Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Fall of the American Mob

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

The Fall of the American Mob

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Conditions apply. The mob. It's a boutique street gang at this point. It's not even a fraction of what it was. You know that because they're all on YouTube. Those mobsters in Canada would never be on YouTube. So now it's just, oh, oh, you're a rat. He's a rat. For me, cooperating, it's been nothing but upside. I mean, to me, it's like, that was a best decision. And of a series of long, bad decisions. This was the right one. I'm one of six kids, family. emigrated from Italy, 1959. So they moved to Lisbon, New Jersey, which was basically an area that most of the

times from my area lived, also from Sicily, which happened to be where a lot of the mob guys lived. Then my father left when I was two. So my mother raised, literally was left with six children, didn't speak the language, and we were pretty much screwed. So my mother was all about us. So she got a job cooking at a cafeteria so she could be off when we were off. and basically she just bootstrapped all of our lives to make sure we would kind of get what we needed to get.

And to me, I had some temptations over time, but I just didn't want to disappoint her. So I went kind of the straight route. I made sure I educated myself and that's it like I would to have such a great mom. Right. What about your brother and sister today? Did they ever, any of them stray off or they all kind of stick? Yeah. So my father was not a great guy.

And like I said, he left when I was two, left us all. And then we kind of re-engaged for a little bit, but for the most part, was estranged. So he passed when I was 17. And he was an alcoholic and had some challenges, right? So my two older brothers, one doesn't drink at all, kind of follows, you know, the hero role, if you will. Right. But then my other brother followed down, my father down that path, got into, like, drugs. And unfortunately, we lost him to addiction in when I was 21 years old.

Okay. Sorry. Well, I was just going to say it's funny how with families of alcoholics, you know, you can pick the roles of the kids. That's correct. You know what I'm saying? The imitator. Yeah, the, like you got the overachiever, the, the super, they have names. Like they all have the names.

It's really interesting. Yeah. So, I mean, what happened then? You went to, you go to high school. Yeah. So I, like I said, it's funny because I, I, everybody has this thing, at least in my, my audience and people that don't like me to have this thing that you like, you kind of said earlier, that I came from like kind of an upper middle class upbringing. Well, you kind of ivory towerish. Light brown hair, blue eyes, fair skin.

Like, you know, you don't, you don't scream Italian. Yeah. You know, and, you know, and also you know all this stuff and you're raised in these neighborhoods. So, I don't think you for the stereotype, right? No, so with that said, so. My family's from Italy, from southern Italy, from the mountains. So, like, we should be not dark because we weren't, like, from Sicily or the coastal areas. But, yeah, usually you have dark hair, dark eyes.

But my father actually had blue eyes. So pretty much everyone, all five children had blue eyes. My sister had brown eyes, has brown eyes. Right. So, so we all have blue eyes. We, like I said, just kind of like regular people, if anything, like at the time, I felt, like we never went without anything ever. But like looking back, being a father,

we were probably like at best middle class and like at best, but struggled. Right. Really struggled. I mean, I was a kid. I wanted to play saxophone. It was like 13 bucks. And my mother like made some excuse why we couldn't do it.

And I thought like she was kind of being a jerk. I couldn't afford it. Yeah. So I decided to have high school years. I actually kind of wanted to do two things. One is I wanted to be self-sufficient because I don't want my mother to rely on me. So I actually like doubled up in all my course. So I could take a kind of work study in high school and typically work study at the time. I don't think they still do it. It's typically you go to do a trade. You go, you know, whether you want to be a plumber or electrician, whatever that was. So I got into this company at the time as a pharmaceutical company, but I'm like, you know what? I really want to go to school. So I actually attended school full time, where I work in full time. So I'd knocked out my degree in four years, my undergraduate degree in four years. But I worked an average of 50 hours a week. So I went at nights and weekends of school. And, um,

I went to nights and weekends at school, and I worked my ass off. And one of my regrets is there was a Saturday that I was actually at school, right? Because that's the only time I can go. And I went to school around my house. And my mother was home by herself. My mother had me at 44. Like I said, in the last six kids. There was a home invasion.

She's in her 70s. My mother talked about gangster. The guy held a knife to her neck and says, you tell me where everything is or I'm going to kill you. She says, you're going to do it anyway, so why help you? right imagine a 70 year old italian mother broke in english with a knife to your neck and her saying if you're gonna do it anyway it might as well do it because i'm not gonna make it easier for so when i came home everybody was over and it was like something's not right and i was like wow like if i was home because she was like making it look like i was home right saturday it was like

28 or whatever the time at 26 of the time and and uh i was like damn i'm trying to do better for myself and like try to like have a great education try to like really like do the right thing. And then meanwhile, I'm not even there to help my mother when she gets home invaded. So like it's always been like dichotomous for me. Um, so after I got my undergraduate degree by working full time, I was at a company that would pay for it. So I went for my master's degree, something I always wanted to do. Um, I like to kind of have my hands in both worlds. I like to understand how business works like in practice and reality. But then I also like to learn the academic side. So you kind of like know how things operate and you can really kind of put

together and winning the long game, not like the short-term nonsense that a lot of people get involved with. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, you ever see those? I don't think people, I don't think most people in school or most kids in school realize that, you know, there's a long-term plan. There's a strategy. And, you know, your education is important. But, you know, listen, I'll take a guy, take a guy that's been doing it for 10 years in the field over somebody who's got a two to four-year degree. That's right. Oh, I got out with this degree. Yeah. Yeah, okay, but this guy's been doing it for 10, 20 years. And to me, I was fortunate where I was at a company that would pay for it, so why not have both?

Right. So I would go to school, I graduated from Rutgers Newark, right? So I go to class and I see, like, respectfully, an African-American woman next to me, sometimes bringing their kids a class. And I'm sitting here and I'm like, wait a second, I'm like really not appreciating what I have here. Well, and I was thinking that you were, you were lucky you were in a good spot. You know, so what's so messed up is that most people, they're in their mid-20s before they realize, listen, this isn't working for me. I need to go back to school or I need to get a trade or I need to do this. But by that time, you've got two kids.

That's right. You've got two kids and you're trying to pay child support. You're trying to be a dad. You're trying to work full-time. Your full-time job's not cutting it. And now you're going to add on student loans and school. Like, man, like, you should have been making these. These are the decisions that should have been made when you were 17 years old.

And you already knew you were going down the wrong. Well, and then, and then, so for example, Rutgers, if you're in New Jersey, has a lot of different campuses, right? And at the time, I was dating a girl who was in the New Brunswick campus. So one time I went to the New Brunswick campus, again, at 7.30 at night, tired, like, shot, got to be up, you know, 6 o'clock next morning, had another class, I think, at, like, 9.30 p.m. And next thing, I noticed, I'm dude walking in and smelling, like, weed kind of hanging out. Because that was, like, kind of the main college, and most people go full time.

Like, this is not for me. I need to go back to Newark. Right. I only went there because I wanted to be closest to the girl I was dating. But my point being is I wanted to be like around people that are struggling to get where they need to get and I need to appreciate what I have as a result because my struggle was just time, right? Like I could have went to school full time and but I would lose out on opportunities in a career.

I wanted to do both and it kind of worked out. I then, to be honest, then I got my master's degree like I said because like when I interview criminals, I think a lot of criminals, we'll talk about that a little bit, is the last of exit strategy, when I go into any business that I get involved with, if I put a dollar into something, if I have any effort or anything, I think of exit strategy even before I start. Right. And that's one thing I learned in business school. You always need to know your exit strategy before your start, because otherwise, you're

not going to do it forever, right? Right. So that's one of the things I learned. And for the most part, I had some exits that were pretty profitable and I'm working on some stuff to hopefully exit soon, but that's one of the things I learned. Yeah, I was going to say, like, to me, everything. everything I've done since prison has had been like, okay, I'm doing this because it's moving me towards this goal.

That's correct. It may not look like it's doing much at this moment, but it's moving. And half the stuff I'm doing cannot work at all. It doesn't matter. Yep. But if half of it does work, it's moving me towards my ultimate goal. That's correct. And it's, you know, I've been lucky so far that it's, I'm trudging along.

But I don't think most people think that. Most people think about, you know, this weekend. They're in it for the short game. Yeah. You got to be in it for the long game. You have to put mechanisms in place to make that happen. You have to be patient. Yeah.

Like I have a small company, but a marketing company. And on my team, we say fire bullets before fire cannons. Think about if, like, we were on a pirate ship and we were getting invaded, you only have so much gunpowder, right? Right. If you start shooting cannibals, you'd be out of gunpowder, we're going to get invaded. But if I start shooting bullets, and once I hit the mark, that's when you put the resources out.

That's when you take the extra gunpowder and start using the cannibals. once you kind of nail that pivot point, and then you double down. So you've got to experiment a lot. You're going to fail probably 90% of the time. But once you kind of get those wins, that's when you double down and that's when you win. So how, you know, how did that, that whole thing morph into where you're at, you know, now? Like you started working for the pharmaceutical company. Yeah, so I did that.

How long did you do that? Pharmaceuticals I did for 15 years. And then I got into, wow, how old are you? I'm 48, just turned 40. Yeah. Sorry. I didn't know. I thought you were, I thought you were, I thought you were in, I thought you were in, no, I thought you were in your 40s, but you just threw 15 years and I'm figure you're got to be at 25 by the time.

I started around 17. Yeah, but I still for some reason think, to me, when you graduate with your master's degree, it's around 25. Yeah, I graduated my master's, I think at 26 years old, yeah. Okay, yeah. So you just threw 15 years on top of that, I thought. But remember, I went, I went currently, I went to, I literally worked full time where I went to school, literally. I literally worked no less than 50 hours a week why I attended either an undergraduate graduate. So I did 15 years with the pharmaceutical company.

And then I actually got into aesthetics. I used to sell Botox and fillers. Okay. And people were like laughing at me. My Italian family was like, called me the Botox boy. But it's a cash-based business. Yeah. And when it was a cash-based business, they pay really good commissions.

And when I was a manager, my top reps were making like 400K a year. It's not bad. It's big money. So I did that for a go. And that's in, that's in New York. Oh, that's what I'm a lot of stuff. You're like a millionaire. Yeah, yeah.

It's like a million a year. Well, not just that. You get like expense accounts. You get sometimes cars to pick you up for events. You, they pay for your parking. They give you a car. They pay for insurance. They pay for health insurance.

So the total package is actually someone higher. But interesting enough is that's where I met a lot of the celebrities that I met through that because they would get Botoxin filler from these plastic surgeons. Okay. And that's where you're kind of like the other one for you, product the guy that has a free product it's very like drug dealing but in in the legal sense um i was just thinking about the uh there's a there's a there's actually a a series on i want to say netflix called uh something pain or something or not pain or uh pain scam or pain heist or something

like that i forget it was about it was about oxycodone yeah um well i will i will tell you bit about that. So I'm in the pharmaceutical space, right? So I'm, I think I started in sales around 26, just got my master's, got into sales. And I actually worked in the Bronx for a number of years. That's where I started. So I would sit there in the Bronx and I'd be in a primary care office selling allergy medications. And the Purdue rep would be there. And I'm like, well, wait a second, you're like the oxycodone girl. What are you doing here? Right. Well, we're calling on primary care now. And I'm like, well, why? You go to pain clinics or get me ortho. Yeah, I said people that are in some serious pain.

So there's strategy in how they cause the... We got to get them young. Well, they literally cause the issue that we have now. Of course, yeah, yeah. Where they called on primary care doctors, they would take them out to dinner. Some had a low barret entry. I'd give me to dinner. Take me out.

Give me free this. Free this. I could be baseball games. So they got a whole crew that way. But then the other way they do it is pretty smart. They would say, hey, Dr. Matt, you are a thought. leader in your area, you know, like your primary care doctor in the Bronx and your half Medicare, Medicaid. And like, but meanwhile, this state was paying for. Again, lobbying by the

powers that be. So, oh, you're a thought leader. And you're going to talk about how these can be used first line. Right. For pain. Now they give you a thousand bucks, they give you a quarter go to dinner. You speak at a table of two or three of the doctors. I was going to, and we'd love for you to do a speaking engagement and we'll pay you for this speaking engagement. Right. And then, And it's like, you know, no obligation to prescribe the medication. That's right. That's right. You know, well, you know what happens.

We had data on what doctors wrote. So now you're a speaker for me. Right. And even at the local level as a rep, I control the budget, how many speakers I have, are the manager like, hey, use Dr. Matt a little bit more. So all of a sudden, you notice you're writing more, but you start getting four or five gigs a month. Yeah.

This does not include the jaunts to Cancun. Yeah. The annual meetings, that kind of stuff. And the other part is the system was broke, so you're a primary care doctor, you went to school that whole time and you're making like $250 a year net, but you have $400,000 in debt. Yeah. So now what? So now I need to make another 50 from Purdue, another 50 from Merck and another $100,000 from here. Now you add it up.

You're probably making more consulting than you're actually getting from your actual job. And then what happens is they start writing these pills first line for pain. Now people get addicted. And they never really thought the fact, like I just did that. day stood out to me. I'm like, why would you be here at a primary care office? And not just that. And let's say the Bronx, there wasn't one rep. They had four different reps calling on the same doctor. Right. So they figured if I liked him, I might write him out a relationship or if I'm busy that day, somebody else will get me. And that's why we have the issue we have today. And then that's

lead to fentanyl and all that kind of stuff. And it's scary. The farm is that that was Purdue. And I know Purdue paid a big fine, but no jail time. Yeah. And they kept their money because they put it in, they put in trust that are protected. The Steckler family, something like that. I probably said it wrong. I was going to say, yeah, it's kind of like the cigarette manufacturers, you know, when they would put commercials on and they had like, you know, cartoons in them,

with a cartoon characters smoking cigarettes. You remember what was it, Marlboro, the number one doctors recommended, number one cigarettes recommended by doctors? Yeah. And you have, and you have a doctor smoking cigarettes. See, that's where we're to wear a time. You and I are old enough to remember those, like such nonsense. Yeah. I remember that.

Listen, my dad, my dad who started smoking was 13, he can remember when he said that the advertisement that he used to see was that smoking helped strengthen your lungs. He's like, so there was a decade went by. He's like, nobody ever said that it was bad for you. Yeah. Like, this is something that's good. helps curb your appetite. He was, it was cheaper than eating, and they were, you know, they were poor. Yeah.

So you give, you know, you're smoking half a pack a day. It's basically replacing meals. I mean, you're a skinny little kid, but you're 14, 15 years old. Your parents aren't pushing you really against it because they can barely feed you to begin with. Yep. I remember my father, because I was with him on weekends later in life when he kind of came back around, he would smoke, Paul Mall. Yeah. My dad smoked Paul Mall. Yeah. So Paul Mall reds, I mean, there's other ones, but it was a big red, a little kind of little thing or something on there, little line, whatever it was. He smoked golds, sorry, the polo golds.

Yeah, okay. So, and the funny thing is, it was normal back then. Like, hey, dad, when we're going home? Oh, I need to finish my wine. Right. And drink, like, after seven other glasses of wine. And I need to have, like, another cigarette. And then we'll go.

Okay. Now we're going to drive. Yeah, let's go. Let's go drive your kids home. So then on top it, it will be in the car with the window shut smoking while we're driving. You know, no, seat belts. No, oh, no.

My dad had a, um, I forget, it was like, a Lincoln or Continental or something, where they had, do you remember the T-tops? Yeah. So the T-tops. So I remember, he used to let me stand up in the seat, hold on to the thing while we were driving and it would be windy. And he should, we're driving, no seatbelt. I mean, if there was anything happen, I'm going out of that car.

So, or I also remember taking family vacations and the back seat where the window came down was probably about two feet. Yeah. I could lay up there. And I would lay down and go to sleep up. there no seatbelt yeah so you're driving across country no seatbelts that's right do you remember the station wagon where in the back of the station wagon with in the back of the station wagon they could open it up and it had seats yes yeah that was we had that station wagon no seatbelts

yeah you're just hanging out in the back my father we said he had a station wagon and i remember like one time and i was young there was kind of like a stuff that moving around in the back like you know you hear a clock it's a loaded shotgun a loaded shotgun right and like he didn't hide it there was no there was no biometrics like i remember like when i go to his place because he lived in elizabeth and not a great not a great part uh and he one day he opened the door and just somebody threw a knife at him and he turned and i just like saw this knife like fly past him and he shuts the door and like i knew where the shotgun was he just opens like no biometrics no like separate compartment opens up the closet

it takes out the shotgun and starts walking on the street looking for these people like you can't make this shit up those are the days right so you're in the pharmaceutical yeah you go you know what happens during that time so you know why do you end up getting out of yeah so so again the kind of two parts so in the pharmaceutical and i just noticed like anything reimbursed wasn't making as much so like i like you know as a farm school manager at the time like kind of area director and I was looking at my team, right? They were making good money. My top rep for them was maybe making $130,000,

which is a lot of money, especially back then. But I just noticed they kept like in the comp plan making less, less and less. So I said that's when I went into aesthetics because it was cash business. I ran that for 14 years. And you still make good money doing that, but that also kind of got cracked down to other competitors.

They don't want to pay as well. A lot of discounting, a lot of other stuff. So I was making really great money there. And then it was time for me to run my own business. I just couldn't, as much money as I was making and I said to my I remember like I was having a cigar with a friend and we're making really good money and he goes to me he goes Tom he goes you know what's stopping us for making three million dollars I said what he goes 300,000 and he's right when you're making 300,000

a year you're comfortable you're good you're happy or you think you're happy right but you still got to pay for the dry cleaning you're still W2 you get crushed on taxes all right you're expected have lifestyle inflation those two or three weeks off or 20 grand vacations because you're you You've got to live the life because you're kind of hanging out with these doctors. Right. So there's like some transference going on. So you try to keep up what the Joneses. And I said to myself, if I want to make money, I want to make it for me.

So I started a media company, marketing company about 10 years ago. Right. And what is a media marketing company? So, I mean, what's a basic client? Yeah. So we like, we're heavy in, because we're connections in the plastic surgery space, you can ever tell by looking at me. I'm like the plumber with the leaky pipe.

So I should use my own people. but I like high margin stuff. Like so, for example, if you are a plastic surgeon and your pain is, let's say, five grand a month, we get you one boob job, you make your money back. So we like high margin customers. So we tend to be heavier in cash-based businesses and places that are higher margin. More on the, again, aesthetic and plastic surgery side, but we do other stuff. But then I kind of leverage that into some media properties.

I own a large magazine in a Jersey called New Jersey Digest. We reach about a million and a half people a month. And I have new theory, which is the podcast. magazine what does the magazine do what do you have an online magazine there's mostly lifestyle oh okay oh i didn't know that yeah i i have about four to five uh different streams of income four of them are passive so that's what i'm able to do the show and that kind of stuff but i have different like different irons in the fire and you started a podcast in 2016 yeah okay yeah we just figured that out by the way before you got here we we pulled up the app the audio the audio is terrible

right but i interviewed like jordan belford Gary Vaynerchalk out if you know him I love I mean you know it's funny I don't really watch this stuff anymore but when I was on the halfway house Oh forget it you know because it gets it gets repetitive Yeah yeah And then he started pushing like crypto

And NFTs and NFTs Travel Zoo So he um he So he was interesting because I interviewed him And he was still very big And so the wine library where his father was Right he was speaking there And I was able to get an interview with him

So don't mind you this is when Like he's big now, but he was like big er back then as a caricature. Like now he's Gary Vaynerchuk, the business guy, the mogul, but back then he would get like 5,000 people to show up at a place if he was dropping sneakers or something. So he was actually at the wine library at his father's place. And I had an interview set up with him. And there's about 300 people still online, buying his wine. And he liked my move.

I said, hey, Gary, I want to come interview you. By the way, how many cases of wine do I need to buy? Right. And he wasn't really quit pro quo, play for play, but he appreciated the gesture. So I got a few cases while I was there. And I waited. He goes, and he kept apologizing because he gives time to people. He's legit.

He does the whole like two liners. Yeah. But I do think he's sincere. So he's literally like, hey, Tom. He's like saying, Tom, wait, wait, wait, wait, well, I'll interview. Because he wants, you know, say, I'll let everybody. And I'm scheduled to interview him afterwards. He apologized like six times.

Right. Gary, take your time. Like, I'll wait for all. I'm nobody. Yeah. I am nobody. so he was done I interviewed him

a great interview I told the Jordan Belford story we were supposed to have cigars with him but he brought up his friend who had his pregnant wife so we interviewed him in a hotel again these are just all audio because it's what it was back then

I just had a lot of great interviews over the years some billionaires Grant Cardone I don't know if you follow him he's out of Florida so I did a lot of I was always really good at getting guests and I was audio only up in probably until about like 2020 2020 one. Then they went to YouTube.

Oh, okay. Or we got more serious about YouTube. Okay. Yeah, but there's, I mean, because there's videos that are like four years old, but they're not, I don't think they're videos. Yeah. Yeah. So some of the older stuff is either audio stream and I did an occasional video. Yeah.

Well, I was going to say, would there, are they on your thing? Because we were, we were looking and there were stuff that was like four years old. So that's four years old. That's four years old. It was more likely an audio stream. Oh, okay. Because when you, like, have like, a traditional audio, because it's MP3 and MP4, you know all that. Um, you can see.

stream from your audio to video so it's just an audio file i barely know anything about that so oh colby does that's what that's all that matters half the stuff that i'm clicking on it's like you know i'm just figuring out stuff i'm like that's what that means there's a difference between mp3 and mb4 so uh yeah i was i was going to say um and then but when you first started putting stuff on your podcast it was you're saying initially it was business stuff but so it kind of morphed. Yeah, I interviewed Frances. Was one of my big interviews.

Then I interviewed Johnny A. Like, so what happened I saw was whenever I do like a mob podcast versus maybe a regular, even successful notable guy, even like Gary V. Right. The mob podcast would do about like five to eight X higher. Right. Then the regular videos. Yeah.

So then I was like, you know what? Let me start doing more mob stuff. Yeah. So I started doing that around 2020, 2020, 2021. Well, and you already, you already know that the history. Yeah. Right? Because you said you kind of basically grew up around these guys.

Like you were talking about like your, you're, yeah, my first, my first cousin married, my father's side married, Sammy the Bull's niece. We had another relative marry, somebody who was a Jersey boss and just was kind of like around all these things. But what was interesting enough is my mother hated them up. She aborted them up. She felt they were bad people. They felt they were like a leech on a bunch of society, but the Italian-American society.

And so she kept us away as much as she could. Yeah. So what it did was, little bit of the opposite where it developed a fascination where I probably read about 300 mob books I've interviewed I know like I get like shit for this but I either the most inducted members more than Vlad more than PBD I think nine at this point um so I'm just really fascinated by like how it kind of coexisted with the Italian American culture but again I also like the business aspect people like well how can you interview an informant I don't care if they were an informant

well why do they inform I look at it this way I have a company I hire the wrong person that shit's on me. I heard the wrong person. I can't say, well, they're a bad employee. Well, I pick them. Right. And that's, I pay the price. So I don't look at informants being necessarily the bad guys. It's the people that made them or the people that brought them around where they had a blind spot towards them and now they pay the price. Well, you know, and it's like, we talked about this last night where it was like, okay, like, you know, that informant's walking around. Yeah. Like, you know, like there were, to me, like, Omarta, right? And actually remember I, who wrote the Godfather?

Mara Puzzo. He wrote another one called. Oh, okay. Well, he wrote one of, I think it was called, it was called Omarta. Yeah. And he talks about the whole thing where it was like, you know, part of the, kind of like what we talked about last night where it's, you get arrested, you go to jail. We make sure you're okay.

Correct. We make sure your family's okay. Correct. We pay for your lawyer. Like, will we help you out? You don't say anything. Yeah. That's not what's happened.

But that's not what happened. Like, everybody forgets about that. Now it's just keep your mouth shut. Yep. Keep my mouth shut. My family loses their house. My kids end up on, everybody ends up on food stamps. You know, my wife's got no money.

I got no money in here. There's no support. And all you guys are, and, but then it becomes the threat of if you snitch, you'll get killed. Correct. But now you don't do that either. Yep. So now it's just, oh, oh, you're a rat. Oh, oh, he's a rat.

Like, where, okay, great. Where's the, it's like for me cooperating. Not that I have anything to do with the mob or there's any kind of COVID. with my whole thing. But it's been nothing but upside. I mean, to me, it's like, that was a best decision. And I have a series of long, bad decisions.

This was the right one. Well, so if you unpack that a little bit, right? The construct as is, right? So if you look at it and you're a criminal, right? Because you were a criminal. And let's say you happen to be Italian American or you happen to be an associate of an Italian American crime family, it wouldn't make sense.

You have a brotherhood. You have protection. You have a little swag. He had more resources, maybe money, capital, maybe bigger heist, bigger stuff, bigger rackets. So that makes sense, right? So then your Italian guy, you get inducted should be, oh, wow, if I go away, yeah, there should be a mailbox every month, mailbox money, right? Right. In jail, oh, the first day you get to, hey, here's your shower slides, here's this, here's that.

Oh, you're going to talk to this guy. I'll get to make sure the yard, you're protected. Oh, he's with us, right? That doesn't happen, right? So all this construct of like, if, and when you get out, there should be, oh, wow, we kept your book going. here's 500K because you serve 10 years for the family. None of this happens. Now, if you have a good captain, it does happen.

Or maybe some regard is like the Genovese family. I think they have a war chest for that. But a lot of these guys that manage a war chest, they mismanage it or they keep the money because agreed. So what you sign up for, especially in the American mafia, which is different than the Italian mafia, which we'll talk about in a minute, if you will, it's, it's, they just, they fucked it up.

They were, they had, they were so powerful, they were able to influence presidential campaigns for when so when I interview current mobsters, I'm like, hey, did you have a local politician on the hook? No. Oh, did the Likaze family have this guy or as their, no? Then what are you guys doing? Right. You know what's so funny about that is that if you asked me, did you have a local politician? You did? Well, that's why I brought it up. You know, like I did have a local. I actually had several local politicians. I actually donated to the mayorial campaign to believe. sides. I mean, we went to all the functions. I had accountants. I had doctors. I had lawyers.

I had police officers. One of several police officers I worked with where I was doing fraudulent loans for them and getting them cash back. Luckily, I was doing that because one of those guys is the guy that came to me and said, FBI's coming to arrest you. To be honest with you, that really ultimately went bad. I should have just been arrested. I've been better off. The point is, is that, is that, But if you talk to one of these guys, like, they don't have any of that. Correct. They're basically just shaking down people and running books and hoping not to get caught. And because they – so if you really think about it, right?

So the American Mafia kind of at one point had some utility, right? So, for example, you were in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Howard Beach, Morris Park, Bronx, even though it lives in the Jersey, right? And God forbid, your sister or daughter got sexually assaulted. Right. you go to the cops this they have to follow the law what can they go to local wise guy that stuff to take care of right

they would be like honor killings right or there would be honor beatings so the stuff was expediting the mafia is much more expedient than the government you know that so the problem is the Italian American neighborhoods basically dissipated so now they no longer had like kind of that local strength

because there really no super Italian American neighborhoods around anymore if there are they're not as mopped up so then it's like they didn't really evolve and because they didn't evolve and he had Rico and he had informants. That's why they are where they are today. Yeah, I was going to say, I forget who I talked to. They were saying that John, or maybe it was a documentary,

where they were saying like, listen, that John Gotti, well, first of all, Rico destroyed the mob, right? But they also were saying that John Gotti did more damage to the mom than any, than the law enforcement ever did. I actually disagree with that. I'm going to tell you why. Because don't get me wrong, you should not be on Time Magazine. and they should not be talking to the media,

but it's like a train, right? A train's going to 100 miles an hour and you slam on the brakes. There's going to be inertia for a while before it stops. There was two critical cases in the eight. It's actually three, but two to name real quick was the commission trial, which got rid of all the major bosses, right?

And then the Windows trial, which took away one of the bigger rackets. So I took away the leadership, he took away their money. The inertia behind that was like, well, Gotti came on board. He could have been the best boss on the planet. it's just the wind the they just did not move quick enough and they weren't dynamic enough

to to move it was literally a chess match with the fbi and they lost right well i mean he had he had a couple of good run he had a couple of missed he had he had i think a good six seven year run at boss which is just kind of expected you're at six seven years you're you're you're legit nowadays it's different you're quieter and you could have a nice run but back then six seven runs Paul Castellano, people try to make it look like Paul Castellano was chose by Carl Gambino and then Neil Delacroach, you know, was upset about it. God, he was upset about it. Castellano had a nice 10-year run, but Castellano was taking the mafia in the right direction. They needed to go more towards legitimate business. Right. That's right. I had I had heard just based on the limited knowledge, I have that he was more business oriented than he was.

Correct. Not that he was above having someone, you know, taken out. Or, you know, whatever, breaking someone's legs or anything. But he was very much more trying to legitimate, legitimize their, the mob structure. Correct. So. But talk about exit strategy and generational wealth. So we have a family friend who actually has a fraud dealership here in Tampa and one

in Orlando. I think the Tampa was one the largest in the country and one in Orlando. But he also fixes them in Elizabeth. So, where does Christmas party, holiday party? and I see this guy come and he's picking up a frari and he's on the phone and like you pick up

any car hey you gotta walk through here's this GPS blah it's a frari so you have to be he's like hey the guy's trying to show him what to do and the guy's on the phone right

wants nothing other than just get the keys and leave right I'll figure it out yeah and like he just didn't care right he was like picking up a Honda it was a relative cast line I don't want to say which one but a relative cast line

and my point being is they had concrete companies that are still around to this day, chicken companies, meat companies, he set them up for, like, bigger things. Right. You know, like, colavita, olive oil, that's profanji. Right. So my point being is the guys that follow, like, kind of the business end of things and

followed, had like an exit strategy and generational wealth. Fat Tony Salerno was worth like $600 million when he died. There was a time that if you were an Italian American man, especially an Italian American criminal, it made sense. If you're a wise guy now and you don't really super juice, then you're probably making like 60 grand a year. Yeah, I was going to say, and you're risking going to jail for 10 or 15 years. For what?

That guy, I interviewed Jeff, right? Definitely do. They do. And he gave a great story where he was talking about how there was a guy that got picked up that hung out with Merlino. Yes. And they went to him and said, we want you to cooperate. And he said, no. And everybody else that had the same charges were getting a year, 18 months.

And he got like nine years. Yep. Because they knew he could give them Merlino and he refused to. Yep. So, okay, we're going to hammer you. He was like, so, you know, Jeff was saying, like, hanging out with these guys, they think it's cool. Correct.

And they think, well, I'm not going to cooperate. Well, then you need to be expected to do 10 years when you should be doing 18 months. Yeah, I interviewed an ex, well, he wasn't in the cartel, but he had the cartel connections. And one of my always, one of my questions I always had was the Italian mafia pretty much started the heroin trade in the U.S., right, back to the 60s. Okay. In my opinion, that's why they had Appalachian meeting in 57 because there was a meeting

in Sicily. They said, we're going to go ahead and control the national pipeline up until the 80s or in the Pizza Connection trial. That was another important trial. So when Coke got big, why went to Columbia and just go to the Italians and say, hey, you have 26 cities, you have distribution. Once you, why don't we, we'll get it to New York, we'll get it to L.A., we'll get it to Chicago.

You guys distribute it. Cartel guys wanted nothing to the Italian Mafia because he increased FBI presence. right so that's why they went to other ethnic groups in themselves they distribute themselves essentially now or other ethnic groups wanted nothing to do with the italians um you know which was a big opportunity i'm not i don't condone drugs drugs have personally devastated my family's life but from a business perspective i think the italian mafia uh lost out because they did not get involved of drugs the indragada which is in calabria they got involved at coke early and now they make 50 billion dollars here so do you know who saff ferrante is of course i interviewed

him. Oh, I was just going to say you should interview him. He did a, was it, was a dope. I think it was the documentary. Is it dope man? What's his name? A white boy Rick? Yeah, yeah. But no, he, I mean, he did that, but he also did, he just did a recent one. Yeah, he did a dope man. I think it was about how the Italians were the original dope man. Yeah, yeah, where he was saying like they, you know, they pushed that they weren't, but they were. Like all these guys have been arrested for. Yeah. A little here, a little there. So we were talking. earlier about well before the podcast we were talking about how the so at one point you know the italian mob yeah the mob in you know canada yes the mob in the u.s like they were basically all kind of on par with one another correct and then you know like to me i give this to the you know to the FBI, right? And to Rico and how they pursued them, you know, insistently. And they've, and I was like, you know, like, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, a boutique, um, street gang at this point, you know, uh, you know, it's flashy. It's nice. It looks good. Uh, it's, you know, everybody knows about it kind of. You know, it's got a, it's kind of got a sexy appeal to it.

Yeah. Some, some people. Um, you know, but it's not the mom. It's not even a fraction of what it once was. And so, but you could, and you, one, I was saying, you know, you know that because they're all on YouTube. Yeah. Like, you know, I'm even guys that people say, no, he's still, you know, even Merlino, people, everybody out there, now Merlino's not saying it. But of course not. But guys are still out there saying, no, he's still running, you know, the Philadelphia mob.

And he's on YouTube. So, you know, and then you've got guys that are saying, I'm. out of that life, or some of them cooperated, some didn't cooperate. You know, some guys, maybe they just kind of retired and they started a YouTube channel. And I get that. But the fact is, whether you're in or out of it, those mobsters in Canada would never be on YouTube. Hell no. You know, not at least, I mean, they would come in, they'd kill you.

You'd be lucky if your family didn't get killed just to send a message to everybody. They recently killed a woman in Canada, and they're not sure if she was collateral damage or if she's involved herself. but yeah, Canadian Mafia doesn't mess around. So here's kind of the other fascination. So I have the fascination of like kind of the business end of stuff, right? Right. Because that's my background.

But kind of just step back for a second. Okay. So you have Calabrians, let's say Sicilians, Canadians and Americans. So all essentially Italian or Italian American, all eat pasta on Sunday, all have matriarchs, kind of similar cultures, but living different parts of the world. Now, in Italy, they have very strict mafia laws, believe it or not, 41 bis. In the U.S., you can say, hey, I'm in the mafia, not illegal.

It could be a free mason, you can be whatever you want. Now, you can't participate in legal activities, but you can't be in the mafia. In Italy, if you're in the mafia, you're arrested just for being in it for mafia association. And they throw you in special jails and they restrict your rights. So in Italy, they actually have harsher laws. In Canada, the laws are much more lax, but still with America, detached from the motherland, kind of American eyes or Canadian eyes. So it was a cultural thing.

So as the Americans waned, the Indragada became the most powerful criminal organization in the world. The way they did it was, first, by kidnapping. In the 80s, they would kidnap anybody and anybody who had money. Getty, his grandson. Oh, okay. They kidnapped his grandson. Right. And they negotiated whoever it was down.

I think they wanted to say a million dollars or $5 million or whatever back then. They negotiated a certain amount because that's so much, Paul Getty could write off on his taxes. Right. Yeah. And then. And the little bit, and the little bit that went over, he got it as a loan to the father, who was a father of the kidnapped son, and at an interest rate of like 10%. So it wasn't like, hey, here you go to save your grandson or our grandson.

I can write this off and you've got to pay the loan to the rest. But the mafia knew that. The collaborativeian mafia knew that. So they made their money off of kidnapping. To the point, there was actually in the Italian newspaper a section called the sequester. So there was sequester season, which is kidnapping season, where there were so many kidnappings to the point that it actually made national news. And it would say, hey, here's other people that are currently kidnapped. Wow.

And they were all held for ransom people paid them. Otherwise, they would kill them. So they made the money off a kidnapping. Once it became wealthy from that, they, the Sicilians control the heroin trade, the Sicilian mafia, the actual Sicilian. And they realize heroin customers, they die. Right. And they're poor. It's not a good business model.

And they're lower in the economic scale. Right. What do Coke kids do? They got money and they come back. Yeah. They come back again and they give it to their friends. So they got really early on on the Coke to the point they actually build a port in Giottado. They built the port themselves to help import.

And to this day, they got to invest in your business. And to this day, they control 80% of the Coke trade in Europe. And Coke is much more expensive in Europe. Why the Americans are sitting there like Tony Soprano on the stump of, of a pork store. Yeah, we were talking about the Canadian match. I watched a documentary where they were explaining that at some point, this is 20 years ago, 25, 30 years ago in Canada, suddenly politicians started introducing bills saying,

we want to make casino gambling legal. Yes. And all, and, you know, the public came out, no, no, no. And then they, so then they have these hearings where they explain to the public, no, no, it'll be good. It'll bring in business. It'll bring in jobs. It'll bring it. And they're saying, we don't want it. And so you have some people obviously that do want it, but the locals are like, not in my neighbor, not in this city. So, but eventually those bills pass and those casinos get built. And then within a year or two, when their taxes are going through and they're being audited on a

regular basis, they start to realize like, these places are making it. There's a ton of cash going through here. And it's not making sense based on the, you know, on the statistics. statistical data that we have, like how many customers they have and what their people like, this isn't quite making sense. And they realized after about three or four or five years that, hey, this is a money laundering operation. And then when there's a huge investigation, they come in and they realize that what actually happened was the cartels went to the mob in Canada. The Canadian mob in Canada had the political connections to force to ask these or request that these bills be written so they could get the laws change so they could

build casinos so they could start laundering money for the cartels through the through the um uh through the uh casinos and it was like like the the long term plan and the intricacy and the like that's something that at this point in time yeah probably even 10 or 20 years ago because what are we 2000 or we're 24 yeah so you know that the the the the the the you The mob in the U.S. would have had them in the 8, 7, in the 50, 60, 70, 80s, they had that. Obviously, they had that. But now they don't. Well, so, again, if you kind of unpack that a little bit, and you had some great guests on that probably know this better than me.

But when you get to Coke over to Canada, sometimes a hard part is getting the money back. Right. So what you need to do is, again, they need the institutions, right? I think HSBC got tripped up in the U.S. So now they're hooked up with casinos. They learn, they do a smurfing. I don't know what it is. That's when I get my five cousins and I give them literally $10,000 to go gamble.

They go to the window at $900, $9,900, you know, $900, cash out that money, put it all together. Boom, that's $50,000 right there. Right. But it's done at scale, believe it or not. So when that's done is they kind of launder the money and help launder and legalize that money to be used. Even gift cards, believe it or not. That's why when you go to the store,

not just because of the scammers online but they were using gift cards that were laundering money as well believe it or not at 500 bucks each adds up after a while so point being is um the italian mafia in canada again is much different than that of the u.s and it's kind of split into two parts first you have the nutritional risuto family which veto risuto was smart he recognized that not everybody was italian that italians didn't control the streets right but to control the streets you need to control the distribution so he and he controlled the distribution of drugs, along with the Hells Angels, the Haitians, the Irish, and other street gangs that kind of work as a consortium to run the business and control the drug trade in Montreal.

Then you had the Intragara, which is an offshoot of the Collabian organization, and they literally the Camiso clan is probably one of the most powerful clans, not just in the Canada, but maybe in the world as a clan. They got tripped up about four or five years ago, and they took like 17 high-end cars, five Ferraris, four or $5 million homes, millions of dollars in jewelry. Somehow they got off on a technicality and they had to give it a little back. But Mafios here in the U.S. are running around Mercedes, Ferraris, Bentley's, Bogotis. They don't have that, but there they did. So they got off, I think, because they had institutional power.

But my point being is, the intonog of the big moneymakers, the risudos are also big money makers to the point that they actually us served to five families in New York by power and by financials. By far. I have a money laundering. Sorry. True.

Shocker. I have a, not me. I have a buddy. Although I did get hit with money laundering, but they dropped it. So it's like obviously half I have. What are we talking about? It's illegal money.

I have to get it out of the bank. So what happened was I had a buddy of mine's dad who retired. and he's retiring and you know you can go you go to obviously real estate agents and they'll be selling businesses like real estate people don't realize that that real estate brokers and stuff they actually sell businesses so he goes out and he retired early retired like in his early 60s got to pay out there was a bank he had had been bought out and it's like hey if you retire early you get a bigger bonus I'll take it so he goes I'm a banker I know what I'm doing

he goes out and he starts looking at different businesses one of the businesses he found was a a laundry mat. So he goes to the laundromat, looks at the guy's books for the guy to own it for like three to five years, looks at his books, and he's like, this guy's making bank. He's selling this for like half of what it's really worth.

So he gives him like $300,000 or $300,000 in cash, where it's worth like $800,000. It's banking. And he buys it and literally like the first month it's already losing. A lot. And the next month it's losing. And then so he fires some employees and then he goes in and he starts working some of the hours himself. And then the next month it's losing. And then he eventually after six months to a year, he gets it to a point where it's breaking even, but it's certainly not making any money. And he's dumped like 300,000 or 400, whatever it was into it. And within a year and a half, now he's using his pension to make the payments. And he went, you know what? That's it. And after 18 months, he closes it.

Wow. Completely. Completely. Like, closed, like he sells the machines off. He's like, it's not happening. He's not happening. And he doesn't know what happened and I don't get it. And, you know, I worked so hard and I don't understand.

You know, he lost this massive payout. Right off, right on something like that, that's obviously. So when somebody's selling a business so cheap or inexpensively is a red flag, that's part one. Right. And then number two is, even in this day and age, to pay somebody that much cash is also another red flag because they probably deal in cash themselves. Right. So it's like, oh, go, give you. 50,000 off if you pay cash, another red flag.

Right. Well, I was going to say, once again, I don't know whether it was 50% off. Whatever it was, it was a great deal. Yeah. No, but that's the business is the first red flag. But the second is, especially when you put out that kind of money, you actually say, hey, you know what, I want to hang out for two weeks. Right. And just sit in a chair, grab a newspaper, grab your phone, and just hang out for two weeks.

The other thing is, first of all, why would you go into a business that you have? You've been in banking for your entire life. You don't suddenly say, I'm going to open up. I love everybody wants to open a restaurant. What are you talking about? That's why most of them fail. You have no experience owning a restaurant. You open one and within a year, six months to two, within a year and two years there, they're going under.

That's right. They go on. You don't know what you're doing. Anyway, so what happens is five or six years later. Keep in mind, this guy's been doing this for 10. The guy he bought it from has owned dozens of these things. And he tends to, now, you don't, he doesn't know this at the time, but five. Five years later, he realizes this guy's now been doing it, 15 years, 10 prior, five cents.

15 years, one day he opens up the newspaper. He's been, he's been indicted and he's been arrested for money laundering. He's been taking drug money and laundering it through the laundromat and doing the books correctly. So it looks like the business is making a chunk of money. And he's doing it for very little cash because his. long-term goal was, I do it for five years, I put it on the market, I sell it, I make myself 500, I make, I said, whatever I was making in general, and that money, you know, plus charging, whatever I'm charging to launder this money, but eventually what happened was, you know,

this guy got busted, talked about this guy who talked about this guy, who talked about how they're laundering their money, they just washed them for a little bit. But look what happened to my buddy's dad. He lost his entire, his payout, his entire inheritance, and he's living on social security and he had to claim bankruptcy you're you're now 62 63 years old claiming bankruptcy and you're basically living off of social security and a small pension well and if you think about it the guy that sold it to him he's got his money he'll probably go to jail do some time and probably give up some money that's the other thing too so even if you're in the money laundering game with forensic accounting nowadays so you know the old days you would have the laundry mat

and then the cartel whatever would have a linen company so you'd pay them. Or vendors. You'd pay out vendors and that kind of stuff. But then nowadays they do like forensic accounting. They'll follow the money trail. And a lot of these companies are shell companies that are closed down by the time they check them out. So you're on the hook. And number

two, like then you have to come up with that money. And if you weren't good with your money, now all of a sudden you, okay, go to jail, what, 10, 15 years? For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax.

until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. But they'll say, okay, you made this. And they'll inflate it. You know that. They'll say, oh, you made $15 million. These are all gotten games. You owe us $15 million and you have to go away.

And what are you going to do? I'm going to squeeze you. So it's not even like profitable in the long run. All right. Yeah. Yeah. And it crushed this guy. That's a sad.

That's sorry to hear that. So it's funny too because it's like in, in real estate, you know, it's extremely easy to get a lot of money, you know? And, you know, I'm surprised more of those guys don't get, don't get, don't get, don't get arrested for a little money. But one of the big moves, which is like the Russian oligarchs and the Russian guys is they'll buy apartments in Manhattan

for $150 million. Yeah. And they leave them like vacant, aren't they? They park it there. And then they get a, they buy a cash, $150 million. And then take a loan against $150 million because you don't get tax off loans. And then just make the payments. all that's tax deductible so that that's insane uh wrong the business so all right so you

started the channel you're interviewing these guys you interviewed um you interviewed um you interviewed uh michael franzis like three four times yeah um it's i was going to say that the one of the franzis i don't know which one i i i watched but i remember he was saying like if the mob was because he was basically saying like the mom is it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's there but it's nothing like it was there he's like the half the stuff that's going on in the streets wouldn't be going on that would be drug dealers on the corner there wouldn't be uh so so yeah i see that they at one point that was at one point that was a benefit yeah it's just not happening anymore it's like the spiders eating the flies right and now everybody's on the uh on the internet um arguing fighting it out over youtube what is uh what

what it uh wade said uh you he called it uh youtube wars no not you Word, he called it, what, he called it something, Tube Wars or YouTube Wars or something. He had a name for it. Yikes. And I had some guy in the comment section because, I mean, you know this, like in your comment section, like half of it are guys that are, they hate your guts for saying anything negative about their idol. Correct.

So your idol is, you know, your idol is Sammy the Bull and, you know, you do a podcast where you say something negative about them. And then the Sammy the Bulls fans come out and they just, they trash you. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And then you've got some guys that, you know, they tell you what you did wrong or what you did right, which is fine. I don't mind criticism.

But what I was going to say is it's funny. I had one guy who came out and said, this is pathetic. All you're doing. Because I've done a few mom videos, right? Which is funny because, like, I wasn't going to do anything on the mom. I don't have. I have no knowledge of the mom. That's the problem is I don't.

under i understand there's five families like i bet you i can only name two or three of the name of the family um and i know there's there's some big things i can't some things that happened you know um and i have some very brief understanding of what's what's happening at in this structure or whatever and all that's from movies or documentaries and so but wade was sending me some stories he's like yo bro have you seen this have you seen this and i'm like oh yeah yeah okay okay and then he goes we should do a video on that and i was like yeah okay so we did a video it's funny when we were done doing the video. I said, hey, do you want to put this up on your channel? He said, you know, that didn't go exactly the way I thought it was going to go. And I have a certain group of guys that watch my

channel. I'm going to go ahead and not post this. He said, you post it. So I was like, okay. Right. So I posted it. It's funny, though, he got a bunch of subscribers from it. Nice. And I told you, I said, told you you should have done. He said, no, I still think I made the right call. But what's funny is I remember one of the guys are screaming and hollering saying, you're a piece of garbage that you posted this all you're trying to get is views and i went what what do you think you're on youtube for like what do you think these guys everybody on you you're just talking about them to get views yeah yeah yeah and then i immediately did another video you know got another whatever 45 000 views it's like of course i'm gonna oh you're just chasing cloud what do you

think anyone is doing do you think that i'm going to make content about things that i'm I like, like, nobody wants to hear me talk about, you know, my fascination with Elon Musk going to Mars or colonizing the universe or any of the ridiculous things that I spend my off time thinking about and watching videos on. Nobody wants to hear me talk about World War II, you know, and my fascination with, you know, the European war versus the, like, you know, these guys aren't watching that. They want to hear about crime stories. And this is something that's trending. You jump on the trends, especially you have a channel you're trying to build. Correct. But it's so funny, I'll get these guys that talk shit, you know, your channel's going down.

If you're doing this kind of stuff, you're doing horrible, you're doing this, you're doing that. And I'm like, well, how's your channel going? I never hear anything. What channel? What do I have a channel, bro? I got a regular job. Shut up. Well, my favorite is you do like a pretty long form interview.

Yeah. And then somebody writes in the comments. Well, you should have asked them this. Oh, come back to New Jersey. Right. sit down, I'll pay for your travel, I'll pay for your car. Jimmy 21 wanted me to ask you.

With like a cat face with like a spike through it. How'd you buy your escalate? Yeah. And then we'll wrap that up and then and then we're good. Right. You know? Yeah, it's a whole presentation. Like guys complain about like, bro, like you was with all these commercials?

I don't know. Why don't you? Do you take the paycheck at the end of the week from your boss? You say, listen, bro, I'm not, I'm not here for all that. Like, if you think that I'm spending, I'm working, this is my full-time job now. That's how you make your money? Right. So you don't work your full-time job and give the money back.

This is my full-time job. They have no idea how long it takes. And I mentioned this before. I don't know if you've heard me say this, but I schedule seven interviews a week in the hopes that I get four. That's crazy. Sometimes I get five. Sometimes I get three. But that's crazy.

You feel people to honor their time commitments a least. No, I'm dealing with derelicks. These are bank robbers and thieves and guys that shoot people and they don't show up on time. I'm like, oh, let me get your email. So, you know, I talk, I'm talking on. Let me get your email so I can send you a calendar invite. And they're like, what? You know, a calendar invites.

You can put in your calendar. Nah, bro, I got it. I thought, this motherfucker's not showing. Like, you don't, you're a grown man. You're in your 50s. You don't use a calendar. I got the Google invite from you. Because I asked you for the address last night.

Then I looked in dresses in the, you run a very classy, very classy operation here. There you go. I just. Yeah, but let me ask you a question, though. So, so like I'm a, I like to think a reasonable person. I like to think, right? So when we talked, I liked it right away, I knew of you. We had a lot of mutual guests.

I wanted to come down in person. You saw it. We were sitting at the hard walk. We had a great dinner last night at Burns. We had a nice time. Yeah. I'm committed to this. Yeah, yeah.

And I'm a reasonable person. Like, we all have things that have four kids that could be at home. But I wanted to be here. So the fact that, like, a bank robber is snubbing you and can't jump on to Zoom, it's just, I don't know, that's crazy to me. Well, you know, what's so funny is it's like, like, you've got a guy who's, you know, you would kind of think he's like in the upper crust of, you know, he had a criminal career, but now he's kind of changed his ways. And like, they just can't seem to make it here. They have a thousand problems. They've got, you know, and then you've got some other guy who I've got some guy who's a rapper who's selling crack that,

went to prison four times and gotten three police chases. And he's a maniac. And he's on point. You know what? I told you this the other night. Like I've been guys that hold themselves out there as professional podcasters and professional people prior to being a professional, I was a professional real estate. I was a professional. Whatever it is. Professional that. I owned a stock broker company. Like, I'm a professional person. And I pitched myself as a professional. Correct. Ghost you. They send you email, definitely interested, want this, absolutely, blah, and then they just go, because they're full of shit.

And then you've got someone like, this guy, Big Herk. Yeah. The most, not probably the most, but one of the most professional people I dealt with, he and I have had,

you know, like words. Yeah. But this guy, there wasn't one text message, one email, not one phone call that wasn't responded, not what,

I mean, he was, even after he and I had an interview that went horribly wrong. Yeah, which is, hugely complicated.

I mean, hilarious. Great content. But like it went, it went bad. Even after that, like this guy was furious when they left, he were furious. Even after that, when I texted him, hey, bro, can you put this in the description? Yeah, no problem. Hey, man, can you this? Yeah, I got you.

Even afterwards, he's still responding to, like, that's a professional. You may not like me as a person, but I'm a professional person and I will respond. Even if I'm going to tell you, go fuck yourself. I'm going to respond to you. There's three type of meetings I'm never late for because it's been my experience. One, anybody former military, they're always on time. Number two, former mafia guys, even associates are very on time. And number three, anybody who spent any real time in jail?

They're never late. Yeah, you text me. You had been here sell it four. You text me yesterday. It was bad. Well, my wife's getting ready. She takes a little bit to get ready. and I'm like, we need to be on time

because he will be there early. I was, and you text me at like 45 minutes before. No, brother, like an hour before. And you're like, we're here. No, it was. What time was our reservation? 10.15, but I think he texted me at 9.30. I texted you because we got there.

We parked the car. We sat there. I said, well, he said he was going to be early, which I figured meant a little early. In the business world, there's a business guy, 10.15, I'll get there like 10 10 right to me my dad always said being on time is being 15 minutes early yeah he's like and that means if you're not early you're late right he's and I'm like he's like well what if there's traffic you should have accounted for that yeah he's all of that needs

if you're in if you're earlier than 15 minutes it's only because the things that you accounted for it didn't happen well so exactly so so again like because of the nature of the podcast and just people that I know and friends even associates personally and professionally again if you're in the military, we're in the mob or incarcerate any given point, I try not to be late because those people are never, ever late. Yeah. Yeah, in prison, it could go bad because nobody's suing each other in prison. Yeah. So, you know, you don't want anybody talking about it in prison. So there's, it's all, it's amazing how amplified normal behavior is in prison, how badly and quickly it goes bad. Well, because, I mean, there's not much else going on. You have

to maybe focus on whatever drama is there, no? Well, isn't the only thing, well, that and And the only thing you have in prison is, you know, kind of your, uh, your reputation as your currency. Right. So it's, you know, if something goes wrong, then you've got a, you know, you either have to take it. Now you're kind of just being punked out. Like you're just, anybody can talk to you any kind of way. I got a business idea for you. Okay. So you got like, now I don't have like that much money, but you got guys that have more money than me that are a little crazy. Right. Like they're business guys, alpha guys. Maybe we played professional sports and or or even, um, college sports and other gazillionaires. right i wanted to create a hotel that's an actual jail run by former prisoners right former prisoners uh former law enforcement and like there's safe words that a safe word so like this legit like you're being incarcerated like you pay like 50 grand you get there for like a week and you

are in jail there's people that would pay for that especially the japanese who's gonna put the money up to do it. Especially the Japanese. So that's the only thing if you want like those brick and mortar is a little expensive. So maybe the cap cost will be a little high. But I do think people would pay for it. I was thinking about it. I want an actual. People will pay for the jail experience. People will pay for that. You know you have to do that somewhere that's kind of kind of over where the fairgrounds is close to the hard rock. Yeah. Because that way they, because there's there's property there. You could build there. They are close to they're about an hour major airports hour yeah and they're an hour and a half away from

disney yeah they're 30 minutes away from um bush gardens yeah they're right next door to the hard rock yeah so but i want i want it like there's like a light safe word and then a real safe word so like if you use it like a safe word right it kind of doesn't work so you get really scared you give them two this is the first one you have to use it was a light one it's a light one so like you still like we like we kind of honored but we don't did you see that the movie with um it was uh stalone was a guy that broke out of major shows them where the loophole and he gets in there and he's going bad for him and he's like he gives them the safe word they're like what are you talking about and he's like oh my god i'm really oh this is fucked up you'd be surprised me people

pay for it um oh i'd be i probably i think you know what i'd be concerned i'd be surprised with anybody putting up the money too because here's the thing how many business ideas have been pitched where I look at, like some of them, they, business ideas would be pitched to me and I think, great idea. Correct. But there are, some of the biggest ones are ones where if I've been sitting at the boardroom and you'd walk in and you'd said, listen, we're going to bottle water. We're going to sell it at same places, right next to,

right next to Coca-Cola, and we're going to charge double. I'd be like, fuck out of here. Make your nuts? Who let, Brad? Who let him in here? Yeah. You're fired, bro. Like, did you just waste the boards?

That's your idea? I'm telling you, we can make a ton of money selling water. Selling water? Yeah. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Imagine, like, the Yelp review for the jail, right? You sit there for the week. And then even if it was a bad review, it would still be a good review.

What's a bad review? You know, man, I didn't get a discipline, disciplinary repeating. I didn't get lumped up. I thought I was going to get, like, you know, hit in the head. I was promised it. I was promised an attempted rate. Yeah. Um, you know, so I, and then what is a good review? It looked like that.

Listen, listen, I have a better idea. I have a better idea. Poor Colby. Um, because your idea requires millions to invest. Um, my idea is it doesn't require that much. Uh, so I have a buddy named Eddie Sorales. Eddie Surrales is a great name, by the way. Eddie Surrales, yeah. Uh, he's, he's funny. He, he, he, he's funny. He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he. guy he's he's in Tampa been in Tampa Heights which is basically like Ebor City Tampa Heights there's a right around Tampa they're almost downtown yeah practically so he's been in Ebor City in Tampa Heights he owns a ton of real

estate there he's made gobs of money he's bought up so he's like a year older than me or a year younger than me but we're about the same age so he has gone he's like I can't even buy I can't even buy real estate in Tampa Heights I can't do it he's like he said not not only not that he can't afford it. He said it makes him so disgusted with how high the prices are because he knows I bought that building for $40,000 20 years ago and now it's selling for $750,000. Like I remember buying that building for it was on, it was it was up for sale for $100,000 and I wouldn't buy it. Now it just sold for $1.5 million. Even the building he's in, I think he paid $100,000. It's probably

worth about $3.5 million. The building he's currently lives in houses place out of so Eddie went and started buying up property and I want to say it's it's like North Virginia or South West West Virginia or something anyway New Frontier somewhere out in one of these areas and this was a little town so this is a little tiny town that had an industry it's about 15 minutes away from the from the interstate yeah which and And once you jump on the interstate, it's 30 minutes away from whatever the closest city is. So it had an industry, that industry closed down 20, 30 years ago. Like a founder of time, yeah.

So the town shrank dramatically, then it sustained itself from retirees and whoever was living there. And it's slowly shrunk every single year. So you have, he's able to go in and buy, you're buying 2,000 square foot houses for $80,000 and $100,000. You're buying buildings. He just bought a motel for like $400,500,000, like a, $1,000. it was like it's like a 50 room hotel he's like it's 10,000 a room he's it's already making up we're already making five four five thousand dollars a month wow so he's buying up this whole town yeah and he's like and I'm like oh that's great that's great he's like it's really it's

it's great because it's so cheap you can't lose yeah he said but it's a town that's dying and he's like and I'll make my money he's like obviously I'm buying it I do some renovations I can easily sell it he said and he's always going to make money the guys the guy's The guy is brilliant. When it comes to real estate, he's insane. But he's saying like, he's like, I just, I wish I could figure out how to get this, you know, turn this town back into something. And I was, and I said, oh, I said, I know exactly what you could do. And he has, he's got a bunch of buildings that are like commercial buildings.

They have retail spaces at the bottom. They've got a living space. Makes use, yeah. Right. I said, bro, I said, you know what you ought to do? I said, the problem is it would, it cost half a million to do this. go in that building, build multiple studios, build cheap, cheap, like rooms where there's bunk beds.

Yeah. get the camera equipment, everything, and then get people that want to do YouTube to come in. eight true-time guy. Yeah. I can fly in. That's right. And knock out. We can all interview them over the court.

And we've got a nice room for you. I think you split the costs and the revenue. Split the cost. It's going to cost you $75 to interview this guy. Correct. $75 bucks. I get the in person. Yeah.

You don't have to build the studio. All you do is you rent your room for this much. Yeah. And think about it. Maybe in six months, your YouTube's probably paying for everything. Yeah. In a year, it's probably paying that and putting a couple of money in your pocket. And if it's an incubator, you could probably take a little piece of each of the

business is. Oh, exactly. You could set it up where it's like, we'll set you up your YouTube and I get 20% of the revenue. So how, you know, does it take long? And here's the thing, too, you don't really have that after the first year, you don't have to advertise because part of these guys, part of these kids that are moving in or these YouTubers, they're going to be talking about that place. Yeah. And then you're going to get droves of guys coming and say, bro, I want to do it. Yeah.

I don't know if you followed that, but there used to be like big TikTok houses in L.A. Yeah. So that's kind of that. But for YouTube, but on the professional level. I actually, so I started using the studio and a great guy, so I invested some money there. And in his studio, he's doubling down on podcasting being the new escape room. So instead of like going out to the movies or going here, going there, guys night out or girls night out may actually do podcasting. So he's seeing people rent the studios a one-off.

So he sees it as kind of the new experiential thing being podcasting. Or imagine having, for example, your grandmother and having a conversation with her and filming that. Right. And then putting it in a capsule and showing your children 20 years from that or whatever that is. So I think podcasting is unlimited if you do it the right way. That's super good. I like the idea of interviewing. Listen, I would, and I even asked my sister if I could interview my mom and she was like, no.

You know, and my sister. Oh, it's tricky. You know, because my mom, listen, I do my mom's voice. And whenever I do my mom and I do an imitation of my mom, like, like. people die laughing she was hilarious see this is where kind of my interest would be i would like to hear her standpoint and her experience as she what she went through during your whole yeah i don't even know that she would even talk about it because she she she just you know i she i don't even know that she watched any of those shows like my my my sister watched it and then

she's like oh should i watch it can you can't should i and my mom would go no mom you don't want to watch it and she'd go oh okay she you know and i get and really thank god like thank god like thank God, my sister, you know, protected her from me. Yeah. And from that whole experience. But your mom came and visited, like, every... Every two weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, still, you're just her baby. That's all she sees. So... God bless. I got another business, another idea. And this is it my idea. This is my buddy Treon's idea. Okay. Tron owns a bunch of gyms in Tampa. Sweet.

Great guy. Triana has great ideas. He never does anything with. He basically just runs a gym. Well, an idea is nothing without execution. Right, right. But he... But he has good of them, and then, you know, and then he can point to probably 10 of them and be like, yeah, you know, that guy that did such and such, yeah, I'm the one who gave him that idea. Like, why didn't you do something with it? He's like, I don't know, bro, one in the gym, you know. So what his idea was, and I really thought this was pretty cool. He said, set up a table where people can come and have dinner and they record.

So it's a couple. Yeah. You know, like us last night, we come, we're going to have dinner. We're all going to shoot the shit. He's going to set up cameras, record the whole thing. So you bring the food, you get the order, whatever. You order from, whatever, Alback Steakhouse. You bring it, somebody heats it up, somebody makes it all night.

They come in, okay, great. We sit down for two hours because we were there two. How long? We were like three hours, four hours. Yeah. Right. So you sit there for three or four hours. A couple of lawyers joking around, goofing off, a couple of their wives talking shit, laughing

and whatever. You know, periodically, there's just going to be just a couple, a couple of couples talking. Sometimes it's going to be, it doesn't, it's not a good conversation. Maybe it goes bad. Maybe it's an amazing conversation. But you want to watch to see where it goes. Right. And you just, so twice a, once or twice a week you do that.

Yeah. That's three or four hours of content. Yep. Filmed extremely well. Yeah. And you put that on, you put that on YouTube. Oh, my God. The couple, they'll pay for the meal.

They'll pay to be there. Yeah. So I'm going to pay an extra 200 bucks. They're going to pay for the editing. They don't get anything other than to say, tell. We were on that show. Yeah, we were on that show. All right.

And they're going to tell all their friends who now want to do it. All right. This is crazy. So I just interviewed. Shout out to Kevin Into Donato. He just reached gangster movie Badstford songs. Good guy. So I was with him and our sound engineer.

And I said something slightly different, but along those lines. I said, we create a YouTube channel that each week there's a, a new creator but you can never be on more than once okay it's kind of something you're saying food i would say do a podcast so it literally just be the whatever channel and each week you sign up and you pay to be on the channel and you control the content for that week you have one show one week kind of similar to what you're doing it's simply do food so i thought of a very similar idea so i think we should explore yeah yeah that way listen i listen and the people would pay to be on it eventually because like oh my god that has so many subs i want to be on

that. Listen, I've had great, I've had great, I've had some horrible dinners, but I've had some great dinners, I'll tell you what, I interviewed this woman who was a former madam. Oh, you might want to interview her. She's actually great. Former high price madam who, listen to her whole business strategy was, she's bringing women in from Brazil, it was South America. Some, they come in for South America. on like a three-month visa. Oh. They escort for three months.

They go back home with 30 grand, 20 to 30 grand. She's pocketing 20 to 30 on each one. So they're coming in for three months, working her clientele, and then they go back. And they're thrilled. They show up there with $300,000. You show up Brazil with $30,000. You're like, it's like $200,000. Yeah.

You know, they're buying a nice little condo and, you know, and going back to school. So, and she's like, oh, I had girls that were, they're coming back and forth, back and forth every year, every whatever, they'll come back for two weeks here, two weeks there. So she does this. She makes a bunch of money. She goes to jail, gets out, marries her lawyer that I want to say he represented her, marries him. And so he came with her for the interview. We did the interview. It's fine.

It's funny because it was one of the first interviews. and I'm just, you know, listening. Like, I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm not asking that many questions. Colby starts asking questions. Well, how much do they charge? Well, how much that I'm thinking, what's he? He'd never talked before.

I have a question. Like, I'm like, oh, okay. You know, and so she was great. But after the podcast ended and everybody left, we stood there and talked and her husband starts talking to me. He's represented a ton of amazing. criminals. He's a federal criminal defense attorney. He sat there. We sat there for an hour and a half and he's just one after another after. Funny stories during the, you know, during the trial, during

this, during that, and she's laughing and she's bringing up stuff. And I'm sitting there thinking, man, this is better than the fucking interview. And I was thinking like, if you had, so think about that podcast, maybe it starts small, but then you start getting people on like, hey, you bring on, you know this guy like hey can you come on and i want your wife and this is the podcast and they go and they're like now that's cool that's bigger than me being interviewed it's me and my wife and not even and i'm not interviewing you yeah it's just another couple you're all shooting the shit and you want it's super long form so you have a little wine you lay back it's gonna be four it's not just yeah like listen if it wasn't two o'clock in the morning listen burns they're doing

everything to tell us to leave without saying yeah all got to go yep they're like the six times the guy came yeah the guy what was the guy um the valet came and he's like here's your keys yeah like i'm leaving yeah here's your keys thank you it's eight dollars for them like oh no i don't know i like this is now the the third person you gave a big tip i saw um it was like 12 bucks so like 10 to 20 so um uh i feel bad for him having to drive uh jess's car so no but That's the thing. So we had later reservation. So I called ahead of time, you know, because although I just met you and I know you're laid back guy. Big tipper. I didn't pay for the meal. Like I felt like I got off easy. There you go. There you go. So I'm like, you know, I want to make sure we do this correctly. So I called. I said, you know, we're 10, 15 sitting. You want to do the wine tour and the kitchen tour. We want to sit in the dessert room. Right. And they made it a point to say, like, you're sure, like, you guys are open that late. And they say, we do. do not close to the last time it was there.

Right. Which they said that. Yeah. But in practice, they were a little. Yeah, yeah. You almost seem like you're like, what happened to the last client is? Well, because I asked us if they said to me, hey, you know, you have a hard stop at 1.30. Right.

After that, maybe, you know, drinks, you have, order less drinks or politely the kitchen closed at this time or dessert closes at that time. Well, I also think the problem is we were talking. You're a talker. Yeah. I'm a talker. And so, like, I had no idea it had been four hours. I mean, I mean, yeah, it was like the time just, like, and like I said, when Jess, when we left, Jess was like, Jess said, you two just talking, that needs to be the whole podcast.

She said, she said, not only was that just great sitting there listening, she said, but you could have easily, both of you could have easily talked for another two hours. Easily. Yeah. So, but yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's the show. Like, I think that's a huge show. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And I think that it's... Well, I like the fact that they gave you that, like, that chocolate fudge on the, with the macadamia... Oh, yeah, macadamian nut. Yeah. Like, macadamian night ice cream with real macadamians. And the guy did this whole thing about the macadamian. You know, they give this whole presentation about the macadamian ice cream. And, you know, I'm like, okay, well, I'll have the macadamian ice cream.

And he was absolutely right, bro. Like, it was, like, probably... But instead of it being, like, chocolate syrup, it was, like, some fancy chocolate syrup from France or whatever. me want you to use it. Yeah, I wasn't. But then he came, but he came back and he said, by the way, he said the, yeah, the, the fudge syrup such and such is flown in from whatever and the recipe is this and this and this, kind of like, show some fucking respect.

Yeah. Put some syrup on there because I'm just eating the ice cream and I went, well, then I better use it. He said, I was like, all right, let me put some. And I tried it and I thought, that's all right. But the fact that this has got whole macadamians. Yeah. Good time. that's what had me enthralled was

and they didn't have that at Coleman the wood the what the wood they talked half as much about the food as they did the wood from this table

was imported through such and such the you know Burns has been around for what 150 years yeah and we're like the old guys yeah they've been there before but our younger wives are like wow this is like somewhat interesting

right I you know what's funny I didn't expect to see like did you look at the crowd that was there younger super young yeah there were a bunch of like yeah like is it prom like there's a bunch of young kids here or this table that table that to like orange is old right yeah we're the old people yeah like the oldest people that were there was us was us yeah you know and I like to joke around oh I'm an old man I'm an old man but I don't really think of myself like that so I'm sitting there

thinking I want to give an observation though and it's not a bad one so knowing you a little bit you're kind of a guy that like is very observant and very intelligent right so when he was kind of going through the different stations and going all this stuff if you really kind of like cared about or you know like listened except that you were listening it was super interesting how they had seven different people touch a salad how they had uh 14 people literally cut onions you can care less i'm not a food person you know and you're very you were very much a food person you were very interested in this interested in that and you're asking questions that I'm like, I'm like, I don't even know what the question you asked was or the

relevance, but it was important to him. He was like, actually. And then he gave a three or four minute, you know, response to it. And I'm like, well, that must have been a great question. Like, I don't know. And then he did like the wine routine with the candle and check for the sediment. And for you, it was watching grass grow. Yeah. Well, you, and then you pointed that out and I turned around and I look at it. I'm like, yeah. Yeah. So it's great. I like the way it glitters. um i but i but no so watch so so so drink though too okay well just fine but so so this reason why i bring it up because you brought up coleman so now i've never been in jail never been incarcerated however because i'd very humble beginnings i appreciate this whole journey

right i shouldn't be here yeah well that's all i'm on bar i'm on bar time so you coming from incarceration i thought you'd be like a you know you know and that's during we had this conversation where I said, people have the wrong impression of me. Guys even in Coleman, they'd been locked up with me for four or five years, who you would think really know me. They would say, bro, what's the first thing you're going to eat when you get out? Because that's a common question. And I would say, they're like, what have you been craving?

They're thinking a lobster. They're thinking, you know, all filet mignon. And it was always, I'm like, I want a McDonald's hamburger, the cheeseburger, the little one, you know, a little cheeseburger with onions. Dollar menu. Yeah, that's what I want. I want a cheeseburger. God bless.

And maybe, like, pistachio, Ben and Jerry's used to have pistachio having ice cream. Pistachio heaven ice cream and a hamburger. And fry, I like fries in a Coke, like a fountry. And they're like, you should see the disappointment in people's faces. Like, bro, that's not what I thought. Yeah, I know, because you, I'm a very simple person. You know, Jess and I were exhausted last night. We usually are in bed by eight or eight.

Now, granted, I'm up at three or four. Well, you even said, you said, you know, I want her to come. I want to experience it. It's a little late for us, but we're there. So I knew that you were not like a late bird to begin with. And I actually, because I was able to get us in, but I wasn't able to get a sin earlier reservation because they were packed. Yeah, yeah. Well, you can't call two, three weeks ahead of time.

It's got to be their months. They have some people that. I have a friend who eats their, I don't know if it's once a week or once every two weeks. No. So he's got a standard reservation. where he's there all the time. Yeah, he used to send me, like, pictures of, like, the food and hayward and pictures and stuff, but I guess I didn't respond enough because he finally realized, like, oh, he's not

a food. You probably like down. Yeah, and I was, I'm like, oh, cool. Yeah, but you had an appreciation that the waiter had to be, what, two, three years even to serve you. Yeah, yeah. All those guys. How much do those waiters make?

Because Jess was like, how much do they make? That's how I was thinking. You know, even the kid that brought us around and gave us a tour. he um uh like he had it down yeah he knew everything every station everything that he was talking about he had it down yep and so like how much i mean it's funny too because when he said they're very good to us here they they have a meal for us they do this they have a family meal they did a three dollar meal they said yeah the girl over his shoulder smirked and i thought he's saying the appropriate thing to say to a guess yeah whether that's true or not

not. They really feel that way. She's smirked. He's saying what's appropriate. And I looked over at her and she kind of just grin like, like stop it. Now maybe it's true. Maybe I misunderstood, but it's, I got that vibe. Yeah. But I do wonder how, um, how much they said this is some guys where the gold tie that are 25 years. They have different stages. So the, yeah, they said the waiters, like you get, you're a silver tie for two years. You're then a gold tie, a red tie. You're a then a gold tie, like they have different stages of, that's crazy, you know, which is interesting. It is interesting. But when you're talking to him, like, I'm not even really, until he said that, I thought, I thought that, I didn't know that. Like, I never even heard. Like, and then I'm looking at the waiter behind us, who had to be in a 60s at least. And he's a waiter. And I'm thinking, well, this guy's got to be the top, one of the top waiters. And you're 60-something years old working here.

It was so good, the money's so good, you don't leave. Yeah. Like, a waiter job is not a, it's not, that's not a career. Yeah. That's something you do in college. In Europe, it is. In the U.S., it usually has like, you know, part-time actor or whatever, but there it looks like their career.

And, like, he seemed genuinely happy to serve us. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying is. Great book. I don't know if you've, if you've been to books like this, but Unreasonable Hospitality by Woolgarra, they were the people that, you ever here, 11 Madison Park in Manhattan? basically it was a restaurant it was very beautiful restaurant but they said we wanted to make this a best restaurant in the world so they worked their asses off did a whole bunch of service training all that kind of stuff we're 50 in the top 50 restaurants in the world eventually came to be

the number one restaurant in the world and in the book he talks about the journey and how they got there so it's to me it's interesting how like hospitality is actually and the u.s. has not always looked this way, but it's almost like an honor to serve you. And that's what he looked at. And that's why they bought themselves as the number one. Well, have you ever been to you ever been anywhere in Europe and gone to a restaurant? Yeah. Yeah. It's not great.

No, I know. It's not great. And they're full-time people. Yeah. They can make good money. Yeah. Italy forget it. The waiters are terrible. They have an attitude. Yeah. Yeah, we went in Norway. It's like they have an attitude. We were in, you know, I was going to say, it's just they do. They're

you're pissing them off that you're even there. I mean because well they're not incentivized there's no tips right right so which is funny because i have a friend natalia who was telling jess talking about it and she's like which is great because they don't want you to tip and it's good it's great it's great and i was like the service sucks like they they they literally make you feel like you're an asshole for showing up you know so she's american right so um who does sidebar it for like 20 minutes it doesn't matter by then nobody's watching at this point no one's watching and now i'll get a comment from somebody saying i was watching Cox you know what you know what you do so drop burns below B-E-R-N-S if you made it

this far in the comment section yeah over under five what do you think oh oh no it's over it's over it's over yeah listen over under 10 I'll mention burns yeah I was gonna say Colby Colby's like you know like sometimes I'll do an interview and I'm like I'll call him up I like bro I just did a stream or interview it was horrible yeah and he's like it'll still get 3,500 views like at the minimum, I've got 3,500 people that are just hardcore. They're at least going to watch some of it. Yeah.

I got about 1,000 guys that will watch the entire, the entire thing. That's awesome. It is awesome. It's awesome. Like you just said, like, you know, you're on, you know, our time that you're trying to build this channel. Like, like the, the, even though I know I've made some major mistakes in built, in this channel.

Like, I didn't start it when I should have. I didn't listen to all the people. The people that knew what they were talking about that told me what to do. Yeah. I didn't listen to. Yeah. You know, Danny Jones, you know, gave me great advice. I didn't listen to him.

By the time I did Julian's, I had just started to channel. So, well, I love Julian's story. He's great. You know, you know, I love, you know, quitting this job that you've been working towards your entire life to start YouTube. Bro. In the Jersey. I'm going to go live back in my parents' spare room and I'm going to use the other spare room as my studio. Dad, will you please let me do this?

Yeah. Can you imagine his dad? Go over like a foreign church. Oh, my God. And his dad is, you know, an extremely conservative, a corporate lawyer who had to just be like, not only the schooling, but you've already been working for four or five years for this.

You're now getting this, you're up for this promotion, or you're getting this promotion. Like, now you're really going to be making money. And you want to sell everything and live in the spare room. Yeah. But the crazy thing about it is Julian's a kind of guy. I'm just like you, that no matter. what you do, whatever lane you're in, you're going to be successful. You're just happy to be

in a created YouTube space. Yeah, I mean, listen, the other thing is to what I, YouTube, what a great opportunity because, you know, like I always said, like YouTube had, I'd never been on YouTube when I got here, when I, when I was arrested, you know, podcasting wasn't even a word until 2009. Yeah, you're saying. You know, so there was no such thing. It wasn't until a year or two before I was getting out. Pre-rogan. Right. A year or two before I was getting out, people are telling me, you've got to start a podcast. They're trying to explain to me what a podcast is without the ability to even show me. That's a hard conversation.

So, you know, I'm getting out thinking I need to do some kind of a podcast. You know, I can't barely even remember what the word is. And then I get out and then I still don't do it right away because they don't have this. I don't have that. And the way it came together is amazing, you know, in my opinion. And everything. You know, it's like some, in some ways, there's a whole bunch of luck. yeah you know and in some ways it's by design like you know i started writing stories years

before this was even the avenue to try and turn that into kind of a true crime podcast yeah you know and then meeting uh tyler which is my booking agent getting colby that's amazing yeah because that was a tough sell you got the right not that he was he was he was he was that was a layup he was he was that was a joke yeah i mean he he and me i chose this is what i can offer boom boom boom he's like sounds good i'm all in it's like wow but he saw the he saw the he saw the vision yeah but you know yeah i've been lucky i think i think a lot of it's hard to work the fact that you even book seven uh meetings or conversations and then even do four a week yeah which is insane and you're useful i mean you have a great studio set up here you're gonna have a

like you talk about other future plans i mean sky's a limit for you because you're getting it to see the thing is you're getting to what 200k sub soon right um i mean if it goes the way it's going now we're probably four months away, but, but I could have a good video. Like, that's the whole thing. It goes off, yeah. You, we have, if we have a video that gets two, three hundred thousand views, yeah. You probably get 10,000 subs that month.

So then it's three months. Yeah. Then it's, you know, you don't know. But the funny thing is, if you look at, like, you're probably in the top, like, three percent. There's not many channels that go over that get that, like, get that plaque. There's not many. It may sound like, oh, everybody is at 100?

No. Oh, you're probably the top 3% in terms of numbers, I would think. Well, what's funny about that is how silly, like how silly watching all of this in getting out of prison. Yeah. And hearing people, you know, getting out of prison and hearing people complain, hearing how people are making money. Yeah. And hearing about YouTube and YouTubers and listening to these guys that it's like, you're giving advice on a subject a lot of times that. You have, you're not a professional, like, you have no expertise in this subject.

And you're running your mouth and you're getting hundreds of thousands of views. And it's like, like this whole system is, is screwed up the way it's set up. And I'm watching it. And then guys are talking, doing videos. I was watching people do videos about getting their plaque. And they were so excited. And I'm sitting in that halfway house going, what a bunch of idiots? Like, this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen.

Then you start doing it. And you realize, like, that is. a big deal. It may not be a big deal to somebody who's, you know, whatever, you know, is sitting in a halfway house that doesn't really understand it, but all the things that you have to do that have to go right to get there. That's right. Like then you go, it's silly, but it's also, it's also, it's a milestone that's like,

wow, that is kind of cool. But how many people do you know that like started a channel and the good people, pretty good content, doing it for a while and they have like 700 subs? Yeah. Right. Then those are the people like, wow, this is kind of hard. Oh, yeah. That's why whenever I get these people that complain in the in the comment section where they're like, you're this and you did this and this is stupid and this is, well, how's your channel going, bro? Yeah. It's that they immediately, uh, well, what's tricky is. So everybody kind of has, you know, their own thing in terms of some people, for the most part, views are the most important things, right? That's who you get paid, right? Right. But that's not what they see. They see subs. Well, so it gives you kind of like, so for example, you ask somebody come on the show. first question is how many subs you have. I know. They don't say how many views you get, how many subs you have.

They kind of give you that like moral authority to come on or social proof. If it's another podcaster, I guarantee they go straight to your channel. They don't give a shit about the subs. They look at how many views is this guy getting. Correct. Somebody who knows.

But usually a guest asks how many, you know, subs you have. And also, you know, if you have sponsorships, they care too. Because they have to cover their ass. Okay. I don't really have guys to ask about sponsorships.

because most of my people don't, they don't even understand it. A lot of times what will happen is I'll interview somebody. And then after the interview, they'll ask like, how does this work? How do you get paid? How do you? Yeah. I don't really understand that. Well, I'll give you why I like sponsorships and I'm kind of working.

I had some in the past and I'm working on some new ones. No, no, I'm saying your guests, you said your guests are asked about sponsorships. No, no, no. Sorry. So the two people that care about subs are the ones that come on the show that are not podcasters that are that are guests right they care about that and then number two sponsors also care how many subs you have okay with okay now they got to justify they got to justify the reach and how it's spending that kind of stuff and the reason why i like sponsorships in that sense where

one is um you don't have to rely as much in ad sense right you know that because you can even have like a great video do like 100 000 views and only make 200 bucks on it yeah so it's like if you have a sponsorship it makes a little easier number two some people you know i don't ask for donations. I don't think you do either. I do. No, we do. We have a Patreon, right? We do Patreon. Well, that's different. If you have Patreon and saying, hey, I want to be part of your membership model, that's different. But there's creators out that do like live streams or say, hey, give me the super thanks button or donate to my show. Nothing's wrong with that. It's just not my bag. But it's a free market. I respect everybody's angle. But my point

being is, I don't like to rely on the viewer's money in that sense. But if I have a sponsor and they want to help the show out and they like the product they'll patronize that sponsor so that's why i found out at least for me i found out sponsorships to work tend to work out a little better so even for a smaller show you have a different your model is different i think probably the people that are watching your channel are different i would i used to think so so what happened was i had one sponsorship uh they do loans kind of your old your old life merchant cash vans uh lines of credit uh the real estate no doc loans all that kind of stuff, right? So not certified. It was just kind of like the aftermarket stuff, secondary market. So I thought there would have been more, and I'm not saying this not,

but I thought there would be more business owners or maybe the union guy starting a side business or somebody, real estate guy who wants to know Doc loan, who maybe doesn't have great credit. So although it did pretty well as a sponsorship, and Jason's a friend, he's a great guy, and he comes on the show once in a while, that sponsorship fit wasn't as robust as I thought it was going to be right so i'm trying to find the right um sponsorship for the show one thing i will tell you as an advertiser because i do have a media company marketing company i buy media right to get to guys that are in our demographic are very hard to get to they're very hard to get to advertisers have a very hard time getting to the 56 year old male who makes you know 70 grand a year

who has is a family guy and just maybe like you know does football or you know my Fantasy, whatever that is, right? Whatever the demographic is. But to get to that guy from a marketing standpoint is very, what I think, Manscape advertised all the podcasts. Right. Because he wanted to get to that guy. That guy is very hard to get to that guy.

It's almost impossible to get to that guy. So here's the thing, what we've kind of, you know, we get sponsors. Yeah. But we get them for a month. Yeah. We get them for two months. Because what happens is that, you know,

the guys that are watching my channel are blue collar guys. You know, so they're, you know, they're not necessarily, you know, buying the products. And it takes a month or two before the sponsor goes, this didn't do what we thought it would do. So you do need that special sponsor that speaks to that guy. You need congruency. You need to have a sponsor. That's what I'm saying.

You have a sponsor that meets those guys. Yeah. And I literally, we've had. And it's not easy. Well, and I'll get emails from people from sponsors that I'm, I just, no. Yeah. Because I look at it and I think, this guy might, he might do a sponsor. sponsorship like maybe he'll pay us or maybe this but this guy's never going to sell anything like

nobody's going to buy your this product on my channel and i so we don't take it yeah um most of the sponsor stuff like colby does yeah colby does the he does a um a narration i you on areas yeah like yeah i've done a few of them you know i'm not great at them especially if you have to kind of read it well you should do if you read it you charge more yeah well and then two tier strategy um but yeah the ad sense you know ad sense alone like pays pays us you know pretty well god bless and um yeah but you found a nice little not a niche because you're bigger than a niche but i saw like inside true crime you're doing that but then like you talk to like you kind of like you know there's different genres right so like you dab a little bit in the mob genre but you had some good titling right

you had jeff on you have myself on if i'm in that space if you will but then the prison genre you kind got unlocked which is good but you're not part of that community we talked about you know larry law in same thing yeah with yeah yeah yeah yeah not really the mob guys yeah it's to me it's prison guy you're not the criminal guy but i like the fact that you kind of a chameleon are able to kind of live in these neighborhoods but not like be a permanent resident of any and i think that's your strength not your weakness you know i think like like to me i would like everybody that we have on I would like to have connected to crime in some way. And some way, of course.

But, oh, well, we trust me, I've had guys that have nothing to do with crime. Yeah, yeah. Like, where it's like, like, I've interviewed guys that. Or so the IRS agent, what was it? Yeah, yeah, we did the IRS. But we talked about crime a lot. And then I've had FBI agents. I've had, you know, detectives, all those.

And then I've had, you know, lawyers. We've had, but, you know, we also have had like, listen, one of our best videos is the UFO guy. Yeah, that was the best of the video, yeah. Listen, when I, when I finish that and turn it off, I thought, no one's watching this. Yeah, but it comes down, it comes down to being genuine, it's got like 200,000 views. But it comes down to being genuine and being authentic. So for me, I like, do not claim to be a street guy, I'm not, just not me.

Yeah. And I think people appreciate that watch my show are like, you know what, he's not trying to be somebody who's not. I'll ask like a nerdy question right to a guy who like kills people like like killed like four like four people like and like I'd be like was there a business strategy to the murder behind that and people are looking at me like are you trolling or you just dumb or like what's going on like I remember I had a podcast so but I can understand book club on Monday gym on Tuesday date date night on Wednesday Out on the town on Thursday. Quiet night in on Friday.

It's good to have a routine. And it's good for your eyes too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers, you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Spexsavers.cavers.cai to book your next eye exam. Eye exams provided by independent optometrists. And by removing this guy, do I get to take over his area? I can see that.

Well, I remember. So I had a podcast with a former. mafia guy, John Panisi. We did a, we did a show together for about a year, not a year, about eight months. And he was incarcerated for 17 years. And we had another person on who was incarcerated. And I just had, like, logical questions. Like, how often can you take a shower? Like, do you have a trunk? Do you have a lock for your trunk? Like, do you have, like, different, like, do you have more than one sneakers? Like, I don't know this stuff. And it's really fascinated me. But the truth is, most people have not been incarcerated. So they were like, you asked some questions that I was too scared to ask

yeah about jail because jail fascinates me it just the fact that you know you spent that much time there and are able to survive mentally there's studies that past six years of being incarcerated your brain actually starts to degrade well i i'm proof i'm proof of that bro but in terms of but in terms of like um like cognitive function like because you're not getting enough vitamin c you're institutionalized obviously some probably PTSD happening as well in some cases is so so to me that's fascinating for somebody to survive that it's kind of exemplary in itself you you said this last night you said like when I did my the soft white underbelly yeah you were like you were like in a much different like place like mentally and I was I was just you know boom but like I didn't give

and I was like this and this and that and it was super when I got out and everybody said this to me you're super you're really aggressive and I'm like I'm not I'm assertive yeah and they were like I'm assertive and they're like do you see how you how you're responding like you know it took me a while to start saying you know please and thank you and and really explaining myself and realizing how aggressive I was coming off and I wasn't thinking that I was thinking this is how you act in prison so nobody thinks that you're someone they can take advantage of yeah like this is how you talk so you bring that right and it's so funny because I'm saying this and to me that it's That's how everybody is.

And, but you, you act that way out here. Yeah. And I'm soft in prison. I'm not even a hard guy. But you act that way out here and you're a savage. Yeah. You're running through people. Well, to like, again, from the outsider perspective to unpack the prison experience, the strategy going in is going to have a major factor on your outcomes, right?

We talked about this. Do you kind of, me, do I roll with the Italian guys? You roll with the, you know, these guys. you kind of go with these guys you say neutral do you like where do you go what do you do you know so like you have the strategy kind of set up and you know strategy once you get punch in the face that goes out the window and then you just got to like essentially survive yeah you're just looking to pass the time which is i assume going very slowly unless you have a super good routine and yeah yeah good system listen my i i had rice was a cousin that i was locked out with my my cousin and and you know

that was the method yeah yeah i love rith and he but he told me you know when i got locked up he He was like, listen, a big chunk of your time is going to be. It's just figuring out a way to entertain yourself so that you don't get yourself in trouble. He's like, don't gamble. He's the one who laid down all these simple rules, which I'd already kind of heard from other guys when I was locked up in the county or in the Marshall's holdover. So I kind of knew that going in. Then he just, he kept telling me over and over again. And then every time I would complain, he'd be like, listen, bro, let me do you a favor.

Stop complaining. And he go, and I go, well, wait a minute, I'm not complaining. Yeah, yeah, you just said this and this and he'd go, nobody wants to hear that. Like some guy who's got 30 years, some guy who's got five years, he's like, it doesn't matter how much time they give you in that inmate's mind. It was too much time. Yeah. He's so whether he got five years or 30 year old life, it's too much time. Yeah. He said, so stop complaining about your time. He said, you figure out how to do that. He said, don't tell anybody. Some great advice. In an air and very nice way. Is he out now? Yeah, he's out. He's all messed out. He calls me every once in while. He, you know, he's on the fringes of. I was. I was. I was. I was out. I was. I was. He's on the fringes of. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I was. I love to you know interview him yeah um he's never been able to make it here he by the way he's only like in date city which is not far right 20 minutes away wow you know he can't seem to make it here and i even if he said i'll be there on wednesday i would really it would be like colby please come yeah but understand we have to have something else scheduled yeah or we could just do

a podcast because i kind of go over some of my stories like we'll have to do because that's what might happen that you can control you know like don't be irritated if you drive you know 45 minutes and get here isn't it crazy that i'll fly at tampa to spend time with you but other people would but that's a thing though like i value people's time right you know and and by valuing people's time hopefully people will value your time you know kind of be treated how you want to be treated right so you're the the podcast that you're doing now yeah it's almost exclusively mob but you're doing both so so you're well i know but at one point it was yeah i was all mob all in and now you're slowly moving out of it like what is that yeah so i'll give you kind of what that looks like so so

again still doing some mob stuff but like i think for example mark lorry interesting story so he started diapers dot combs right and the big two proctor and gamble and somebody else pamper's and what's the other one uh pamper's and huggies they wouldn't sell to him so he had to go to Costco and literally like emptied a Costco out every day you're talking talking like tractor trail is showing up and emptying out Costco's right so because he had it by retail and he was losing money on the diapers right because he just wanted to he knew so our bigger vision diapers don't expire they're cheap and what are going to do you're going to sell them baby lotion which is more profitable you're going to sell them wipes right right so he wanted to create an ecosystem

so he literally choked out proctor and gamble and Costco to the point Costco's like I can't have you come here and take all of our diapers right and it was like an influential like Wayne, the jersey or some of the bigger Costco. So he complained to his regional. The regional complained to the vice president. The vice president called a Parker Gamble and goes, this guy's buying me out. You need to start selling to him.

Yeah. So they started selling him diapers. Oh, nice. So then he got really big, right? They're doing a few hundred million a year, gets on Jeff Bezos, right of screen. Jeff Bezos starts selling diapers 30% less at a loss

to choke these guys out. Right. He saw the vision. Right. So now all of a sudden, they're losing market share, they're losing revenue. They had a good set of customers,

obviously, Jeff Bezos buys him out for $560 million. Oh, poor guy. No, but it's interesting is when I interviewed him, you could see he was upset and disappointed because he wanted to sell out for a lot more and he knew the value of it. Right. Because if Jeff Bezos knows the value of $560,000, it's probably worth a billion. Right. A lot of people are-

And Bezos created that. He created that price. Correct. Because he started saying, this is what I'll do to you. Bingo. Sell out. And he started to doing it. So he did work for him for two years.

It's not, people think he just didn't work, but he didn't work for two years. Then he started company, Jet.com. Jet.com, I don't know if you remember, it was like an online Costco. So if this was six bucks and everybody started buying in, it would go down to 550. Okay. It was variable pricing based off of demand. He did it to go after Jeff Bezos directly. It was in Hoboken, New Jersey.

He did it for 18 months, got bought up by Walmart for $3.3 billion. So now, he now became the Walmart.com CEO. and took market share from Jeff Bezos, got his revenge. Then now his newest venture, he started restaurants, it's pretty interesting. They're in Jersey and New York called Wonder. There's 17 restaurants in this building. 17. So if Jess wants sushi and you want pizza, you could order from the same place,

it comes to 26 minutes piping hot to your door. Okay. So he has 17 different restaurant concepts in one single restaurant called Wonder. It's crazy. And he only has 10 of them. And the value of that is worth $3.3 billion right now. He just got a $350 million investment for Nestle. So this guy's a business genius.

Right. Like little things. He takes Uber's to work because he doesn't want to waste any time driving because he wants to talk on the phone, be on a computer, or be productive. The guy is a genius. I had a my podcast. It did pretty well for me about 20,000 views. But, like, I have the knuckle dragger on and, like, he'll do 30,000.

I'm, like, sitting there. Like, this guy's given, like, like, forget about MBA advice. This guy's given, like, gold, gold, gold advice. Right. And, like, just people like, ah, like, you should have asked him about this or like, oh, he was an Italian from Saturday? Like, this guy's Italian guy from St. Oh, was he connected?

Like, imagine just like, you're, yeah, yeah, yeah. He'd look at him like, like, call the publicist, like, never have this guy called me again. So, so those are the kind of, then Andrew Bustamante on. Right. I did a little better about 28,000 views. Um, Andrew, because he has a business now, um, was his, admitted he's like even though it came from the CIA came from military background I was a terrible business person at first even though they were transferable skills he was hard at first

from the transition to business but then he really picked up his own well and now he kind of gave some really good business advice you know who I just it's in the can right now it's going to be released next week a guy you'll appreciate this a guy called hyphonics you ever hear of Omeagle his name is Hyphonic it's his channel called iPhones this only does Have you ever heard of O'Meagle? No. Colby, you ever heard of Omeagle?

Is it the chat room? Yeah, so it's not defunct, but like you would go on, let's see if you're your wife or girlfriend or yourself, you just go on. You hit start. It matches you up to somebody. You can chat with them real time.

Video chat. If you don't like them, you can skip or you can say you can talk to it for as long as you want. You talk to random people throughout the world. Just chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. So it's like the variable nature of it so it makes it cool.

What he does is he will do, he will do a show you should do some B-roll for that because it'll be interesting for a show he will be chatting with you and then when it's supposed to skip it like does a little spiral he edits in a skip so he's talking to you

right you're thinking he's gone he comes back and his head pops off his head or he shows his wife getting kidnapped on the screen yeah it's crazy shit he will be talking to you on the so me he's so you're thinking he skipped but then he'll come back on and be like don't say anything and then he'll be

roll to his wife that's tied up and then go back and his head will pop off his head he's got 1.1 million subs and that's all he does is jump scares that's it and on tictock is 4.1 million subs what's his hyphonics and but you said hyphonics is his his nickname his moniker and that's the name of his channel but that's all he does is jump scares that's it but they're brilliant right so like he'll have one person on and then it's supposed to yeah yeah so then like he i guess he changes or he reroutes the feed, but then he just showed his wife, like, getting kidnapped, and then his head pops off his body. And this 18-year-old's watching and freaking out.

But that's all he does. And he live-streams four hours a night, every night, four hours. He's got 1.1 million subs, and 4 million on TikTok is to the point that Omigal actually went out of business. This main platform? Yeah, I don't understand. Why did that not do well? Because the monetization was off, and I think there's, like, some lawsuits who were in

manager. So now there's, like, other forms that do something similar. so he went over there, but like his business, see, I asked him about the business end. Omigo was your number one place. You're about to crash. You should be pack him and go home. What did you do?

I just found another one. You know what he runs into? Most people recognize him now because for TikTok. Oh, yeah. So what he does is if you say, oh my God, you're hyphonic from TikTok. No, what he does is he goes, you just ruined it.

You could have been famous and he roast them. Then he posts that on it. The guy's just a brilliant creator. He's from Florida. He's not from this area. he's just you just you know it's your guilty it's your guilty pleasure right and it's just it's so stupid but it's fucking hilarious it's um so i had him on i'm fascinated with him and i got pitched i watch i watch him anyway right as a 40 year old man i watch him anyway but and i watch on

youtube shorts i'll spend an hour on it so you assume that that's i was just about to say and i got pitch sounds like such a time suck and i got pitched by a publicist i said oh my god that's the same guy had a mod, a true gentleman, a true creator. And he has the struggles we run into creativity, monetization, did he run things right, a lot of mistakes. But he's killing it. Probably has about all in, about six million followers online. High phonics. Shout out to John. Good guy. Yeah, I was going to say that. Just to me, it's like, I feel like it's TikTok or it's the shorts where I'm sitting there where it's like, oh, it's just, it's just 20 seconds. It's just a minute. And an hour later, you're like, what the hell's going on?

But what's crazy about his model is, he goes live. for four hours a night and he has like 3,000 people watching it live and he still does the same jump scare it's the same four jump scares same four actors and you're just fascinated by it it's crazy it's crazy it's so weird

it's very weird but he's a guy that I had on it's very weird out but then the next one I had Salvadorina's son the guy who blew up the judges and was the most powerful mopser ever his son wrote a book not an informant I interviewed him a while ago first ever U.S. interview, so I had him on again because the book translated to English finally, and I had him on. So I just have like a really eclectic group, a CIA guy, a son

of a powerful mobster, a guy who head pops off his body, you know, like a guy who sold to Jeff Bezos. To me, that's gold. Right. To have that kind of like, I don't think anybody respectfully put, and maybe there's a reason why, because we might not work, but puts that kind of group together and interviews them all with the same energy. Right. If that makes sense. Yeah, that's kind of the Joe Rogan thing, where he's just talking to people he finds interesting. Exactly. And then I like also a big Patrick-Bad-David-David-Fan. I don't know if you like him or not, but what are you going on there?

I was on a show. Are you on PPD? It's got like 2.2 million views. Where you've been? He's actually, and here's the- Oh, that's right. You were on PPD. The thing about him. So I research here.

You were on so many other shows. Yeah. The thing about him is one of the other, he's like six-foot-six. He's a giant. right yeah um and two he is oh you were old studio though i was yeah he flew me out to uh tex yeah you were old studio but you mario was on and saskin yeah and i remember he was exact he is exactly the same person that he is you know on on camera as off camera you know what i'm saying you can see him thinking the whole time he says the same things he speaks his mannerism is the same

He's exact, holds himself the same way, stand up, yeah, very boom. What do you think about this? Well, how are, I mean, he speaks exactly. It's not like, this is a guy who walks over, sits down and just has the same conversation he would have if the camera was on or not. He was exactly. And afterwards, you know, we talked for probably, it's funny too, we talked for 20 or 30 minutes after the podcast.

I was going to say, yeah. And while we were talking, I said something about my mother. and I teared up. And he sat there. And there's like three or four other guys. Because he actually offered me a job. He's like, he said, because I, you know, listen, I've been out like, I've been out of the halfway house like three months.

Yeah. So I'm like, oh, I'm living in someone's spare room. I'm this and that. And he looked at me as you're living in someone's spare room. And I was like, yeah. And he went, he's like, would you be willing to come out? He said, to move out here. Wow.

He said, I could give you a job. And I could, and I said, before you say anything else, I said, I, my mom lives in Tampa. And I explain that whole thing. Yeah. When I'm explaining it, I tear up. Yeah. And he stops and he goes, and you see the other guys are around, right? And he looks at the other guys and he goes, and you just see all of them are like looking at him and he goes, would you be willing to go back on the podcast and talk about your mom?

And I went, yeah, I don't care. Wow. I said, yeah, why? And he said, okay. Go back on. We do the same thing. tear up again. He says the same thing because he knows I'm going to tear it. And then we talk about it for a few

minutes. And I actually held luckily, I kind of held it together. I tear up. And then he, like, we talked for five minutes ago. Then they insert that into the original podcast. The only way you notice that that's the inserted scene, my book was on the table and it disappears. And then

people in the comments section are saying, movie mistakes. Bro, did anybody else notice that book disappeared? And then it popped back up. But he's exactly that person. That's amazing. That person. I like He is genuinely just identical. There's no act, nothing. That's amazing.

Did he host you a little bit or was more transactional kind of in and out? Did you grab dinner? No, no, no. He's running. Listen, I don't know what the one in it, what his operation looks like down here. Yeah. But that operation there was a well, it was massive. Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's a massive industrial building that he had filled. It were packed with people on phones. Yeah. It was, so he had his studio inside of the insurance company. It's a separate little office set to the side, or a separate little inside. So you have to walk through this massive office to get there and you realize like all these people work for him. Wow. And then you go to the studio, which is, you know, it's a decent size.

The first truly professional studio that I'd been to, Danny's studio at the time was kind of, you know, held together with, you know, duct tape and spit. but his was his was really amazing it's funny too because he's got all those statues and everything like they're all over the place you walk in he's got a life side well not life size but he has a statue of um optimist prime oh wow when you walked in it's like 15 feet tall it's huge and it's sitting there you walk in you're like this is this is a guy this is a guy who's spending his money on all the silly stuff that i would spend my money on exactly i would have a big i would have a big Hulk statue in the corner if I could Jess wouldn't let me but if she wasn't

around I would have one you know Optimus Prime she'd probably have Optimus Prime because she loved Optimus Prime. That's so So So And it was very nice And thoughtful for you to invite Oh we're recording We did

I sit the text Cole we got to keep that in it That's where the money is Lizzie we had a podcast one time where I get into an argument with a guy and We started yelling it's not this but we're yell at the guy he was making noise and making noise and making noise and I get a screaming match with him and tell him

to get out or whatever and Colby was like I'll cut that I'll keep that in hell no he kept it in that's where the gold is um so who was I interviewing that was with him was it was a friend of his oh yeah

it was yeah and then that was the first day that Connor was here I had just brought like an 18 year old kids like hey like you're gonna help me record sit down oh no super innocent this guy's on drugs he's having um he's bumping into stuff dropping stuff like he he like scrubing the floor yeah well i don't know what's going on with this nuck job we just moved here i'm talking to damn this guy's banging into stuff i finally i turn around and say bro what are you then we start yelling then i say you know let's get out and then he gets out and ardub dan is just like his eyes are wow

And I was like, I was like, you know what, leave that in. And then Colby left it in. And then he was mad at me. I'm amazing. Jet was mad at me for leaving it in. So, so. So where, where, so what is, what's the goal for, I don't know I asked you this last night? Yeah.

But I mean, you know, what we, I would I see myself in five years? Yeah, yeah, well, it's kind, you know, yeah. Yeah, but, you know, it's like, it is like, it is like. kind of like the Julian thing where it's that's true where it's like you know yeah like you already have a successful business yeah you know why aren't you kicking back with that successful business and just so so great point so if i had the magic wand right so the first is i want to i want to put out a good and better product that's first i want to be product first so and you gave some great feedback last night you're like hey the order sucked on this and you know you got to tighten up on

that all that kind of stuff you're like doing it from your home it looks kind of too weird and i love that feedback because i've gotten that feedback along the way you know this forget about the troll in the comment yeah yeah get away about the guy who cares about and is like listen like you suck you know oh shit i care about your opinion so and i do care about your opinion too so i kind of have it my own studio now that we have access to um i have a partnership there and i've been doing some really cool studio interviews i'm going to try to be like julian to um do as many studio as I can, be studio first. So that's like put out a better product.

And then third, make it a viable business. I don't know about you, but I think in the past, I treated this like more of a hobby and not as a business. And I've demonstrated some success in other areas. So I now want to focus more on this to make it like, again, product first, but then whatever goes along with that, you know, with a big financial reward, better guess, if it gets some more work for us in the marketing firm. You use it as a kind of a funnel, if you will.

But whatever that pans out, that pans out. But I think that I've always been product first guy. So I think if I'm able to put out a good product, I think the rest will fall into play. That's kind of the game plan. Yeah, that's kind of the Gary V. Model, correct. Yeah, turn your, what you need to do to be happy is turn your,

your hobby into a business. Correct. It's a balancing act, though. You've got, so you got, you know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, not that you, I know what your financial situation is, but it like we were saying it's how you know how can you do that until yeah you say okay it's paying off yeah but I do think like it's it is a whole thing it's the audio yeah if you only have a few things that you have to tweak and then you got to kick back correct that's it like

if you tweak a couple of things yeah come up with like our our strategy's pretty you know pretty not simple because we're working hard but it's three stream yards yeah three stream yard Three remote interviews a week, one in person. You know, if we get more than that, great. If it, you know, it doesn't, it's not going to work out perfect every time, but 95% of the time, that's basically what we've been able to pull off. Three remotes, one in person. So right now, for you, it's about blocking and tackling. Right, right, exactly.

And then at some point, you know, and it has been, it's been, you know, we've had some spikes of growth. And then, but overall, it's every month we're making a little bit more, a little bit more. So if that just, that trend continues, then at some point it will be two in person, one remote. Correct. But if you have to balance that, you know, you have to sit down with a pen and piece of paper and, like, right now, like, I can't fly anybody. Yeah. It doesn't make sense.

I'm going to spend $5 or $600 to fly you in, put you in a hotel, Uber you here, Uber you back, I'm going to end up spending $600 or $700 on an in-person podcast. So I've got $700 into it. And if it makes, you know, if it would have to be. to do $100,000 for a, I have to do at least $60,000 to $70,000 to break even to break even. That's not a business problem. And you have to make money. Right. But remote, I spend absolutely no money. Yeah. We spend $300 a year for the, for the platform. And we, and it's all profit. They do similar about it. Don't in person do a little better views or no. In person does a lot

better views. About 60 to, what would you say? 60% more? Is that wrong? Generally, like, the in person is going to do better. But you also don't have the carrying costs with the streamer. Right. The end person is going to have the better audio. Yeah. I guess it's controlled.

But just like you want to find that balance, so do I, where I want to do a good product. But I also wanted to make more money so I can peel away from my regular job. So I don't lose money. Like, I actually lose money last year because I had a pretty good year in my business. I lost money in the podcast. Right. But I was able to, to offset, you know, income and stuff. So I was able to do that.

but this year I want it to be profitable. So I myself, even as an entrepreneur, struggle to find that balance, but we'll both get there, I feel. Yeah, it's got to be, I was going to say the shorts, the shorts definitely help. Yeah.

We put out one short a day. And we were, initially we kind of, we outsourced that, and we kind of brought it back in. And it adds up, even at $10 a clip, it's expensive.

Yeah, and periodically you hit something. You just don't know when it's going to be. So, yeah, all right. Well, I appreciate, you coming in i appreciate you coming i appreciate dinner last night hanging out talking and um we're going to leave we'll leave the uh we'll leave the link to the to the to the pot to the youtube podcast in the in the description and uh we'll put yeah we'll we'll we'll we'll do what we can and then we'll cut up some shorts and we'll try and share some shorts and do the whole thing i love it

thanks for having i appreciate it no problem thank you just hey i really appreciate you guys watching. Do me a favor if you like the podcast, hit the subscribe button, hit the button or hit the bell so you get notified. Share the video and leave a comment. Also, please consider joining my Patreon. It does help. And please consider buying some of my true crime books, including my memoir, but there's a whole bunch of other ones too. Thank you. See you.