Massenomics Podcast - Ep. 359: Jim McDonald

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

Big Jim McDonald joins us to talk about pioneering powerlifting YouTube videos and podcasting. We also catch up on life as a gym owner, and we all share our thoughts on big lifting expos like the Arno...ld. Juggernaut AI: juggernautai.app and use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% The Strength Co: https://store.thestrength.co/ BearFoot Shoes: https://bearfoot.store/ and use code MASSENOMICS to save 10% Swiss Link: https://www.swisslink.com and use code MASS to save 15% Spud Inc: https://www.spud-inc-straps.com/ Texas Power Bars: https://www.texaspowerbars.com/

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Starting point is 00:00:00 You know, thanks for what you do with your podcasts and all the rest. You're doing a great job. Hope everybody keeps tuning in. You get a lot of good info, a lot of insights, understandings of how to get strong, how to stay strong, how to use your strength. You do a great job, dude. You make things better than they are in real life, I think. If you don't follow Massanomics, y'all do it.
Starting point is 00:00:18 Social media, website, everything. Massanomics! Massanomics! everything. Massonomics. Welcome back, everyone. Here we are for episode 359 of the Massonomics podcast. I said welcome back, but I almost also mean welcome if this is your first time. We are the lifting podcast about nothing, and we record this live out of western northeast South Dakota and out of Eastern Southeast South Dakota. My name is Tanner. And my name is Tommy. Every episode still recorded live. It's only one way to do it. Just the way podcast Jesus intended it to be. That's right. None of
Starting point is 00:00:57 this fake after after effects. Put it in at the end. No, we do it live. That's exactly right. effects put it in at the end no we do it live that's exactly right um we've got a banger today tommy we uh have some big rundowns on uh big names returning to the sport of powerlifting i'm going to talk about that uh tanner baird and tommy defay the biggest names returning to the sport of powerlifting. We are announcing. We're going to leave it, but I guess we'll spill the beans now. We are late entrance to the Sheffield. We were the final people they were inviting. Yeah, what are those, like, at-large bids or whatever?
Starting point is 00:01:37 Yeah, you have to have one of the best natural totals in the world, but they finally decided, yep, to open it up to us. Yeah. Can you blame them though we're the we're the we're the c-list celebrity lifters that they show up for like the halftime show yeah like maybe d-list yeah well it's it's lifting the list is pretty small in the lifting world so i think we can probably we're probably c-listers yeah yeah i think we can make c-listers there that's true i think that's that's i, if we were saying the world at large, we're like F-listers.
Starting point is 00:02:06 Oh, like F, yeah. But within the world of powerlifting, we're probably C-list. Yeah, I think we have C-list. I think we're pretty comfortably in the C-list category. I mean, not that people would know our face. The massonomics is in the C-list category. Maybe not our faces, but some would have to be in the stands and be like, who are these guys?
Starting point is 00:02:23 And you're like, oh, I think it's like the Masonomist guys. Like, oh, okay. I didn't know there was like two of them, but whatever. Okay. I think I've, yeah, that sounds familiar. I kind of assumed it was like a, I think it was like some 16 year olds that ran their account, but okay, yeah, sure.
Starting point is 00:02:36 It used to be 20 years ago. That's how long we've been doing it. Back when Instagram was cool. You know what else is cool, Tommy? What? I'm going to segue this like Paul Blart Mall Cop. This is the Strength Company. We've set out to build a better barbell plate on American soil.
Starting point is 00:03:01 We ended up here at Wisconsin's legendary Wapaka Foundry. With over 60 years of ironworking experience, the foundry had the knowledge, technology, and processes to build our weights to our exact specifications. The strength company plates are slim but rugged, smooth but easy to grip, and electro-coated for durability and to look great in your gym. This is the next generation of American Iron, only available from The Strength Company. Whoa. Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.
Starting point is 00:03:41 Do you think Grant will have that song playing in the background of his booth for two, three straight days at the Arnold? It's just a repeat of the most intense ad going in. You're like, no. The first hour will be done and like, guys, we just listened to that song 60 times and we only got 1,000 more to go. Check out The Strength Co. Buy yourself some plates.
Starting point is 00:04:04 Make sure to check them out at the Arnold. This episode comes out not too long before the Arnold, so if you're thinking about making a trip, make sure to stop over at the Strength Co. booth, say hi to Grant, Big D, the gang, and let them know that your good friends at Masonomics sent you. Oh, all these people trying to pop into the meeting. I'm getting distracted.
Starting point is 00:04:25 Yeah, this is a popular live feed this week, isn't it? It's a very happening live feed. This episode of the Masonomics podcast is also brought to you by Barefoot Shoes. They're not for your hands, and they're inspired by your feet. Shoes started as simple coverings to protect our feet, allowing us to drive for your feet, not your hands. That's why they're called shoes, not gloves. While retaining the strength and functionality enjoyed by barefoot living.
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Starting point is 00:05:33 options and their new Bruin boot, which is available that I've been rocking on dog walks here in the blistery and punishing winter conditions of South Dakota. And the boots are holding up great. While you're over there at Barefoot, make sure, actually go to www.barefoot.shoes to check out their full lineup of shoes and everything that the minimalist shoes can do for you. And while you're there, make sure to use code MASSANOMICS
Starting point is 00:05:58 to save 10% on your next order. Once again, that's code MASSANOMICS at www.barefoot.shoes to save 10 percent thank you barefoot shoes some bitch it was really windy up here i don't know about down there uh not too windy here the problem is here the problem is raining and then the rain freezes and it's just can't get a break from it man man. We haven't gotten that, but boy, was she a howling last night. I wouldn't expect anything less in Aberdeen. Our garbage can was a solid three blocks away, I think, this morning.
Starting point is 00:06:36 And that's not an exaggeration. Yeah, that's always fun. Yeah. The way the wind whipped around at our old place, I would know that if it was really bad, it would for some reason go across the street to the neighbors and around to the backside of their fence. Don't know how or why it would do that, but that's what it would do. Ah, the life of a garbage can.
Starting point is 00:06:54 Just getting around. Like a record, baby. That's right. We had our new exciting new news just hot off the press today. Breaking news. YouTube, our first, not first ever, but our first recent YouTube vlog video went out live the day we're recording this. Yeah. So that that was pretty exciting.
Starting point is 00:07:17 It was about the unboxing video of the belt and then uh just some some general shenanigans going on at mass dynamics gym i really enjoyed it it made me feel like i was back in the gym like i never left you know yeah that's that's probably good like when you get homesick now you can watch yeah just put it on repeat i wonder what the guys are up to just having fun and laughing and lifting weights doing dude stuff yeah so you get to just see the highlight reel though you don't have to wade through all the well i would i would say maybe the real highlight is actually being there and seeing it all in person you know that's true you know then you get the real highlights were the friends we made that's right that's right get the inside scoop on what's going
Starting point is 00:08:05 on you know yeah not the not the watered down commercial version for youtube yeah for but for everyone else that's not you know living here in western northeast south dakota they have to take the watered down version because that's the only choice that they get yeah that's right but yeah if people haven't checked that out make sure to go to the massonomics youtube if you listen to this regularly and you're not subscribed to the Masonomics YouTube channel, that's pretty weird. But now is your chance to go on and do it. We are adding new content weekly.
Starting point is 00:08:33 I think we have, we probably have already sitting in the, I think we have five videos sitting there already, don't we, Tanner? I think it's a hundred videos. Conceptually, yes, there's a thousand ready to go. It's, it's the,
Starting point is 00:08:46 it's the actually putting it into YouTube part, but no, we have multiple weeks of videos sitting, waiting, ready to go. When the Arnold comes up here, you can be guaranteed that there will be many videos that will come out of the Arnold.
Starting point is 00:08:58 So yeah, lots of, lots of fun, new content come in, be on the lookout. Yeah. I'm excited to see how they go. And also, the race for first comment does apply to the vlog-style videos,
Starting point is 00:09:12 just like it would the podcast YouTube videos. You know, the race is ever on. Right. No one ever called it quits. It's still on. Someone asked about what happened to the OG belt squat. You know, we have the new Rogue belt squat. Well, see, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:09:28 Now I'm conflicted of what information gets released in the podcast versus what comes out of the YouTube blog videos. You know, I've got to, like, hold all these things back. But I suppose it's still safe to talk about here now. And have we talked about getting that belt squat? I mean, you've been back again and gotten to check that out even too, huh? Yeah, I don't think we actually talked about the belt squat i mean you've you've been back uh again and gotten to check that out even too huh yeah i don't think we actually talked about uh the belt squat itself yeah so we got the rogue rhino belt squat and it replaced uh the custom you know homemade one that we've had for four or
Starting point is 00:09:58 five years at massonomics gym that has the super cool uh massonomics platform on it and everything and um that one staying in the massonomics family one of the gym members is uh is is taking taking over ownership of that one um so i think so it is it's it's not going far from home yeah i was i was careful about that one we were careful about that one i think think the biggest surprise about the new belt squat is that apparently belt squats on their own aren't supposed to weigh like 150 pounds. Yeah, and what you're saying is like the empty weight of our old belt squat was like. It was probably 135 for sure. Oh, yeah. I bet it maybe was.
Starting point is 00:10:43 I'd say somewhere relatively between like 135 and 225 yes like if you put two plates on the belt squat oh yeah it was heavy like i'm not sure i ever saw anyone put three plates on it ever in the in the history of it existing no and i'm gathering that three plates is very doable on this one compared to the old one. Yeah, I haven't used it very much personally yet, to be honest, but it is very much closer to a one-to-one ratio versus our old one, which was not that way. It's also shocking how big of a piece of equipment this is.
Starting point is 00:11:18 Like the footprint probably isn't a whole lot bigger than the old one, but this one just vertically takes up so much more room that it kind of catches you by surprise when you actually see it in the gym you think what the hell is this over here yeah that's the big thing is that it's so much taller like the tower the weight trolley tower is so you know the other one was uh much shorter so the footprint really isn't much bigger it kind of takes up the similar amount of space but yeah it is it is way taller for sure well and it looks like you have two parts of a rack sitting there because you know it is those same three by three up right
Starting point is 00:11:49 they're three by three uprights aren't they on right right yeah and there's two sets of them so it just looks like why is there all this rack posts over here it does probably the best feature of it though is obviously that it holds a drink spotter to perfection it does it was just made to go in there i can't believe uh we haven't worked out the deal with rogue yet to just send a complimentary one of those i mean rogue would be paying for it but it would be complimentary on rogue's behalf to send those to people well they charge enough for that thing what's going to be the difference if they like throw a i know a drink spotter in there to them. They should.
Starting point is 00:12:29 We'll have to work on that deal when we're in Ohio. Yeah, we'll talk to Bill when we're there and make sure that that happens going forward. Yeah, we'll get him on the horn. Yeah, we'll get Bill on the horn. Are you thirsty over there, Tom? I'm very thirsty. You're looking kind of thirsty. I'm so thirsty.
Starting point is 00:12:46 I'm almost offended that you could notice it that I'm that thirsty. But, yeah, we might as well crack into an official What's in the Can segment here. Oh, does that can have a number one on it, Tanner? It does. I suppose yours isn't numbered like mine. No, mine's not numbered. I have to hold mine slightly off screen because I don't want you to see the uh right label yet but um yeah this is the we got a couple cans lined up here i'm i'm
Starting point is 00:13:12 really excited for this one i've intentionally held off on drinking this can because i want to experience it at the same time as you so that we're both um playing the game here and is it is it one of the davids from the discord that keeps the official uh record of what's in the can so uh yep there's there's one of the davids right there one of the big davids so he'll be excited that we're back to the official what's in the cam game this episode yes so should i give this a crispy crack let's do it yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna crack mine slightly off screen because i don't want to give any surprises away here. That was a crispy crack.
Starting point is 00:13:50 It smells a little bit like a Sprite when I just smell it. Wow. Wow. Okay. What I believe a Sprite to smell like. I got my first taste and wow, that hits. What's the initial thoughts over there? It feels really familiar to me.
Starting point is 00:14:10 It feels really familiar to me, but not that I can... Hmm. It kind of tastes like a weak cola. Maybe. Let me try that again. Not what I was expecting here. Not what I was expecting. Let me try that again. We're full of surprises on what's in the can.
Starting point is 00:14:35 It kind of tastes like Coca-Cola. I think, I think that's the familiar flavor that I'm tasting. You're like, I tasted this before. Yeah. I'm going to say that that, I mean, it tastes like what I think Coca-Cola tastes,
Starting point is 00:14:49 what I remember Coke to taste like. Yeah. So I'm going to say it's a, you know, a zero calorie cola. I don't know if it's sparkling water or what this is. Can I open up this puppy? Rip on in. Rip on in. Am I way off base there? Well, you'll find out in less than three seconds.
Starting point is 00:15:09 Oh, it's a Coors Light. Wouldn't that have been awesome? It was way off. A LaCroix. I didn't really think it was a LaCroix. LaCroix. I don't even know how you say it. Is it Nikola?
Starting point is 00:15:25 Nikola. There it is. It's like old Ricola commercial. LaCroix Nikola. And man, this thing does have a cola flavor to it. LaCola. It tastes like a Coca-Cola. Oh, there's the big scant with the Ricola.
Starting point is 00:15:42 I'm kind of surprised on this thing thing i really thought it was going to be gross actually let me try that again no no hint of cherry that that tastes a lot like a that's pretty good if you're if cola was like your drink and you had to quit it because of sugar and or other reasons, I think you could eventually get used to this and this would be an acceptable substitute for you. I'm just having to read the ingredients again because I don't believe how this is true. I know.
Starting point is 00:16:16 I don't either. Only carbonated water, naturally essence. And the only is emphasized too. The only is emphasized. Do you see that? I just think they're straight up lying on this one because that tastes a lot like a Coke. It's something. I think the skinny cans, they like to go a little bolder with the flavors because this is the skinny can, you know?
Starting point is 00:16:37 Yeah. Hmm. That's pretty good. That's well done. It really does feel like you're drinking a soda of some kind. Yeah. Just when I thought I had you, I knew everything about you,
Starting point is 00:16:50 all your nooks and crannies. You get, you hit me with this LaCroix. That's right. And do you see, I'm very confused what the actual name is because the can says Nikola LaCroix. Then it says LaCroix. Also look at this cola.
Starting point is 00:17:03 Like that's very reminiscent of Cocaca-cola it is actually like that is very and when you say very it's a cursive yeah yeah that's but it's just it's it at least within your mind it'll yeah it does that thing yes or, where you do a second guess. Right. So the most important question is, what are we rating this? What are you going to give this for a rating? This one's kind of torn on because it's a three and a half all day, but the flavor's bold enough. And if you wanted cola, this is pretty damn good, which almost makes you want to say this is for territory.
Starting point is 00:17:48 I'm going for on this because I'm going for whether you like the flavor that much or not, but I got to give them a four just on how well they did here. Yeah. And I've actually, I was really thirsty. I've probably gotten half this down already. And usually if I do that, I'll pretty quickly figure out if i don't like this like it's
Starting point is 00:18:09 grossing me out and it's still i still want to keep going back for more so yeah i'll agree with you four it's good now i'll just think if they threw a little cherry flavoring natural essence in here they'd really have a product i have a home run play i'm gonna write to my representative and see if i can get that uh get to the bottom of that get that going that's damn tasty welcome back a true uh a true what's in the can segment that's right there's more where that came from it's been a while hasn't it it has been it just i had to you know that's imported from eastern southeast south dakota
Starting point is 00:18:45 we get the good stuff down here but you were in western northeast south dakota though like yeah i had a drop hand delivered this i did hand deliver it um actually on the topic i we mentioned it a couple weeks ago how i went to costco for pretty much the first time ever dude costco some stuff is so cheap sparkling water is so cheap there If you don't want to get crazy with the flavors, like 30 packs of Polar, LaCroix, all that, 30 packs are like $8. That is so cheap. The other day, I'm not sure what egg prices are now because I haven't gone to the grocery store for a little while.
Starting point is 00:19:16 In this economy? Yeah, you know how much five dozen eggs at Costco is? Five dozen? Five dozen. That's 60 eggs. 60 eggs. So is it a flat of eggs it's uh i actually didn't realize how they did this until i got the box home which is kind of annoying is that it's just 30 and 30 you know in a cardboard box i know which is kind of regretful walmart you
Starting point is 00:19:37 i used to think that that was a good idea and but it's so much more inconvenient in your it takes up so much room in the fridge yeah very annoying i was like really hoping there would just be five dozen you know cartons in there right so so 60 eggs would it be 25 15 see that's pretty that is a good deal that's that's pretty damn cheap i had a hard time passing that up i had to do it um but it is inconvenient when they're on those flats of eggs are no more inconvenient when i opened that box i'm sure if you saw my face it would have been like oh because it was i was really i was just so ready to go home and have this stack of five cartons of eggs just in the corner of the fridge and yeah that was now i have an entire shelf that's nothing but eggs sitting there yeah do you know about sub-zero refrigerators uh i think that's the correct brand name how
Starting point is 00:20:33 expensive do you think a refrigerator could be oh god you could well you can spend a ton it really depends on what you want to do i mean i know you could spend like i mean you could spend 10 grand on a fridge if you wanted i think sub-zero are maybe even some north of 10 grand like 10 15 is not out of line on a sub-zero uh unit okay well it says their website says sub-zero wolf and if they're connected to the wolf stove brand they're incredibly expensive too i believe that's these refer these refrigerators are just like they cost as much as a car yeah okay wolf appliances yeah yeah they're um yeah their ranges uh very very expensive very nice um i've seen them a few times i do not have any experience with a sub-zero refrigerator though but i i mean i'm sure they're nice as far as appliances go but how can it be twenty thousand dollars nice how um probably because it doesn't come with the dumb cheap shit that all the
Starting point is 00:21:36 appliances do now that break after five years but there's my guess there's not enough area there of materials to make something that costs. A car has a lot of moving parts. It does. There's so many moving parts on an automobile. I'm trying to think of a fridge, what a fridge does. I could maybe see how a stove and ranges, you can do some crazy things with how that all works but i'm trying to think outside of keeping stuff cold what does a fridge do that's good uh isn't that the whole
Starting point is 00:22:12 point of fridge you just want it to be this temperature and never do anything besides that right um i mean i see i know you can make them bigger but bigger doesn't make them that much more expensive you know i know you can put the freezer in different places, none of which would make it that much more expensive. Yeah, I wonder how much of it comes down to the materials used for the design part of it, for the exterior, you know? Because, yeah, some of these $15,000, $13,000. Yeah, I don't know, man.
Starting point is 00:22:48 That's a lot of money, though. Why, why are you gonna add one of these to your house no we've been looking at we keep calling it mega fridge where it's basically like two giant like yeah it's it looks like french doors but it's actually two separate yep units and they they put it together like you know it has uh i have a family member i have a family member that has one of those they didn't get in their basement where it's one one they did the full standalone fridge and next year they did the full standalone freezer yeah and it's pretty sweet yeah we might pretty cool because we have the room for it and stuff and then i was like how crazy can you get this and i started looking into those and i'm like my god you could spend like twenty five thousand dollars on this setup too I'm like, how?
Starting point is 00:23:25 Yeah. How? It would be mega fridge though. That'd be pretty cool. Yeah, that's what we're called. That's loosely it's called being termed mega fridge. This is our wall of stainless steel. Maybe 10 year plan is to have mega fridge. Well, when you do it, let's have a party and we'll break it in.
Starting point is 00:23:42 You know, were you back for a wedding then? Speaking of parties, is that a topic? I was. I was back in western northeast South Dakota for a little wedding. And weddings are always funny just because there's, you know, every wedding has its own little thing. And, you know, there's games and all that. And when we were there, we started thinking, I started talking with some buddies about some of the craziest things i've
Starting point is 00:24:08 seen at weddings as far as like just stuff that happens and i'm not that we've maybe talked about this on a podcast episode one time but i was saying probably the you know when people start doing like they'll do the around here things you see are like the they'll do like an auction for the garter or whatever you know for the ladies they'll do like an auction for the garter or whatever, you know, for the ladies. They'll do, I mean, there's like games where you can spend money on tickets and then you can pay money to dance with the bride and the group. I mean, there's so many things like that that go on. But I was saying maybe the craziest one I've ever seen at a wedding was, it was one of my buddies from high school. He was getting married and they were going to do the,
Starting point is 00:24:47 I feel like I don't even see this anymore, but where they blindfold the groom and they put on some probably like pony by genuine. And then it's like, all right, yep. He's going to go take the garter off the bride with his teeth, you know? And he's like really like hamming it up for the crowd and everyone comes around. This was definitely the last wedding I saw this at. This was almost 10 years ago. And so he's about to do it. They got him blindfolded. His wife's sitting there.
Starting point is 00:25:12 You know, he's going to go up to his new bride. And right before he gets to her, she leaves. And the mother-in-law sits down. And so the crowd, you know, so he's excited because he thinks the crowd's like really, like really cheering him on when actually they're just laughing so hard. And he's like, just getting after it, you know, all, all up on his mother-in-law. And then after a while they, they pull the blindfold off and, you know, humiliation sets in like, like to a, to a high extreme. But I was saying how that's probably one of the crazier things I've ever seen at a wedding. And a couple of the guys I was with just could not believe that that actually took place.
Starting point is 00:25:50 And then what really the next thing I thought of was the story from your wedding, Tanner. Right. That's been on a list for quite some time. It has been. We teased that like 20 episodes ago. And maybe it's appropriate to tell that one now because I thought that that was one of the, if I had to say the three funniest wedding stories ever, one of them was what I just told you. And I think this one would easily be in the top three as well. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:15 And you'll probably remember the story just as well. Yeah, I can also add in it from my vantage point as well. Right. So I guess we were at the supper and we're at the head table of course and um one of the uh groomsmen and just to be clear we are talking about tanner's wedding here yeah my wedding this is my wife yes uh the day she became my wife yes and i think we had done like the best man speeches and like i i think it was towards the end of the speeches. That's how I remember it.
Starting point is 00:26:48 Like it was usually the traditional flow is, you know, people are getting done eating the best man, the maid of honor, you know, the bride and groom, they all kind of give their speeches, wish everyone well, say thank you, things like that. And that's what I remember. Like, that's all kind of getting done. So people are like thank you things like that and that's what i remember like that's all kind of getting done so people are like okay like the speeches are wrapping up but then a wild card entered the ring be big darren who's been a gym member at times in the past and my long you know my childhood friend uh and darren's kind of a character for those that i would say oh he's wild card. That's a good way to describe him.
Starting point is 00:27:25 He's a bit of a wild card, absolutely. And he didn't disappoint in that regard on this night either. And he got the microphone and he started... He went off. And I've heard him do some really long speeches before that I don't know exactly where he's going. He's not uncomfortable on a microphone. He's been in a few bands. He's very comfortable in front of a crowd like this as soon as you know i thought he was just gonna chip in his two you know his
Starting point is 00:27:56 yeah yeah i think that's what everyone everyone was probably thinking like he's just like oh i think most people were assuming there was gonna be a good luck tanner let's raise our glass and like that would have been about it you know and he started going into this thing and i don't know exactly like it went on for a long time and the more he talked the more concerned i was getting about what he was saying because he started going in he was he was saying things like um you know tanner's uh he's uh been familiar with a lot of different women in his life and stuff like this and like it kept like leading farther into this at first like that's what i felt like he was saying and eventually i'm like that's definitely what he is continuing to hit on here like from my vantage so i'm sitting there with she was not my wife yet
Starting point is 00:28:46 but my wife now and we're sitting there in the crowd and it's that same thing we see oh Darren and I'm like oh yeah what's Darren gonna say this is gonna be funny and what I remember was him being like okay so you know Tanner and Mary like we want to wish them you know the best but um you know Tanner has Tanner's been in other relationships and i'm thinking like well that's a really weird way to start this thing but i'm like okay maybe he'll move on he's like like tanner's been he's been with women like it's it's he's been with other people and he just kept like driving that point home that you've been with a lot of women i'm thinking this is very awkward that he's saying this over and over. Like looking to like big Ross who is right next to me and being like,
Starting point is 00:29:28 I'm like thinking maybe he knew what was going on and like literally being like, what the fuck is he talking about? Like, like starting to be like, almost get mad where I'm like, what are we doing here? Leah did the same thing. She starts looking at me going, oh my God, because it would just kept going. And he's like, so people just need to accept that. Like Tanner's been with other people. He's married,
Starting point is 00:29:49 but then he starts going, he's married now though. So that's done. That's in the past. It's done with that. Like that is over these other ladies. You're not part of his life anymore. And he kind of kept driving that point home for a while. Like this took many, many minutes just to get to this point because he's going on such a lead up to this and the whole like i was getting red in the face of kind of like like i was thinking like somebody needs to take the microphone away from him here like where i don't know where this is going and then eventually he goes uh yeah so everyone like i don't i don't know how he phrases that but like all of you uh women in the crowd that that still have a key to tanner's place uh you're gonna need to turn those in uh because he's a he's a taken man now so like
Starting point is 00:30:32 we're gonna need all of those keys and then like every woman in well and not every woman but like probably 50 of them and i think i think all of them were over the age of 52, weren't they? And the last woman that, and I don't know if this was specifically planned or what, but like 30 or 40 of them come up and turn in their key into like a bucket. And then the last one that came up was like a 90-plus-year-old woman, like Anna Walker, basically. You know, like she slowly got up there and dropped her key, basically you know like like like she slowly got up there and dropped her key and by that time everyone's like you know rolling laughing from this uh this thing and it was very funny and the reason it was funny though is because like how it was really getting me like that i was you
Starting point is 00:31:16 know the feeling the reason it was so funny is because that feeling uncomfortable feeling oh how long he let the awkwardness go because you knew everyone in the room is thinking oh what is this guy doing like is he just drunk and messed up like what's going on is he not reading the room but oh yeah he's reading the room perfectly yeah that's a great story i'm glad we got to get that one out there we do have a um has he seen it segment but we'll probably save that for after our guest here if that's okay with everyone listening okay thank you um but what we do have is a quick supporting our supporting members well and we also have we hit on our new drop yet you know we kind of recapped it we recapped it lightly last week we gave a little preview but by the time you're listening to this the new drop is out it's official it's live get
Starting point is 00:32:05 on that last week we previewed the massonomics metal shirt metal nomics whatever we're calling it yet we don't know we'll decide that tomorrow should we show everything else yeah we'll do a quick show and tell with the rest of them here one of the perks i'm not going to show the metal one because i didn't grab that one yeah one of the perks of being in the discord you get the early preview here so yeah next up show off i don't know what the title of this one is but this is we're just in the discord today talking about these t's with the uh chest left chest smaller front yeah we got the mss nmx massonomics abbreviation on the left chest and that's just that's just the front in the back here we. Business in the front, party in the back.
Starting point is 00:32:45 We changed the game, I think, on the back here. Let's see if I can even get this all on camera. Oh, that's looking pretty good there. And then we got the Masanomics Wolf with Masanomics in the mouth. Masanomics Apparel Co. Never gonna stop. Yeah. I like this one.
Starting point is 00:33:04 Now, this one frigging pops don't you does pop you got a black tee with yellow white and red on it of course it pops i hope you can all hear this tee over the popping i like that one that one's i like the the colorway of that it really pops and then our last hoodie of this hoodie season right so speaking of front left chest this is going to be hard to really display everything of this yeah one one shot we've got the uh military green or the uh i guess that's what is that what you call that color? Yeah, I think so. OD green, military green. Of the Raze Hell Lift Heavy design. And it's got the Massanomics tag on the pocket there. And then over on the sleeve here, it's got the Massanomics down the sleeve, of course,
Starting point is 00:33:58 screen printed. And then the full back Raze hell lift heavy logo across the back. So now that is one hell of a Mastinomics coat. Yeah, that's a great springtime coat. You know, spring is just around the corner. That's true. And it also has the custom label tag on the neck too. So we spared no expense on that one.
Starting point is 00:34:23 We pulled out all the stops branded that puppy everywhere you could damn near put a massonomics on it it's there while still keeping it sophisticated we don't want to get tacky with it you know oh god kept it sophisticated here not suggesting it would be tacky so we got those so yeah check out the drop yeah the two t's the sweatshirt uh buy all of them. Maybe buy two of them while you're at it. This is your chance to get it before the Arnold people get their grubby hands all over it. So if you buy them all, the Arnold people won't even get their shot. Then you can really say you got the exclusive.
Starting point is 00:34:58 And I wouldn't wait on any of these because what we do have for leftovers, we'll take to the Arnolds. There might not be anything coming back after that. Okay. Now supporting our supporting member segment. This is... One more thing. This Nikola is still just hitting right.
Starting point is 00:35:15 It slaps, doesn't it? It's so good. I love it. It's still good. This is one of my... This is damn near four and a half. It's excellent. I'm not doing that, but I'm just saying it is damn near.
Starting point is 00:35:25 Everything exists between three and a half. I mean, the scale should just be, is it a one or a two? Is what we should change our scale to. Well, occasionally we have awful things. Well, then it would get a zero. Okay. That's true.
Starting point is 00:35:38 No, I like our scale. It's better this way, yeah. That we don't use 80% of. Yeah. Okay. Supporting our supporting members is a relatively new segment to the podcast. What we do is we have this group of supporting members that choose to
Starting point is 00:35:52 support Mastodonics, which we, we love. We're awesome. We're super appreciative and thankful for them choosing to support us. And if you want to get on that, you can head over to our website in the shop and you'll find that supporting our supporting members option.
Starting point is 00:36:04 Get signed up. There's options of, like, all sizes, shapes, and varieties that'll include a variety of things, like access to our exclusive Discord community. You get to listen live to the Mastodonics podcast like our listeners, our supporting members, are doing right now. You get info, early info on the drops like those live listeners are getting, you know, three, four days before you're going to see this episode um discount codes available in there more stuff than i could even i could even all care to mention right now so that's all i'm going to tell you about it i'm going to get straight to supporting these members we had big ryan and big
Starting point is 00:36:42 joey had an international crew meetup. They crossed borders in order to meet up. Yeah, I think the embassies for both countries helped them arrange this meeting. So it was good to see. They were in matching shirts, which is always a cool look. They didn't have matching pants on. They did or didn't? They did not.
Starting point is 00:37:04 Oh. Because Joey had a kilt on, not pants, so. You know what the traditional Scottish undergarment is for the kilt? Nothing. Nothing. And then other supporting members we wanted to support this week, Big Scantz and Big Jordan, both supporting members, competed together. Speaking of Canadian, this is a very
Starting point is 00:37:25 Canadian-driven supporting members segment this week, but a couple of our Canadian friends competed together at Clash on the Island Strongman competition. And from what I saw, they both did very well
Starting point is 00:37:41 in their Strongman competition, and they were together with crew, so that's always a win, regardless of placing. You can't put a price on competing with fellow Mass Comics crew, can you? You're all winners then. So thank you to our supporting members. And also, wait, maybe you wanted to do, should we jump into ads then, I suppose,
Starting point is 00:38:03 before our guest? Yeah, probably. Okay. Do you want to fire yours off first or should I hit them with something? Uh, I'll go. Today's show is also brought to you by Texas power bars. Buddy Caps first started lifting weights in the late sixties and began power lifting in the mid seventies.
Starting point is 00:38:22 At the time he was working for Image Barbell, building gym equipment. Around 1976, a local machine shop started making Olympic bars for them, calling it the Image Bar. In 1977, Image Barbell became Champion Barbell. It was then that Buddy started looking at the bars with an intent of changing them for the better. In 1979, Buddy bought his first lathe
Starting point is 00:38:42 to begin addressing the known issues. In 1980, his passion, drive, and purpose now had a greater mission. Buddy set out on his own to make what he believed was the greatest bar he'd ever seen and trained with, and the Texas Power Bar was born. It was strong as a house with the best knurling and was maintenance-free. Hundreds of state, national, international, and world powerlifting records have been and continue to be set and broken on the Texas Power Bar. To learn more about Texas Power Bars and buy one of their legendary bars, visit
Starting point is 00:39:08 texaspowerbars.com. Ooh, the Nikola was getting the best of me there. Got a little burpy burp. Oh, yeah. Nikola. And also, thank you to Juggernaut AI. Tommy, I think you're just finishing up an RPE-10. Yeah. Juggernaut AI. Tommy, I think you're just finishing up an RPE 10. Yeah. Juggernaut AI. I'd actually talk about that, but we're in the middle of an ad, so it'd be kind of weird. More on that later.
Starting point is 00:39:34 To be continued. I assume if Tommy was to talk about it, he would tell you about how well that RPE 10 week is going. That is exactly what I would say. So he's hitting some awesome numbers, thanks in part, of course, to his training that he's been doing on Juggernaut AI over the last several months.
Starting point is 00:39:53 And you could sign up too. It's super easy to get signed up. Just head over to juggernautai.app on your web browser. You want to go through the browser, not the app store. And when you're on the browser and sign up, you can use our discount code.
Starting point is 00:40:04 It's Mastonomics. That'll save you 10% for the lifetime of your membership there. It really is like having a coach in the palm of your hand, right in your pocket, and at a price that, you know, at a fraction of the cost of what you might pay to get the same services from a powerlifting coach. So check it out. I think they even have a free trial. And when you do get signed up, because you'll try the free trial,
Starting point is 00:40:34 and then you think, I can't go back to not having this. Make sure to use discount code MASSANOMICS. Thank you, Juggernaut AI. Thank you. Should I kick the Discord out of here? I was so entranced by that Juggernaut ad, I couldn't get them out of here. Well, they probably
Starting point is 00:40:50 were loving it. They're like, I want to hear more about this Juggernaut ad, too. It's like they probably couldn't get enough of it. Oh, yeah, and we didn't talk about Thor's return to powerlifting yet. Oh, damn. Okay, well, stick around for after the interview here. Yeah, we might have to talk about Thor's return to powerlifting yet. Oh, damn. Okay, we'll stick around for after the interview here.
Starting point is 00:41:05 Yeah, we might have to talk about Thor's return to powerlifting and we'll play some Has He Seen It? We'll find out if Tommy has seen some classic cinema this week. Are we going to the 40s finally? We're finally
Starting point is 00:41:21 doing it. Could you name a movie from the 1940s? I don't know. Probably like a Charlie Chaplin movie, right? Or like what's gone with the wind. That's probably in the forties. Isn't it?
Starting point is 00:41:34 Wasn't that right after world war two? Yeah. I don't know. Or a wizard of Oz. When is that? That might be thirties. Gone with the wind is 39. Wow.
Starting point is 00:41:43 Yeah. And wizard of Oz is what? Like 37. I don't know.s. Gone with the Wind is 39. Wow. Yeah. And Wizard of Oz is what? Like 37? I don't know. I'm guessing. Wizard of Oz is 39 as well. Okay. Because weren't those both like some of the first movies with color?
Starting point is 00:41:54 Yeah. I think that wasn't that part of it with Wizard of Oz. It was like the first part of the movie isn't even in color. And then it really pops in there. Yeah, because I think the ads they put on the internet said, it's like doing acid. Color movies. They're said, it's like doing acid, color movies. They're like, what's acid?
Starting point is 00:42:09 What's the internet? None of these words make any sense. What are these, future fancy alien people? Wizard of Oz, Great Western Northeast South Dakota tie-in, right? That's right. L. Frank Baum. Yeah, yep, that is correct. Okay.
Starting point is 00:42:30 He also operated a little, like, children's gift store in Aberdeen. Really? That's actually what he did when he moved here. Really? And it lasted for, like, a year. Well, you know, 90% of businesses fail in the first year. Well, you know, like 90% of businesses fail in the first year. So, and I think,
Starting point is 00:42:46 uh, they're like, yeah, it's the 1930s. Nobody here has any money, especially to buy on like odd children's trinkets. Like our kids get dirt to play with. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:42:58 They'll like it. Yeah. We're toys. Aren't going to be introduced here for another 50 years. What are you thinking, man? Let's go write a book or something. Dream your little dreams, L. Frank Baum.
Starting point is 00:43:10 Okay, let's get Big Jim on the horn. If he's so inclined. Gentlemen. Big Jim, is that you yeah and i can't you something's going wrong here hold on okay we got nothing but time yeah we were just talking about the wizard of oz over here i was gonna say that's what you think you think you have time but that's probably not true okay now something definitely changed your audio sounds a little bit different now uh okay in a good way or a bad way uh maybe bad oh neat neat that's much deeper excellent uh uh yeah it's because it's going through the roadcaster. That's why. We are officially going through three roadcasters right now.
Starting point is 00:44:11 They should be paying us for some type of advertisement with this. I feel like there's Inception there somewhere or something. I don't know. Yeah. So are you recording this on your end then too jim i i appear to be okay so we should have audio to use we should have uh we should have you should be able to send us your audio too correct okay well this is tommy you can hear big jim all right on your end too yep okay good yep this's perfect then. So let us just do a deep dive right away into L. Frank Baum and the Wizard of Oz.
Starting point is 00:44:51 Before you interrupted us, Jim. Yes. Go on, go on. Well, you asked if you needed to prepare anything. I probably should have mentioned, instead of saying no, I should have mentioned, yeah, we're going to talk for an hour about L. Frank Baum and his history. So I hope you're well-versed.
Starting point is 00:45:11 You definitely should have. Well, my mother-in-law's husband actually collects the books. He's got first editions of them. So yeah, I could have been accessing those right now. I could have been reading you.
Starting point is 00:45:26 Yeah, that could have really taken the show to the next level. Deep thoughts from old L. Frank. How do you become an L. Frank? What was his first name, really? Why did people do that, actually, back then, though? Why was that a thing that people did at that era? I don't know. You really hated your first name. My mom hated her first name, so she actually never went by it.
Starting point is 00:45:51 But I get that. I mean, I understand, but. How do you, is it Lehman, Lyman, L-Y-M-A-N? That's how you say it. Or that's what his name is. That's why I didn't use it. Nobody knew how to say it. Oh, oh.
Starting point is 00:46:07 So that wasn't even, he was all made up this whole story isn't real Dorothy didn't go to Oz what the hell but Jim did you know that he lived in western northeast South Dakota for a while right here in Aberdeen South Dakota I did not know that yeah that's that's the whole tie-in here he is uh we could i could be be you know sitting in the very spot that he wrote the wizard of i actually actually you know what when i was when i was new in town and i was looking for a place to rent i looked at a place that had a plaque on it that said elf rank bomb lived in this house and i said no under an assumed name not living in this one this haunted ass spooky old house the wicked witch of the west is probably tin man's gonna come in in the middle of the night and do god knows what to me it's like here's here's your
Starting point is 00:46:55 oil can that that sound that it made that sound you know uh i i think i may have told you guys before, but my wife's family literally walked from North Dakota to South Dakota at one point. Oh, I don't think we knew that. No, why? They were tired of it, I guess. I don't know. It was time to move on. They were from North Dakota, though? They came to North Dakota, yeah, from Germany.
Starting point is 00:47:27 Actually, Ukraine, but they were not Ukrainian. They were just in Ukraine because they had to get out of Germany and then they had to get out of Ukraine. Jim, you know we don't like to talk politics here. You're walking a fine line there. I believe this could have been religious politics for all I know. I'm not really well versed in this. Now that's our arena.
Starting point is 00:47:50 We don't like just generic everyday politics. We need religion involved with it also. Exactly. We can alienate as many people as possible. I got some things that will alienate some people. So that's, you know, I'll pretty much always have those chambered so uh well for anyone that's listening and maybe you haven't figured out by our extensive wizard of oz discussion uh this is uh big jim mcd jim mcdonald of uh uh sacramento california owner of uh third street barbell good company apparel partnered with silent mike jim we've
Starting point is 00:48:26 had jim on the podcast before i think back in 2020 we've had his part this is my my three pete this is your third okay did we talk to you on uh we talked to you for a shorter we had you on for a full full interview before and then i think did we talk to you for like one of our specials where we talked to several people yeah yeah that's right i forgot about that actually you're however many is what 200 300 something like that i bet it was episode 300 yeah probably yeah yeah well that's three three pete you're in rare air there you are many that have been on that many times yeah me and like brandon and, put that in your LinkedIn profile. Yeah, yeah. But we've been buddies and gone back and forth on stuff for a long time now,
Starting point is 00:49:14 so we always enjoy having you on and catching up. I told you the other day, though, Jim, what's the movie now? Some of All Fears. Okay. You hadn't seen it but it's uh no i still haven't it's got ben affleck in it and it's got uh tommy have you seen it i know i have i have it no i haven't okay so none neither of you will understand this reference but some of all fears is uh ben affleck and um oh morgan Morgan Freeman's in it. It's a good movie. It'd be worth checking out.
Starting point is 00:49:48 I recommend that to everyone that's listening. But it's about, I think it's maybe the Russians and us, and it's almost like got nuclear war vibes. Maybe it's not the Russians. Maybe it's like a smaller like. Right here, a neo-Nazi faction threatens to induce a catastrophic conflict between the United States and Russia. Right, right.
Starting point is 00:50:08 Okay, so it is Russia. Yeah, and I'm thinking, okay. And Morgan Freeman's character is kind of the old hat, and I would say like the CIA or something like that. And he keeps like the back channels open with his Russian counterpart who, you know, these guys aren't the president. They're not the, you know, Russian, I don't know, what is Putin?
Starting point is 00:50:34 Like what is that title of the, is it president? Dictator, president, whatever. Okay, yeah. And so they're not these roles, but they're in the back, and they try to like help ease, you know, to make so the world does not go up in smoke essentially like that they try to uh they almost partner with each other to try to prevent uh disaster and then ben affleck ends up kind of being in part of the morgan freeman role and maybe morgan freeman dies spoiler alert um but then at the end the final scene what i've all been getting here too is the final scene is uh
Starting point is 00:51:07 this russian counterpart and ben affleck they meet in person for the first time and they didn't really know ben didn't know exactly who he was but he knew who ben was and he told him like uh like they had this like little kind of cagey little line and like uh yes maybe we can you know continue to keep the back channels open and kind of be friends. And, like, he winks at him and disappears into the shadows sort of thing. And I told Jim that's kind of what we're like in the powerlifting world. We stay in touch. We stay in touch a little bit behind the scenes for the greater good of.
Starting point is 00:51:46 Yeah, have a very fluid back channel you could say jim would you say that's correct uh i yeah i believe that i've let you back channel me a couple of times now and uh and vice versa that's what she said we are yeah we're we are living in massonomics and 50 percent facts. We are. It's like we're written by Tom Clancy, just like some of all. Exactly. Actually, I think I don't know if you've watched Slow Horses on Apple. A little bit more like that. I have not. No. So it's spectacular. One time you brought up 50 percent facts, too, and I'm I regularly listen.
Starting point is 00:52:27 It seems like you guys have been really kind of crushing it on 50 percent facts. How's the podcasting world been going? Oh, it's you know, it's going OK. We are not typically very far ahead, except right this moment, because I'm going to be traveling and Mike's got some travel and stuff like that. Except right this moment, because I'm going to be traveling and Mike's got some travel and stuff like that. So if we don't accomplish anything else, we have like, you know, eight episodes of Topic Thunder, which is our short panel ranty show in the bag already. And potentially some big guests before I leave for a month and go into Europe, which should be fun.
Starting point is 00:53:10 Show is going pretty well. I think it sort of kind of turned into a feed as opposed to just being like a single podcast where we do the same kind of episode every week. You know, our Friday episodes are also shorter, and that's just usually me and Mike answering a question that's come through Discord. And then our standard episodes, which might be a movie review, a documentary review,
Starting point is 00:53:33 and we might talk about a particular topic that's currently afflicting the powerlifting world. Right. Or just kind of whatever. I don't know, it's sort of whatever we want to have, have a conversation about in that day. It's usually just determined about 10 minutes before the mics go hot. And, you know, we've just been doing this for so long that it's pretty easy for us to knock it out and feel comfortable about what we're saying and hope that people are enjoying.
Starting point is 00:54:07 How many podcast episodes do you think you've recorded now in your podcasting tenure? 50% is coming up on 300. There were 250-something power casts. Almost all of both shows have been on video, whether or not we released them. So a lot. Let's say a lot. It is a lot.
Starting point is 00:54:40 Over that period of time, or maybe even more recently, because at points in time there probably was things about it you obviously weren't liking as well. But like more recently speaking, does it ever does it ever feel like how often what percent of the time does it feel like work? It feels like work until the till the mics go on sometimes. Right. You know, right. like work until the um till the mics go on sometimes right you know right like i'm not sure exactly what's gonna you know what's gonna hit and and what we're gonna have um you know what we're gonna be able to talk about comfortably and you know which direction mike's gonna go with something but um we're you know for for the giant age difference um we are pretty close aligned on a lot of things um some the other day somebody
Starting point is 00:55:28 asked a question like should we do this thing this way or this way and mike before we even talked about it both said the same thing and that's pretty common we say that you know okay we'll do it this way and it's like there's no question so i mean it's not like we're not the same person or anything like that and so i and i mean it's not like we're not the same person or anything like that and so i and i don't always know how he's going to react to to um things i bring in or vice versa but it always seems to work um you know we we just have we have a lot of reps we have a lot of reps you know over eight years of reps so right yeah it is interesting too like uh a lot of that resonates with what we do like everything you're saying there i'm like oh yeah i feel like that's
Starting point is 00:56:11 you know we can relate to a lot of that stuff although the thing we don't have is the age difference that is a good point um although i don't really even think about that like am i listening you guys talking it's not something yeah i don't either it doesn about that. Like, am I listening to you guys talking? It's not something I like. Yeah, I don't either. It doesn't cross my mind either. Yeah, I get that. Because we recorded these, like, 10-topic thunders with some of the Game Day crew, and there was a point at which, like, I sat through a whole episode about Jordans,
Starting point is 00:56:44 and I don't give a shit about them. And so it was a little bit difficult. Like, I don't care about expensive shoes at all, period. And so I had nothing to say. And at some point, I thought, you know what? I'm going to step out for a minute because I haven't really done that before. Like, I'm going to step out and let... I had Joe Stanek sit in for me and they I
Starting point is 00:57:05 think they recorded the last maybe two or three of those together and that was also fine like I don't have to be in the middle of everything all the time it's just that I know how right other people can know how and that's fine too you know if there was somebody with a technical background I wouldn't worry about storing up episodes before I go on vacation either because they could do it. I mean, you know, we had the conversation with our staff yesterday, a staff meeting, and they were talking about talking on camera
Starting point is 00:57:37 and being nervous or whatever. And Mike's like, you guys are all fine, really. You can talk. You can talk to a camera. You make sense. You're coherent. And I said, that was a low-key interview. Like, can we hire anybody who's not good on camera?
Starting point is 00:57:57 No, we can't do that. Right. Yeah, that stuff always, like you even talked about, they'll just like reps though too you know just uh if you had a decent ability and like you can talk normally outside of being on the camera you'll be able to you know at a certain point you'll be able to they can people can figure that out it's it is about reps i think a lot of cases of just like getting more comfortable with some of that stuff. Yeah, for sure. Uh, yeah. How about, you know, we talk about the podcast, but even earlier, your earlier start was a lot of the
Starting point is 00:58:34 video content and yeah. Um, were you, were you the first, first person putting powerlifting content out on the internet in video form on YouTube or otherwise or other platforms? I mean, were you kind of the first? I was one of the first. I don't know if I was the first. The first that I'll claim is that we were the first people to do voiceover videos for training, explaining what was going on with training. I don't think anybody had done that. And we did that like a couple months after we saw a draft of Bigger, Stronger, Faster.
Starting point is 00:59:21 It's like, oh, wait, we could actually just, like we don't have to have a live mic and people talking and and try to get past the noise that you get in a powerlifting gym and all that stuff. We can actually sit down and watch the footage, see what is actually going on, be sure that we're showing particular things we want to show and do voiceover. things we want to show and do voiceover um so i think that uh we have to have been the first ones to do that yeah and we love i know we've talked about this before in our other times too but we we we very much enjoyed those videos at the time you know that was those were of high interest for us they're really fun i think yeah i think people people still watch them which is weird um because some of them are
Starting point is 01:00:08 some of our are getting old and you know on youtube i'm sure i've said this before on youtube everything just happened like people don't have any context for 13 years ago or whatever right so though so they'll react to something as if it just happened because they just saw it. And I sometimes I reply to people and say, hey, you know, this was a long time ago. And, and people thought differently back then, you know, the state of the world was different than it is now. Right. Yeah, that's true. There's things you, and even just like, if you look at even like training specifically, like 13 years ago, like powerlifting, generally speaking, looked quite a bit different in some circles than what it looks like now too. Oh yeah, for sure. Um, everybody was squatting with their, you know, feet as far as possible. Yup. Like they were, like they were trying to push out a wildebeest or something like that and um and yeah and all the gear and the box squats and the chains and the bands and you know
Starting point is 01:01:14 i i single ply nobody lifted raw i mean knee knee wraps that look like ace bandages, you know. Yeah. The, you know, so you put out, you know, your podcast episodes go out in video, I think, from what I've seen for the most part. And, you know, Mike also that at Third Street and that sort of thing? I have kicked around the idea to do it. I would have to have somebody edit it for sure. It's one of those things like i'm gonna i'm gonna be gone for a month and when i come back i should have like plenty of fresh ideas and that might
Starting point is 01:02:09 be one of the things that we try to do um but i would i would have to pass off the editing to somebody else because i don't have the patience for it anymore at all i mean you do something like that for over a decade and you just don't have it anymore unless it's unless you're you know a highly compensated professional which i can assure you that i was not so what highly compensated either either one of those things uh so you mentioned a trip are you guys still planning on going to the arnold or what's your take on the Arnold this year? Yeah, we're definitely going to the Arnold. Our head trainer, Avi Liu, is competing in the meet that's on Sunday of the Arnold. So we will be there.
Starting point is 01:03:00 We'll be there from Thursday to Monday, I think. So you'll be there for the whole thing. Well, we'll get to, we'll get to do all kinds of catching up there then. Yeah. Like since we were actually never, you know,
Starting point is 01:03:12 talked in person since you guys didn't come out to the world's strongest man last year. And now it's going to be gone for however long until it comes back again. So yeah, I, yeah, no, it should be fun.
Starting point is 01:03:24 I think we did. You wouldn't have known what massonomics was at the time, but we probably talked the first time ever. We, when, when we went, when the first time we ever went to the Arnold, when you were at,
Starting point is 01:03:35 um, it would have been a slingshot booth or whatever it was called at the time. Oh, that's, that's right. But that probably was like 2016. Wasn't it it that my guess was 16 or 17 yeah uh it kind of sounds like more like 15 that's possible somewhere in there yeah
Starting point is 01:03:54 yeah yeah yeah pretty much probably 15 so is and i did oh go ahead did i talk to you did i talk to either one of you guys i never it seems seems like there was maybe video that nobody used, which is really the par for my course. Did we have video? I can't remember. Did we do video? I think we have an interview with you. I think it's on YouTube, too.
Starting point is 01:04:19 Do you think so? I think if you Googled, I don't know, Mastodonomics Jim McDonald on YouTube. I'm trying to look right now. Oh, yeah, you did interview. short you it's there i think if someone looked if you googled uh i don't know massonomics jim mcdonald on i'm trying to look right now oh yeah you did interview there's like a two or three minute video this is from uh yeah it was posted march 2017 yeah okay jim oh 2017 okay i don't even i i've never seen it i'll have to look it's uh it is only a minute and 20 seconds long so we were just doing a whole bunch of like little, we were just doing like shotgunning interviews with people.
Starting point is 01:04:49 Right. Running gun. Yeah. Yeah, I do. I wouldn't have, I could not have told you that it was 2017. There are couplets of years that are smushed together in my mind. And that's definitely one of them. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:05:04 So we're looking forward to the Arnold and be happy that we get to uh talk to you there in person and uh we're we're we're curious what the Arnold is going to bring this year you know we're optimistic about it but there's certainly you know like I don't know we don't know like it's it is different than what it used to be like that year in 2017 for example um at least from last year at the Arnold that felt different than what it used to be like that year in 2017 for example um at least from last year at the arnold that felt different than what 2017 was like and what some of those years were like so i'm curious what how much of that comes back now that maybe uh you know people being in large groups isn't really like as much of an issue as it used to have been even just last year so
Starting point is 01:05:41 we'll be curious to see what happens there. I haven't checked lately. Are any of the booths actually filling up? We're not sure. I heard you say that Crazy Tom's going to be there with a booth. Yeah, we're excited. We have a good group in our area for sure. We're excited that we have a good group in our area for sure. So if nothing else, I know that we'll have a fun area of our, you know,
Starting point is 01:06:12 of our about 10 surrounding booths there. So I'm excited about that. Yeah, there's definitely less vendors there than there was five years ago. Yeah, that's without a doubt. Yeah. But we've heard rumblings that in future years i'd curious if you've heard any of this yet but uh heard rumblings that that could it could potentially move to la at some point in time uh i've heard those rumblings before, I have not heard it this time. My understanding was that Arnold's partner on the Arnold owns half of Columbus. Okay.
Starting point is 01:06:52 And that's why it's there. Also, he apparently did a bodybuilding show. I don't know if he was actually competing or guest posing or something like that a million years ago and loves Columbus for whatever reason. But I think that they talked about it actually all the way back when he was governor of California. Well, I think Arnold has been on record before saying he like essentially saying he
Starting point is 01:07:17 would never take it out of Columbus. Right. And that was my understanding. That was, that was the reason. So, right. We'll stay tuned to see what happens there. We'll see if he goes back on that word or not like i don't know what it would be like in i don't think it would be nearly as big in los
Starting point is 01:07:35 angeles to be honest i don't think it would either la fit expo la fit expo is not ever as big as the Arnold has been in my experience. I haven't been in a few years, but I hear that it is progressively smaller as opposed to growing. I know they try to market the crap out of it, but when they tell you all the people who are going to be at that expo, I have not heard a lot of them, I've heard of a lot of them. Yeah, I don't think, as far as the Expo goes, I think moving it to LA would be a killer, but maybe that's just the Midwesterner in me thinking that that's a bad choice, but I don't see it.
Starting point is 01:08:19 I don't see how it plays out. I think you could have all the competitions there and not lose a step and get all the athletes there. But from an expo standpoint, I don't see it. I don't see it being the same. No, I don't think it would be the same at all. I mean, it's got to be. Hello.
Starting point is 01:08:38 Was that you or me? That was me. Okay. Coming in hot. I'm glad you set off my pacemaker or whatever anyway um uh yeah i don't think it would it would feel the same at all and here we go again um in the same sense that that um that the Vegas was never, you know, as big with the Olympia as the Arnold was. Right.
Starting point is 01:09:16 Yeah, we'll see. Moving on to something else I want to talk to you about. Back when we talked to you in 2020, the owning a gym world was a really weird thing at that point in time, especially in a big metro area like where you guys are at. What about now? How have things gone since then? What have you learned as being a gym owner and operator since then? I think you have to be a little bit crazy to do this and and during a
Starting point is 01:09:48 pandemic you have to be even crazier uh the last six eight months or so have been significantly better than any other part of of this journey um i mean the the gym has people in it almost all the time now like that's that didn't used to be the case like I would you know do a three or four hour shift and two or three members would come in during that whole time and now it's like they're they're people there and they're they seem to enjoy themselves being there and everybody in it you know everybody is recording their lifts and they're all on instagram or tiktok or whatever all the time they are all so young they're so young it's it's not just that i'm old it's that they they are also young. Our average age is low. It's, I don't want to talk about it. It's fun to see everybody, you know, working toward the same kind of goal and getting along.
Starting point is 01:11:06 And it looks like the United Nations in there a lot of the time. Are you saying you're more diverse there than in western northeast South Dakota? We are super diverse. It's absolutely majority minority, which is kind of reflective of our area, but in some ways not. It's kind of overrepresented maybe. And I don't mean that in a negative way. If you're looking around and take a head count, that's what you get. We have a 180-something unit apartment complex going up next door to us, which hopefully will pay off with some membership next year.
Starting point is 01:12:07 meat by buying two more combo racks so we don't have we have four full combo racks now and three kilo sets which everybody apparently needs these days that's a lot of kilo sets that is it's a it's a lot of kilo sets absolutely i remember you know back in the day we had these rubber coated weights that um when it rained they smelled like a bad fish market like every time i don't know i don't know why it was the case but just high humidity rain whatever and it would they would just smell awful and we've got you know awesome stuff now and we don't have any of those problems but um you know it's been a it's been a learning experience for sure um a a step that we took this year is is we have more of a branded branding strategy so the the gym itself is is a brand and then the clothing is a brand like separating the um accounting from a managerial standpoint. So we have more idea of where to capitalize on, you know, where we make, where we are making headway in the market. And we started
Starting point is 01:13:15 off saying we were never going to have a trainer or do classes or any of that kind of stuff. And there was just too much demand for it for us to not do it and we just happened upon someone who was a member um avi who you know um is now a usa pl pro power lifter based on how she did at nationals and um is really really really good we just kind of lucked into that situation um and there was a point at which Mike was like, I think that we probably should start offering classes and personal training. You got to give the people what they want. Yeah. I mean, he was the one most against it.
Starting point is 01:13:57 So when he said it, it's like, okay, well, that seems like a given at this point. Did he start the conversation by, did he say, hear me out, Jim? The customer is always right? No, he didn't. He didn't. And, and, and, and I don't know if he really believes that. And I don't know if I do either. Well, I mean, you notice we're all laughing when we say that. Yes. I mean, they say that your current customers can't tell you what to do with the future of your business and i think that that is true in a lot of ways like you have to be you have to be on the um look out for trends that haven't hit your your customer yet and things that they're going
Starting point is 01:14:37 to be interested in they don't even know about yet so yeah we're the steve jobs Jobs of powerlifting over here, respectively, I think. Yes, absolutely. I co-sign that. But, yeah, I mean, doing meets has been part of the strategy for getting the word out more about the gym and, honestly, the apparel as well. I could get into a whole thing about what we just experienced with throwing this meat. Well, it's what, so, yeah, I guess, well,
Starting point is 01:15:11 a little bit of this is relevant to us. We're hosting our first Massonomics powerlifting meet in July this summer. What would be a few pieces? Yeah, give us some hot tips here. You know, we've certainly both competed in many meets and been around many people that have put them on and stuff but what uh what advice would you have for us uh thing what is to try to try to be you know as organized as you're capable of being uh i you know everybody can always improve on that i didn't run this uh this and Joe ran this one. Joe Stanek from Game Day ran this meet.
Starting point is 01:15:49 I tried to, I'm trying as I'm getting older to not be involved in every single part of every single thing. Just, you know, other people can learn to do stuff and tackle it or have experience that I don't have or whatever. So I can't speak to all the intricacies of it, but I will say that if a federation were to come along that was very supportive of meat directors and not, I don't know, scolding of meat directors, that would probably be very popular based on what I saw in this process. you know, chairperson for whatever federation you're working with, uh, and you can pick their brain and they're like willing to help you with insights about, you know, best practices for, for running meets and, um, crowd management and all that kind of stuff. Uh, that would be a boon.
Starting point is 01:17:02 That'd be a good thing. That's not what we had with this. We actually were told that by someone that they would be surprised if we were able to even pull this off. Perfect vote of confidence. Yeah, that was a great vote of confidence. And, you know, we literally had people kind of actively working against us. And, you know, I would, you guys have chosen your federation already. I know you switched away from the one that cannot be named.
Starting point is 01:17:36 The Voldemort Federation. The Voldemort Federation. And so you guys went XPC? and uh so you you guys went xpc yeah so the the reason we are what we are is it actually relates really good to your first tip and point there is um we've thought of this idea of doing a meet for quite a while and we kind of knew the one way to make it work to take some of that unwanted stress and things we don't want to do off our plate is to bring in a meat director so we were we brought in the basically the he runs it was for uspa he ran all the uspa meets in north dakota and south dakota we're bringing him in to run and he does a really awesome job and we've you know over the years
Starting point is 01:18:16 made the good connection with him so he's really the meat director and then we're going to do more of the fun massonomic stuff that we want to do to try to make it even cooler yeah party part all that yeah and he switched so he switched to xpc so we said all right let's do it we don't have to we don't have to talk about everyone be pissed off at the uspa and be a part of that so it sounds like a great idea to us yeah we we did a USPA meet in September, and the meet director that we used was somebody that approached us. He's local, but not super local. Did a great job. You know, just really nailed really much effort on our part at all, the meat sold out within a couple weeks. We didn't have any of the stress other than just, you know, relative to the facility. The difference being that when you do that, then most of the money is going to somebody else. Right.
Starting point is 01:19:23 And so your opportunity for money is the door and merch. Which works out great because we're charging $1,000 for people at the door. So we're planning on making big things. Yeah. Actually, it's free to get in the entryway. And then from the entryway, either to get back out or to get into the next part uh it's very going going to be extremely expensive so either people the breezeway is going to get jam-packed or people will give us their money one way or the other that that works
Starting point is 01:19:56 you could also charge to use the bathrooms um that'd be a thing that's actually should be on my list that does make sure that you get enough porta potties yeah the bathrooms are the classic yeah because because i mean i used every formula that i could think of you know and find online about how many you should get versus you know how many people was the final answer one-to-one the final answer in and anything power listing related and bathrooms is one-to-one for sure um somehow if everyone got their own personal bathroom every one of them would still be still would be really disgusting you were only responsible for this one i know it was you because it'd be like well well it's my own so i can just be as gross as i want well that i i knew that people were pigs when i i ended up having to use the handicapped one
Starting point is 01:20:52 that i got um because the other ones were full and i was in hurry and i realized that someone had pissed on the seat of the handicapped port-a-potty maybe that was their disability is they was really bad at aiming the wiener. That's why they had to use that. There's some kind of compromised angle associated with it.
Starting point is 01:21:18 Or the whole, you know, the dreaded penis bends. Or the dreaded double stream. Yeah, that happens. There's a fork in the road. Take it. Yeah, I didn't think about that at all. But the first day they were kind of okay.
Starting point is 01:21:41 But this is ground level stuff here uh we got a wash station with it because we want people to wash their hands right and they don't give you any extra paper towels and we had you know over 500 people pass through the first day and the paper towels were gone by like 11 a.m. And so I'm, you know, ordering them from Home Office Depot and sending Mike's mom to go pick them up and hoping that that's enough, figuring out how to refill the water thing too because it like, they don't really, there's no instruction manual.
Starting point is 01:22:21 There is no training. There's no in-service at all. You just like like here are these things use them and uh by the second day the bathrooms were really bad they were super disgusting and i felt bad about that and then i started thinking about the arnold where the bathrooms are the worst oh man before you even show up before you even show up they put it before people are even there and it's like how are these bathrooms already gross like i don't know if this convention center has been
Starting point is 01:22:49 used in a year and they're still not taken care of yes and and the only thing that's actually worse than the bathroom is being gross is having someone decide they want to talk to you because they recognize you when you're at the urn yeah It's like, I'm trying to pee here. Mike had somebody try to take a picture with him at a urinal. Yeah, that could wait. I guess my takeaway there is with the bathrooms for the meet is maybe we provide absolutely no bathrooms so it's not our mess to take care
Starting point is 01:23:27 of and people will figure it out i mean have you ever like not gotten to go to the bathroom when you need to go to the bathroom like you have you ever not figured out a way to go go somewhere and go to the bathroom they'll go somewhere else they'll they'll like go to starbucks yeah right station or something like that yeah it's like i'm sorry there are no bathrooms bathrooms for customers only yeah okay so watch out for the bathrooms yeah and the capper on that story is that then the next day the day that they were coming to pick them up so they've been been in use since since actually sort of late friday so it's monday they come to pick them up. They're like, these are so full that we're going to have to pump them out
Starting point is 01:24:09 before we can load them. And before they had shown up to pick up the porta-potties, a homeless guy wandered into our parking lot to use one of the bathrooms. He opened the door, closed closed it turned around and left so he's like this is not even good enough come on man i have standards this is not a joke this literally happened like okay well they must be pretty bad then yeah so that's one thing and another thing i can throw out there and i don't know this is true like we
Starting point is 01:24:43 we sold food at our first one and and it was like Costco pizza or whatever. And it was fun. We went through most of it, whatever, whatever. So we figured more people order more stuff. We had snacks and whatever, whatever. And in reality, we didn't sell very much of it, but there was DoorDash outside the building nonstop for two days. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:25:04 So people were ordering their own stuff so you say providing the food is not that important of an aspect of it i don't think so depending upon your location right if we were out in the middle of nowhere then go on yeah yeah really seriously you live in the middle of nowhere so Go on. Everywhere is nowhere where you live. Yeah. But, you know, we're downtown Sacramento. And DoorDash actually gets delivered to our building fairly frequently. So it wasn't like it was a mystery to be able to find it and hand things off.
Starting point is 01:25:48 to um to find it and and hand things off there was you know i i had not thought about that being the case but um and i the last like big meet because we had roughly 200 lifters um over the course of two days and the the last meets that i saw that were that big were in like convention centers. And so people weren't so much doing that there. Right. You know, but literally, you know, drivers could drive up outside. They would double park and then, you know, hail whoever's ordered the food. And they would run out and pick it up and they'd be off. They'd just come to the door and then dash on back out of there. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:26:26 Yeah. All right, Jim, we've got this little game we would like to play. You've actually played it before, but I'm still going to give you a little bit of a rundown on it. It's called overrated underrated. And we've got a special,
Starting point is 01:26:37 uh, Jim McD set of topics to hit you with. Okay. And it's just your job to decide if each one is overrated or underrated. Actually, we've even played this on your podcast before, haven't we? Yeah, yeah. Actually, I sprung that on you guys. Yeah, that's right.
Starting point is 01:26:52 You've been through the ringer a few times here. Yeah, yeah. So you know. You get it. Okay. I get it. You guys have Topic Thunder. We talked about that.
Starting point is 01:27:01 So overrated or underrated? Yes. Tropic Thunder, the movie. Oh, I think it might be underrated, to be honest. It is so funny. It's so wrong, too. It's so, so wrong. I tend to like things that are super fucked up, and that's pretty fucked up, yeah.
Starting point is 01:27:22 There's a few things, maybe, if I'm remembering about Tropic Thunder, that maybe they can't do it, that are a little off the table now even. Yeah, Robert Downey Jr. in Black Panther. That's what I was thinking, yes. Yeah, I don't think you can do that anymore. Yeah. So I think that's a good take, though,
Starting point is 01:27:41 that it probably is a little underrated, that movie. And I think that Tom Cruise dancing at the end of that movie i think that's actually what tom cruise looks and acts like when he's alone yes it was more revealing than i think he really understood right okay overrated or underrated? Whose line is it anyway? Ooh, that's a really good question. That being a topic for you because you've done a little improv before. Am I right? I have done improv. Yeah, absolutely. Whose line is kind of a short form improv um i've done mostly long term long long form um fun fact my wife worked with one of the cast members of the original british version
Starting point is 01:28:37 of okay whose line i have seen the original british version and wow i don't even know if i knew there was a British version. Yeah, it started there. Everything starts there. Yeah, his name is Mike McShane. He was Friar Tuck in the Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie. Yeah, yeah. As well.
Starting point is 01:29:04 Yeah, but back in the day, he's actually from, you know, about an hour from here. I don't know what his career looks like now, but yeah. Anyway, Hoes line, probably underrated, and I think what's underrated is how hard it is. It is very challenging to think that fast and play off people when you don't know where they're going. You know, you don't know, you don't know what, what they're going to give you to work with. Yeah, that would be insanely hard. I can't imagine. Yeah, that's, that's what always shocked me as a kid, like watching it is, it's just,
Starting point is 01:29:41 it's hard to believe that that's not scripted for how well they can do a lot of the times. I mean, there are some techniques that you learn, like there's a, um, there's an exercise where you with, with one other person, you end up saying the same word at the same time, but only one of you knows what the word is going to be. Uh, and so obviously there, all the people who have been in, in of any version of that show have done that exercise. So they can find that that person's simpatico or whatever real quickly. You know, there's a lot of exercises that go into it, period. But that's kind of the the the most remarkable one to me is always when people can say the same word together but only one of them started the word um just that that moment
Starting point is 01:30:32 of mind meld yeah i didn't know that was the thing that sounds impressive yes okay well whose line is it anyway underrated i agree underrated or overrated, the newer Star Wars content. So the movies and shows coming out within the last three years here. Like the onslaught of Star Wars content. Okay, so I am of multiple minds about this i will i will render a verdict but um but let's say that when rogue one came out i hated it hated hated hated it i thought it was terrible and then the first of the of the new trilogy came out whatever that one was called um episode seven yeah and i thought oh it's pretty good it's kind of a retread of the of of the original star wars but you know it's fine
Starting point is 01:31:32 and then i saw the second one the ryan johnson one i thought oh this is awful this is the worst thing i've ever seen this is an abomination of star trek or star, pardon me. You could have asked the Star Trek question too. And then the third one was terrible. It was really, really bad. Give it some space, go back to it. And now when I see Rogue One, it's like, well, that's actually really clever. It's like they built this story in a way
Starting point is 01:32:03 that the characters are compelling. Nobody's a Jedi. Nobody's a fucking ancient Superman. It's just a rebellion story. And then rewatch the number seven. And it's like, oh, this one's trash. This one's even more trash than than the rest of them and then watch the ryan johnson one again and it's like actually this one's really good too
Starting point is 01:32:30 it has some elements that i don't like but the parts that are good are really good uh and then now um most recently um mandalorian everybody likes it i like it it's not exciting really but it's good Andor was amazing and I'm really happy that they're doing a second season
Starting point is 01:32:51 of that show it's like if take Star Wars out of it and it would still work yeah like it could just be about
Starting point is 01:32:59 about a rebellion in in space right right and and it's just super well done. So I would say underrated if my benchmark is Andor.
Starting point is 01:33:16 Okay. Because I don't think as many people watch that as watch The Mandalorian. Yeah, so based on that, because that's the most recent thing, yeah, underrated. I haven't seen that yet, but now thinking about it, now I'm convinced I do need to watch it. I've watched Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett and most of those, but I do need to watch this newest one.
Starting point is 01:33:38 I'm just behind on all of them, so I have nothing to add. One follow-up question. I have nothing to add. One follow-up question. Is the Empire bad, and are the Rebels good? Is that black and white? I think that where George Lucas started with it, I think that it was very black and white. Because the templates that he worked from, 30 serials and stuff like that,
Starting point is 01:34:09 good guys and bad guys, black hats, white hats, whatever, whatever. As it's gone forward, I think that there's been a lot more subtlety and gray in between. I think that the Empire is, well, it's like any organization like the organization itself might be bad but the not every individual that's involved with the organization is bad um community comes from people right right it's always the classic debate like you know you go to starbucks and someone fucks up your order do you say the entire starbucks organization is corrupt and evil or is it just like the two people working there suck you know you go to Starbucks and someone fucks up your order do you say the entire Starbucks organization is corrupt and evil or is it just like the two people working there suck you know yeah yeah that's that's it exactly and I and I think that they you know what Ryan Johnson was
Starting point is 01:34:57 trying to prove with Luke Skywalker was that he's always been conflicted and he's always not had the greatest idea of what what the good thing to do is i he was like super super young in the in the the first movies and then he was super old last ones and just his his sense of what to do he had to be convinced to do the right thing he didn't just just know what to do and i like in some of the i can't even remember specifically what i've seen it in if it was some of the in recent trilogy or rogue or maybe a couple of the shows but where they show some things from the viewpoint of like the average uh space being and it's almost like empire rebels i don't give a shit they all they shit. They all do bad stuff to us, you know,
Starting point is 01:35:46 where it's just kind of like, oh, yeah, I guess you're just, you are, like, okay, Rebels take over, and then what? Like, what do they do better? You know, how do they run it more wholesomely or, like, in a more fair, equitable way? Right. That's my take on it. Yeah, absolutely. equitable way right that's my take yeah absolutely yeah well it comes it comes down to uh um that who song won't get fooled again meet this new boss same as yeah yeah yes whoever whoever
Starting point is 01:36:18 has power you know corrupts right um uh take taking us back to the federations for just a minute here um full circle what you real you realize at some point that is less about the rules than it is about rulers ruling right i think it does come down to the people yeah well it's like maybe if uh darth vader's not around the the Empire isn't quite so bad. Maybe they're not evil. You got a couple bad seeds at top making it evil. Get rid of those guys. Some of those stormtroopers are just regular dudes, I think.
Starting point is 01:37:00 Well, there are definitely some professions, though, where there's got to be a fail safe on that on the bad apples it's like like do you want to fly with a bad pilot do you know do you do you want to you want to have a bad brain surgeon i mean i've always thought certain things that we should tolerate that's a funny thought though on doctors because or it could be anyone but it's more apparent in doctors it's like well some of the doctors probably like not every doctor was the top of their class you know like to be last in their class someone did the worst right and like someone here just did just barely good enough right like to like get the job to like graduate and get the job yeah
Starting point is 01:37:41 yeah we're cursed by the bell curve, I think. Yeah. Because there are always going to be outliers on the bad end. Right. And you don't know until they screw you up somehow. Right. Okay. All right.
Starting point is 01:37:58 Last topic, and we always save the most important for last. All right. So overrated or underrated? Halifax, Donar. Donair, Donar. I'm not sure. Donair? Donair.
Starting point is 01:38:12 Donair. Donair. Okay, there you go. It's awful. However it's rated, it's's overrated so what actually is it um it's it's essentially like a big meat sickle and they shave the meat off of it um like a um like shawarma shawarma yeah that's what I was getting from my Middle East time. What you said there reminds me of shawarmas, kind of. Yeah, that's what it is.
Starting point is 01:38:50 They just shave it off. But the thing that makes it terrible is the sauce. There's like a white sauce that's sweet. Canadians like their sauces sweet. Like the ketchup in Canada is sweet as opposed to being tart. Okay. So you're not a huge Donair guy. I am not a Donair guy at all.
Starting point is 01:39:16 Donair. Okay. Donair, yes. However, like the best bagels anywhere come out of Montreal. But the Donair is not. Yeah, they're so good. So, so good. Okay, well, it's good to appease.
Starting point is 01:39:31 We have quite a few Canadian listeners, so we're about ready to have a revolt on our hands. So it's good that throw them a bone. Well, I mean, you know, I'm deeply connected to Canada. That's where my son and his family live. My grandchildren are canadian so that's weird to think about like the canada thing is such an odd thing especially with massonomics we've become so much more so so much closer in to canada in a lot of ways and we're
Starting point is 01:40:00 physically not that you know geographically not that far from canada as it is but it's just uh sometimes it's really easy for for me to forget that that is a different yeah country and yeah that they live by a whole different set of rules and customs and everything yeah for sure uh there are some definite differences just with food. We're talking about them, but just like the availability of stuff. I'm in California where I can get a fresh anything at any time. And a lot of America is not like that. And big hunks of Canada, particularly Atlantic Canada, just doesn't have the same access to fruits and vegetables. Chicken is incredibly expensive in in in nova
Starting point is 01:40:45 scotia for some reason yeah okay well it looks good look good news though jim it looks like you passed overrated underrated so well thank you that's uh this will not be like that inner interview from the arnold in 2017 people will get to hear this now someone will know this exists yeah uh one one final question i had that i was thinking of is is there anything from your time in super training and slingshot that you miss I would say that the first few years, even though it was a motley crew of lifters and some of them were just fucking assholes, um,
Starting point is 01:41:37 that being able to, that training together and having everybody just kind of be there for each other, you know, like, you know, we're lifting out of monoliths right so you someone's got to run the monolith for you somebody's got to help
Starting point is 01:41:49 you get in your gear um all that stuff I I do do miss that I miss some of those guys um I'm not really in crisp contact with very many of them anymore. Um, just cause life goes on and, and I don't, most of them are not lifting anymore. Excuse me. So I definitely, I would say that I miss that. I miss, um, I miss how fresh stuff was as we were, you emerging from complete obscurity um it was easier to leverage what we were doing in terms of content and stuff like that than it is now well it felt like everything was new and exciting like every week then right exactly exactly i always thought about um even before i was you know shooting um training sessions and putting them on YouTube, I always kind of thought about every training session as like an episode of a lifting reality show. And I would walk away sometimes going, well, that was a really good episode.
Starting point is 01:43:00 Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it's like somebody had somebody was funny. Somebody had a PR. Somebody, you know, got hurt, but it wasn't too bad. You know, it's just just stuff just what we do, and we have a big crew on there. And there's been times things have come up. Just put in perspective, like, how much some of this has changed and how long ago really some of it's been at this point. There will be people that have come on there that are very active members, and something will come up of, I don't know, Slingshot or Mark Bell or something like that, and someone will say, who's that? Or what's that?
Starting point is 01:43:46 Yeah. I'd never heard of that. Who is that? And it's just a funny thought for us because that was such a central part of what was going on with it when we started. And I'm like, oh man, things have changed that much that someone is this big of a fan of massonomics now. And they never have heard like like, that's not,
Starting point is 01:44:06 they're not even aware of that even, like that that existed at that point in time. It's just kind of a crazy thought of, you know, how, how life moves on. Right, right. Yeah, if you were aiming at making me feel old and irrelevant, you'd be like, bang on. It would aim, no, aim at ourselves though,
Starting point is 01:44:26 too, because like my point is how, you know, how relevant it was to me. And then I'm like, how is someone watching what we do, but not aware of that? Like,
Starting point is 01:44:35 it seems weird. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, we have, we have a couple of TVs in the gym now and we, I do run some of the old stuff sometimes and,
Starting point is 01:44:46 you know, and the podcast and things like that and uh i would say like we're pushing 200 members and excuse me and i would say 80 of them have don't have a single fucking clue any about anything that we did before 2017 right you know um and yeah 2017 2018 like people know mike from his youtube and from barbell brigade where he still actively makes content with them uh more so than any of this the the slingshot stuff and he was you know the co-star of that that show and then you know co-host of the podcast and um yeah that's what they you know him from that from that or they don't know him at all plenty of people come in who do not have a clue who we are yeah at all and i keep saying we need to put pictures up or something or something. Like something.
Starting point is 01:45:48 Just give me a little bit. Just, you know, a little bit of something. Yeah, do some head shots on the wall, like by the door when you walk in. We are accomplished, damn it. Yeah, something like that. Okay. Yeah, we matter. We're important. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:46:01 Revere us. Are you not entertained? Yes. All right, Jim, we really appreciate you coming on, and we're excited we'll get to hang out in just a couple weeks, so it won't be long now. Well, thanks for having me,
Starting point is 01:46:16 and yeah, definitely looking forward to seeing you guys. Where's the best people? I mean, if they're in Sacramento, go check out the gym, but I suppose the bigger thing is people could check out Apparel Good Company. Where do they find all that at? We are goodcompany3sb on, I think, on Instagram. And we are thirdstreetbb on Instagram, the gym itself.
Starting point is 01:46:44 I am at thegymmcd everywhere that I would want you to find me. Uh, and podcast 50% facts, percents a word, 50 just numbers. Um, uh, what else?
Starting point is 01:46:58 Uh, the apparel is at, uh, three SB.co and the gym itself, third street barbell.com. Excellent. Thanks, Jim. Thanks a lot, Jim.
Starting point is 01:47:13 Yeah, thanks a lot, guys. All right. See you soon. All right. Later. Cool beans. Cool beans. Beans.
Starting point is 01:47:22 Cool beans. Gave Jimbo the double cool beans, didn't you? Cool beans for Jim. Cool beans them up over there, didn't you? Sure did. Oh, good stuff. Always good catching up with Jim. Yeah, always nice catching up with what's going on out there on the West Coast. We'll have to make it up.
Starting point is 01:47:40 Maybe 2020. You think 2023 is the year we make it out there? It could be. Very well could be. Maybe 2020. You think 2023 is the year we make it out there? It could be. Very well could be. Could be. Do we have time for Has He Seen It? God, this is running. This one's running.
Starting point is 01:47:54 Yeah, I mean, we can sneak it in quick. It's been a while. This one's got legs on it. Let's play it. Let's do it. I don't care what the people say we're playing it. I don't care what the reaction was when I just asked that rhetorical question we're we're playing this some bitch it's going down yeah so has he seen it uh we're going to 1987 oh god okay
Starting point is 01:48:19 1987 we've got two of them you think two i think you might i think you might do better than two on this list you're maybe a little too optimistic yeah uh 1987 we've got seven seven movies and we're gonna find out has tommy seen them last week that we played was 2000 you got five out of seven the last 80s weeks that we did in 89 you got four out of seven in 88 you got two out of seven the last 80s weeks that we did in 89 you got four out of seven in 88 you got two out of seven so two would be consistent with okay year okay yeah i think two is going to be about the number here and um we've got a couple audio clues oh this week also so all right we'll see it doesn't always like come across perfect on your end but everyone listening at home will get a full taste of this. So, first one, has he seen it?
Starting point is 01:49:07 Who the fuck said that? Who's the slimy little communist shit-twinkle-toed cocksucker down here who just signed his own death warrant? Could you hear that, Tommy? Yes. Is it Full Metal Jacket? That is Full Metal Jacket, 1987 classic Full Metal Jacket. Yeah, I've seen
Starting point is 01:49:24 that movie a lot of times. Yeah. That is a total classic Vietnam War movie. Stanley Kubrick, one of the most legendary directors of all time. Arlie Emery. Yeah, that one's a banger. Everyone should see that one. Yep.
Starting point is 01:49:40 I haven't watched it for a while. It's been a while for me, too. I actually used to own that movie, so I have seen it quite a bit. That movie is not a feel-good movie, though it's really not it's not um it really feels like two movies to me absolutely it is it it's it's the one movie of them going through basic and then the second movie is them in vietnam and they almost i like the basic training part so much better yeah i mean they have almost they don't have a ton to do with each other you could let them be their own thing and people like okay yeah this is uh right movies uh but yeah it is a classic i think people should should watch that one for sure yeah okay one for one have you seen it dirty dancing no i have not neither have i uh is that considered like a chick flick i think so isn't it i thought
Starting point is 01:50:32 right that's it yeah i think it's like a quintessential chick flick really i think i don't know maybe not maybe it transcends that that's what i that's what i wasn't sure is if it was bigger than that even i think some people would say it's bigger than yeah because it certainly has seemed to stood the test of time that many chick flicks do not but yeah I have not seen that one and I there's a good chance I never will even yeah yeah okay one one for two um next one have you seen it RoboCop I actually haven't and i really do want to see this one probably more so than almost any other movie you've said on this list i really want to see robocop and i've never watched it really yeah like i'm surprised you say that you like that you really sound like with conviction that you would really like to watch RoboCop. I would. I like sci-fi stuff. And RoboCop is, to me, a classic as far as sci-fi goes.
Starting point is 01:51:28 I loved RoboCop as a kid. Yeah, and I've never seen it. Okay. So that's on the to-watch list, though. Yeah, I'd love to watch RoboCop, and I've never seen it. All right, one for three, then. Okay, next we're going back to an audio clue. Has he seen it all right one for three then okay next we're going back to an audio clue has he seen it
Starting point is 01:51:54 i don't know if you that one didn't come through no we'll hit it one more time just for everyone else's sake so that was robin will Robin Williams screaming into his microphone, good morning, Vietnam. Has he seen it? Good morning, Vietnam. Yeah, no, I have not seen good morning, Vietnam. I think we've talked about this one like five times. I've never seen good morning, Vietnam.
Starting point is 01:52:18 See, that's why I wish you could have heard that audio clip. I'm very curious why Zoom doesn't let those sounds come through. That's weird to me. Yeah, I don't know either. That audio clip was more. I'm very curious why Zoom doesn't let those sounds come through. That's weird. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know either. So good morning, Vietnam. Actually, I'm just realizing now to Vietnam to to very.
Starting point is 01:52:33 I was curious if that was an intentional or not. No, no, no. Completely coincidental. You are one for four right now, though. Yikes. Okay. Have you seen it over the top? No, I haven't seen this either.
Starting point is 01:52:54 Oh, over the top is good. Yeah, that's the arm wrestling one. Is it actually good, or is it just... I think it's good. I think it's good. Yeah, I've never seen it i okay it'd probably be good on watch but yep never i don't even know if i was aware of that movie until maybe a year ago or so until more like uh through massonomics and stuff yeah if i heard about it it was through massonomics
Starting point is 01:53:16 for sure yeah yeah over the top and the one guy in bigger faster stronger that like was living in his van outside the gym you remember that guy yes he's old washed up he was one of the he was in the movie okay if i remember right he was like one of the big arm wrestlers in there fun fact there okay so now you're one five. You're actually tracking pretty well for that two like you predicted. We're right on, right where I want to be. Okay, we're going back to an audio clip on this one. I think this one will come through to you. We'll see though.
Starting point is 01:53:54 Has he seen it? Who is he? He's an asshole, sir. I know that. What's his name? That is his name, sir. Asshole. Major asshole. I don't know what that is. Did you hear that? hear that did that come yeah oh yeah it came through perfectly clear yeah we'll play it one more time for everyone else that's at home just maybe wants to hear it again who is he he's an asshole sir i know that what's his name that is his name sir asshole major asshole no no idea yeah i i'm going to be pretty positive that means you haven't seen the movie
Starting point is 01:54:27 because you it's uh space balls has he seen it oh i have seen space balls oh you have seen space balls okay yeah i have uh boy i i probably saw that movie when i was in like third or fourth grade you know when i was going to my first major star wars kick and someone says oh there's actually this movie that kind of makes fun of all of it. Yeah. And then you watch that. So yes, I have seen Spaceballs. Okay.
Starting point is 01:54:49 There's a lot of classic lines from Spaceballs. It's like comb the desert and they're out there with a giant comb in the desert. Yes. And what was, what do they call, isn't like the Death Star, the laser doesn't have some ridiculous name too in there. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:55:06 I haven't seen Spaceballs for a long time. I had that movie in like high school and I watched it quite a few times, but I haven't seen it for a long time. I think it's worth a watch though too, but now you're at two. You're two for six. So it does come down to this one based on your prediction. I was thinking you get three. You were thinking two. One of us is going to be right.
Starting point is 01:55:26 Uh-oh. Classically, we like to end with an Arnold movie whenever possible. 1987, not an exception. It's crazy how many movies Arnold was in. Almost every year we can end with an Arnold movie. I'm curious how many years he had multiple movies come out. Oh, a lot of these times. Because when I look, a lot of these times there's been more than one movie that has come out that year
Starting point is 01:55:47 so have you seen it predator i haven't seen predator okay i have not uh yep definitely need to watch that one too that's when i'd always love to watch and i've just never done it yep so you did finish two for seven. You were right. Mm-hmm. Yeah, 80s, I'm telling you. 80s movies, I am not with those things. Because those are all, I mean, even the ones you haven't seen. Oh, I think those are all very popular movies. I don't think you asked me any, I don't think you had any gotchas in there. I think those were all kind of softballs.
Starting point is 01:56:19 But, yeah, I haven't seen any of them. Yeah, you're right on the 80s. Well, except for those two that I did see. Yeah. I got to keep those in the record book. Two of seven, same as 1988. We'll get back to some more current things going forward here. See you.
Starting point is 01:56:40 You know what I could really go for right now? Yeah. A Nikola. Nikola. This was very satisfying. I could totally do for right now? Yeah. A Nikola. Nikola. This was very satisfying. I could totally do another one. That was good. That's a solid four to me.
Starting point is 01:56:52 Yeah. You know what else is really solid, if you ask me? What's that? spud-ink-straps.com. Head over there. They're the ones with the yellow straps, the iconic yellow straps that you've seen before. Spud Inc. started because the lifting straps available at the time were not
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Starting point is 01:57:30 Head over to spud-inc-straps.com. If you order $75 or more, you get free shipping on all domestic orders. Let them know that your good old buddies at Mastanomics sent you, and they'll give you an extra kick in the pants on your way out the door. Thank you, Spud Inc. And this episode of the Mast mass dynamics podcast is also brought to you by our friends at swiss link swiss link supplies people around the world with the finest military surplus items from any military force you can think of just hopped over to their featured tab here and here's here's a few of the heavy hitters they got sitting here they got a nato fuel can they got belgian wool gloves
Starting point is 01:58:10 they got swiss army sunglasses and yes they are so styling they got a romanian wool long coat and it's only 15 they're practically giving the damn thing away what's the potassium iodine tablets for tanner there's only one way to find out order them all you can get those too they also have a polish army folding a polish army folding field chair if you're going to the arnold that's probably an excellent time to take that thing with you because trust me your legs get tired so make sure you show up with one of those on they got german ranger boots italian parkas, Czech Army medical desks, knives, coats, jackets, everything you can think of. If it's Army surplus, there's a good chance
Starting point is 01:58:54 SwissLink has got it. Head on over to SwissLink.com, and while you're there, use code MASS, M-A-S-S, to save 15% off your first order. Once again, that's SwissLink.com. Code MASS will save you 15%. Thank you, SwissLink. Potassium iodide is for radiation, the effects of radiation. I think I have to look this up because it does sound familiar to me i think maybe you take it in the um
Starting point is 01:59:32 i don't know like in the case of radiation exposure or something like that i'm not sure all right well there you go oh yeah that's what the description says in the event of a nuclear emergency yeah the best things you can do to be prepared is to keep potassium iodine tablets on hand. Well, there you go. Get them at Swiss Link. It's FDA approved as protection against nuclear fallout sold in the United States.
Starting point is 01:59:59 Swiss Link recommends keeping 30 days worth on hand for your whole family. So there you go. It's one of those things. If you needed it, you'd be happy. You had it. You would kind of like that Polish army folding field chair.
Starting point is 02:00:16 If you needed it, you'd be pretty happy. You got it. Oh God. He ever been in a spot where you're like, I would like nothing more than to sit right now. Like you're kind of usually in a death. Typically when that happens, you're in a spot where you're like, I would like nothing more than to sit right now? Like, you're kind of usually in a... Typically when that happens, you're in a very desperate situation,
Starting point is 02:00:29 so a Polish Army folding field chair would really make things turn around for you. It's funny. Both of those things could happen, and you'd be really happy you had both of those things, although they'd be very different situations. And one, your legs are just kind of tired. But maybe they're also not so different situations if you think about it. That's true. That's a good point.
Starting point is 02:00:49 You know, if a bomb goes off, there's a good chance all your chairs are gone. So a Polish Army folding field chair could be the thing to really bring comfort back into your life. They should offer a bundle where if you order both together, you save a little bit. If you get the field chair along with the potassium iodide i like it yeah all right make sure to check out everything in the new drop i've got again i've got the new hoodie over here i can't really see it everything i'm holding up is not part of the hoodie that you can just showing you like random green parts of a hoodie yeah Yeah, it's hard to show them off on screen, isn't it? When you sit so close to the camera.
Starting point is 02:01:28 I see I was over here judging you before and now I realize the folly of my ways is not quite so easier said than done situation. Yeah, especially when there's two cameras you got to show it to. I know, which one do I go to? So check out the items in the new drop, snag those, buy them all
Starting point is 02:01:44 and we won't take them to the Arnold. Like us on YouTube. Check out the new YouTube videos coming out every week-ish for now, right? Every week for now. This just in, Tanner. Your first video went so good. YouTube is already sending us the Platinum Play button. We've totally changed the game as far as youtube goes
Starting point is 02:02:05 about time i can hang that up right back there maybe yep or you can put it right i don't know yeah in one of these here yeah right look nice on your shelf there it would you can i'll take the platinum one and you can have the or wait which one what's the best one i think it's platinum isn't it oh okay you can have the platinum one. I'll take the gold. I guess we haven't hung that gold one up yet already that we have. Let's see. Silver. Do you need 100,000 subscribers for silver?
Starting point is 02:02:35 That's what I'm curious what they give you. There's silver. Okay, silver, gold, and diamond awards. Is diamond a milli? Silver is once you reach 100,000 subscribers. That would be pretty cool to get one of those. Gold is a million. Diamond is 10 million. Wow.
Starting point is 02:02:51 That's a lot. Then there's the Custom Creator Award. It's if you reach 50 million. Wow. Oh, and then there's also a Red Diamond Award, which is 100 million. Not too many people in that camp oh i think we could do it though i mean what what's really holding us back other than a few weekly youtube blog videos just
Starting point is 02:03:13 yeah a few videos that's all that's holding us back see we haven't been doing it so we don't know like now we're about to find out if this is what takes us there it's going to take it to the next level leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Please help us get to 500. We've got something real big planned for when we get to 500. And we got that ball in motion, so we just need to help you get it to 500 so we can push it the rest of the way down the hill. And, Tommy, where do they find you at?
Starting point is 02:03:40 You can find me at Tomahawk underscore D. You can follow me at Tanner underscore Baird, but just make sure to follow Massonomics at massonomics see you

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