Shaun Newman Podcast - #448 - Tom Luongo & Alex Krainer 6.0

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

The boys made it all the way to Canada and hopped in the studio for our 6th edition of Tom & Alex together. We discuss the importance of podcasts, marriage, the best time to be brave and putting things into perspective. Tom is a former research chemist, amateur dairy goat farmer, libertarian & economist whos work can be found on sites like zero hedge & Newsmax media Alex is a Croatian national, former hedge fund manager, author, contributing editor at Zero Hedge Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcast

This is Nicole Murphy. This is Rachel Emanuel. Hi, this is John Cohen. Hey, everyone, this is Glenn Jung from Bright Light News. This is Drew Weatherhead. This is Terrick, I'm like that. This is Ed Dowd, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks.

Happy Wednesday, Hope Erie's Week is moving along. We're, you know, after you do an event, you take a couple of days to fully recover. And certainly, it's an exciting time, but a busy time. And finally, starting to feel like myself again. and today's sponsor, Guardian Plumbing and Heating, and that's Blaine and Joyce. They've been a part of the last couple events. Of course, Blaine's saying Grace at the SMP presents Long Gone Craneer,

and then Guardian was a major sponsor of the Tuesday mash-up election coverage. And if you're wanting to know a little bit more about what Guardian plumbing and heating is all about, well, their home of the Guardian Power Station bringing free electricity to everyone as well as reliable off-grid solutions, Alberta, Saskatchewan and beyond. and if you want more information about that, go to guardian plumbing.ca, where you can also schedule your next appointment at any time. The deer and steer butchery,

a butcher shop here in the Lloydminster area. Of course, if you got an animal that needs butcher, they can do that. If you want to get in the butcher shop and do a little bit of work yourself on your animal, they can do that. And when it comes to just different cuts of meat, you know, actually, it was Chucklin.

We were in a restaurant with Tom. and Alex and Emmington on, geez, what would that have been? Thursday night when they first arrived. And they were talking about all the different cuts. And as I was looking through the menu of all the different cuts, you know, you think it's just sirloin or top sirloin and T-bone, you know, like some of the major ones. But then there's all these different cuts.

And the first time I'd ever heard of all these cuts came from the deer and steers. So actually I'm reading through, I'm like, I got that my freezer, and I got that my freezer. And anyways, that's kind of the cool thing about the deer and steer. They don't, they're not like any other butcher shop I've seen. and certainly if you want to get your hands in on it and see how it's done, just give them a call 780870-8700. Erickson Agro Incorporated out of Irma, Alberta.

That's Kent and Tasha Erickson, Family Farm, raising four kids, growing food for their community and this great country. Of course, if you're looking to get involved with the SNP presents, the SMP or any part of this thing, the Tuesday mashup, all you've got to do is shoot me a text. Right now the mashup is full for the, rest of the year. I've had a few different people reach out about that. But of course with the Erickson's, they wanted to support the podcast, and you can find a way to do exactly the same.

I'd love to have you aboard. Just reach out, show notes, phone number, be cool. And I appreciate the Erickson family hopping on and having a little bit of fun. Three trees, tap and kitchen. You know, twos will say the food. I'm going to say the music. And we can both agree that it's quite the place. It's a great little restaurant, big restaurant here, I guess, in Lloyd Minster. Jim and his team over there, make sure that you get the best of it all. I mean, they got a great selection on tap, and then, like I say, the food is just, it's top-notch. And once again, the live music is just, I don't know, I just enjoy it, folks.

Call to get a reservation, 874-7625. I don't know of anyone who doesn't enjoy a little bit of live music going on. It's good for the soul, I swear. Now, let's get on to that tail of the Tate. Tate, Tate. Let's get on to the tail of the tape, how well. brought to you by Hancock Petroleum for the past 80 years. They've been an industry leader in bulk fields, lubricants, methanol, and chemicals delivering

to your farm, commercial, or oil field locations. For more information, visit them at Hancockpetroleum.ca. The first is a former research chemist, amateur dairy goat farmer, libertarian, an economist whose work can be found on sites like Zero Hedge and Newsmax Media. The second, a Croatian National, former Hedge fund manager, author, and contributing editor at Zero Hedge. I'm talking about Tom Luongo and Alex Tram. So buckle up, here we go.

This is Tom Luongo, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast, and I give you, well, it starts with Luongo. I thought I was like, all right, well, we'll give them a scotch or a whiskey. No, no, no, we can't do that early enough in the day. So we're having dad's old-fashioned roof here. Well, yeah, because it's a little too early in the day for that because I'm a cheap drunk. And while I used to live stream and drink whiskey, I found that if I kept doing that, I wouldn't have a channel and I would be in jail because what a shock folks.

I get really loud and really obnoxious when I've had a couple, which is the way my original audience really liked it. They were like, dude, Tom's going to get blitz and it's going to be fun. Like drunk live stream is the best long ago. I'm like, no, it really isn't. I deleted a lot of those. That's probably fair. Alex, you look starstruck.

here we are in the Sean Newman Podcast Studio. Your first time in Canada, what do you think? Surreal. I can't believe I'm here. So, awesome. Thank you for having us. And I'm enjoying my time in Canada. I'm very positive impressions.

You know, so all good. All good. And nice to finally be in Sean Newman podcast studio. It's kind of cool. Like, you know, like, I mean, you know, we drove, just drove across from Edmonton, right? Driving across Mebenton to Lloydminster, which is where we are, an undisclosed location in Lloydminster.

It just reminds me of like central Florida for 150 miles. You can't do 150 miles across central Florida because it's not that wide. So you do that kind of, the kind of thing I saw on the way over here, it's flat, it's straight. There's, you know, grain silos and, you know, various large trucks moving stuff around. and phosphate mine. Well, we have phosphate mines. You guys probably are doing other, you know, granite or whatever the hell you're doing up here.

But it just reminds me of like driving across from like Tampa across the Lake Okeechobe and it's just, you know, across like State Road 66 and I did this a couple months ago. I'm like, yeah. The only difference is like the skyline's a little different and the grasses are different and the trees are a little different. But otherwise it's pretty much the same thing. Did you enjoy the straight road from Eminton to Lloydminster? Or were you ready for that drive to be done?

No, it was nice. We had a lot to talk about and a lot to look at. So there's been... For very small values of a lot, by the way. A lot, by the way. There's not that much to look at out there. I don't know. I didn't see anything.

I've been looking at stuff like this for, you know... Well, it's not like you're driving through the mountains. You're driving through the, essentially the prairies. Right. Yeah. You know, countryside, nature, you know, industry. Cows, bison. Yeah, we just see some bison.

It's fun. Enough for me to look at, you know, I don't know. I get excited about small things. This is, this is, on my side, fellas, this is, I don't have many surreal moments, but this kind of feels like a surreal moment because, you know, you interview people, and then you're like, we're going to bring everybody here and that. Yeah, it is. And funny thing, is this the first time I meet you in person and the first time I meet Tom in person?

You guys look exactly like yourselves. Well, I certainly hope so. I certainly hope I'm not like I don't know that and we're doing invasion of the body snatches and something like right you know like I don't know it is

yeah but it is funny because you get you get kind of used to seeing people on the screen in 2D right but all the same you know like the personality the features it's it's the same and then when you meet them in person

it's almost like yeah we know each other you know like it's not you know I don't know how to describe it, but it's not, it's not like a big surprise meeting in person. It's like, I met Tom yesterday in the hotel lobby. It's like I've seen them a thousand times, you know, it wasn't like, oh my God, there's Tom. But I've been saying this yesterday that we've, I've had more conversations with you two than I have half my friends in the last six months. And for like longer, deeper,

more thought, not that friends don't have thought provoking, but like we're talking about some stuff that I'm just like, pooh, going to have to sit and think about that for a while, right? So when you walk in, I'm, I'm just like, I'm going to have to sit and think about that for a while, right? So when you walk in, I'm like, no, there's Alex. It's like I've known. Exactly. Exactly. That effect, which is kind of like when you think about it, it's a little bit surprising because we've always been conversing on

the opposite ends of the planet. Right. It's amazing. It really is. And I have to say, I've gone through this a couple of times before. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe I have. I don't know. It was. I was like, well, there's Alex. And time to give him a big hug.

Because we're Europeans and that's what we do. I mean, I may be an American, but I'm just still Italian. Listener, me and Tom had the most awkward handshake hug at the airport, and I laughed. I'm like, well, I was awkward. Hey? I wasn't sure what to do. Let's try this again. We'll try this again.

So we'll make sure we get a proper, like, bro hug off camera later. This is something we don't want to see. We don't want to see anybody to see in public because, you know, let's be scared the natives or anything. But I mean, but it was like, I'm actually really, believe it or not, I'm actually really quite socially awkward. in new situations. I mean, I really am. I'm not comfortable meeting new people. I'm never sure what to do.

I don't integrate into a new social environment very quickly. But if I get the right cues, I'm like, oh, okay, I'm fine. I can curse, I can swear, and I can smoke. All right, we're all good. But it takes me a couple of minutes. See, that's the bad conscience of a thought criminal. He never knows quite what he's going to be facing.

Dude, not more I'm drinking. Yeah, if anybody was hoping for like a deep insight today about what's going on. Oh, we can get there. I don't know. We'll get around. We'll get around. Oh, my God. The conversation we just had in the car with my, they, these guys didn't just get to meet.

Well, we didn't just all get to meet. But they get to meet my wife. And maybe we should add it her in there. I, you know, my wife is, I, I try to tell people. We were having this conversation. When we checked out of the hotel, I went back inside, just as they were starting to talk about like Renee Gerard and memetics and, and, you know, quantum psychology and all this stuff,

which my wife has read all these books on. And then she tells this stuff to me. And I'm sorry, but I go inside to get Alex and make sure that he gets checked out. He knows that we're outside waiting for him before we get into the car to drive to Lloyd Minster. And they're out there literally have not taken a breath. just she and the other two that we're with that or the other guys guys were with this weekend and walking into the middle of that conversation everybody's just like they're like really high level stuff and I just have to like stop at the moment you know at a calm moment to go

and oh by the way guys this is what we do over a vape and a smoke on the back porch like every day you know Camille and I are just that's what we do we have this kind of, you know, we don't talk about, you know, the weather. Like, it's, you know, and if you want to know what the secret to being together for 31 years is how we did it. With all the other, with all the other problems that go along with that. And it's been, you know, it's like we have, but it's that. It's like she's endlessly fascinating because she's, I say this all the time, she's interested in the things that I'm not necessarily. But she looks at it and goes, yeah, but that would be really good for your work.

So, yeah, I'll watch that. because she just loves it. She just likes to learn. She's just one of those people. And then she just keeps integrating it into her world deal. That could be on a card, you know. Endlessly fascinating. You just had like a poetic phrase about your wife, you know.

Yeah. She's endlessly fascinating. She is. That's pretty cool. Yeah, that's good stuff for marriage longevity. I, I, and it's, I know, we all get, we all get older. Certain things, you know, fall away. We grow out of them.

But if you have fascinating stuff to exchange and talk about and, you know, like, keep each other stimulated, man, that's, uh, I'm, I say it all the time. I'm the luckiest guy alive. I don't know why she stays with me. Because she's awesome. I'm serious. For some reason, she must tolerate you. She must be very tolerant person. She's not. Actually, that's the weird part about it. I, I, you know, we kind of look at each other. every once in all. I go, why are we still doing? It's our mutual fear of abandonment is the only reason we stay together because our terrible parents that we have. In my case, terrible mom. I had a great dad, but she had just like a pair of like horrible parents. And like, I think it's that more than anything else. I'm like,

this is maybe TMI folks, but you know, whatever. I don't care. But now it is, it is funny. And, and I just, you know, I never, I never get tired of sitting down and chatting with my wife. She's just, you know, she's constantly, there's that, you know, that phrase that we have in, in the corporate world or whatever is that continuous improvement, right? That's what her role kind of is. And she took this on willingly within the family unit, which is to continuously find the next thing to improve, even if it's a small thing and we're going to improve on this and we're going to improve on that. I think she's not always right, and it doesn't always work out, but she's constantly searching for the next thing. Okay, so I find that extremely interested and extremely important

because I was, all right, so one week ago, I was in Bath in UK at this conference called the Better Way conference, organized by the World Council for Health. And the title of my speech there was that free speech is our sacred birth. right and here's why I find this fascinating is because you know the argument I was trying to make is you know where does where does the the impulse to clamp down on free speech come from under under the guise of good intentions is that the people in power the authorities are trying to protect us from misinformation

and disinformation right and the point that I was trying to make is that we all okay so we are are all vulnerable to deception and fraud and disinformation, blah, blah, blah. So misinformation fraud. Yeah. So and that's true enough. However, you know, we're all in doubt with the, with the desire to educate ourselves. Right.

Nobody wants to be intentionally ignorant or deluded. And so I, you know, like my argument was that as we, you know, the more, the more we exert ourselves to educate ourselves to understand the world the more we gradually over time build up a detailed mental map of of the world and with that we become much more resilient to deception because we we start to understand what's what's likely to be true what's likely to be false what to pay attention to what to ignore what to focus one what to dismiss and so forth and at a certain point, you come to a point where you know, you're not going to be easily duped.

You're not going to be easily misled. And even if somebody with top credentials, top reputation in the conventional sense, comes out and tells you that black is white and dry is wet and things like that. that, you're not going to fall for it regardless. You know, it can be Anthony Fauci. It can be Bill Gates. It can be like, what's his face? Tyson.

Oh, Neil deGrasse Tyson. Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tom's favorite. Oh, yeah. And if they start spewing nonsense, you're going to say like, yeah, you may be science impersonated, but you're wrong, and I'm not following the authorities because that's what they're going to do if they clamp down those free speech. Sure. And free speech, you know, like, why I call the title is our sacred birthright is we're entitled to it so we should just

claim it, not ask anybody's permission. Of course. You know, like, I hope they're going to not censor me. No, just speak out. And if they do, I'll move, find a different platform and speak out more. Right. And it doesn't matter, you know, like, because even if you reach 10 people, those 10 people are going to reach other 10 or however many and in this sense truth will be unstoppable and is unstoppable we can see that already so anyway you know going from the

going from the secret to marital success and yours and Camille's inclination to you know like to dig into the mysteries of life and the universe I think that's exactly what we need to be doing and then sharing it. Right. And understanding,

one of the things that says, thank you, Alex, and I really appreciate that. I really do. It goes even one step further than that. Say, look, you, when you,

it doesn't matter if you're talking about health or you're talking about mental health or physical health or whatever, societal health. This is our, it's our sacred birthright, it's our societal birthright. The secret to a good

personal marriage relationship is the same as the secrets to a good societal relationship and or your relationship with your society or your community and your family and everybody else and so you know this is part of the reason why you know you're trying to make it make it better and at the same time I say all the time guys the lies are expensive and the truth sells itself yeah it's just that simple like you know and and it doesn't matter how many people you read through the first time through, as you said, because if you're speaking truth,

eventually it will find its way. Yeah. And as long as you're engaged in the honest inquisition towards the truth, even if you get it wrong, right? One of the things we were talking about last night over dinner and part of the conversation today

was, you know, what we do, what you and I do, and how that operates. And like your goal is not, and the reason why people, you know, we have a following or whatever, and why podcasting as an art form is so powerful. This is very important. So this is actually applicable to all three of us, right? You, the podcaster, Sean, Alex and I, the guests.

Yes, I happen to also hold a podcast, run a podcast in which Alex is regularly a guest as well. And yeah, I need to get you back on, big guy. But why that's so powerful is that because it's a format done properly where we can spend the time to honestly go through issues, right? As in a long form conversation or even a short form conversation, maybe 15 minutes, it's going to be an hour in 15 minutes. It can be three hours and 15 minutes, depending on what you want to do. But it is honest in its purpose. pursuit of something, even if the people who are speaking aren't experts in their particular field that they're speaking about.

Because it's the process of watching them go through the process of the Inquisition and the playing off of ideas and everything else. That is what is captivating for the audience because that gives the audience to, one, it gives them two things. One, it gets them to be a part of the process. And they feel part of the process of intellectual inclusion. not listening to some guy giving a freaking lecture and being all pompous, Alex's word to describe Ludwig von Mises and human action in the car on the way over.

It's an opportunity for everybody to show a little bit of humility and for everybody to be a part of the process. In narrative, and I mean this, not in the political sense, but in the construction of stories and the constructions of narratives, right? because you guys know that that's a hobby of mine because it's part of what I do, right, is to analyze film or analyze television shows and see narratives. So understanding the basics of how storytelling operates at a structural level, the idea of the audience proxy character is incredibly important. The person who the audience identifies with, it's Hans Solo in Star Wars is the audience proxy. He's the guy looking at all this going, are you kidding? I never seen anything

that, you know, that I've been to one side of this galaxy, the other, I've seen a lot of strange stuff. I've never seen anything that tells me there's some all-powerful force controlling everything. And that's the audience's reaction to all of this, you know, simple tricks and nonsense, as he put it, right? So that's what podcasting is about. That's what we're doing here. So even if we get stuff wrong. So we, so Alex and I, we bandy ideas back and forth. off of each other. And we bounce ideas off of each other, right? And we maybe wrong.

But it's the freedom to be wrong that allows for the next iteration of things to then to find the next. And I think that we're people who hate podcasts, they don't understand that. The people who love it, go into it knowing that they aren't going to agree with everything Tom says or Alex says. Yeah. That no guest is ever 100% right at anything they're going to say. but they're willing to say it,

and that's going to help them, as you talk about going through the process. There's something about listening to somebody trying to get through complex ideas that helps you in your own life. It's like, oh, I hadn't thought about it that way. And you can listen to however many guests on one single subject,

and they never ever say the identical same thing. They have different examples. Some different examples can just help you, just how they frame it. And then you're like, oh. And some people are masters at it, and some are there. I personally like, people must laugh when they hear you two come on my podcast because they know I'm going to, I'm the Terminator.

I'm going to say three words. This is the most I've talked since I've had you two on, which is funny. But normally I'm just like, I sit. I say, okay, go play football boys and I'm going to be the spectate because I kind of sit back and watch YouTube go back and forth on very complex things that I know very little about. Well, one of the things I want to bring up here, Sean, one of the reasons why when we started this conversation today a little informed, normally was because I wanted to highlight your role in today. Okay. I think it's very important that people take this seriously.

Like, the guy flew us all the way up here. He flew, you know, Alex over from Europe. He flew me up from Florida. Tomorrow night we're going to sit down and we're going to, you know, do a live, we're going to take the show on the road. That's right. You know what I mean? We're going to do, we're going to get to do the geopolitical standup routine on the road.

No, I mean, it's important, but that's a facilitating thing. And podcasters as a class of people are now communications facilitators. They are. And again, it's not just that we get to, as the audience, the good podcast, be taken through some idea to its logical conclusion or some thing. It's that it gives the audience the opportunity to riff themselves off of what was just said. Meaning, yeah, that guy got close, but he really missed this, this and this. and then they can go about their day going, yeah, that guy.

You said the word I love, because the idea behind tomorrow night is that imagine you got to sit in on Queen or the Beatles or whatever band you want, it doesn't matter, where they're trying to figure out a song, right? They're just riffing off each other. Maybe that sounds good.

And the whole point of the roundtable portion is for the audience to ask a question and then for the people on stage to riff on it. Like, I don't know, what do you think of X? And away they go. And if you get two people, three people, that are comfortable with each, other where they start talking, you never know where that'll go. That's, that's the, the beauty of

the live show. Yeah, I agree. Like, you're watching sound check. You know, you're watching, watching the sound check before the, before the concert. You all know what the show's going to be because they've scripted it and they've run it, they've run it through a thousand times. But soundtrack is where you get to see the fun part. That's where. Actually, yeah, you're, you're absolutely right, Tom. Yeah. But I always, I also like to add another thing that, you know, like the audience, I would appeal on the audience to, you know, like, you know, like, you're, like, you're in their lives to take an active role in this because, you know, like, just a few weeks ago,

I saw this, like, brief video by Dr. Mike Eden on Twitter. And he's saying, you know, like, it's time for us to be brave. And he didn't say this in the sense of, like, martyr yourself, but he said, like, don't be too worried about your reputation. Speak out. And I think that's really important advice because, you know, like, we often don't speak out because you think, like,

well, maybe I got this wrong. What are people going to think? And I think this is the best time to be brave in this sense because the, you know, like we are exposed to each other at an unprecedented level, you know, and people are exposed to so much information that if you get something wrong, people are going to set you straight. You know, somebody is going to say like, you got this wrong. And I mean, you don't have to be cemented in the error. You can just like go like, oh, okay.

And so we get to riff off of each other, adjust course, correct each other. And I think that over time it amounts to a process of like really refining knowledge and breaking new grounds and where's it going. We can't really know where it's going, but we know that we can't play a role in it and then we should play a role in it. Because if we're passive, we're being led like cattle to slaughter. I agree. if we're active, we become invincible. And so I think for everybody, every person out there who's hesitating because, you know, they're not sure if they got it right or they're not sure how their colleagues or family

members are going to react. Just like be brave. Be brave. Speak out. If you're wrong, you're going to be set straight. You're going to figure out that you're wrong sooner or later. And let the knowledge and the information flow through. and whatever is,

whatever is, you know, gold is going to float up to the top. And, you know, it's a gradual process of making the world a better place. It is. And I agree, Alex. And the thing that's a, is worrying for people, I think, is that, yeah, I'm going to be, if I'm wrong,

I'm going to get shot it down. I'm going to, it's, it's, but yes, being brave is incredibly important in this. And there was a small point that I wanted to make on top of that. And now I can't quite make it. make it. I can't find it. It just might...

The caffeine-free dad's root beer is really getting to Tom. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, it's the sugar. No. I don't know. You want to see me bouncing off the walls, dude. Now, just add whiskey. And then...

So, no, I think it is. It's really important that being brave is important because you can't be... You can always say, look, this is what I think. And then you get corrected. And that's not the end of the world. I don't know if I told this story to you guys. But I know I've told this story in public before.

So I was helping Camille's nephew one weekend to buy a car for the first time. He'd never bought it on car. So I just helped shepherd him through the process. During that weekend, right, a couple days of be working with him. So I spent a lot of time with him that weekend. And so we were just chatting, you know, at home after he, you know, bought the car and came home. We were chatting. And I said, and he was talking with one of his younger, like Gen Z coworkers, right?

And so early 20, something like that. This guy's, you know, a little younger, a little older than that. And I said, and the kid just kind of looked at him. that, you know, it's like, what my, what Camille's nephew said was like, look, in the past, we didn't have any, we didn't have, you know, the library of Alexandria in our, we had the Oracle Delphi on our hands. So, you know, the, so we just, we learned what we knew from the people around us and the news and whatever. And the kid just kind of looked at it and went, so, what happened when you were wrong? What could, like, what were you just wrong?

Right, you just stayed wrong. Like, and the, and this is coming, and it wasn't even my reaction to this, that was interesting. It was Camille's nephew's reaction to it, which was, like, he could never conceive of the idea that you could be wrong. And that would be like, and like, that would be the worst thing imaginable. Like, so we have, we bred in this, all this social anxiety, I think, at this point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. To this, this, this, this, this, allergy to being wrong. And everybody needs to be right about everything all the time.

and have an opinion about everything and have that opinion to be right and fact checkable through Google on a daily basis and that's a very dangerous process. Well, even... And that's a very dangerous thing. And we're like, no, no, no.

Yeah, we were just wrong. And then we learned to get better information. And the only difference between then and now is that it took us longer to get contrarian... And your wrongs were contained. Rongs now can spread. Right. Yeah, you could...

Like, I mean... You could stay wrong for longer and not know it, but nothing obliges you to stay wrong, right? But anyway, you know, like what I wanted to mention is there's another really important reason to speak out for everybody. And that is to be able to recognize each other, right? Because, you know, if you're holding unconventional view or if you're questioning conventional wisdoms that, you know, like if you imagine most people are not questioning, then you might feel awkward to bring it up, you know. But what happens very often is that when you do bring it up, you discover that you're not the only one.

Right. You know? And that's like being able to bond with people. And the most beautiful illustration of this is a friend of mine told me a story about like being on a ski lift in Switzerland at a time, I think last winter, winter 21 maybe, or maybe winter 22, where, you know, people went skiing, but they were still obliged to wear face masks.

on the ski lifts, right? So they were on a ski lift, one of those like gondola, as that little, you know, like that little egg where you can fit like four or five people. Right. And they were supposed to wear a mask on. And so the guy says, like,

he noticed that the couple across from them were kind of fidgety and not sure. And he was wondering whether it was because his mask was below his nose. And then at some point, the girl asks him like, do you mind if we take off our masks? And he was like, oh, yes, please.

And then, like, for the rest of the rise, you know, like they totally bonded because they discovered that they feel the same way about something. But if nobody said anything, they might have gone the whole ride, like, with these masks. And only assuming that, you know, like, I'm alone here, these people are going to judge me if I say anything. So I better not say anything. And those people might think the same way. And so nothing happens. but just by virtue of somebody speaking out,

like they were like, first of all, they were freed of their anxiety. They bonded, they found that they're not alone. They found that they have like-minded friends in that situation. And so, you know, that's what we often discover, you know, rather than assuming that we're the weird one, we're the outlier, just speak out and you'll discover that you're not most often. us to believe.

But people are looking for champions. And the thing about speaking out is the more you do it, then you're going to get confrontation. It's just you're going to. You're going to get resistance, but that's going to make you better. And the better you get at it, the more people that you can bring in underneath you

that will hear what you're saying, Alex, and find courage to do what you're doing. Yeah, because at the beginning of COVID, there wasn't that there was none, because they obviously silenced a whole ton, but there wasn't a whole lot of like, like, wow, that person hasn't nailed down.

And the further we got into COVID, the more of those speakers have been like railroaded across every platform, everywhere. They kept getting pulled down. They kept getting everything. And it was easy to just like, listen to them and go like, that guy's got it or that woman. There was a ton of ladies, too.

They just like, I used to remember. Nail it on the head. In the early days of me being independent with, I got picked up for a regular Friday hour gig on Sputnik Radio show with Garland Nixon and Lee Stranham and that was every week and it was like Friday the last hour every week they ended every week with an hour with me and which was great and was fun and I you know but got news for you COVID broke that relationship you know and they fell into the now

believe more than Gerlin fell into the you know into this under the spell of it's necessary to lock the world down blah blah blah like okay you're just fearful like we're breaking the entire global economy over this? No, this is the time. I literally said on the air, this is now the time for brave people to go to work every day in order to keep the society running

so that we can produce the goods necessary to keep us healthy enough to stay alive while this thing runs its course because that's just the way it's going to be. It's either going to wipe out humanity and it's the frigging AZ1 virus from the Planet of the Apes movies or it's not.

And we're going to need people showing up every day to make sure the lights are on, do the you know if you don't go to work because you're in a non-essential job then i got news for you then that lowers the demand for the things that you demand on a daily basis and that puts 50 other people out of a job and another hundred people and and and they and they lost their jobs and they lost their jobs and they lost their jobs like and you know that ended badly let's just say that i got ambushed one week and i just said you know what and i just hung up the phone

And my act of bravery was to literally hang up on Lee Stranahan in mid-sentence on national radio. I'm like, no. I was not brought on here to do this. This is bullshit. And I'm not doing it. I donate my time. I don't need you. And you talk about, you know, I'm just a disagreeable asshole when it comes down to it.

That's just who I am. But is that brave? I don't know. But it is what it is. I think being, well, that's an interesting question. What do you mean by being brip? Because to me, it's embracing who you are. And certainly striving after the truth, I think, is something we need more and more

because we've been getting fed lies for a long time. But being okay with who you are is a good thing. And so many of us are. for everybody else to tell us who we are. And that's a tough way to live life. I think that an easy way to not be okay with who you are is to not embrace who you are and not to do things that your conscience tells you

that are the right thing to do. You know, like, it takes some courage and integrity to do what's right, whether doing things that are just, how do you call it, convenient or expedient. But I think that once you get into the habit of going along with your conscience, like listening to the voice of your conscience and trying to do the right thing to the best of

your ability, okay, you don't have to martyr yourself over every dilemma in life. But, you know, like generally to steer your course of life according to what's right and what your conscience tells you to, then one of the great rewards for that is that you start to feel okay with yourself. And you start to be able to forgive yourself for your character flaws that everybody has. That's just how it is, you know, like roses have thorns.

And, you know, like at some... There are times when, you know, like when shit happens, everybody has a bad day at the office. everybody has a fight with their family members, with their friends. And, you know, that's part of life. You just, like, turn the new page and you carry on. You know, not necessarily fatal at every turn. And I think that it's much more fatal trying to avoid every confrontation and every disagreement.

Yeah. Agreed. And that whole process of forgiving yourself is, oh, that's only the hardest freaking thing any of us ever do. Right. Let's not kid ourselves here. that that is absolutely the hardest thing anybody ever has to do. And like, you know, and, you know, you say that phrase.

And it's just like, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think it's, you know, like I think it's time for that for many of us, for most of us, because, you know, what if it's really true that, you know, like at this critical juncture for humanity, the people who are living here in the now, are actually people who are, you know, supposed to be here. You're like, maybe we're all supposed to be here. Yeah.

So maybe we matter. And in that case, you know, like, we should treat each other and ourselves well. Yeah. You know, so, you know, forgive yourself if you think you have something to forgive yourself for. And carry on and do the best with the days that are given to you. Your invoking token, now I'll invoke Babylon 5. We're the right people. Are we all the right people?

in the right place at the right time and that's you know as you said like we we don't know you were you meant to be here well yeah yeah okay well you're guess guess what you're gonna and you're gonna go forward with as much humility and as much grace and as and you know a little saltiness because that that gets people's attention there's nothing wrong with that I guess I'm hoping no yeah I like we all have personalities that's fine you know that's we're we're hard wire that way you know It's part of the design. But it's, what a trip, man.

Because, you know, we don't know if we're supposed to be here. We don't know why the hell we are here, but we are. And what if it was meant to be this way? Of course. No, it was meant to be this way. Dude, do your best and leave it on the pitch, as they say, you know, like. Yeah. Absolutely.

Like, nobody's getting out alive, but make sure that when you look back, you're like, yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's not live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse, right? The true romance. No, no, no. It's not that. No, that's not that.

But it is, it is. Well, I mean, I'm 55, right? I don't know how old you are, Alex. I'm 43. Okay. Oh, I'm 55 going on six, but that's a different story. But, you know,

we're in the top layer of the keg. And that's an old Gary North. I talk about this all that. Some of the things, you ask, okay, so, you know, what are the most influential things you've read in your life? Right. Well, I've gone over, you know, why Philip Kadegh was the greatest novelist of the 20th century, and I've done that one before.

But Gary North, the old Austrian economist. Yeah. And one of the good ones. And this is an argument that this is part of, we're harkening back to some discussions we had in the car earlier in today, where North, by the way, got everything right about QE and, you know, and zero-bound interest rates and all that stuff back in 2000. But Gary North wrote a great article called, I think it's called the top layer of the cake.

And he said, a man's life, and he was talking about his dad, actually. His dad said that, you know, a man's life is like a three-layer cake. And, you know, the first layer of the cake is your adolescence where you live for yourself. And then the second layer of the cake is when you're a father and you're living for your family. And the top layer of the cake, after your family's grown, is what you're going to do with your legacy. because really unlike women, because women have as moms, they get to mature into being grandmothers

who have a very, very important role in the family structure, much more so than grandfathers do. Then the grandfather, or when you're in that last layer of your case, that's where a man establishes his legacy. And in order to leave that for his progeny to live up to, right?

And to strive towards and say, this is how I want to be remembered, right? And what are you going to do with that, you know, with that last 30-year life? And I remember reading that for the first time and going, whoa, that was back in 2000, I got to say somewhere between 2005 and 2008. I don't quite remember when he wrote it.

I don't quite remember when I read it, right? And the first time I read it would have been on Lou Rockwell so whenever it was published then. But, and going north might have read it. republished or repackaged that same concept multiple times because you're right for 50 years and you're going to repeat yourself. But that struck me. And I think it was right around the time. It was right after we built the house.

So for those in the audience who don't know, my wife and I, you know, one of the things we survived was building a house together. And we did it because it was to have the skills necessary to get through. and we didn't have a lot of money and it was either if we wanted a house in the country we were going to have to build it ourselves because I couldn't afford anybody else to do it but it was then that I was really beginning

to start thinking about that stuff and like okay what is the last third of my life going to be? And because I'm about to become a dad or if I hadn't just become a dad. And because I became a dad in 2006 at the age of 36. So yeah, that's important

part of that. And so what else are we at this age, if not the men who should be standing up and leading? Especially considering the two generations of men that are behind us now that have no role models. Well, I was sitting me and Alex for changing how old we are. I'm only 37. So I was chuckling because I'm like, well, you,

we're trying to model like to other men to stand up. That's exactly what it is. It's like, we all need to stand up, right? The sooner that happens, the sooner things get way better. Yeah. And as long as we just keep, you know, no, it's not a big deal or, you know, whatever is going to happen is going to happen. It's like, well, when you take that attitude, then we put an unbearable burden on your generation. And when our generation should be walking into it right now, honestly, at 37, I'm like, although

busy with kids and everything, it's like at the same token, it's like, it's like, it's, like it's time like you can feel it and yeah you got the energy you got everything going you're just like and you got the you got the the the the meat not the means the like the why to do it for i got three young kids i'm like what the hell am i hand and i'm over here right exactly that's the purpose thank you if you don't rise up to the challenge you leave double the challenge to them yeah absolutely and you know like i'm what 53 i i i can conceive like like you know, living comfortably to my old age, maybe. I don't know.

But, you know, like the future of my children, that's longer. And their children, we have no choice. No, we have no choice. And it's a dark age. And we realize that we recognize it for what it is. It's a, and it's a, it's, it's the why. Like, this is why we're here. This is when you make the decision, again, as Alex said earlier.

Isn't it? There's time to be brave. It's just time to, like, do the thing. Isn't it funny that we all kind of grew up on... It's time to do the thing. It's time to do the thing. The thing. Isn't it funny that we...

The thing. We all kind of grew up on these archetypal stories about, you know, like the clash between good and evil, you know, like the Star Wars and... and Harry Potter and the, what's it called, like, Lord of the Rings and all these things. And, dude, we get to live it in the Rings. Yeah, you're right here. Like, are you going to be, are you going to be Frodo or are you going to be, you know, like, who are you going to be? Like, who do you want to be?

Yeah. And your opportunity is right in front of you. And, you know. And if you stand, honestly, like, I just look at the, look at the men who have stood up and what's happened for them. especially when they get really good at it, you know, their lives have not ended. No, no. Quite the opposite.

Yeah, no. Yeah. Like, these people think they rule the world. I never say they're the men that rule the world. These, you mean the other side? Yeah, the bad guys. The bad guys. The Gog and Magog, those guys.

The, um, like, sorry, couldn't help myself. Um, there is a bit of performance right here. people. If I'm not doing it. If I'm not doing that, I'm not doing this right. But like, you know, they think they rule the world. They have a solipsism. And I hate to pull that 25 cent word out, but it's one of my favorites. So fuck you. They have a solipsism about them, about their, that how empower, how powerful they actually are when they're not really. Because all you have to do is say, dude, we can see you. They are just the Wizard of ultimately.

And the question is whether or not you're going to be allowed, you're going to allow yourself to be gaslit by morons into believing that, you know, the whole world's going to end. I mean, I'm not saying that they're not going to try and destroy the world before giving up power. That's like pretty much a given. Yeah, that's a given. Okay? That doesn't mean they're going to succeed. It means, you know, pull the string out.

boys we got work to do isn't it evil prevails when good men do nothing isn't that yeah isn't that essentially the same right yeah it is something to that effect yeah you know the only thing necessary for for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing for good men to do nothing there that's there there you go yeah what if you know uh i'm curious you know like i know um on stage we're gonna talk about it but i mean if we go over it twice um we got we got a heart out today so we got about 30 minutes left. There's been a lot going on in the world. Oh, a lot.

I felt like we went through this like real like dry spell or quiet period of like, oh, maybe, maybe we're going to get peace. Really? You thought that? Not really, but you know, it kind of just went quiet. Where almost it was Tom's laughing. Okay.

I'm glad you felt that way, Sean. Maybe you got a bit of a recharge. It was all I saw was bad, bad, bad, bad. I was like Jakarp. I know what it was. I was waiting for you guys to come up and I hadn't talked to you in a while. Yeah, I know it's overwhelming.

It's really difficult to keep up with stuff. So what sticks out? Like what is the, I don't know, the dam? Like, do you want to, do you want to? Like the, like the, they come out and it's not just the dam. It's not just the dam. I want you to like take it one step further. Like a lot of stuff happened on June 5th.

And then, you know, that's when the offensive started, even though it was, it faltered a little bit. I don't know what the current status is. The disinformation is so thick. We're doing us on what, the ninth? And who can tell what's actually going on? But like, never forget anybody that the Ukrainians are the ones attacking. So they're the ones that are going to lose most of the men.

They're attacking Russian fortified positions. Even if they take some territory, it's going to pay a huge price. Well, apparently they already are. I think, I think, you know, like the casualty rates are like 12 to 1. If it's that high, that's bad. It's very bad. Right. I mean, 3 to 1, 4 to 1, 5 to 1 is within operational parameters.

10 to 10 to 1 is horrendous. Yeah. That's, you know, World War I level stuff. But then again, this is World War I style of warfare with standoff artillery. But the dam, and I'm convinced this was the British, or with the Ukrainians, with the British help. The dam is a statement. And all of this happens downstream of the debt ceiling being signed

here in the United States. Because this is the debt ceiling bill that was signed, which is basically suspended and give Biden a blank check for $4 trillion to spend the next 18 months. What do you think he's going to spend it on? Housing for the poor? No. The dam is the thing that

says to you, okay, they're willing to drown civilians rather than give up operational control. Then the next day, and this is a couple of days after the Russians formally just walk away from the Ukrainian grain agreement, the grain export agreement out of the port of Odessa.

This was, of course, all downstream from one of the Russians blew up the last military naval ship that the Ukrainians were hiding through the river systems in and around Odessa. The Russians finally found it and blew it up. So it's like a domino, a series of a domino, little dominoes. But they pulled out of the grain deal because the Ukrainians were exporting grain and the Russians fulfilled their side of the agreement and nothing on the other side of the agreement was was. held to, which was allow ammonia exports from into the, through the pipeline from Russia into Odessa across Ukraine was one. There's like three other things. And this all, this is all classic British American style. Hey, let's sign an agreement so that, and we know full well that the Ukrainians were bringing men and material and weapons into Odessa through these grain export

ships. We all know that that's what was going on. Everybody stop it. It's the frigging Lusitania, the 21st century version, right? And finally, the Russian said, you know what? Nuts to that. That's enough. We're out of the deal. So what happens on Tuesday?

They blow up the dam on Monday. They blow up the pipeline outside of Kharkiv, or sorry, Karkov, I'm not Ukrainian, the next day, gassing an entire village. They blow up an ammonia pipeline. These people don't care about climate change. They don't care about ecological disaster. They don't care about anything.

They care about one thing. one thing only, power. And now we're hearing that the Canadian wildfires were set by arsonists using drones. Are they going to blame that on the Russians too? Or are they going to use this as a as a means by which to start climate

lockdowns all over again? Because solar output in the entire Northeastern seaboard dropped by half because we have a blade runner like skyline over New York. Not that anybody cares, by the way. No matter how much they try to tell us that we're supposed to care that New Yorkers can't breathe.

Only the New York media cares. Because I don't. Because anybody's still living in New York. Well, you deserve what you get. You're still living in New York.

What's wrong with you? Sorry, rant off. Go ahead, Alex. Yeah. How much better is this in person? Yeah, it's awesome. but we don't we're not all autistic waiting for the waiting for the freaking delay to catch up to each other and like it's it's oh god

it's so much better in person the only problem i got is i'm like stupid hard out time limit whatever kids you know kids anyways you know self-inflicted women did you know three times over normally he's he's the bearer of bad news and and somehow alix just finds a way to breathe a little sunlight in but i don't think it's coming is it i see this look on your face no no look no look no look you couldn't beat optimism out of me with like a zircon missile you know but you know like things can be things can look very ugly in the in the you know like in a short interval of time you know but it's all part of a process and the and the process can get ugly but oh dare I go back to my speech from last week I always like to use

this beautiful Confucian, what do you call it? It's not really a metaphor. It's a, yeah, whatever. Whatever you call it. Basically, here's what it says. It says like great trees fall with a lot of noise and great destruction, but seeds grow silently, right? And so I think that what we're seeing in the world now

is the collapse of old structures, structures that probably need to collapse. But what we don't see and what we don't hear is all the seeds growing. And I think the seeds growing is exactly what we've been talking about earlier. It's all of us, you know, like trying to understand things, researching, analyzing, exchanging ideas, riffing off of each other, speaking out to other people and other people speaking to still other people. And I think that the power of that is probably a million times over more than All these things that are kind of, you know, so captivating because like, oh my God, a dam broke up. The dam was blown up, sorry.

And all this happened. And, you know, like, it creates headline news instantly. And then you think about all the people that got hurt. And you're like, oh, my God, you know, like, this is horrible. But go back to World War I. Well, go back to practically any period of history. and there's always ugly stuff, but we overcome it. You know, like with time, all of these things are overcome.

Most of the people survive and the world gets rebuilt. We get to build back better, right? Yeah, on our terms, not theirs. Only on our terms, exactly, not on Klaus Schwab's terms or on Boris Johnson's terms. It was only, it was just a couple of months ago when Boris Johnson was saying. You know, like we all ought to be focused on building back better. Right. I thought like, what?

What's fascinating about this is, it's, yeah, you're right, Alex. And I was going to say the, what was I going to say now? God, damn, I hate when that happens. Again, Dad's root beer, man. Like, that's just, whew. How was Canada, Tom? Well, he gave me Dad's Root Beer on air, and let me tell you, it really messed up.

This has destroyed my ability to think. No, it's funny. Very interesting beverage, but so intensely sweet. Yes. I could not finish it. Yeah, it is a little much. So, Dad, whoever you are, like, don't down the sugar a little bit. I mean, I know that I had something interesting to say, and I can't now think of it.

So we're just going to sit here and talk about Dad's root beer again. So draw it across and bring it back. And there you. So the, what were you saying? I was just telling dad to you. No, no for that. Christ on a freaking crutch. He was talking.

I was saying about, you know, the process of, you know, like simultaneously you have this destruction. Right. That's like mesmerizing, that it's like transfixed. us to like looking at these dark horrible events. But then you know like all the good things that are happening, which is all of us, which is you know like you could think of it as seeds growing according to themselves, but they grow in silence, they don't generate news, they don't

attract attention. Yeah. But they're growing, you know, like in such huge, how do you call it? Numbers and such magnitude that it's probably one, you know, like in such huge, way, way more than the destruction that is generating all this noise and, you know, like it's captivating us all. And then if you get too immersed in it, then you think like the world's ending, it's all over, you know, like everything is horrible and humanity probably shouldn't exist and all this. But I think that, you know, that's where you direct your attention to. And I think that we need to also direct our attention to, of course, you have to acknowledge

the things going on. but you have to put them in historical context. Absolutely. I mean, like World War II, I don't know, France, which was a major participant, sustained, I think, off the top of my head, like something like 1.35% of their population perished in the four years of, like, heavy-duty warfare. I think the UK maybe like 0.8%, 0.6%, something like that. the United States, like something like 0.25%.

So, you know, like if you put all this in perspective, yeah, you know, like every one of those deaths is a tragedy. It goes. And every one of the battles and incidents that generated those casualties was a, was a captivating event and a news headline. But the part of the society that lives and the case, carries on is much, much bigger than that. And, you know, like, I live through the war in former Yugoslavia.

And I can tell you, while battles were going on in part of the country, the other part of the country, people were going to work every day. They were riding on buses. They were going to bar to have coffees. They visited each other. They made lunch. They sent their children to school. So life does go on.

And all of that is going on, even as we're, like, looking at Ukraine and the whole train wreck that is. Well, I was going to say, there's tons of people. here in this country that have zero clue what's going on over there. Well, what I was going to say before dad, like, hijacked my brain was we are all the survivors, we are all the descendants of survivors of natural catastrophes of the past. We are all descendants from slaves. Every one of us.

So you put it all in historical perspective. We are the ones who lived. Remember, you invoked Harry Potter earlier. What was his nickname? The boy who lived. Right? There you go. Okay.

Now, that's who we are, all of us, every one of us. So you're going to be the, so we're all, so hopefully we will all live unless, you know, they remand me to Guantanamo and waterboard me or whatever. And if they do, they do. Like, I can't live that life that I'm going to be worried about this. I'm going to have to just keep doing what we're doing and, and hope that, you know, like, you can make an example out of us. Like, guys, did you watch Tucker Carlson's episode two on Twitter? Oh, no. I have episode two just dropped and he went and he went and he went there about

pedophilia and the breaking down of taboos about how to break down how it's breaking down every aspect of our society in order to in order to to roll us over pedophilia, pedophilia remind me is that is that like the minor attracted person? Yeah I'm sorry I use such an antiquated term that you know it's like this ancient religion They invoke Star Wars again. They got from 20 years ago. Have you seen a movie guy? Have you seen Jim Caviesel's new movie coming out?

The speed of... No, I haven't. It hasn't come out yet. July 4th. No, I haven't. That's why we haven't seen it. That's kind of why we haven't seen it again. No, no, I mean, sorry, the preview for it.

No, no, sorry. I keep saying sound of freedom. It's about that. It's about child trafficking. And then Mel Gibson's apparently going to back a four-part dokey series on it. I don't think he's making it. I think he's backing it because Mel's got,

because Mel has truly fucking money. Because Mel Gibson is ready folks, Mel Gibson is fucking awesome. That guy is awesome. And, yeah, no, I haven't. And I think it's good.

This is what we, you know, there comes a point where they're coming for our kids, folks. Yeah. Like, if you're not going to be brave now, then Then when, and for what? Yeah.

Like, really? Like, what do you got? This is what you're going to find out? Like I said earlier. Pull the string out. Mike drop. Let's leave it there. We're going to be on stage tomorrow night anyways.

And to the listener, I guess I don't know when I'm dropping this. I assume right before I release the other one, which will be the sound of what we do on stage is my guess. Either way, I appreciate you guys coming in doing this. It's been super cool to like, I don't know, I have really dumb ideas. I think it's like, you know, you have this idea in your head. It's like, get Tom and Alex over. It's like, yeah, that makes sense.

And then, you know, I start going through the process of like how I get you here. I'm like, oh, my God. Like, you know, this isn't like one flight for Alex. This is 24 hours of a plane. This is 24 hours, right? It was 15 for me. Yeah, that Tom wasn't much better coming from Florida. Yeah, right?

And then you get up here finally, you know, and I see you both. You both look like you've been. run over by trucks you look better today yeah but you know guess what we're all gonna get our internal eternal rest at some point it's true so like you know I got what you missed what you got to use up the time like but we had I finally had to just like stop I was an energizer bunny mode and poor Alex is like I'm fast I'm like let's get him back to the hotel and but I'm in like people don't yeah because we're we're like sitting in a restaurant at a completely normal time except it's 10 o'clock in the morning in my head you know right and I haven't slept the

whole night. Right. And we're like having this really engaging conversation at some point like I can feel myself fading, you know, like the battery is going on. Oh, yeah. But I'm up 26 hours at this point and I just lit my second cigar. I mean, like, and now I find, like, oh, this is a 20-minute cigar. It won't be that one.

And Alex is like, I'm not going to make it out of that way. I just see it on his face. I'm like, okay. Okay, I'll put it away. We'll get you some cigar smoking tonight. No, that's no problem. So I went, we went back to the hotel. I went upstairs and I was still like

I couldn't go to sleep this yet you know Camille had already gone home had not gone boys night out because she was whipped but you know I went out and smoked at the parking lot and I walked outside. I'm sitting out by the dumpster at 1230 in the morning well your time 2.30 in the morning yeah I'm still I'm just walking in my house

you know like that's that's about the time I got home so either way man I'm I'm excited for you guys to to be here and I think tomorrow night is going to be a ton of fun on stage. It's like one of my funnest. I love being in the studio, and I certainly love having people in the studio. There's nothing that compares to it.

But, you know, for a guy who played hockey for a good chunk of his career or his life, I guess, in front of people, there's something with an audience and getting their interaction and everything else. And honestly, the second portion where they get to interact asking questions and stuff, I'm excited to see what they fire at you guys

and to try and keep that on the rails, you know? like that should be interesting, you know? Yeah, yeah, I look forward to that. Yeah. I really look forward to that. That's like a lot of fun. And again, Sean, you know, mad props. You know, mad props for putting this together.

Yeah. And every way, in matter, shape, and form. I am, you know, I don't, I'm still like, yeah, people actually want to, like, meet me in person. What the hell? Like, really? Are you guys, do, all right, fine. Well, we'll see what they say. After tomorrow night.

Yeah, we'll see what they say. No, no, but it's going to be good. I'm sure it's going to be good. And I totally look forward to it and awesome that you put it all together. Thank you. Really, really. It's going to be great.