job is super stressful. It's like you don't have to be at that job. You can probably select another job. You can also stand up for yourself and say, hey, look, I don't like being treated that way. This is not for me. I'm going to move on. So I think this carries out into every single thing that you do, even in relationships. Somebody mistreats you in a relationship, you say, hey, that doesn't work for me. I can't be treated that way.
Starting point is 00:45:20 I'm more this way. And you've got to kind of explain yourself. But I think that what you guys are doing is really admirable and just amazing because of all the pressure, you know, that's now on you guys. Was it difficult to find out, like, who the fuck's in charge of stuff? I started kind of poking around a little bit to try to figure out who was in charge. And each person passed the buck off to somebody else. I was like, oh, okay. I heard that this person at the health department is in charge of this. So I'd love to communicate with them to kind of get a little bit better idea of what's
Starting point is 00:45:53 going on. Cause a lot of my friends' businesses were being shut down and then they were like, oh, no, no, no. You need to talk to this person. They're like, oh no, you'd have to go to this board meeting for you guys. Was it tough to like figure out who the hell is in charge and who do we communicate with? Very much so, especially before, before we reopened, you know, like the, we never stopped working, you know, that's just,
Starting point is 00:46:14 that's just kind of who we are. You know, we, we built this gym from the pilot crap it was when we bought it to, to what it was, right. You know, we own, we only own the gym for eight months before COVID we bought it uh to to what it was right you know we only we only owned the gym for eight months before covid we bought it in june of 2019 it was a dumpster fire of a gym um and we we pretty much tripled the uh the daily um visitors you know in in eight months we were doing fantastic and the shutdown came um and we weren't going to stop working because we knew immediately that no matter what happened in 14 days,
Starting point is 00:46:49 that we were going to be in a very different business environment. You know, so we were here already thinking about, OK, we got to move machines. We got to do this, we got to do that. And I was in here working out the day after the shutdown.
Starting point is 00:47:03 And I think Frank was, you Frank was tinkering around the front and a police officer walked in and said that I was not allowed to be using the facility for any purposes and that somebody had taken a picture through the window and reported it to the health department and they threatened us with a $50,000 fine for me working out in our facility that we bought and paid for.
Starting point is 00:47:29 And Frank tried right away to kind of get an answer to it. And it was the same thing. It was, you know, he called the county health department, state health department. And every time it's somebody's, I don't know, try calling this person, try calling this person. But very quickly, once we opened, we knew where all the BS was coming from. And it comes from the top levels. It comes from the governor or the mayor in a lot of cases in some of these bigger cities. So before we opened, it was very difficult to understand where it was coming from. Once we opened, it was very clear that all of the orders are coming directly from Governor Murphy.
Starting point is 00:48:08 Where they come from beyond that, one can only speculate. But you see quite a few of these governors, Newsom in California, Gretchen, whatever her name is, in Michigan, Wolf in Pennsylvania, Cuomo. They all seem to be following kind of in lockstep some sort of program. So I'm sure that these measures are coming from somewhere beyond there. And they keep using the fallback of there's an emergency health protection act, which in itself is unconstitutional.
Starting point is 00:48:45 And like in our case with being a gym, normally the gym, the board of health has no jurisdiction over gyms. They have jurisdiction over healthcare facilities and restaurants, but because of the emerging health powers act, they automatically because they classify as a pandemic, they give the board of health control over us. In fact, the one time that they came in here and did an evaluation on us, they actually
Starting point is 00:49:06 filled out their report on a retail food company letterhead thing. They don't even have a form for it. So every time we tried to find out what was going on, because when we originally got shut down
Starting point is 00:49:24 on May 22nd, after we had opened up, they changed the locks on our doors. You know, it's like, they literally with no rhyme or reason, they never stepped foot in here, and we were told that they actually classified it as a late, they put a letter
Starting point is 00:49:39 of embargo on our doors saying that actually, you could get COVID by walking in here you know the rest of the strip mall was fine but we we were hazardous for covid as far as that goes with never stepping foot in the door never doing an evaluation a study or anything and you know before we opened up we we tried to communicate with everybody we reached out to the governor we reached out to the emergency um response team which is actually uh Colonel Callahan, who's the superintendent of state police, is in charge of that. We reached out to the board of health, Jesus Persichelli, for the state.
Starting point is 00:50:12 We reached out to the board of health. And we had no answers from anybody. You know, so it's like they didn't want we put a 15 step protocol in place that we actually started on. You know, we put it in on the media on May 11th when we opened up May 18th. And that's the protocol that the scientists actually used when they came in here in the beginning of August and actually did an efficacy study. And they were shocked, you know, their exact words were, you know, did you guys just start this protocol this week? I'm like, no, we started this May 11th. And then where'd you learn all this stuff? I said, we did
Starting point is 00:50:42 our homework, you know, which is we went on the CDC websites and why everybody else was sitting around complaining, you know, and bitching that they weren't allowed to be able to make money.
Starting point is 00:50:51 We took the time to actually educate ourselves and be CDC compliant. We changed our gym around and we consulted with outside companies. And one of the companies we consulted
Starting point is 00:51:01 that helped us the most is actually a company that was responsible for actually, you know, cleaning and disinfecting the White House. And I'm not talking about the one that makes hoagies. It's the one where the president of the United States lives in. So we went for above and beyond everything.
Starting point is 00:51:18 You made that on purpose. And because we knew that we were going to be looked at in a way. OK, why are these guys doing this? These guys are trying to kill people. And so, yes, we're murderers. And that's the way they look at it. And we wanted to prove that not only can small business do it the same as big business, we can do it a whole lot better because we care about everybody, because we know everybody is walking through the door. They care about us. We care about them. We're going to take better place. When you walk into a Walmart, a Home Depot, you know, a Wawa, you know, it's like whatever your, your local, you know,
Starting point is 00:51:47 supermarket is, nobody gives a damn. You know, they, pardon my French, but they finger fuck everything, put it back down. Nobody's walking, nobody's walking back behind them, you know, you know, cleaning it up, sanitizing, everything like that. And it's, you know, it's a big part of it. It's, it's, it's insulting to me for you to tell me that, that I can't do it better than them. You know, it's just like, tell me all they have to do is wear a mask and stay six feet apart and take our money and the lobby is going to give it to the politicians. Bullshit.
Starting point is 00:52:12 It's just like, close the big box down, open up all the little guys, let the little guys take care of each other, and you solve the whole problem. But they don't want to hear that and see that because that's not part of their agenda. And it was political from the get get-go and it still is it's not about a virus i mean think about it you know joe biden has said if he becomes president he's going to shut the country down
Starting point is 00:52:35 now think about the logic behind that if this was about a virus and if it was ever about a virus okay if joe biden becomes president he won't become president until the third week of January. That means he's already planning on shutting the country down. And he says that's how he'll control COVID. COVID don't fucking exist right now. It's not about COVID. If you're
Starting point is 00:52:58 telling me, you're going to shut me down 11 weeks from now. It's all about politics, control, and fear-mongering. And as Ian has said it best they keep pumping fear into everybody instead of pumping solutions you know and it's just like and that's the easiest you know description of it that's all they keep doing is pumping fear into everybody and there's no solutions what are the uh precautions and what are the protocols that you guys have been following and then second that is, do you guys sometimes feel like you're maybe infringing on somebody's rights because you got to tell them what to do?
Starting point is 00:53:32 So safety protocol starts at the door. As soon as you walk in, there is a completely touchless system to check in. You step in front of a biometric scanner that takes your temperature, stand about a foot away from it. It reads your temperature, tells you what it is. Green light flashes that you're good to go. We have a box and a two boxes of pens, a box for clean pens and a box for dirty pens. You grab a clean one and you fill out a quick little health questionnaire.
Starting point is 00:54:05 Just has a couple of questions on it. Have you been in contact with anybody? Have you been out of the country? Are you having any symptoms? Have you had any symptoms? What's the date? What's the time? What's your temperature?
Starting point is 00:54:15 That's part of our contact tracing system. So that at any point we know we can go back any day and we can say who was in the gym, when they checked in, that they that they certified that they were okay what their temperature was all that just in case we ever do have a case um that we can we can report and we can warn people once you're done toss your pen in the dirty one we have a shelf right next to it uh it's got individual spray bottles every single person who walks into the gym has their own spray bottle uh with axide or peroxide based cleaner that that is shown to kill coronavirus on surfaces in 45 seconds. So you take your own spray bottle. The entire gym has been separated so that everything is six feet apart.
Starting point is 00:55:00 There's markings on the ground in open areas so when you're kind of working sort of you know with some free weights and some dumbbells you know that hey you know this is six feet away from the next person everybody is responsible for spraying and wiping things down as they go there are no reusable towels in the facility we have paper towels everywhere we have foggers and misters that we come through on a daily basis and spray down high traffic area. We have people on the floor all the time kind of going around making sure that social distancing is being respected. Obviously, you know, you can't always do it. If somebody needs spot, there's exceptions.
Starting point is 00:55:37 We have a UV air scrubber, which is a mobile decontamination unit. which is a mobile decontamination unit. So it pulls in about 10,000 cubic square feet of air every minute and circulates it through a UV chamber that cleans the air with a UV light. So it's a chemical-free clean, leaves it 99.9% bacteria and virus-free. That runs around the clock. We have an HVAC system with the proper filters running around the clock. We have proper ventilation. We have 25 foot ceilings. In a lot of cases, we do keep our doors open to increase the ventilation. We closed down our water fountain. So there's that's that's sort of a high
Starting point is 00:56:18 traffic area that we weren't sure how to handle. So that's sort of off limits for now. We had our showers closed down. Am I missing anything? That's pretty much it. That's pretty much it. Yeah. We purposely, we purposely did that because we wanted, we knew that they were going to come after us for being open and we wanted it to be absurd that they would say even though you're doing all of these things you're still a threat to the community and over
Starting point is 00:56:53 here walmart where you can grab a lysol wipe and slap a five dollar etsy mask on your face is safe um we we wanted we wanted them to do that because we knew that they were going to say, hey, you can't open anyway. And it just highlights the inconsistency and the hypocrisy of it all. You know, you've let these big box stores stay open with very, very, very lax measures that pretty much from the get-go weren't even really enforced that hard. I mean, these places, maybe for the first three weeks, they were enforcing, you know um only a
Starting point is 00:57:26 certain amount of people in at a time but very quickly you know that those measures went away half the time you go into a walmart that little thing that holds the lights all wipes empty anyway you know and it's we we went above and beyond a because we care and we don't want anybody to get covered and we don't want anybody to get COVID and we don't want anybody to get sick. But we knew that they were going to try to shut us down. And we wanted it to be as stupid as possible. And when you talk about violating people's rights by asking them to do certain things, you know, we've had a few people that have come in and actually not want to get their temperatures taken and stuff like that. And we just don't allow them in.
Starting point is 00:58:00 And we had one couple in particular that came in and they wanted to specifically talk to Ian and I, and it turns out that they, they were people who were actually fighting against governor Murphy at the same time. But my, my exact reasoning to them is they said, well, that's against my, you know, you know, you're violating my rights. I said, well, you know, then you don't have to come in as far as that goes. I said, and they're like, well, why are you so serious about it? And I looked at it this way
Starting point is 00:58:25 and I literally said, I don't know that you're not here for Governor Murphy, plain and simple. I don't know that five minutes from now that I'm going to let you in my door and they're going to send in contact tracers. They're going to send somebody from the Board of Health
Starting point is 00:58:35 or from Governor Murphy's office and they're going to walk in and they're going to ask to see the papers for every single person that's in the door. And if anybody's in that door that I don't have paperwork on, they're going to say you've been doing this this whole time.
Starting point is 00:58:44 So if you're not willing to actually get your temperature taken and fill out the paperwork and get the fuck out, plain and simple, because I've risked everything I've worked my entire life for. The only thing anybody's ever given me is a hard time, plain and simple. You know, it's like, if you're going to take it away from me, I'm going down for you like a motherfucker, you know, plain and simple. And it's like, that's how, that's what we look at. And that's how I'll talk to people as far as that goes. If you do not want to get your temperature taken, you do not want to fill out the paperwork.
Starting point is 00:59:10 You can go to another gym and wear your mask. You came to us. We didn't come to you. We're not advertising this. We're not soliciting their business. They're coming to us because we're the best at what we do. And we're actually the safest at the same time. So you either follow our guidelines or get the fuck out. And we, we haven't had many problems with that.
Starting point is 00:59:28 It's, it's not surprising now after all this, that nobody that comes to your gym has contracted the virus. It sounds like you guys have the safest place on earth. Like it sounds amazing. Yeah. Here in, here in California,
Starting point is 00:59:42 once they kind of opened gyms back up again, sorry about my camera flickering. Um, we were allowed to have like 10% capacity at certain points or something. I don't even know what it is now. Um, did, did you guys have, yeah. Did you guys have to do anything like that where you had to limit the amount of members that were coming in? We did. We were, uh, we're very fortunate. We have a fairly large facility where we're somewhere around between 14 and 15,000 square feet.
Starting point is 01:00:09 So and a lot of people misunderstood the when they say 10 percent or 25 percent, that goes off of the international fire code. So that it actually does allow for more people than you think. that it actually does allow for more people than you think. You know, if our, if our facility was at 50% capacity, our facility is like 140 people at one time, you know, so 20, 20% or 25% is what we started with. And that gives us room for about 75 people, not including staff. So we've never had an issue with that. Again, it's one of these restrictions, all of these restrictions are very arbitrary. And they're very, you know, a lot of them don't make a lot of sense. But that was one that didn't necessarily affect us too poorly, because it still shouldn't be there. You know, all of all of these restrictions are very oppressive.
Starting point is 01:01:03 And they they will harm your business, but that was one of the least harmful things that we had to deal with. And, and we've, we've been able to abide by that pretty well. I mean, if there was 140 people in the gym, probably 40 of them would leave because people would be swinging from the rafters. So, you know, that's, that's been okay for us. But yes, we do, we do abide by that as well. Have either one of you tried to arrange to actually like meet in person or have you met in person the mayor or the governor?
Starting point is 01:01:38 And like, what has your experience been with that? We have tried everything we could to get a face-to-face meeting with anybody who was an elected official and they're all fucking cowards nobody no not a single one of them has reached out to us or has you know come to have a meeting with us it is absolutely insane yeah it's like we're actually all of our people we just found out last week that all all of our summonses we have we have approximately 60 summonses between the two of us. And we have approximately 10 members who got summonses for actually coming in to the gym and leaving. They got summonses when they were leaving, those type of things.
Starting point is 01:02:15 We found out last week that they are not offering any of us for any of our summons or any of our members who got summons, any plea bargain offers or anything like that. And we were actually in the process of suing the township. We put a lawsuit against them because they illegally took our business license away, which is, I don't know if you guys are aware of the story that our members don't even pay anything. Our members haven't paid anything since April 1st.
Starting point is 01:02:39 It wasn't about the money. Our members haven't paid anything. And they took our business license away thinking that was going to shut us down. Who needs a stinking business license? We survive off of donations and t-shirt sales. It's insane. People think it's all about money. It's not about that. It's about the principle of it. The fact that they are not even offering a plea bargain to any of the
Starting point is 01:03:08 summonses that any of our members got, like if somebody got a violation of the executive order on day one, day two, when they got them, it was up to a thousand dollar fine and up to six months in jail. And it was just a joke because these executive orders for government, for officials aren't even laws. They're mandatory requests and they're not supposed to affect the citizens. Actually, executive orders are supposed to be for the employees of the actual government. And nobody's actually ever read those words. And that's why
Starting point is 01:03:32 they hate us because that's what we're fighting for. We're fighting to take those powers away from the governors because they don't have them. You know, they become dictators and nobody's ever questioned them because every other time that there's been an executive order that was put into place, it didn't last long enough for somebody to care enough. You know, it's just, you know, we're eight months now. You know, it's when when different things have happened, you know, it's, you know, Hurricane Sandy around here. You know, it's just you get the swine flu and 9-11. You know, you know, they put an executive order in place and then they disappear so quickly.
Starting point is 01:04:01 Nobody cares and nobody cares to question you know do they even have the authority to do that and actually the definition if you look up what a gubernatorial executive order is for the last 115 years it's it's not even for the citizens it's for the employees so it's where the hell do they have the right to do these things and and we're the only two and there's a guy brian brindisi um who's about an hour and a half away from here, who opened up a diner actually on June 1st. He's actually he's going through a lot of the similar things that we are. And, you know, it's like, you know, we're the only ones in the state that has a point eight million people that, you know, that are willing to actually fight this. And we kind of understand a little bit why, because it's tough. You know, it's just we got we got very lucky.
Starting point is 01:04:41 We we went to the police ahead of time and told them what we were going to do. And they said they would only bother us if they were told by the authorities ahead. And we were naive to think that, you know, we were hoping we got one local media source that would actually pick us up. We got that. But that's what we really were hoping for, because we knew that if we opened up and went against the government and nobody saw it, they would just squashes. And then when everybody opened back up, we wouldn't be able to open up. We just look a bit like bad businessmen. I think that no government official has reached out.
Starting point is 01:05:18 I've shaken some hands with some people, and that's about it. hands with some people and that's about it. And what it comes down to is these, um, these people who are in these elected positions, um, they make their choices very selfishly. Um, they, they get into these positions of power. Um, and what they're, what they're primarily interested is a career in politics, staying in office as long as possible. So a lot of times they don't want to do anything controversial, which is kind of a joke, you know, because if you didn't want to, you didn't want to face controversy and you didn't want to face difficulty, then I don't know why you're in politics. You know, you could have been a roofer or a school teacher or a grocery store clerk, you know,
Starting point is 01:06:05 we need people in power who are not afraid to stand up for what's right. And I think, especially when it comes to governor Murphy or anybody who's opposed us is they don't want to talk to us because I think that we surprised a lot of people. You know, we, we might look like two dumb gym owners, you know, we might look like two dumb gym owners, but we've done our homework. And I would still to this day,
Starting point is 01:06:32 I'd invite Governor Murphy, Judith Persichelli at the health department and any other official who's forced these lockdowns upon people, put your public health policy on the table and let's have an honest discussion about it because their public health policy is a weak and let's let's have an honest discussion about it because their public health policy is a weak and defensive one at best um locking people in their homes taking away every ounce of joy that people have uh socially isolating people leaving liquor stores and fast
Starting point is 01:06:59 food places open taking away places like gyms that promote health, taking away places like churches that promote sort of spiritual and mental health, and telling everybody to stay at home and disinfect the world around them, and then stay away from everything and don't touch anything. And just, that's not a public health policy. That's a defensive strategy at best. You know, the best thing that they have to offer is a vaccine. And that's a rushed one at that. You know, but let's let's talk about it. We want to talk about public health. Let's talk about individual health.
Starting point is 01:07:37 You know, but they don't they don't want to have these conversations because they know that their their policy isn't going to hold up to any scrutiny. So they don't really talk about it. They give their press conferences and they do their little song and dance at the bare minimum with what they have to kind of keep the public, I guess, informed. But they don't actually talk details. They don't actually talk science and data. So it doesn't surprise me that none of them have reached out because they know that they're going to get eaten alive if they if they talk to anybody who's even done a little bit of homework. And, you know, I'm no scientist. You know, I've been in the fitness industry for 11 years.
Starting point is 01:08:17 Frank's been been around for about 25, you know, and we're not doctors. Been around for about 25, you know, and we're not doctors, but common sense and just a little bit of of basic education about how the body works will blow giant holes in any policy that they have. And I think that they know that at this point, you guys have talked a lot about some of the things that they've done to try to shut you down. Have they done anything else that's just been pretty shady just like that that you wouldn't have expected back up our sewer system now after you said they were going to send the board of health after this yes wednesday the wednesday that we originally reopened which was may 2020 it's at 147 in the afternoon during governor murphy's uh briefing a daily briefing he says since we can't arrest them we'll have to have a smirk at uh the head of the state police that we'll have to have a smirk at the head of the state police that we'll have to send the board of health to them.
Starting point is 01:09:07 And I shit you not, literally, pardon the pun, an hour later, an hour later flushed the toilet and shit came up through the floor and it only affected our building. And we have a big building here. There's other businesses. It only affected ours. Somebody tampered with it from the
Starting point is 01:09:24 outside. The whole outside system from the inside and everything came up through the floor. You know, so it's, you know, we've had, we've had that, we've had a lot changed.
Starting point is 01:09:31 Uh, we've had our doors boarded up. Um, we've had threats from Antifa that they were going to burn our building down. It didn't even hide who they were. It was very, very publicly kind of put out.
Starting point is 01:09:43 They said, we're going to come burn your building down next. We've had multiple sewer backups. We have people who do come in the facility and destroy our equipment. There's somebody who comes into our facility and very clearly
Starting point is 01:09:57 cuts the cables on our machines. I mean, you name it. We've had I'd like to catch them. I won't prosecute. we've had media campaigns against us, uh, particularly myself, you know, we had this hack of a journalist, us, which doesn't say nothing surprises us at this point. You know, they there was there was rumors that they were trying to shut down our water and our electric. You know, it's going back to what we originally talked about with the fines and everything. The fact that they're actually trying to pierce the LLC, you know, you you open up an LLC to protect your your personal, you know, so they can't come after you.
Starting point is 01:10:48 They're actually trying to make us personally responsible for all the fines. They're saying because because Ian and I are the ones that kick the boards in when they actually boarded us up. And the business didn't do that. And that's why they subpoenaed, you know, my financial records. I own another business called Rock Bottom Nutrition. I've had for 25 years. They subpoenaed the financial records of that business. They financed, you know, the financial records of my wife, the financial records of his mom, you know, it's all about fear.
Starting point is 01:11:12 And that's dirty. That's just straight up dirty when you have an LLC and you're, you're supposed to be protected and they don't care. You know, it's just a, you know, they're going to do whatever they have to do to try to win because their goal with this point, we believe is to actually bankrupt us personally, us personally you know you know as far as finances go mentally break us and so we can't fight them later on you know because we can't get anywhere with them until we get to the federal system you know so they want to keep watering it down and and weighing us down with however you say
Starting point is 01:11:41 like tying cinder blocks to our asses and throwing us in the ocean so we can't get out of the state court system because they just keep you know delaying everything and we have two two of our our summonses um are classified as um criminal um and because of that we can't get into the federal system you know why that's waiting and on top of that it's it's a joke that anybody that puts a class action lawsuit even though we're the initial ones that actually started all the fight for everybody um we can't even have our names on a class action lawsuit because we have criminal charges against us and they know that you know it's an absolute joke you know so it's like anybody thinks this is about money it's they're insane though they need to show me where that is i, we lived here for 32 straight days.
Starting point is 01:12:25 I went home five times in 37 days. And we're prepared to do that right now because we believe that there's going to be so much civil unrest. We're prepared to actually be back here again. Back then we did it because they said they were going to actually change the locks on their doors. So we took the fucking doors off. You can't change the locks on the doors if I ain't got no doors. So we were here 24 hours a day. Seriously, we took the doors off the premises. And that you can't change locks on the doors if I ain't got no doors. So we were here, we opened up 24 hours a day. Seriously,
Starting point is 01:12:46 we took the doors off the premises and that's why they had to build a barrier. You know, but those are the type of dirty things that they've done,
Starting point is 01:12:53 but you know what? It is what it is and we're up for it and, you know, we've gained a lot of support from so many people that we didn't know
Starting point is 01:13:02 and there's a lot of hatred too, but, you know, I laugh at them at this point with the hatred because it's like, okay, we're day 232 now. Not that I'm fucking counting, but you guys
Starting point is 01:13:13 asked for 14 and we're on day 232 and you're telling me to wear a fucking mask. You just kissed my ass. Comply. Seriously, it's just, what are you waiting for? What business is real? Literally, we get people that have said to us, you know, you're a businessman. You should be prepared for this.
Starting point is 01:13:28 Like, who the fuck is prepared to be closed down for any period of time? And you got to pay all your bills. You know, you're not allowed to make any money. You got to pay all your bills. You know, it's insane. We laugh at it at this point. But what we liken it to is like a, you know,
Starting point is 01:13:43 a 12-round fight in a Rocky movie where you go against the government or you go against a big corporation like this, and you're going to lose rounds one through 11. You're going to get your face smashed in over and over and over again. And that that's by design because they know that if we get to round 12, where we get in front of the Supreme court, or we get in front of one of the higher federal courts in front of a judge who does have respect for the constitution and does have respect for the principles of this country, that this case is going to get smacked down very quickly. So they're going to do everything in their power to,
Starting point is 01:14:22 to take you out. And that's, like I said, that that's all the things that we just listed. They're going to try to break you down in every way. They're going to try to scare you. They've threatened us with prison sentences, the fines. You've heard it all.
Starting point is 01:14:45 But that's, you know, the main objective is to stay on our feet and continue the fight at all costs. You know, this is... I've said this a thousand times, and it's not to be a tough guy or anything like that, but if you're going to destroy my life, you're going to have to absolutely destroy me first. We're not just going to give this up. And I... I'm okay with that at this point.
Starting point is 01:15:01 If this is the hill that we die on, this is the hill that we die on. And then that story of Joe Loeb that we told you about, it is extremely humbling. And that story even got deeper because there was a Sunday about two months ago that an old man came in and he waited 20 minutes to talk to me.
Starting point is 01:15:18 I was talking to somebody else and it turns out it was Joe Loeb's dad and he wanted to thank us for saving his son's life. And we have a hundred other people who have thank us for saving his son's life. You know, and we have a hundred other people. That's what keeps us in the fight. Thank you for saving their life. People that are type one diabetics that are supposed to be, you know, the highest risk that actually come in here every day, you know,
Starting point is 01:15:35 because they need it for the health people that were obese or are obese, that lost a lot of weight, you know, they need it for their mental clarity. You know, people that are recovering drug addicts, that this is their only safe, you know, Haven, you know they need it for their mental clarity you know people that are recovering drug addicts that this is their only safe you know haven you know it says i've lost a friend during this time you know who couldn't you know make any money couldn't work and everything like that and you know and and he passed away and you know and you know four days before his 50th birthday and you know there's we have hundreds of those stories. You know, it's like, you know, it's... I'm a fighter.
Starting point is 01:16:09 I mean, I fought for fun, you know. I didn't fight professionally, but I fought, you know, amateur-wise up to the world championship level until I was 40 years old. You know, you're going to have to fucking, you know, you're going to have to whoop my fucking ass and kill me to get me to stop. You know, seriously. And it's just...
Starting point is 01:16:21 That's it. You know, we jokingly say to two dumb gym owners, but I think that's been our advantage in this. They thought that's what we were, you know, and then we spoke and they realized, fuck, they don't just pick things up and put them down. You know, they actually pick them up and read them, you know, seriously, you know, they just thought we were two dumb gym owners. And I tell you, I,
Starting point is 01:16:43 I guarantee we we've done the homework and I tell you, I guarantee we've done homework. And I've done enough homework for a lifetime, you know, on this. I could be a lawyer about all this stuff at this point. You know, and we're prepared to answer every question that anybody could ask us about, you know, any situation that's going on. And, you know, it's a job we decided that, you know, we were going to do. And, you know, when we first started this, I told Ian, you know, it's a job we decided, you know, we were going to do. And, you know, when we first started this, I told Ian, you know, it's like they're going to get dirty. I said, we got to be OK with everything we've done in our lives because, you know, they're going to turn our lives into glass houses and our families lives into glass houses.
Starting point is 01:17:17 And you got to be OK with that. You know, and this man, you know, he's had some things in his past. I've had some things in my past. You know, there's nobody else I'd rather be fighting this with because, you know, I's had some things in his past. I've had some things in my past. You know what? There's nobody else I'd rather be fighting this with because, you know, I thanked his mom one day, and she's like, for what? I said, because you got a son that's got the biggest set of balls compared to me. You know, it's like there aren't many of them, seriously. You know, and it's just there aren't many people that would have done this with me.
Starting point is 01:17:38 You know, and it's just, you know, and, you know, I just every day when I see how many people are just sheep still, you know, it's just like 232 years later and they're telling us to comply. And I mean, grown ass fucking men, you know, bitch. Come on, just go out and, you know, do something about it. You know, it's just quit being a keyboard warrior, those type of things. And get out there and, you know, stand up for yourself. Stand up for yourself. At the end of the day, that's what it's about. It's about standing up for yourself, and when it gets tough, not backing down.
Starting point is 01:18:10 And that's it. That's what the American spirit is about. And, you know, there's been men before us, I think, in all of our bloodlines that have done bigger and better things and stood in the face of greater adversity. And I think I think that's what what is lacking a lot in our society today is conviction to to follow through. And you could you could lay this out a thousand times and give us the choice to do it every time. And knowing everything that's happened, I would say yes every time. It's mind boggling to me that, you know, Governor Murphy and some of the other officials that they view you guys as like a threat. You know, they view you guys as a a public health.
Starting point is 01:19:05 You know, you guys are you know, you mentioned some people are saying you guys are murderers or you're trying to have people, you know, get COVID or whatever. So you guys are a major problem in your city state. Right. It doesn't make any sense at all that somebody doesn't come to you guys and have some sort of conversation. You know, I think to me, that's that's absolutely ludicrous like if if the governor is mentioning you guys by name um in like you know in front of the press and but he's not coming to meet you guys or sending somebody to come meet you guys uh i find that to be really disappointing, honestly, because. Well, they know that we'll embarrass them. Right. From day one, they use the terminology.
Starting point is 01:19:49 Every day when he had his meetings, he would say, you know, dad in science gives his dates, dad in science gives his dates. I mean, we've challenged them. I've asked for, you know, just one-on-one, two-on-two, me and Ian, him and Colonel Callahan. Let's have a debate. No paperwork, no nothing. The people Callahan. Let's have a debate. No paperwork, no nothing. The people in the media
Starting point is 01:20:08 gets to ask the questions, you know, and, you know, winner take all. When I say winner take all, and this is literally, you know, literally propose this to Governor Murphy. Winner take all is, if you win the debate, if people say you win the debate, the media says you win the debate, I will shut my gym down forever and you'll never fucking hear from me again.
Starting point is 01:20:24 But when I win the debate, you open shut my gym down forever and you'll never fucking hear from me again. But when I win the debate, you open up everything. You don't just open up my gym. All gyms, all bars, all salons, all movie theaters. What's really crazy is they've said, they make these statements and because
Starting point is 01:20:39 they're elected officials, they want everybody to just take it on faith. You know, just because you're an elected official and you say something doesn't make it a fact. You still have to provide evidence. And we've asked for it over and over and over again. You know, one of our mottos somewhere in this was no science, no shutdown, you know, show us,
Starting point is 01:21:06 show us that small businesses are the villains that you've made them out to be. You know, these, all these politicians have said, you know, small businesses, but in reality, what's happened, especially here in New Jersey is, you know, we have 60% of the deaths happening in long-term care facilities that are under the direct supervision of the same people that are pointing the finger at small businesses like ours and saying, you guys are the threat. You guys are causing the spread. And we just ask for the information.
Starting point is 01:21:38 Show us. If you can show us that our facility or a hair salon or indoor dining or whatever it is, show us that that's any more of a threat to society than public transportation being open at 100% or Walmart being open. Show us, show us that the things that you have open are safer than the things that you have to stay closed and we'll stay shut down and they they have it and that that right there is is more than enough evidence to show that that this stinks of of just corruption and illegitimacy and the the public transportation one to me leads me to believe that they they want to spread the the virus not stop the virus because they want to keep the shutdown. And I use that, you know, you know, in saying that they talk about gyms are a indoor space.
Starting point is 01:22:31 That's why they're difficult. Restaurants are indoor spaces. Indoor spaces are difficult. They lack ventilation. They, you know, they're confined spaces. Well, a New Jersey transit bus is 40 feet long and 102 inches wide. That's 340 square feet on the outside at 100% capacity. They're allowed to have 60 passengers and a driver. People get on there, and I'm going to use the finger fuck again, but when you walk on a bus, you finger fuck every seat on the way in.
Starting point is 01:22:54 You finger fuck every seat on the way out. Nobody's sanitizing. Nobody's doing anything behind you. They're not doing anything for contact tracing. They don't have you fill out paperwork to know who was on the bus. So in the end, they keep telling you, if you have symptoms, go get tested. Well, if I take public transportation, that means if I feel sick, I'm getting on a bus with possibly 60 other people. They don't know that I'm sick.
Starting point is 01:23:18 They're going to drop me off at the hospital to get my COVID test. And when I found that I'm COVID positive, they have no idea how many people I just actually infected on the bus. So to me, it's, okay, show me the science that says that's safe. And I'll shut my gym down. But I know they don't have the science, so I'm going to stay open. And I'm going to keep fighting. And I'm
Starting point is 01:23:37 fully believe that they are afraid that they will be embarrassed if they actually had to. Because if they have a meeting with us, there's going to be cameras. that they will be embarrassed if they actually had it. Because if they have a meeting with us, there's going to be cameras. And they will be embarrassed because we've done our homework. And they don't have the answers to the questions that we have. They really don't.
Starting point is 01:23:56 And they know that. And that's why none of them will reach out. Not to say they just push it down. It's like Governor Murphy made the mayor of Belmar and the town council take our business license away and it and then and it's shame on them because Belmar should have you know just had the balls to stand up because now they have a lawsuit against them from us because they they took our business license away with us not being found guilty of anything not found you know it's like we we have committed no law like if we committed a crime and we broke the law we'd be in jail bottom line is the only time we were arrested is because we
Starting point is 01:24:29 refused to leave our building you know it's just like well because we had taken the doors off and they were they had orders because we were found in contempt of court orders to actually change the locks on the doors you can't change the locks if i ain't got no fucking doors you know so that's the only time we were arrested so think about that if we broke the law, why the hell are we in jail? Because we didn't break the law. And they know that. And they're doing everything they can to break us down and make other people hate us. You know, and that's their entire goal is to make us look bad.
Starting point is 01:24:58 And they haven't been able to do it. I mean, there's been some bad days. Don't get me wrong. But in general, you know, it's just like, you know, we got 600 people a day coming through here for a reason, you know, and it's, you know, people, we still have paper covering the windows. And people say, you know, media asked me back in August, why do you still have paper on the windows?
Starting point is 01:25:17 What are you hiding? And I'm serious when I said it. I said, I'm hiring out. I'm hiding outside. You know, this Ian and I will not give into the new norm. There is no new norm. And inside our gym is the most normal place on earth. Forget the safest place on earth. It's the most normal place on earth. Nobody's afraid in here. Nobody has fear in here. So whether you're in here for 20 minutes, two hours, three hours, or you live
Starting point is 01:25:37 here half the time, like we do, you know what, when you see outside, that's where the fear is. Everybody's scared. They're walking around in a mask. It's not a safe place for most people in their brain. I believe it's safe out there, but people are mentally dissuaded and just feel horrible about their life and everything when they're out there. I don't want them to see outside. Even our landlords say they look ghetto. I don't give a fuck. Stop looking at it.
Starting point is 01:26:03 Seriously. I'm not taking it down. We looking at it. Seriously. I'm not taking it down. We may end up blocking the windows forever. Seriously, it's the greatest feeling. Everybody just come and visit. When Dan Bongino was here, so much energy.
Starting point is 01:26:18 Just such normalcy of being able to walk through the door. It feels really good to provide that place for people. So many people have come through the door and they're like, wow, this was awesome. You know, it's just like, they come in nervous at first when it's their first time and they got masks on and stuff. And then they, they look at me and say, do I got to wear a mask? I don't have a mask on.
Starting point is 01:26:37 Why the fuck you got to wear a mask? You know, it's funny. They've written their masks off so fast. It's normal here. It does. And it feels really good to provide that kind of place for people, even if it's only for an hour a day, you know, even if they're going elsewhere and they're putting masks on. And a lot of people have to wear them while they're at work. And that's, we take a lot of pride in that, that this is a lot of people's kind of like safe haven from just the
Starting point is 01:27:04 craziness that's been going on so and that's yet yet another thing that we draw strength from you know at the beginning of the episode you guys were mentioning how um there's there's a lot of fear-mongering going on but you also mentioned how you feel that there's like some type of agenda that's happening so i was curious as to what you like mean by that what do you think is like a deeper thing that may be that may be going on here that might be bigger than just them just trying to shut down your business? I think that there is a much larger agenda at play that COVID is just one kind of smaller aspect of. aspect of, um, you know, you've seen over the past 60 years, this, um, this sort of push towards the globalist mindset. Um, and in order to have that globalist mindset, you kind of have to, um, you have to, you have to be able to break down the concepts of individuality and
Starting point is 01:28:08 individualism which is one of the things that this country is founded on um you know among with other principles like liberty in the pursuit of happiness equality among all men and women um and i think that this is an attempt to kind of break down the middle class. Because in this country, we have we have the beautiful, the beautiful phenomena of really good social mobility. You know, not everybody starts at the same place, but there are opportunities for everybody, regardless of where you start. And if you do the right thing and if you work really hard, chances are you're going to wind up in a better place than where you start. And if you do the right thing, and if you work really hard, chances are you're going to wind up in a better place than where you started. And in order to construct a very powerful government entity, you do have to kind of take people's kneecaps out and destroy that social mobility. And you have to make people dependent upon the government. And we've seen little by little over the past 70 years,
Starting point is 01:29:07 um, government grow in size and in, in, in power. Um, and there's been a push towards a more social socialist, uh, government where people become more and more dependent upon, um, government for taking care of every part of their life. And that's, that's very anti-American. And I'm, and by no means am I against having social safety nets. I think that there, there should be things like social welfare and stuff when it is needed, but I don't think that a majority of the population should be relying on government for their food, for their healthcare, for their health care, for their education.
Starting point is 01:29:45 I think I think that that's an individual responsibility. And that's what makes this country great is that is that you you are what what you make yourself to be. But when you when you want the control on a higher level, you can't have people be independent and have people be strong. So by taking out the middle class, by taking out specifically small business, you destroy a very, very strong and independent part of this country. And on top of that, you take away tons of jobs. Yes, you take away. We all lose our jobs and people don't have them.
Starting point is 01:30:23 We don't have jobs for people. You take away the jobs and you take away people's financial freedom. And then they're dependent upon you for that. Small business. One of the beautiful things about small business is that it keeps communities alive and thriving. You know, we live close to the area. Just use our gym, for example. The money that comes in here, it pays our employees, you know, whatever it pays our bills, it pays Frank and I, that money circulates throughout the community, you know, we go down to the local bar and have a drink, you know, we go shop at the local grocery store, we go to the local hair salon. And that money transfers from person to person within the community. And it helps the
Starting point is 01:31:06 community stay alive and thrive. Every small business that shuts down, that business and that money that would typically circulate through that typically goes off to the corporation. So the local grocery store, or say we shut down. The people that would come here and pay us now go to a big chain gym. And that big chain gym, when you hand them your money or they take the money out of your bank account, that money doesn't circulate back into the surrounding community. It goes up the food chain throughout that big corporation. And it winds up in the pockets of executives. It winds up in the pockets of lobbyists. It doesn't return to the town of of industry. And eventually all of the
Starting point is 01:32:05 business left and the community falls apart around it because none of the money that's being spent in the community returns to the community. It goes elsewhere. It goes into the elite's hands. It goes into the powerful, you know, the corporations, the, you know, whatever you want to call it, the 1%. And I think that that's a big part of the agenda at play is crushing small business because all of these big corporations have been allowed to stay open. And they've not only been allowed to stay open, they've thrived at unprecedented rates. I mean, Walmart increased their sales by 100%. Jeff Bezos got, you know, I think $10 billion richer or some odd thing like that, that $10 billion would normally be circulating through the lower and
Starting point is 01:32:54 middle levels of the economy. And it's not and it doesn't return or it's very, very slow to return or a very small amount of it returns. And if that happens enough, there won't be a middle class. There will be the haves and the have-nots. And you see that in other countries around the world. I've traveled to Brazil and you see that there is no middle class in Brazil, or it's very, very small. Either you're one of the wealthy or you're one of the have-nots. And then what happens is you have a whole bunch of have-nots who now just become dependent upon the government. And you've lost all individuality. You've lost all ability for social mobility moving upwards
Starting point is 01:33:32 because you're stuck at the bottom, because you can't start your own business. You can't acquire your own wealth. You can't build it. I truly believe that they're trying to go to a socialist world as far as that goes. And even if you do start your own business and you survive, if
Starting point is 01:33:47 they go to socialism and us as a gym survive, they're going to say, well, you can only make this much money anyway. That's what it is. That's why businesses have left Sweden and those type of things because it's a great looking country, but you can't do anything for yourself there and
Starting point is 01:34:03 better yourself. If they shut down the entire middle class and everything like that and make people depend upon them, the most important thing is they get control. I mean, because they're going to that's how they get control of you and say, OK, well, if you want your money and you want your free health care, you want your free education. Well, you're going to have to get your kids vaccinated. You're going to have to do this. You're going to have to do that. And who wants to do that? I mean, it's just, you know, these vaccinations that they're that they're forcing, you know, to come real quick. I mean, it's just I've always laughed about vaccination. I'm not anti-vax, but I'm not for vax, if that makes sense. Like, I've always laughed at the fact, OK, how can you possibly have the vaccine for this year's
Starting point is 01:34:39 flu virus if it changes every year? Don't you have to know what the fucking strain is in order to make it? Like, that's an oxymoron. They're actually a way of controlling. I believe that it's population control. Australia has just passed the digital vaccine. I don't know if you guys are aware of that. When you look at that, it's like Bill Gates owns the technology
Starting point is 01:34:58 which is nanotechnology that they're putting in an additional vaccine and they're actually pushing it towards the Australians. It's a good thing because when you go to the doctors, they won't even have to have you fill out paperwork because they'll know everything about you, where you've been and everything, because they're tracking you.
Starting point is 01:35:12 It's insanity. And if you want to know what I truly believe the end game is, it's that. And I wasn't political before this started at all. And I'm an American. I always joke that actually I thought blue states were bordered by water and red states weren't. That's as much as I gave a damn about it. That's the truth.
Starting point is 01:35:33 That's how little I cared about politics. But now it's like this is what they're trying to do. I mean, just the fact that Biden says that he's going to require masks. Biden says that he's going to require masks. OK, Fauci, who's a guy that they listen to in 2008, he co-authored a report that actually in the report was actually based on the actually the cause of the excessive deaths in all influenza pandemics throughout the world, throughout history. And in his own words, he said that actually most of the people die from a secondary bacteria, primarily, you know, bacterial pneumonia caused from wearing masks. And they truly they actually said that they truly believe that almost all of those people would have died, that there would have been zero excessive deaths, which is excessive deaths is deaths that actually go above and beyond the normal deaths that would occur in a given period of time throughout that same society. would occur in a given period of time throughout that same society. And that if they
Starting point is 01:36:25 did not have the presence of that secondary bacteria, they believe all of those people would have lived. That is Fauci saying that now. Fauci's telling you to wear a mask. What is it? It's insane. You put the mask on, you're going to grow bacteria and pneumonia. I mean, 70, they
Starting point is 01:36:41 literally, they've said 85% of the people that actually have gotten COVID wore masks. 71 of them, 71% of them wore masks all the time. That is insane as far as that goes. But yeah, we don't wear masks and 64,768
Starting point is 01:36:58 people have come through here since June 16th and we don't have a single COVID case. And, you know, it's like, which means that they don't have bacteria and pneumonia, they don't have a single COVID case. And, you know, it's like, which means that they don't have bacteria and pneumonia. They don't have all these secondary things. So I believe that their end game is trying to destroy us. And they need to, like, I truly believe that they, you know, I call it the plandemic instead of the scandemic or the pandemic. Because it was a very good plan.
Starting point is 01:37:21 And, you know, it's like part of that plan, if you're trying to create a social society is you have to weaken the society. So if you close the gyms down and you close the actual churches down, the two places where people are going to be able to build their immune system, build their mental strength, their physical strength, then you're going to weaken them. And then on top of that, you give the, you give people who actually need money. Usually the people that are going to fight the hardest is a hungry dog is a
Starting point is 01:37:43 hungry dog wants to eat. So they gave $600 a week for free. They gave a $1,200 stimulus check. They gave you an extra $500 for each kid that you had. And then they gave you an extra $600 a week for free for 16 weeks. Well, now those people that actually were hungry before are fat and happy. They're passing out on the fucking couch from eating
Starting point is 01:38:00 too much. Their coverage is full. And when it comes down to where we want to fight as the middle class, they're not going to want to fight. They're going to be like, yo, what are you guys doing? They've been taking care of us. Now they're going to vote on that side of it. They're not willing to fight anymore because they were taken care of. That's a perfect example of actually introducing
Starting point is 01:38:15 that socialism world and Marxism world to them because they're relying on them. They say, well, wait a minute. They're going to take this shit away from us if we actually fight them. All of those people want that now. And that's what I'm saying a lot. And that's why they want to destroy
Starting point is 01:38:32 us all. They want to control us. We're the bad seeds, apparently. How has this negatively impacted your families? Has it been anything that's been really tough, like any weird threats or people driving by your homes or anything crazy like that? Personally, Frank and I have received quite a bit of threats.
Starting point is 01:38:54 You know, like I said, Antifa burning down the building, you know, whatever. It's been really hard on our loved ones. I mean, it's been hard on frank and i but we chose to fight our loved ones got dragged into it because they love us uh and they are going to stand by us regardless you know um you know frank's married and has five kids you know i have a a girlfriend and she has a son that lives with us and, you know, we've been completely absent in, in our own homes for long periods of time. Even, even when we go home, we're here seven days a week, no less than 12 hours a day, every single day.
Starting point is 01:39:34 And we've been doing that for eight months straight. So it's, it's tough. And we're, we're extremely thankful that we have the people that love us in our lives because they, they pick up the slack, um, where, where we, you know, Frank was joking the other day, he said, man, when you're not home a lot, that honey to do list gets really long. Um, and it's, it's, it's rough and they, they do their best and they have their moments where, you know, it's, it's really hard for them. Um, but they, uh, they believe in us. So we, we fight and we fight for them too. You know, so it's, it is what it is.
Starting point is 01:40:15 Um, I think I personally put security in my house for the first time ever. And I always laugh. I was like, if they come in here, they got to fuck. Good luck. You know, as far as that goes, but you know, it's just, you know, I can't be there all the time and you don't know who's coming. So that's like, I literally put security cameras around my house and I never did before. You know, I think it's a violation of my privacy.
Starting point is 01:40:33 And you know, if you put security cameras, I mean, somebody can tap into them and always know, you know, it's just like, I never felt comfortable with that. Like I'm, I'm the idiot. I didn't even have easy pass. Cause I don't, you know, uncle Sam don't need to know where the fuck I am. It's another way of tracking you. Seriously.
Starting point is 01:40:49 It changed. My 18-year-old son has my name. It affected him a little bit at the very beginning because people would go after him because of his name. He wanted to fight for me, and I had to explain to him that you can't do that, you know, as far as that goes, you know, it's just because they're just looking for us to say something wrong or do something wrong and use it against us, you know, and that's, you know, it's, it's, it's hard to get across to an 18 year old who just wants to, you know, prove to his dad that, you know, Hey, I can do this too. And, you know, it's just, and it's not his fight. You know,
Starting point is 01:41:23 we got two 15 year olds, 18 and 19 and a 21 year old, and, you know, it's just, and it's not his fault. You know, we got two 15-year-olds, 18 and 19 and a 21-year-old. And, you know, my wife's a nurse. So it's like, like you said earlier about the legacy behind, you know, it's just like, you know, no matter what I can, I can lay my head down when I do.
Starting point is 01:41:35 I don't sleep much, but, you know, and I know that I've done the right thing to represent them and to represent what's right and what you're supposed to do you know as far as that goes you know it's like no matter what even if in the end we lose you know the the war um we win because we stood up you know nobody can ever say to us that you know you gave up you know you you know you weren't willing to fight for what you thought was right you It's like the scariest moments of this whole
Starting point is 01:42:06 situation for me right now is right now. That sounds weird, but I'm scared as fuck that somehow Biden's going to become president. That's going to create an all-out war because I will not shut down.
Starting point is 01:42:22 He's already said he's going to shut the country down. He's going to make everybody wear masks. That's going to create a civil war if he gets in. I'm more afraid of that than anything else. On day two when this whole thing happened and the media went absolutely crazy on us
Starting point is 01:42:38 going back to May 19th, the day my mother died, the media said, aren't you afraid? I said, hell yeah, I'm afraid, but I'm more afraid to sit down because my kid, I want my kids to have rights. I want to be a pop-up, you know, it's just like, you know, I want to be able to have, you know, a normal, you know, an elderly person's life. I want my kids to have rights.
Starting point is 01:43:00 I want their kids to have rights. And, and if, if I don't stand up now, you know, it's like, who's going to stand up for us? You know, it's like, and I'm thankful that Ian standing beside me because there's no way in hell one person could do this by themselves. I mean, they're really not, you know, it's like, you know, it's just, you got to have teamwork, you know, that's like, you know, the corny thing. Everybody says teamwork makes a dream work, but it really does. Cause you, you know, you, you really need, you know, you know, another set of eyes and other brain and not always going to see eye to eye. You're going to have arguments and stuff like that,
Starting point is 01:43:30 but that makes the whole thing better. But, um, I mean, I, I think what we've, what we've stood up for and the, the support that we've gotten from, from people we know and, and people we have no freaking clue who they are, you know, just, just beautiful people throughout the world who have sent us poems pictures you know just you know letters of thankfulness and you know 93 year old veterans that actually wish that they could come here and fight with us you know and you know you know a 83 year old widow who says that you know her husband is you know in
Starting point is 01:44:02 his grave fighting with you you know if he was alive today, he would be here fighting with us. We have so many letters and things like that. If you're having a bad day, you go back and you look at that and you realize you're not just even fighting for the people that are walking in your gym and
Starting point is 01:44:20 you communicate with every day and the people you go home to. You're fighting for everybody out there. And there's a lot of people out there that were blessed with because of the attention we got through the media, you know, and we're, we're very, very blessed that, you know, our message was shared, you know, by a lot of people and it's impacted a lot of people. And it's part of what gives us even more strength every single day,
Starting point is 01:44:42 because we know that we're not just fighting locally. We're fighting for everybody. Where can, where can people show their support to get, you know, your t-shirts and stuff like that? So the easiest, and we say this to a lot of people,
Starting point is 01:44:57 a lot of people always ask for like the GoFundMe and stuff. And as much as the donations help, the sharing of the story is probably one of the most powerful ways. So people watching this podcast share the podcast. Oh, yeah. Follow us on like that plug there. Follow us on social media. A lot of the updates are on my personal social media.
Starting point is 01:45:24 That's Ian Smith Fitness or Attilis Gym Belmar. We try to keep updated as much as possible. Those are Instagram. But you can find the links to everything on those. We have a website. It's theattilisgym.com. There's a store with a whole bunch of different merchandise there. there's a store with a whole bunch of different merchandise there and if you want to help out by going to our GoFundMe that's that link is in my Instagram as well you can google it
Starting point is 01:45:51 Attilis Belmar Court Relief there are a couple fake ones out there so we always tell people to be careful ours has a picture of one of our members being arrested so that's how you that's how you differentiate and back to what I'm saying, you know, to share the story, to us, the biggest way that everybody can help in the long run is to support small business, you know, fuck big box, and don't forget about this, because
Starting point is 01:46:15 9-11 happened, and a year later, everybody forgot about it. Went back to normal life, and we became vulnerable again. Once this is all over, they'll do it again, you know, they can do it once, they'll do it, you know, again. They'll try it again. Once this is all over, they'll do it again. They can do it once, they'll do it again. They'll try again. We have to remember that they've done this.
Starting point is 01:46:32 Support your local guy. Even if it's a little bit more money, it's going to save your community. Like Ian was talking about, the big box takes the money away from the communities they're in and actually gives it to their lobbies to go up in it. It goes goes up to the, you know, the politicians so they can get, you know, what they want out of life.
Starting point is 01:46:50 But just, just by, you know, supporting small business and, you know, sharing the story and just remembering, you know, that, you know, if you rely on somebody and there's tons of people out there that, you know, they somehow believe in, you know, this socialist world and, you know, they say, you know, if you rely on somebody to feed you, eventually they'll starve you. You know, and it's just like, if they don't get what they want, you know,
Starting point is 01:47:14 it's like, and that's what I'm afraid is going to happen as well, you know, it's just like, there's so many sheep out there that are just, oh, just comply, comply, comply, you know, it's just like, you know, most of them are the people that either weren't affected by it because they somehow were lucky enough to have
Starting point is 01:47:29 a position that was deemed essential and nobody in their family was affected by it or they just don't care. They got the extra money and stuff like that and they're okay with that. That's unacceptable to me as far as that goes.
Starting point is 01:47:46 You know, we all got to fight for what we want, you know, and it's just like, and don't let other people, you know, knock you down. If, you know, it's like, if we don't have the same values, that doesn't mean we have to hate each other, you know, as far as that goes. That's the biggest thing I've learned through this. You know, it's like we had people that hated hated us to begin with. They literally, you know, thought we were murderers and killers and selfish. And, you know, why did actually have come in
Starting point is 01:48:10 and actually, you know, bought merchandise from us and said, holy crap. You know, it's just like and they've admitted it, that they talk shit about us online. They did all this stuff. But as they the more
Starting point is 01:48:19 they watch the story, they realize it wasn't about opening up a gym. And that's what, you know, it's the beautiful thing. It's me. You know, it's just, you know, the people that realize that and when you And that's what, you know, it's our beautiful thing has been, you know, it's just, you know, the people that realize that and when you can change their mind,
Starting point is 01:48:28 you know, it's good because there's a lot of people out there that don't care to try to educate themselves on any situation, let alone a serious situation. And that's the biggest thing that's helped me through all this is, you know, all those people that do realize it's not about opening up a gym.
Starting point is 01:48:43 You know, it's about, I want, you know, my wife on her day off from being a nurse if she wants to go get her hair done she should be able to go get her hair done you know it's just like you know if you you worked a hard day and you want to go to this you know to the bar and have a drink and and watching a ball game you know it's just like until the guy next to you to shut the fuck up because he's talking too much you know it's like that's normalcy you know we we all deserve that and it's it's not about a gym it's it's it's about getting normalcy back in all deserve that. And it's not about a gym. It's about getting normalcy back in our lives and doing those things that make us proud human beings. But it takes everybody.
Starting point is 01:49:15 Everybody's got to work at it. And don't let people talk you out of it. Just keep fighting for what you believe is right. And I truly believe that if you go about it the right way in the end, you know, it's just you'll win. And I believe we'll win in the end. You know, it's just it's just a long ways to go. We just got to keep fighting.
Starting point is 01:49:38 With everything that's going on right now, you guys getting fined every single day. Do you guys see any light at the end of the tunnel with with with any time? But it's a train coming up. There's we don's a train. It's a train coming our way. We don't see anything. It's going to get worse before it gets better. Yeah, we're prepared for the long haul on this fight. We realize even with the gyms
Starting point is 01:49:55 being open in the state, we have a very long road ahead of us through the court system and stuff like that. We know that we'll get there and we know that we have the tenacity, we know that we'll get there. Um, and we know that we, we have the tenacity and, uh, the grit to kind of get there. Um, but right now it's, we're still very much in the middle of it. Um, and it's just one foot in front of the other, you know, step-by-step head down, you know, you keep your formation tight and that's, that's it.
Starting point is 01:50:22 And, and we'll get there. And when we do, we'll, uh, we'll be thankful that we took this fight up. And we had a lot of support there with us. You know, it's like when, you know, cause we haven't had the threat of them actually barricading this and completely locking us out for the last couple of months, because we, we teamed up with Rick May. We tried to use everything we can to actually use it against us. So Rick May was running for Senate. He was a Republican
Starting point is 01:50:47 nominee for Senate. So we made this his rally house. So because it was a political rally house, they couldn't do anything to us during that time, except for fine this. So now that the election's over, we'll probably be back to living here with the threat of they're going to actually lock us out, arrest us, and detain us. They don't just want to arrest us. They want to detain us. They use those words in it.
Starting point is 01:51:12 We have a lot of people that are willing to get arrested with us at this point. It is what it is. We're not going to give in to their crap because they're not laws. I mean, we haven't broken any laws. And, you know, it's just like, you know, when I first started this, I promised my wife I wouldn't do anything that I knew was illegal at the time I did it. It was criminal, you know, as far as that goes. And, you know, we've stuck by that.
Starting point is 01:51:38 Even when we kick the doors and, you know, it's just like we kick the doors and technically we're in violation of, you know, of, you know, being found in contempt of court. But bottom line, we were found in contempt of court or being in violation of the executive order, which is not a law. It's a mandatory request. So it's I still don't believe any of that is criminal. And we're trying to do everything we can to be that way. And it's not easy, you know, especially when you have the threat of violence coming at you, you know, we know that there's going to be, you know,
Starting point is 01:52:10 you know, civil unrest, you know, no matter what happens in this election. And it's just like, how do you, how do you protect yourself safely, you know,
Starting point is 01:52:17 and protect your property safely and stuff like that. That's where it's, you know, when you, when you ask if there's a light at the end of the tunnel, that's why I say a training because it's, we figure something's coming after us. You know, it's, you know, when you ask if there's a light at the end of the tunnel, that's why I say a training, because we figure something's coming after us. You know, New Jersey today let out 2,088 prisoners out of jail, and they used COVID.
Starting point is 01:52:39 And all 2,088 of them, 88 of them they let out today, they also get their $1,200 stimulus check. And I know people that have been working every day their whole life that never got their stimulus check. You know, so these people got their stimulus check. They were allowed to vote last week. You know, I mean, you know, they got out early because of COVID. You know, and our argument to the governor was you said face mask work, face mask work, give them the fucking prisoners. What the fuck? Makes no sense.
Starting point is 01:53:06 You know, but seriously, they let out 2088 prisoners in between now and January 21st, they're letting out another 1,000. And 10 of them are actually considered the top 100 most violent criminals in the state of New Jersey. And I know that directly from people who actually run the actual correction facilities. And they are shocked that these people are going to be getting out of jail. And I believe they're doing this so they can, with an agreement, that they're going to go out there and fight on the front line instead of these bitches that show up for Antifa. agreement that they're going to go out there and fight on the front line instead of these bitches that show up for Antifa. You know, so it's when we jokingly say bunker down,
Starting point is 01:53:30 you know, it's just like we got to be ready because we got to be on the top 10 most wanted list, you know, in Jersey and those type of things. So we figure in the end we're a target, you know, and it's just like because we've embarrassed the governor because we proved a target. It's just because we've embarrassed the governor because
Starting point is 01:53:45 we proved that his science was bullshit as far as that goes. No matter what he's done, Ian and I have been willing to keep standing back up. It's just like, as Ian said, it's like a battle. You only have to win the last battle
Starting point is 01:54:02 to win the war, plain and simple. That's our goal. We're prepared the last battle to win the war. You know, plain and simple. And that's our goal. You know, we're prepared to lose every battle along the way. You know, when we win that last one, we're going to win the war. And it's just we have a lot of support to get us there. Thank you guys so much for your time today. What an incredible story. And keep kicking ass.
Starting point is 01:54:22 I'm not going to tell you to hang in there because I already know that you will. But, you know, just keep kicking ass. I'm not, you know, I'm not going to tell you to hang in there because I already know that you will. But, you know, just keep kicking ass. And I'm blown away. I think it's really incredible what you guys are doing. And I think you're also, you know, not just like you guys said earlier, you're not just doing it for yourselves. There's a lot of other people that are looking in on this story. And it's a great story.
Starting point is 01:54:42 It's a great thing for other people to follow and to utilize that in their own life. So thank you guys so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Stop by sometime. Good work at it. Absolutely. You're in New Jersey. Door's always open. I end up, I end up there sometimes, unfortunately. It's a pretty good atmosphere. Thanks a lot, guys.
Starting point is 01:55:05 Thanks again. Have a great rest of your day. Damn, those guys were great. Yeah, they were. That was awesome. I don't know about you guys, but I ain't fucking with Frank. I mean, I'm not fucking with either one of them, but I ain't messing with Frank. I don't think he really messes around much. $15,000 a day, man.
Starting point is 01:55:25 Yeah, over $500,000 for a year. It's crazy, though. Like, I didn't even realize that they weren't charging their members. That's sick. Like, nothing. That's amazing. Everything's donations, shirt sales. Go fund me.
Starting point is 01:55:38 It's amazing what they're doing. And I think more people are going to help them out. They just said so much. they're doing and i think they said they just said so much i mean like you're you're a government official and there's something going on in your area that you view you deem as being really reckless or really bad and you don't or you don't communicate with someone else to go and talk to these people and have some conversation. I do realize that, you know, we kind of project and we say, OK, well, they're on that side of it and we're on this side of it. So it doesn't make any sense for us to go.
Starting point is 01:56:14 We'll just find them. But I think it's always helpful to be able to put a name to the face and to be able to have a conversation face to face. And even if you went in there and you were a little rough and said, hey, look, you know what? We're going to fine you every day because you're in violation of this, this, and this. And this is why Walmart's allowed to be open. This is, you know, you just state your case, you know, and I don't think there's anything
Starting point is 01:56:40 wrong with that. But I do think there's a problem with not addressing it at all. Like that's that's like. It's like I said, it's really disappointing, you know, like this is our this is our government. These are the that's why I really hate with politicians. I don't think we should ever use the word leader for any of them. They. They are they are kind of selecting, you know, what they're doing.
Starting point is 01:57:08 You know, they're going after a particular position. And just like he mentioned, they have to, like, not really disrupt too much stuff in order to get ahead, in order to stick around, they have to kind of, like, play a game. And to me, that's not any leader that I would want to follow. You know, leaders are, leaders are created over like a long period of time, but you're not just a leader because you decided to be a government official. You know, it's something you have to really, you have to really work at. And I just think that it's, I think that people keep using that word and it's
Starting point is 01:57:47 like, why are you waiting for anybody to lead you anywhere? Like, this is an amazing country. You have opportunity to do a lot of different things and not everyone has the same exact opportunities, but over a period of time, everyone can work towards getting those opportunities. And it might take somebody a lot longer than somebody else. We see that happen all the time. But, you know, I just think, you know, trying to rely on someone else is not a great idea. I love that line that he said about, you know, when you when you're taking something from somebody, when somebody is giving you something, when they feed you, they're eventually going to starve you. And it's like, whoa. And that's giving you something, when they feed you, they're eventually going to starve you. And it's like, whoa.
Starting point is 01:58:26 And that's, you know, the stimulus packages, you know, there's just a lot of shit like that where you need to be really cautious. Those things are in place because we're empathetic for people. There are people in compromising positions that sometimes need more finances. They sometimes need more things to keep their family going and keep their families alive. There's just so many different circumstances. So we need those things sometimes, but leaning on that or trying to rely on the government to do or be anything for you, I think is a giant mistake. Yeah. I mean, there was a thought I had in terms of anybody that really wants to make a change. Like people think about getting into politics, but it's like the things you have to do, the things you have to consistently overlook that, you know, are wrong.
Starting point is 01:59:18 Right. So you can play that game and get ahead. It's just that's why people were in such favor of Trump, because he didn't play that game and get ahead it's just it that's why people were in such favor of trump because he didn't play that game he was just a businessman that got himself up there i mean i mean yeah maybe his family was rich or whatever but it doesn't matter he was a businessman that didn't play that game he's a straight shot there was there wasn't anything there he was he's up front right so it's just especially seeing what's going on with them. It's like it's it's insane. It's insane to hear.
Starting point is 01:59:48 And then the ways that they're they're they're also like trying to just hijack the gym, like, you know, the toilet thing that they did or the sewer system thing, just all these different ways that they're literally just trying to hijack a small business. It's something you just can't wrap your head around that. It's actually, it's literally happening. Right. All the diligence those guys went through. I mean, how many different things do you list out? Oh yeah. But they did.
Starting point is 02:00:16 The cool thing is, is like, you know, those guys both think it's bullshit to do any of it really. You know, they both aren't. I mean, some of the numbers they reported and some of the stuff that we've even heard from the CDC and some of these things, there is a virus out there. It can be deadly for a small subset of the population. But other than that, there ain't shit to worry about. And I think that the more that people recognize, like people need to get it. Like in order to get through this, we need, you need to get it.
Starting point is 02:00:47 So they keep reporting on these numbers and they keep telling you how many people have had it. Every time you see that you should be pumped. You should be like, that's awesome. Oh, 500 more people got it in my area. That's fucking awesome. Because now we're going to be able to get through this faster. Now we're going to be able to be immune to it quicker.
Starting point is 02:01:04 And so I think perspective is huge. And these guys have great perspective. Now we're going to be able to get through this faster. Now we're going to be able to be immune to it quicker. And so I think perspective is huge. And these guys have great perspective. You know, when he's talking about putting the paper up to block everything, you know, people are thinking that they're really trying to block people from looking in. But he doesn't want to see out. I like that a lot because he's like, we're in our spot. We're in like our home. And it's not so much about people looking in. It's about we're just trying in our spot we're in like our home and uh it's not so much about people looking in it's about we're just trying to block everything out that's out there
Starting point is 02:01:29 so that we have our own normal inside these walls yeah no the things that they're mentioning about the masks too in terms of their gym members not wearing masks and we had evor cummins on too it's it's crazy because when you really do think about wearing a mask especially if you're doing a lot of walking a lot of working you're breathing into this one thing that's on top of your face consistently like it it visually it might make sense but it really doesn't it really doesn't make much sense at all it doesn't make much sense in accordance to everything else that's going on yeah like if if they they the news, they're like, oh, we got to teach people, you know, about what to do.
Starting point is 02:02:08 And it's like they say social distancing mask and wash your hands. It's like there's really not anything to be taught that that's not, you know what I mean? Like you just said the three things that I need to do. And so keep my distance from somebody, put a mask on if I can't stay far enough away and wash my hands like there's not a mask on if I can't stay far enough away and wash my hands. Like there's not a real much to learn about that. I guess you could teach somebody how to wash your hands, how long to wash your hands. Right.
Starting point is 02:02:32 But they don't. I mentioned this before on the show, like handles and stuff that you touch the grocery store. Like I haven't really heard like people aren't when you walk into the grocery store, they should give you details on how you should shop. You know what I mean? Like if this thing fucking matters that much, if people are really dying from it in these crazy numbers, and it's this deadly of a thing. First of all, we wouldn't be going to the grocery store. But secondly, when you did walk in, they'd say, hey, how's it going today, sir? Hey, here's our protocol.
Starting point is 02:03:04 And they would tell you every time. Because anytime you slip up, it could lead to somebody fucking dying. But that's not the case. That's not what's happening. People are glomming up their hands all over the different products because that's what you're used to. You put your hands on stuff to look at it, right, to feel it. And then I've made the mistake a bunch, too, like where I pick something up and I put it back and now I'm like, uh, now what do I do? And then even like go into a coffee shop or something, I still end up touching like more stuff than I really need to.
Starting point is 02:03:35 And I'm just trying to be, you know, you're just trying to be alert and aware mainly for other people. But yeah, you're like, fuck, I just touched touched that and you see them wipe something down but they don't wipe down the thing that you touch sometimes you know and you're like all right well i guess maybe that maybe that thing's immune to uh the coronavirus so it's just i love the fact that these guys have uh such a protocol in place they take in your temperature when you first walk in and all that different stuff uh we didn't really get to ask them if they've had to turn. Like people probably been pretty frustrated.
Starting point is 02:04:08 Like imagine you're, you know, you're all prepped for your workout. You drove 20 minutes. You're all hyped up and your temperature is a little high. Oh, they said they've had to turn a few people away. That's got to suck. But maybe they have, I don't know if they have any outdoor. That would might've been another decent question to ask anything outdoor. But I mean,
Starting point is 02:04:26 that that's gotta be frustrating for that particular day or for that particular person, but they're doing a good job. What? 60,000 people through the door. Yeah. 64,000 something. So I might be a little bit confused,
Starting point is 02:04:38 but our big box gyms open in that area or now? Cause big box gyms are open here. Yeah. I'm not sure. I'm not sure at the moment should have asked them yeah all right it's just it's just kind of weird that yeah big box gyms are open all over california now you know are they at like full capacity or whatever full capacity people have to they're like you know planet fitness um yeah it's just like wait in line
Starting point is 02:05:00 they have a certain amount of people that can be in there working out cal fit everybody has everything set up outside but at the end of the day they're open right so like i was in my head i was thinking well are they letting pickup oxygens open and smaller gyms not is that the deal that's going on right now but who knows either way just the fact that it's just crazy that liquor stores and all these types of places are allowed to do business and a health facility isn't yeah i think you know because they're what they were getting at was because they're not wearing the masks and stuff and they're not following that's why they're getting targeted well amongst many many other things that they've been getting targeted right it was funny when uh dude was talking about um you know you when you do go to walmart how they
Starting point is 02:05:43 have the the empty bottle of sanitation wipes. Yeah. It's like every once in a while it will be, uh, you know, we'll have something in there and there'll just be a long ass line trying to get in. It's like,
Starting point is 02:05:54 Hey, I'm just going to go this way. And for me, I don't, I never touch any of that stuff. I don't use hand sanitizer. I barely wash my hands still. Like I'm just a dirty motherfucker,
Starting point is 02:06:03 I guess, but I've just never, I don't get sick just a dirty motherfucker, I guess. But I've just never, I don't get sick. Yeah. Hey, I don't get sick. You know, like if I take it last podcast and our hands just touched and there's tons of
Starting point is 02:06:14 poop on both hands. We got poop all over the table. It's in the air now. Yeah. I mean, look, if I need to wash my hands, I'll wash them.
Starting point is 02:06:21 But I shower sometimes twice a day. Pretty often, actually, I'll shower twice a day. And so I feel like I'm getting clean enough, you know? So I don't know, you know, I think a lot of it is just, it's kind of like in our mind of what's happened and what's happening. And I think that these ideas and concepts that have been brought forth of like, you know, kind of like slowly, you know, integrating back into whatever it was that we were doing before.
Starting point is 02:06:50 Um, I don't think it makes any sense, but everybody, you know, not everybody else at the government and a lot of people do think it makes sense that this is the right way to do it. And it's, it's just crazy that it's crazy that there's such varying,
Starting point is 02:07:04 uh, differences of opinion. I don't mind complying with some of the rules and some of the different things to do. But I also don't like people trying to tell me that they think a mask really works when there's just so much evidence either way. So I'm not going to deny that a mask, I'm not going to say that a mask doesn't work at all i i don't i personally don't believe that it doesn't do shit but that's my own belief right and sometimes your beliefs override science or they override i mean somebody could tell you everything about evolution and you could still believe in your bible right and you could still say yeah i believe some of that but you're like no no i Bible, right? And you could still say, yeah, I believe some of that. But you're like, no, no, no.
Starting point is 02:07:45 I like, I have fucking proof, you know, that this is the way this shit happened. And I can be like, that's cool. But I believe, I believe in Jesus. I believe in this. This is my, so sometimes your beliefs can, can, you know, overrun some of your decisions and they can overrun even some real hard facts that come your way. But for me personally, I'm not a huge fan of the mask. But again, I will wear them.
Starting point is 02:08:08 I'm not going to deny. I'm not going to say that, you know, if someone brings me evidence of how they work, I'm going to look at that and say, okay, okay, okay. Well, there's a bunch of information over here that shows that they clearly do what they're supposed to do. Well, there's a bunch of information over here that shows that they clearly do what they're supposed to do. And there's a bunch of information over here that clearly shows that they don't do what they're supposed to do. I'm going to pick a side since I think it's about 50-50. And I'm going to kind of stay over here a little bit more.
Starting point is 02:08:39 But I'm also not going to act crazy if you ask me to wear a mask. The only time I might act a little crazy is if you tell me that the mask works. Because I'm going to say, you know what? I don't know. It's like it's on both sides of the fence. And we've had people tell us to wear them and not to wear them. And it went back and forth a bunch. And we've been jerked around too many times. So it's like, ah, I'm going to really choose just from here on out not to believe anything that you say.
Starting point is 02:09:02 That other fear that they talked about about shutting down again that is that is the biggest that's the biggest threat that's the that's the toughest thing to deal with still huh yes just showing the you know if what are you talking about biden uh wanting to shut everything down and i just i don't know how accurate this stuff is, but I just Googled, you know, election 2020. Scroll down real quick. Which Trump needs what, a field goal? Yeah.
Starting point is 02:09:32 A three point. It looks like he needs to go for two on this next one though. But he's currently, so it's 238 to 213 at the time of this recording. Which is 9 50 AM. Ooh, we got to get you on another podcast. Pacific time. Oh yeah.
Starting point is 02:09:50 I got another podcast, but man, it's so close. It's scary. Whoa. Whoa. Didn't know what I just did. Right.
Starting point is 02:09:58 See what happens. You just voted for Biden. God damn it. Again, you hit the wrong button. I have registered in wisconsin that's great 15 times because apparently on twitter it looks like it's fake but like the total votes you know is like uh i'm gonna butcher all the numbers but we'll say two million was
Starting point is 02:10:17 total registered and then something like two million five hundred thousand like actually registered and then in michigan there was a actually voted what wait two million registered and two million i i think it's fake but that's just what's going around right now gotcha okay and then like a a uh a drop off it's gonna be some chaos or like a mail a mail-in like whatever package came in and it was like 100% Biden, zero for Trump. And someone's like, well, I mean, technically it's possible. Oh man, even that would be really
Starting point is 02:10:52 tough. Yeah, we know, we know. We're on schedule. Alright, Andrew. We're still recording. Take us on out of here, dog. I will. Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode. Huge shout out and thank you to FreeSlee for sponsoring today's episode. For more information and thank you to Free Sleeve for sponsoring today's episode. For more information on them, please check the links in the YouTube, Facebook, and podcast
Starting point is 02:11:10 descriptions. I used some Free Sleeve last night. There you go. Both elbows. And everybody's like, what the fuck's wrong with you? That's a PR. My elbows hurt. My elbows always hurt.
Starting point is 02:11:19 I've been lifting for a long ass time. Yeah. It's easy. I just grab it right out of the freezer, just chuck it on the arms. Boom. Done. Bam. No drip. No drip. No drip. It's easy. I just grab it right out of the freezer, just chuck it on the arms. Boom. Done. Bam. No drip.
Starting point is 02:11:27 No drip. It's cold, but it's not like, you know, horrible to bear it. Yeah. Yeah. It's great.
Starting point is 02:11:31 I love it. So head over to free sleeve.com at checkout, enter promo code power 25 for 25% off your order and free domestic shipping. Please make sure you're following the podcast at Mark Bell's power project on Instagram at MB power project on Twitter. My Instagram is at, I am Andrew Z and SEMA. Where can people find you?
Starting point is 02:11:47 And SEMA in Yang on Instagram and YouTube and SEMA in Yang on Twitter. Mark at Mark smelly bell strengths, never weakness, weakness, never strength. Catch y'all later.

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