The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Russillo Summer Book Club: ‘From the River to the Sea’ With John Sedgwick, Plus Life Advice

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

For the second chapter of his Summer Book Club, Russillo welcomes in John Sedgwick—author of ‘From the River to the Sea’—to learn more about the history of transit and railways (0:35). Plus, Life Advice with Kyle and Ceruti (32:18)! Should I coach my son’s youth soccer team? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, live streams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out rg-help.com to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: John Sedgwick Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the River to the Sea, John Sedgwick. If you like railroads, you'll love this book. If you like the history of railroads, the history of transit, maybe you're a huge public transportation guy, maybe you just love Colorado and you want to know how Colorado Springs got started. Well, this is the book for you, two massive figures battling it out, the future of the railroad, the future of their legacy. This episode is brought to you by LEGO Fortnight. LEGO Fortnight is the ultimate survival crafting game found within Fortnite. It's not just Fortnite Battle Royale with minifigures. It's an entirely new experience that combines

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Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. The book is From the River to the Sea. John Sedgwick joins us now. John, I'll admit I saw this book a few times. I'd like go into the bookstore. I would see it displayed and Employees choice and I'd go and that might be interesting. I like the cover. So great job by the publishers and I just finally I think the fourth or fifth time I saw John. I was like, okay, I'm getting it and

I blasted through it in a couple weeks. It's a really fun read So thank you so much for joining us and I can't wait to talk about the railroads. It's so kind of you to have me. And anybody who wants to talk about the railroads is my friend for life. So, you know, I'm here for 30 minutes, but I'm here for you for the rest of my life and you for me.

So let's get cracking. All right, quite the commitment. So let's get into this great story here. So you can correct anything that I may I may have that that's off in the notes But you know, we're looking at kind of the 1860s Maybe all the way to the 1890s of the course of the story and I know you kind of jump around a bit which I think Adds even more depth of the story, but it really revolves around two main characters battling it out Tell us about these two guys, the focus of the story.

Well, they're two wonderful figures who could not be more contrasting and thus revealing of each other because of the way that they're different. You have on the one hand, you have William, there are two Williams here, William Palmer and William Strong. Palmer was a Civil War veteran who was actually served as a spy briefly in the Civil War, was captured, and it was put into the

hellhole of Richmond Prison and then emerged as a hero of the Civil War. And he set up shop in Colorado Springs where he was trying to create a town in order to lure the love of his life, a woman with the fantastic name of Queenie, in order to seduce her and bring her to the West because he believed in the West and the majesty of the mountains and how beautiful and wonderful it was.

And that he was gonna, it was a family venture. It was done for his wife. And he was setting up what he called a little family, which was the Rio Grande Railroad, the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad known as the Rio Grande. And the idea was that he was gonna send a line south from Colorado Springs to California, which was the great goal of all railroads.

But curiously, by a southern route, then he was going to go west at some future undetermined time. So he was going south in order to go west, which shows you something about the unique perspective that he had. Meanwhile, out in the East, there was in my hometown of Boston, there was a firm called the Patches and Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, known as the Santa Fe, that was originating in Kansas and was bent to go due

west to California. It was going to go to California on the line that a bullet would take. It would go to California by going to California. It would not go to California by going to Mexico. And so that was the contrast. And the Santa Fe was this big corporation of the modern style. The corporation was something created by the railroads.

It was this mega enterprise, highly layered with just a manager at the top and a legion of employees down below. It was not a little family. It was a company that was designed to make money and nothing else. Whereas for Palmer, it was designed to create a family,

to lure his wife out to Colorado, which was this barren outback. And it was totally emotional for him, for Palmer. It was totally rational slash money-making for Strong. And this was the contrast between these two men. And so, yeah, and they were on a collision course at where the two lines were gonna intersect at two places where there was room

for only one set of tracks and who was gonna win. Can you explain to us the, I don't, it's not as simple as the laws of what you're allowed to do in the railroad industry at this stage, but like what was understood and what was like actually what you were supposed to do? Cause it seemed pretty much like a free for all. It was a free for all.

And when people talk about the wild west, it was wild. It was wild in the sense that it was disordered. There was no government control. It was basically in the sense that it was disordered. There was no government control. It was basically the railroad saw this as their own private preserve to run as they liked and do as they liked. Now, you have to remember that this is all in the context of the very first railroads across the West, the transcontinental railroads.

This is when America opened up. It used to be an America that basically hugged the Atlantic shore. And that if you look at a map in the 1870s when this railroad war took place, what you would see is a divided America on the East. And it was amazing. It almost opened like a book. You had the east, obviously, on the right side. You have the west on the left side of this book. Well, if it was a book, the right side would be black with railroad tracks. There were more railroad

tracks in the eastern part of the United States than there were in Europe. It was thoroughly railroaded. The west was wide open. There was this first fledgling line, the Union Pacific, in the 1860s that forged the first connection to California, you know, this famous golden spike in the promontory peak in Utah. United, there was a line that came in from the West, another one came in from the East, and they joined it at promontory Peak. There was this amazing hullabaloo all across the United States, this fantastic engineering

achievement. And it was done actually as a political gesture at the instigation of Lincoln to unite the country. United East and West as the Civil War, which was raging at the time that he signed the bill, was trying to reconnect it North and South. And what happened with the railroads, and I don't mean to be too abstract about this, but I find it fascinating, the United States had been a company, a country that went up and down. It went along the Atlantic

shore or it went along the Mississippi River. These were two vertical lines. The railroads come along and they turn that around 90 degrees. They then go not north-south, they go east-west. And in doing so, they go out into this completely unknown, terra incognita that Americans had never visited, hardly understood it was the moon to them. It was a nowhere place. They didn't know what was there. There were no maps, no charts. It was nothingness. And it was like going to Mars. And this is what the railroads did, and they did it at electrifying speed. The speed of the railroads is something that is hard to

remember now, but at the time, the view outside the window was a blur. They were going so fast. They were going at 25 miles an hour, then 50 miles an hour, then 60. It was hair-raising. It was the most exhilarating thing that anybody could do. And yet these railroads would be going along this flat terrain that is artificially flattened by these engineers. They rejiggered the world to make it flat as a tabletop so that when you were going across the West at these hair-raising speed, you could sip tea.

I mean, it's just a mind bender and it's very hard to appreciate what a transformation that was mentally for people. And that's the backdrop of this collision that my two railroads have, because the first one, the Union Pacific, was a political enterprise. It was funded by the government, and then it was subject to government corruption. That a lot of the legislatures had been paid off to do this. It was a huge scandal.

And then on top of that, it was not a business like enterprise. It wasn't designed to make money. It was designed to lay track so that the people behind it could get reimbursed by the government for laying that track. And so as a business proposition, that first line across the West, the only one we remember, the transcontinental railroad, the Union Pacific, how great.

It was a fool's errand. It did not make any money. It didn't create any towns to speak of because it wasn't done on a market basis. It didn't go where there was a need. It went where it wanted to go to make money that was going to be paid back by the government. And so it was a boondoggle.

And these guys, my guys, were coming in on a market basis. They had to figure out where the market was. Where was the money going to come back to pay for the laying of the track? That was the governing principle of the West. Because they had to decide, and think about it, you're in this wide open place. Where do you send the tracks?

Do you go this way or that way? There's nothing in either direction. And you have to think, well, if I go this way, I might hit a gold mine. But I might miss, there might not be a gold mine there. Or I might go this way through some agricultural land, but the locusts might come. Or I might go this way through some agricultural land, but the locusts might come. Or I might go this way where there's

an existing utopian community, but it might flame out. And then also, if you're sending just one line, and it gets very intricate and fascinating to me, if you send one line, there's no feeder line coming into it to increase the traffic of passengers and freight. So you're really out there on your own and you kind of want another line to come in, but if you bring another line in, then you face competition and they may take all of your traffic and not feed all of your track.

These were the kinds of issues that these poor men had to face. And there was a 1,000 page description, a treatise, on how to lay track around the world. It was incredibly intricate. And the prescription was, don't lay track from a place that's known to a place that's unknown or is going to be a disaster. Well, what are these guys trying to do? Accept that. They're trying to lay track from

the known, which was usually Chicago that, um, to the unknown, which was the wild west. Okay. So I love going to Colorado, uh, for a bunch of different reasons. But one of my favorite parts of it is these towns. Like, if you really want to get off the highway and you start driving through. And when I was younger, I would go and visit and be like, Hey, we're going to go check out this town. You roll through this town.

I think it was Ward was the first one we went to and we were like, what is this? I mean, it looked like a, just a set for a movie for a wild west movie. And you go, well, there was a gold rush and now there's nothing here except the people that are still here. You're like, wow. So some people just wanted to be so far off the grid that this is what we're going to do. And then you see some other town and you're like, okay, this is completely abandoned because of the simple things that we're talking

about, whether or not you're talking about a water supply or some sort of port. Okay, well that makes sense. But when it comes to this timeline of events here with this rail expansion, the life and death stakes here for these towns is incredible. And then the private business motivations behind it where you have these towns that are like, yay, we're getting the train. It's like, okay, well give us all this land around the track and then we're going to sell the lots once we have rail coming here and then we're going to sell the lots once we have rail coming

here and then we're going to make all of our money back because we will have created essentially this town for free for us. And then it's like, no, we can't do that. It's like, cool. We're not sending the railroad to you. We're going to just go somewhere else and start another, like it's unbelievable the life and death for some of these people that eventually would just have to move to wherever the tracks were anyway. Exactly. I mean, there was very well said, that's exactly what went on. That the railroads had all the money and all the power. And they could create a town and they could destroy a town.

They could create a town by bringing tracks to it. They could destroy a town by taking those tracks away. And so that these towns were living on the edge. And what was fascinating too was the nature of these towns. These were railroad towns and that they all looked alike and they were all these squared off buildings with something called Railroad Avenue, usually going down the center, running parallel to the tracks. And then there was Main Street that ran perpendicularly off of that. And then there were house slots built all around it. And at the center of it was the train station. And the

train station was the biggest building in town. And it had a tower, usually with a clock. And it brought time, I might add, to the West. And people don't remember, but there was no national sense of time before the railroads came in. There was only local time. So that Boston, even though it was just 200 miles away from New York, was on a different time. It was 12 o'clock in Boston when it was 1207 in New York and it was 1235 in Chicago and it was 1243 in St. Louis.

Well, that wasn't going to work if the railroad was coming through because you had to change your watch every 20 minutes. So the railroads were the ones to decide what time we lived by and divided it into these four time zones that we still have today. It shows the power of the railroads to re-regulate life. It regulated the time, it regulated the space. And because these spaces of these individual towns all looked like each other. They were all squared off buildings with set lots.

And within those lots, there were set buildings of a particular dimension and this was universally true all across the West and it was a testament to the power of the trains. At the same time, the trains, even though they had all the power, they were immensely vulnerable because they always had to worry about another train coming in to take their business and this is what Palmer and Strong, my two guys, had to live with.

And Palmer thought the West two of themselves based in Colorado Springs. And he was going toodling down through the South. Through, interestingly enough, these narrow gauge tracks. Well, I mean, that's significant just by itself. There are narrow gauge, which is about three feet across. And then there was standard gauge that was created amazingly by Lincoln personally.

There was a little less than four feet. Different gauges, as they said, different widths. So that my train can't run on your tracks, your train cannot run on my tracks. Well, standard was coming in more and more. And it was a testament to Palmer's belief in himself, to a kind of maniacal extreme. He was going to stick to those narrow gauge, even though it was going to isolate him. Anyway, that's just one aspect of the way that these two

guys fought. But the terrifying thing for Palmer was that almost overnight, strong materialized in the West, just when he was about, Palmer was about to go through this narrow pass called the Rattan Pass that's just the north, I think, of Arizona. And as he goes down, he's about to go there when suddenly, ah, you see strong looming up. Well, who's going to get the Rattan pass? That's the first bite that these two men had. So I let's, let's get back to Palmer and strong. I'm glad you took us there because then it turns into something once Silver's

discovered in some of these Colorado locations where you're like, all right, who has the rights? And it feels like whoever gets his tracks down ahead of the other person first, and we'll worry about the details later. And then once you have the mining factor in these camps, and it's not just the money that's available from the railroad, it's the money of the freight. It's the money of actually claiming some of these mines. It turns into lawlessness to the point of

like Bat Masterson shows up from Wyatt Earp. Can you get into that element of this story where it looks like it's going to be a shootout just to get tracks down? Yeah, I mean, it was fascinating. This was the biggest railroad war in American history and probably in world history. And it was fought over this narrow, vertiginous, meaning very high, gorge. It was like a miniature grand canyon that was running through Colorado, and it was called the Royal Gorge. And at the top of the Royal Gorge was the biggest silver mine in the West. Obviously, an incredibly attractive target

for any railroad company, because first, it's going to attract tons of people. So there's a lot of passenger freight. But there's also the raw material in which the gold is buried has to be shipped out to these smelters that were going to get the gold out. So the railroad was perfectly equipped to carry this heavy load out. So a gold mine really, or rather a silver mine is what we're talking about.

Not gold, silver. And so the silver needed to be shipped out. The silver was going to retract any number of people. And so that, but as it turned out, that this gorge was so narrow at its base that there was room for only one set of tracks. But there were two companies that were desperate to get in there. And so what happens is that one of them

puts in a railroad track. And then they actually fight over it. Then the other one tries to do it. And then the first one puts up armed encampments on the side of the Royal Gorge, up on the top of the canyon, to send boulders down to ruin the tracks of the other and have riflemen up there to pick off any engineers who dare to try and reconstruct it.

So on one side of the gorge, they have the Rio Grande. What does the Santa Fe do? They put its people up on its side of the gorge to do exactly the same to the other guys. And then, of course, there's this incredible military standoff. So what do they do? They then appeal this to the local courts.

The local courts are paralyzed because they're completely under the sway of the moneyed interest. It goes up and up. It ends up being adjudicated by the Supreme Court. And then, of course, the Supreme Court issues this ruling, and they ignore the ruling. Because it was all, you know, it was that money ruled the day. Law had no place in the West. That was the real problem.

How are you going to enforce this, except with some kind of standing army, which didn't exist? The only army was possessed by these two railroad guys. And so there was this unbelievable standoff between these two men. And it was that, and there were, and they had, you know, a huge number of employees and that then they, then one tried to, there was a ruling that one side

was gonna get the tracks of the other, but they had to be seized in order to do this, and all of the buildings along the tracks had to be occupied. If they were going to be occupied, they needed to be defended, and so that you have this unbelievable conflict. But in the end, amazingly, not a single shot was fired because of one thing that was true that they had to recognize, which is that, OK, you can have a war if you want. But unlike in a conventional war, if you shoot somebody, it's murder. So nobody wanted to do that. And that was ultimately the

constraining thing was that nobody wanted to be tried and convicted for murder so that they had arms piled up, they had ammunition piled up, they had guns pointed at each other. Nobody pulled the trigger because of that, that they realized that that was a hanging offense, even in the West. That might've been the most surprising accomplishment of anything that I'd read because every page during that standoff, I'd be like, okay, well, when somebody gonna finally shoot? And you're talking about some real bad-ass dudes

coming in from all over the country where Palmer's hiring all sorts of outlaws. And then Strong's like, all right, well, I'm gonna send in my guys and their ex-marshals. And these guys are signing up for a fight over railways. And I couldn't believe as I was reading it, I was like, when is it going to happen? guys are signing up for a fight over railways. And I couldn't believe as I was reading it, I was like, when is it going to happen? I mean, just building this tense moment.

And I'm just shocked considering the clientele they had here that nothing terrible happened, even though it sounded like they were dumping rocks on each other at some point. Which is now scary. That's the worst of it. That they did send sort of an avalanche down from either side of the gorge on the tracks of the other. And it's amazing that nobody did in fact get killed by that.

But one of the sort of lucky bounces on the side of the Santa Fe was that they happened to go through these very rough cowboy towns in the West where Bat Masterson was one of the cowboys and who was a cowboy slash lawman. And you know, in those days, the lawmen and the criminals were kind of indistinguishable. If your career as a criminal was kind of petering out, then you became a lawman, a marshal in the West. And Strong was able to recruit some of these guys to work for him and fight for him. And then Palmer, of course, just did the same. And yeah, there were these ruffians that were all along the tracks.

And people were grabbed, and there were skirmishes, and there were face-offs. But in the end, as I say, nobody pulled the trigger, because it was all for show. It was a show of power. You know, it's something that we're facing now in the Middle East, which is you want to show power, but you don't want to actually display power because if you do display power, you can run into some serious trouble. And so everybody is putting on a show. And that was absolutely true with this so-called war, a war in which no bullets were actually fired because it was a war of

intimidation. And that in the end, I won't say which, but one side was more intimidating than the other. And you can imagine, in know, in the end, money ruled and that, you know, ultimately is, I guess it, it always does. Or almost always does. Having a nemesis, it's hard enough to build a railroad, but having a nemesis must be exhausting. And certainly for Palmer, he had to feel like, when am I finally going to get this right? And his battle was strong. Ultimately, you're alluding to, there's other pieces at play here, the California part of this,

which I don't want to give away because I just think it's such a great, there's just all these different characters and these theatrical moments in the way that you tell the story. I don't feel like we're giving this away too much, it had to be gutting for Palmer for every time he thought he had to counter to Strong. He was essentially wrong or late. Absolutely. And Palmer, what it comes down to is that Palmer was up against Strong. And then Strong was up against this even bigger power that we haven't mentioned, Jay Gould.

Jay Gould was really the mastermind of the trains in the period that we're talking about. And he played in a higher league. He was playing nationally, and he was playing four dimensional chess when these guys were playing checkers and thinking that they were good at it, which they were. And ultimately, I won't say which,

but one side was better at it than the other. Gould was better than both of them. And so what you see is that this small war was being, taking place, it was almost a theater of a larger war in which Gould was the mastermind. And that ultimately he was the one to step in and impose order because he had more money and more power than they did.

It wasn't the government, it was him. And this thing goes on for two years, right? And there's battling back and forth. And he says, guys, come to Boston. We're gonna work this out. Here's how it's gonna go. You're gonna sign and you're gonna sign and that'll be it.

And they went, ah, okay. I mean, this whole battle goes on and he with the snap of his fingers says, it's going to be like this and they have no power to resist. And guess what? It works out best for ghoul and not for either of them. But, you know, it's important to remember that ultimately the fight was for California. And the thing that I like about this story is that it resulted in the creation of two cities, Chicago on the one end, but Los Angeles on the other. And ultimately what happened was that it linked Chicago

through the good offices of the Santa Fe Railroad to Los Angeles and created the modern Los Angeles. People think that the Los Angeles was created by Hollywood or something, or by oil money. No. It was created by the railroads. That once the railroads came into Los Angeles, its size increased tenfold almost overnight. It went from like 5,000 to 50,000, then 50,000 to 500,000. And it was just a product of this extraordinary railroad promotional skills. And interestingly, it sort of rode on the beauty of the orange. The orange, you know,

you hold this fruit and you don't appreciate it now, but at the time, this fruit that could come best from California, the Florida orange was okay, but the California orange was unsurpassed. This orange was carried by the Santa Fe Railroad back to the East, placed on people's breakfast tables, and stood there as this glowing orb that represented the best of California. Sure enough, within months of this, people started flocking west. And then there's the Rose Bowl. It occurs in Pasadena. A railroad town is extolling the virtues of the West that were created and accessed by these railroads that made Los Angeles and with it made California. I loved the Los Angeles piece of this cause I wasn't expecting it at all.

And as somebody that moved out here, I love the way that you explain just the allure of, of Los Angeles through the description of orange, by the way, Jay Gould, I could read about all day long. You give us a few nuggets. He makes, he makes Rockefeller seem chill. Or Elon Musk, any of them, you know, the, the, the Bezos. I mean, this guy was Machiavellian and a genius, small tubercular character, five foot two.

No, um, he just, it was utterly mendacious and had absolutely no concern for others. That turns out to be indispensable. That combination, if you're in business, I want to tie it up here in that, you know, when I'm reading this stuff, I'm thinking about the characters involved and what's at stake in recognizing, you know, the limitations of understanding beyond what you're aware of. We can take a lot of that for granted that we can kind of figure out like, okay, what's going on in all these corners of the globe if we really want to put the

time in. And so many of these people in the past are going through it blind. So it speaks to exploration, not by sea, but by land in this, in this case. But what did you learn about this story that kind of speaks to man's desire to continue to keep going, you know, that, that maybe relates to, we may not think there's anything there to find, but the newness of this, this driving force,

despite the finances looking bleak, the battles, I mean, it's just so inefficient in trying to figure this out, but there's almost nothing, and I'm not trying to be clever here, to derail any of the interest or any of the parties involved. Absolutely. I mean, it's a really good point. And it's important to remember that these two men represented a fundamental and powerful questing spirit, spirit that exists in humanity,

that we as a people and those as two individual people have a desire to press ahead for a better world and to explore, to sadly to conquer, that's the way they thought of him. But this is a deep impulse that, you know, really was at full flower in the 19th century, an age of conquest over the material tanks and that is powerfully represented by the railroads that conquered

unbelievable obstacles as they went west, these long, perching deserts, these mountains they had to work around or climb up, you know, in this crisscross fashion. What they overcame is just astounding. And they did it, yeah, for material gain, but also I think there's just something wonderful in the human spirit to move forward, to take new territory, to explore, to understand, to extend our knowledge and our, I guess, our control over ever larger things. It's the thing that took us to the moon and will take us to other planets and allows us

to explore the bottom of the sea and the intricacies of the atom and all the other things that we have done that make our lives what they are. And you have to hand it to these guys. Yeah, I mean, you can say that they were narcissistic or self-interested and perhaps they were, but there was this other element that needs to be admired. And this to me is heroism that they took, they were daring men who put their lives on the line, um,

to create a better tomorrow. There's so much more in this book. Uh, and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. So thanks so much for doing this. And I would urge, yeah. And I would urge anyone listening that that we didn't even scratch the surface on it. We didn't tell the whole story. Excellent work, John. Thank you.

Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to talk about it. Thanks for having me. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all kids, I am liquid. So now you know

what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice, rr at gmail.com is the email address. Older guys love to put the dot com in there. So Rudy and Kyle join us today as they do all the time. A little feedback, so not technically a Friday feedback one here. 511175 stay in shape. I'm 42 married so I haven't had a good squat in years. I frequently skip life advice segments, entertaining though they are, but I found myself listening today when I heard Ryan pair a common misperception of chivalry. I'm a few cocktails in so I decided these skip life advice segments, entertaining though they are, but I found myself listening today. When I heard Ryan para a common misperception of chivalry, I'm a few cocktails in, so I decided I'd be one of the many to respond. A man doesn't walk on the curb street side to protect your woman female from a car or

any kind of traffic. So he's quoting us. Rather the reason this is a real thing, which it is, is much funnier. Traditionally, a gentleman gives the lady the wall to protect, not to protect her from street traffic, but to shelter her from flying excrement as medieval residents threw their chamber pots out the window. The person nearest the wall would be less likely to be hit with the pot's disgusting contents as it would arc over them toward the street.

History is delightful. I did not know that, obviously. I usually keep my wife on the inside because she's shorter than the than I and I don't like walking through cobwebs like when we're out on the sidewalk so she's usually on the inside but I do frame it as like if it's a car it's me but I just hate walking through spider webs. So this was like it was a couple pods ago Ryan we did the open about what was it about I think think it's about usa basketball and south sudan came up and how they were like the newest country this is just this is a floating

idea i have for future pods i think we do history corner where we just drop facts like this i love that that's incredible you know maybe we just drop one every show like did you know the order or this thing or like what are you know a pop quiz and what's what country is older england or so and so you know like i think that'd be awesome I think people would enjoy that I vote yes I'm not really sure what you're saying exactly but I vote yes I like the theme I like I like that tidbit because that would actually make sense but I would say it was modernized and if you look it up and I remember being told this when I was a kid that the man is supposed to stand on

the outside because of the traffic because of the street traffic so I think you could be you could be like, hey, here's the origin, you guys aren't fucking idiots, which is kind of the tone I got from that a little bit. But we had other people chime in and say, and it's actually safer to be on the outside, which of course it is, right? Of course it's safer, yeah.

I don't know. No, but I liked that one one pulling out all the stops. You know where that came from? Apparently like when the, when they really crank up the old organ inside those cathedrals, the way that they're powered, you just pull out all of the stops. They were called stops. I love that. So it was like, we're about to, we're about to Leonard Skinner this bitch in here. I guess it is a flawed concept though. Like if you're like, you know, if you're protecting your lady from oncoming traffic or whatever, well, what do you, what are you really protecting? Like the car, if the car is coming, it's really just, I knew Saruti would go

there eventually. Yeah. Well, I'm just saying it's just like, it's really just in formalities and like it's a gesture only really. It's not really protecting anything. If you've got a clumsy girlfriend, it does. Or I guess you can push her out of the way and take the car for you, I don't know.

If I'm walking, she physically can't walk in a straight line sometimes. She has like these just days, it's like, I can't walk, I'm just gonna be, I'm veering into you. So at least like I'm the barrier there. So I don't know. Times have changed, guy. That's all I'll say.

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we do. I don't know if I want to do more research, but, uh, maybe Kyle and I will just provide a fun history at that for every show. I really be able to put a quiz in somewhere in there. I'm all for it. Yeah. Let's, let's do it. The eyes have it. If I don't have to do it. It was like, Ryan, did you know? And that's how I'll end every pod, with a little did you know?

Yeah, but they did that, they do it on Dan Patrick's show because they did it on Sports Center. I don't know. I mean, this is- History? I haven't caught up on Dan Patrick recently. No, not with history. It's just, they call it a did you know.

I mean, look, we were so limited with our entertainment stuff back in the day. Like I couldn't wait to see what the did you know was on Sports Center. We were just starved for content back then. Yeah. Dad, the did you know is not right now. I'll come out to the garage in a second.

I don't hear it here off the wait an hour. Every time I was in the dentist, I was like, what's the new Goofus and Gallant dude? Have I read this one already? I get it. Okay let's do you soccer. All right thanks for having me. Kids by the way. Thanks for the good sign for all these emails. I enjoy hearing every week 6-4, 235, 235 pound bench, 275 pound squat. Pro comp Jake Voskal, not college. Oh, UConn, what's up?

Great reference. A lot of people will forget that I'm on the team, but there will be two to three possessions where I'm good for four rebounds and a put back. My oldest kid, six, has been through about five iterations of youth soccer. Teams are assembled for the spring season and fall season. In that time, he's had nothing but bad and mediocre coaches

and it's kind of a bummer to see him get discouraged. These are not competitive leagues and the coaches are volunteers so it's not amazing. Oh excuse me, it's not anything really related to score keeping or wins and losses but rather other teams are more equipped to play soccer. In this most recent iteration, the kids were all confused about how to do the opening post goal kickoff.

Wait, so Saruti, that's just to start the game. Yeah. Just kick it back to the, to your teammate. That's pretty straight forward. Yeah. Yeah. So like center jump back in the day. Um, I've been to every practice and usually winds up with them playing a lot of red light, green light instead of anything about actual game play. What does that mean, Saruti? What does that mean? Play that game? Yeah, just that's not, that's a non-soccer related game. They are not playing soccer. Getting the blood.

Wait, how old are they? How old are they? Six. Six. Okay. Yeah. He's been on five different teams between the seasons. Yeah.

That seems pretty young. No, it's a great album. It's blue light, red light by Harry Connick. Unrelated. Wouldn't know. I know other volunteers are getting some fundamentals across since their practices have always been next to my kids and you can just see it in the games. Oh, wow. So he's watching the other practices and he's like, they, these guys came to start. Triangle in two. My work schedule is going to allow me to volunteer to coach his, wait, my work schedule is going to allow me to volunteer to coach his team in the spring.

On the one hand, I believe I'd at least be able to convey me to volunteer to coach his, wait, my work schedule is going to allow me to volunteer to coach his team in the spring. On the one hand, I believe I'd at least be able to convey the rules and core concepts better than he has at this point. On the other hand, I can't shake the notion that the other parents probably said the same thing. And then when the shit hit the fan, they fell back to the red light, green light to not suffer the chaos that comes with losing the attention of a pack of unruly six year olds.

Thoughts on putting up or shutting up? Or am I just succumbing to the only person that can fix this is me fallacy? Thanks. I was going to say you find the guys on the other team, be friends with the dads. That's what my dad did. Get your kid on the best kid in the league. I was defense, just booting it, kicking it as hard as I could. Never kicked it to my own team. I thought it was impressive. Didn't really understand the game. That's what my dad did. And I was like, just get your kid on the best team with the, you know, the best coach and maybe the best kids just, you know, I don't know, through, through the bar after the game or whatever, however, the wherever the dads and coach

volunteers congregate, try that. But now I think be the change you want to see in the world. And that's what I think. Now I think just do it. I think it's put up or shut up. That's right. Yeah. Be the change. I it. I think it's put up or shut up. That's right. Yeah, be the change.

I remember there was this bar owner near where I lived and he like ran for town selectman. And I was like, what are you doing? As well, sit around here and bitch about things. I was like, you, wow. That's what one of my buddies did in somewhere in Los Angeles. He was like, his big thing is like

passing out liquor licenses. Yeah, he did it. That's like the guy. Wait, what did he do? Well, that wasn't his only thing, but that was sort of his like, that was his like, expertise. Like he was like, yeah, I do think you should be able to have a liquor license. Uh, I think he, I don't know if he did more than two terms, but, um, yeah, he's got, he did some time there. He was just like, yeah, I'm, I'm tired of this. And he, he, he ran and, um, he was the liquor license guy. A of this and he ran and he was the liquor license guy. A lot of bars are there liquor licensed to my boy. Isn't that the rent is too damn high

guy didn't he just start his own party because the rent was too high and he's like you know I was just bitching about it so I might as well try to change something. Start the rent it's too high party respect that. That's the party Nancy running against the try to own something party. Is he running against the try to own something party? Maybe didn't want that. He wants to run to be lower. Let's just not do this. That was too easy. I mean that it had to be done. It had to be done. That's what Kyle said though. Yeah, like you might be falling for this fallacy. It might be a disaster.

It might not be a fixable problem. Maybe the kid the six-year-old kids you have aren't even really interested in soccer. I'll wait what most of them are but You can only try and you can only find out and so I respect you I tip my hat to you. I don't know that I'd want although so now I saw my daughter's what she's almost to Boy time does So we have a niece who started playing soccer at three and I was like, kids play soccer at three.

Like that's what, how is that even? What are we doing? And so I don't really want to coach that. It's getting dirty coach. I'll be around, I'll help out whatever, but I'd rather coach her, you know, when she's like, if she's interested, if you know, when she's like kind of like coordinated enough to do that. So at six, I just, I feel like you're kind of setting yourself up for

disappointment because there's a good chance a lot of these kids don't even want to do what you're trying to make them do. Yeah the best news is is your kid will be seven next year. That's the best move. That's the best part of this whole thing is though everyone will be seven next year and maybe some maybe a light bulb will go off in two or three of these kids heads and they'll actually listen. But yeah I think think under eight or nine, it's like, I mean, I was playing T-ball. It was like a joke.

T-ball's like one of the biggest jokes. It's just, there's just kids running around. Dude, T-ball, they just run the bases. Yeah, that's it. And they can't even do that. Dude, I was kicking dirt, finding grasshoppers. It was just, T-ball's a joke. And so was six-year-old soccer, I think,

for the most part. I'm good friends with this nine year old. And. We're still a memes, are you out there? He was showing me this itinerary for his upcoming soccer week. And one of the stipulations was like no greasy food day of. They're like, we're taking this seriously. It took me through the whole thing. And so like, I don't

think red light, green light, that's four year old stuff. Six, we start thinking about corners, formations. Yeah, right. What kind of design do we have? Who are the strikers? There's got to be some sort of reward benefit thing where you're incorporating, like this would be great coaching. What would a six-year-old be interested in? And how can you trick them into thinking that's what they're doing when in reality they're learning how to play soccer?

Just beyond red light, green light, right? Isn't that Europe? Like skills, like just, they're not even like playing real games. Maybe they scrimmage, but it's not like a season. Like they're just doing skills until like, they're actually old enough to be on a team. And now everybody knows the skills. I like that. But I don't think it's gonna happen

here. That's just Europe in general or European soccer. I think soccer but I wouldn't be shocked if it applied to like cricket or I don't know they water polo maybe I don't know. Yeah, don't know. If you knew that. that. Okay, let's see. Stay with the real estate theme. Okay, perfect real estate agent, 28, 220 bench, 275 squat, 305 don't deadlift,

live in Chicago, been dating a girl here for two years. Oh, could be getting serious. My girlfriend's best friend's boyfriend. Okay, so that makes sense. Works girlfriend's best friend's boyfriend. Okay. So that makes sense. Uh, works in marketing and recently got his real estate license. He does not watch sports and we have close to nothing in common other than dating girls from Illinois, which is why you're in Illinois.

Because the girls are from there. He's a cool, but not core guy by any means. I'm looking to buy a condo around $450, $600K in downtown. Chicago, thereabouts, a lot of opportunities, a lot of good buys in Chicago. I defaulted to using this guy as my realtor and went on two condo tours before the 4th of July weekend. He did a decent job of explaining the prices and reasoning behind them. I've found a few decent places within my budget around where I'm looking. Should I depend on this guy as my go-to real estate guy agent or go back to the drawing board?

All right. Always a little dicey because everybody has a friend as a realtor. That's the way it works. And then it's kind of assumed this is the way it's going to go down. I've heard of relationships being destroyed forever. Sometimes the realtor gets you into the house. It's assumed that they're going to also then get you out of the house. I've gone through a few realtors. I think the moment I think you're fucking with me, not representing me, I'm probably not

going to have a lot to do with you. And I like to make moves. I like to make moves. One realtor knew I was a move maker, right? And he just, and he randomly called me one day to be like, I was thinking about just listing your place. I was like, really? I kind of like my place. She's yeah. I was like, but I'm game.

Like, what are you talking about? He's like, I was thinking about just like, I don't know, listing it low and getting a real competitive market for it. I was like, oh, so like the most important asset I have in my life, just listed low. The quickest. Yeah, let's just look at this.

I don't wanna move, I really like it, have no desire to, I'm willing to take a phone call, but let's just list it low. Yeah, it's fucking awesome. Let's see what happens. Yeah, crazy. Get out of here. Let me then buy something new higher

because the same house, if we just list it low and get a super competitive market out there, so multiple bids, you know? Again, I can understand that the way he thought he was spinning is that you get more bidders and maybe even get some of those. Like, I don't know, how about you just list listed high and if no one buys it, I get to stay

here. How about that? And look, on the realtor side, all of us are delusional as the homeowner. It's just like draft picks. Oh, those guys don't want to, they love all their players. It's like, well, yeah, because they drafted them. All the time they spent going up into the draft, two years of watching some of these dudes, sometimes even longer.

And then they picked that guy. They must have really liked that guy at some point. And then when the other teams call the trade, they're like, Hey, do you want to trade that guy? Like, no. And then you'll hear a leak. You're like, Oh, they're in love with like all of their own guys. Yeah.

Probably just like you are too, because you actually at some point picked that person over everybody else. Same thing with houses where you look around and were like, my house is better than that house. And that house went for this much money. So I should be able to get this. And then every realtor absolutely freaks out the entire time.

It doesn't sound like you have any of this. Yeah, yeah, please, please do. Floor's open. These folks, realtors, buyers, sellers, all that, they don't get anything until the deal is done, right? And then there's a commission thing, right? So it's not like, all right. And is it sort of like, you don't cheat on your barber,

you don't cheat on your realtor? Uh, I think it's just simply not done. Yeah. The barber one isn't in the same ballpark of the, I don't know. I mean, I guess it's sure the animosity, but like, it's like, you, it's just not done there. They're not like you guys both see what you can get here. It's you pretty much stick with one. We're in it to win it. That's how it goes. They don't get paid. They don't get here. It's, you're pretty much sick with one. We're in it to win it. That's how it goes.

They don't get paid. They don't get paid until the deal, which is why it's, they can get so frustrated with buyers and sellers because there's some buyers out there that just want to look and look and look and look. And then there'll be no return on any of those hours. Right.

And then you just get lucky. Like somebody like me, I'm like, hey, I think I'm just going to do this next week. And they go, this guy's awesome. What an awesome fun. So I understand a seller having one realtor, but a buyer maybe it's like, what can you guys do for me? No?

Is that, is that- You're not married to any of these people. Sometimes you have to sign a contract though, I believe. Like if you're, so- Oh yeah, you're like in the family, right? Yeah. Full disclosure, my wife is a realtor. She doesn't really do residential though.

She don't see those commercial stuff. So she buildings and whatever Which is actually way better because you don't have to do a lot of the family drama of this stuff It is a little more serious, but it's also just like the drama of it is kind of taken out Like there's so much there's someone so much emotion and home buying which obviously you're buying a house. It's incredible It's like and the buyers are more serious like just trying on wedding dresses like what's her name? It's always sunny, right? Yeah. So I will just say from that perspective, I think there are a lot of realtors, some

of who are definitely snake oil salesmen, but there are like a good realtor is super fucking valuable, especially in a market like this because this market sucks. Everything's overpriced. Incent rates are terrible. So I just, everything's overpriced. Um, interest rates are terrible. Like it just, so I don't know. I got, but when you do go to like sign up for a realtor or try to use, sometimes they'll try to get you to sign something that's like, Hey, this is an exclusive thing for a certain amount of time where they'll show you stuff for however long of a period of time.

So you kind of can't shop around in that way. I mean, I'm sure you could. And who knows? Like maybe I don't know what the legality of it is, but it's definitely frowned upon. Yeah, we're just making sure there's buyers agreements that some agents would make you sign. The other awesome search the second thing that came up was do real estate agents make good friends. My life is a great friend. That was the second thing on the Google drop-down. I love those sometimes. Okay that could be a no-hold-hold show. The second thing, the second option.

Yeah, I think the reverse would be actually more, do friends make good real estate agents? I think that should be higher up. That's a more valuable question, yeah. That's probably what it was, but then people got it wrong and maybe, I don't know, maybe they just typed it in wrong the entire time. I had a college buddy who did the first condo

I ever moved into, super nice guy. I guess he didn't know any better. The seller, the listing agent fucked us and I'm moving into Boston thinking I have a parking space and I'm paying X for the entire time and everybody on their side. Now look, could my guy, shout out to Craig Peeper, could he have made sure? Is that a nickname or is that his real name? No, it's his name. Okay. International basketball player, male model.

I just wanted to make sure it wasn't like he's stuck with that one. He got headshots made and then the guys I was staying with for a little while took his headshots and put them up all over the fridge. I was like, what's going on here? Like what, what needs to be explained? He got headshots made. Boy got headshots. Fuck, are you serious? explained. He got headshots made. My boy got headshots. Fuck that.

Are you serious? Yeah, we got him. Yeah. So no, look, he did a great job, but I'm not like sitting here 21 years later going fucking parking space. I mean, it was brutal to not have that parking space, but it was really, you know, sure.

A little bit more seasoning. Maybe a couple more calls are made, but he was great. It was fine. It was not predicting the devious nature of the piece of shit that I bought the place from. And then his realtor and then kind of figuring out all this stuff after the fact. So I think we can all be really difficult

depending on how you think the relationship is supposed to go. Like I'll tell realtors like I don't want to waste your time. Like I was back in Vermont. I was like, do you want to look at anything? Like not really. I was like, it's just be wasting your time. I mean, it'd be fun for me to go look and to kind of see how the market's doing all this kind of stuff, but there's no moves to be made and I don't really want to waste your time all that much. And it was a draft and free agents too. So it wasn't like I'd had a ton of time to run around. Why are you laughing, Stratty?

What the fuck? I feel like there's all these things in your life. It's like the, was it the girlfriend who is, you gave her the Red Sox schedule and like, yeah, I'm not going to be around for the red ones here. The Nessan magnet. Yeah. Yeah. So you got priority.

Yeah. No, there's a lot of, there's a lot on the other to-do list of stuff where I'm like, Oh, that'd be kind of, you know, still want to check out Montecito. Where does the gang land on this? Should he stick with this guy or not? It sounds like there are many red flags. I'm happy. I'm happy. I went with my buddy peeps and, uh, and like, I wouldn't change that actually. Like it was good for him. It was good for me. And, uh, and like, I wouldn't change that actually. Like it was good for him. It was good for me. Um, here's what I think is we didn't did an awful job collectively talking

about this guy's specific question. So that's the first part. Uh, second part would be you didn't, you didn't realize, yes, you were right. With the, the friend, the girlfriend to best friend to boyfriend dynamic, you could be setting yourself up for a miss. But because you can label it as, Oh, I used my girlfriend's friends, boyfriend. You could use someone who you don't know. And it could go just as badly.

If not worse. And I think this is where the realtors get too much. I'm like, my biggest thing I've had a few realtors reach out and be like, take it easy on the realtors. I go, no, I understand. I just have had a few experiencesors reach out and be like, take it easy on the realtors. I go, no, I understand. I just have had a few experiences where I don't feel like I'm the client. The transaction is the client. And I think the sell side and the buy side get in the kitchen when no one else is around

and they're like, what's your guy approved for and how low will your guy go? And then that's what they do. Okay. I think that's kind of how it happens. So when you think about what you pay, when you actually go to sell your thing, I don't know. And I know that there's, um, you know, the commission stuff and all this stuff's going to talk about. Have you looked up this guy on like Google reviews though? Like usually there's

like, there's some sort of, it sounds like it's per new to the game. How successful this person's done. All right, that's fair. Maybe not. So that's, yeah, I don't know. I guess if you don't know what you're shopping for in a new one, like if you're not confident that this dude's bad and you know what to look for

in a new one, I'm not really sure. You'd just be rolling the dice again. And if it makes you feel better to roll the dice one more time, I guess. But like, if you don't actually know what the fuck you're looking for and what's wrong with this dude, I don't know I hate to say because it's a cop-out answer But it's like if the guy if the guy didn't wasn't a complete dud and you did feel you said he's had some pretty good

information what Ever information you gave you it wasn't bad and it sounded alright then I kind of think you let it ride until there's like a reason to not but Maybe that's let them off too easy. Why don't you say this and it's really hard to do this I don't even saying that I's really hard to do this. I'm not even saying that I'd be able to do this in my 20s or whatever, but you could just go, hey man, I know you're new to it.

I'm trying to figure it out. Happy to try to figure out, work with you. We've got three months. Sure. We've got three months. But if he's done no deals ever and just got his license, is he going to be seasoned enough for all the little extra things?

Especially Chicago, like some of the weird HOA stuff, building reserve. Here we go. Yeah. I hate to get into HOAs at the end of life advice. I really want to give you a wide berth on HOAs, but damn it. We got another 20 minutes in us. Here we go. I think that's all we got.

No. Do you think there's more there? No, that's all we got. Do you think there's more there? No, that's all I have. I just hate when HOA comes up like at the 25th minute instead of like the third minute. But yeah, I got nothing. No, but look at Chicago properties. Look at the properties and you'll go,

oh my God, why is this only this much? And then you go, why is the HOA a mortgage payment? And that seems to be the divide. I don't know what the property taxes are there or whatever, but there's always like, if you just look at awesome cities and stuff that you would like and, Oh, that'd be great to live there or whatever. And you think, okay, well that house in New York would be this or that house in LA would be this or that apartment.

Like what, what is going on? And then there'll be some like a little HOA summary where you go. That is a, I'm not saying it's for all the buildings, but there are some HOA summaries in that part of time specifically where you're just like, that is an absurd, absurd number. Okay. Wow. Uh, that'll do it for the pod.

Thanks to Wargon. for the pod. Thanks to Oregon. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Rudy. Make sure you check out our YouTube page and also subscribe to Ryan Russo podcast ringer Spotify. in the the must be twenty one older eighteen plus in dc in present select states fandals offering online sports wagering in kansas agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER

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