Unpaid And Underrated - 079 : The Zooted Episode

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

This week Joey and Keith get to know Big "Darko". They dive right into great topics like ideal length for shorts, wrestling, vegas, being a girl dad, Home Gym Con, and Glaze Search. Links Massenomics x Ünpaid and Ünderrated Colab (https://www.massenomics.com/shop/unpaid-underrated-tee) Follow The Podcast On Instagram @unpaid.underrated.podcast (https://www.instagram.com/unpaid.underrated.podcast/) Online UnpaidInternPodcast.com (https://www.unpaidinternpodcast.com/) On Youtube @Unpaid.Underrated.Podcast (https://www.youtube.com/@Unpaid.Underrated.Podcast) Our Guest On Instagram @darkolifts (https://www.instagram.com/darkolifts/) and @darkolifting (https://www.instagram.com/darkolifting/) Online at darkolifting.com (https://darkolifting.com) Our Hosts @keithhoneycutt73 (https://www.instagram.com/keithhoneycutt73/) or his orange gym, @thenowhinecellar (https://www.instagram.com/thenowhinecellar/) @joey_mleczko (https://www.instagram.com/joey_mleczko/) Special Guest: Big Darko.

Hello. Welcome everybody to episode 79. You know what that means? Of the unpaid and underrated podcast podcast for crew by crew and mocked by crew. Several bots are made by crew which I block so I keep making them I'm not gonna see them anyway joined as always wait no I'm big Joey yep you're big Joey and I'm big yeah I know how to do this only 79 episodes in and I haven't figured out how to do an intro yeah and we'll have to make sure we interest the guest twice this week like last week, right? I know I'm pretty sure we only did that once. Yeah. Okay, so the other voice you heard was a big Keith he's always there with me and we got big Darko going on here Doing all right doing Doing all right. Let's jump right in.

What are you drinking? What do you got? Anything cool? I'm drinking a slap and tickle. Oh, is that an IPA? I'm guessing it is a West Coast IPA brewery out here called Brewery X. You put that out there like we all knew what it was. I feel like and then just let me just got to say it first.

Yeah, I'm doing this. the fun part of the day. What? That's from your face. We don't know what that is. They're a little flabby and terrible. The good beer, even better name. So that's a good name out there first. I got I got a fancy Oreo sugar free Coca Cola. Did we did you tried that?

I thought I got feedback. Oh yeah, no, I'm addicted to it. No, I. OK, you did like them. OK. I have my second second case. I've never had one. It's delicious.

Tonight I'm rocking a Waterloo, the cherry limeade. I'm super stoked because I don't know if I just haven't always missed it or they just started stalking them. But my Costco actually had Waterloo and it was like fucking like twelve dollars for like twenty or some shit like that. It was so much better. It was such a good deal. So very stoked for that. Hopefully they keep those in stock.

But as Costco does, they won't be there next time I go. No, that's what they do. And I'd be like, but it's twelve dollars for a case all the time. Yeah, a case of like twelve. You get twenty for the same. So it's like, well, I don12 for a case all the time. Yeah. Case of like 12. You get 20 for the same. Well, I don't even care about the price. It's usually just like they just have like shit brands like they have flavors that I don't like or like and everything's got like 17 different variations of.

What the fuck? I can't think of the fruit. That's a damn it. What's what's what's the tart orange grape? Hibiscus. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, but like but everything's everything is like, yeah, everything's grapefruit It's like you get 47 grapefruits and two cherries and I'm like, okay cool The flavor that sucks I'm gonna get it. But sorry I digress I Digress All right. What do you guys wear and what's going on over there? Not to get political or anything, but I'm wearing a little Jefferson deadlift shirt tonight.

No, no, it's too late to get political. Yeah. Yeah. It's our favorite thing around here. What do you got? No, I don't know the name of the shirt. Just the skull with the barbell. Yeah, the black massomics gym. That's what we'll go with. Yeah. I have a Norse fitness shirt on, but I am also rocking the new

massonomics lifting department blue shorts. Oh, nice. I don't know. I have today. How do you like those? Are they they are? Would you say they are identical or are they just really similar to the left because of the squatch shorts? They're the exact same thing. Just the different color. The printing's a little better.

And our site is really nice little hey, big Joey, fuck Carol Stream note. Well, those got there. How did they get there that early? Or I mean, it's only I guess the drops two weeks old, right? Yeah, yeah. I took about a week and a half because I slacked on ordering them. And then it was just one of those things like where it's like the clown college

from Homer from the Simpsons episode where it's just constantly going in your head and i'm just like I really like those shorts But I don't need new shorts and I did that to myself for about five days and was like no I need those shorts I don't need new shorts, but I don't know I'm kind of I need to get into a new I need to find my like weight that I want to settle at And then that's what I need a consistent size. That's what I need So i'm not i'm gonna be doing clothes purchases for a bit. Anybody get a chance to watch the Jim Thompson YouTube video that came out, I want to say Friday.

It was like a five minute quick little thing. So she just kind of gave a little bench tutorial with Tanner there. And I do have to say, she made a whole thing about bench as wide as you possibly can, essentially. And I'm just like, I can't, I'm sorry, like I get that you engage more pectoral muscles. But every time I bench wide, I fucking tweak something. But I can, you know, I can close, you know, my, my, my competition bench is like most, you know,

wide benches, close grips. And I'm just like, it's where I'm comfortable. That's where I'm the strongest, I get that I could maybe be slightly more optimal the wider I go. But you tell that to my fucking strained pack that's never been the same after doing it, after doing like a short block of fucking wide, wider grip bench.

So sorry, Jen, but no thanks. I think that's just what we call having weak packs. Apparently. Yeah, maybe you should just work those packs a little more and strengthen them. I guess. Yeah. My bench.

I'm the same way. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Oh, yeah. I mean, I have to have my pinkies inside the rings. I used to bench wide, but after doing that for a couple of years, my shoulders just weren't feeling it anymore. So now I'm a narrow bencher.

Absolutely. I mean, I'm barely a bencher at all. Usually I'm pinky on the ring or ring finger on the ring, just depending on how I set up or how I feel. But I feel like I could close like I don't have I must be the only 40 year old man I can say like I don't have shoulder issues. So like I could probably I could probably I could probably. No one knows. I could probably do it.

So for nobody, for only our audio listeners, because we only put this on audio. Yeah, for the Davids, Joey was pretending like he had a barbell in his hand and he was bringing his hands in and out of the barbell. And the barbell was in his face. So it looked like he was kind of double double fisting right into his face. And it was very funny. Yeah, caught it myself like one of those squeeze bars that people are talking about now there was I think there was something like that at home gym con one of the I can't there was like a whole company that did something like

that I thought oh no that was the more that it was the rotating thing I don't think it necessarily no I know there's one it slides, right? Like, yeah, the heroic fit. Like it slides out while you're doing the movements. And I mean, like I said, I'm barely a bench at all, but I cannot see the value in that at all. Yeah, yeah, that's not for me. No, and I like to party like I am a person that likes to party and I don't understand that bench at all.

And I like to party like I am a person that likes the party and I don't understand that bench at all. So more on the politics that we like talking about voting and everything. Not really. There has been a lot of crew on Instagram getting a lot of props the last couple of days. The I believe the Instagram's home gym hub and they've been doing the versus series of like facing off different home gyms because he you know, that's a fairly new Instagram. Someone made up. I'm not really sure who it is. It might be Cause he, you know, that's a fairly new Instagram someone made up. I'm not really sure who it is. It might even be someone that we already know that just has a secondary account. Not really sure, but you know,

just basically posting home gyms to grow his own channel. And you know, I think he has a hundred, a hundred contestants and he did it like a March Madness bracket right now. And I think there's at least 20 some crew gyms in there. And then it, and outside of the crew gyms, there's another fucking, at least like, I feel like every other slide, I recognize at least one person tagged in the stories. I'm like,

oh, that's pretty cool. So being able to vote on so far, I don't think I've had to. I think there's only been one bracket where I actually knew, like personally knew both people. And it was kind of a slightly like, who do I vote for? For the most part, like, oh, I'm just fuck that other guy. I know this person, I'm voting for them. But that's been cool to see. So I think the first round's wrapping up today. And then, you know, I think, you know, me and carp and a bunch of other guys are in the second round. And hopefully a lot of the crew advance and, you know, we'll see. We'll see what happens.

And it's been kind of cool to see that. Yeah, they they followed me. And I was vaguely aware of them because they featured I think Murph on their page. And that's kind of what put them on my radar. But again, my home gym is a dank, dark, awful musty, like eight by eight. If it's like two, like two barbells. So like, yeah, I'm not getting featured. I know home gym hubs. I'll tell you that. Anyway, yeah, they reached out to me a while ago. I'm like I'll get you some pictures and my gym's just been full of crap

So no negative around that one. It's all good. It uh Get I don't I don't know how big that channels gotten enough to really Get all I think it's I think the most people to follow them are just guys like us I don't think there's like a huge audience on that channel honestly, but it has grown. It had a couple it had a few thousand people I think which is pretty quick growth though so it's been pretty cool to see. Another thing that's cool to see is uh Nate works in magic and it looks like Glaze Search lives again. I think I was to my knowledge I was able to basically download a pdf for him and he was able to export that versus trying to scrub the website

He's gonna be so proud of me if I said any of those words, right wrong again, Keith You didn't know if I did it He's definitely said scrape scrub the rubber dub dub. Fuck you in the tub Glaze search is back If darker is not familiar with that, it's too long of a story to explain, but it's cool for like six people. It's like a year of lore. All right, what is that?

31 days until Crew Falls. And I got to be honest, I reached out to some of the higher ups and said I don't see me getting my jacket at Crew Falls. It's just, I won't, I'd have to do right now four to five episodes a day. And it just isn't plausible. But like, I made a good run, I'm still working on it, so I'll probably be done by January. So it looks like by the Arnold, I'll be at my 15 spots, and then by August, I'll be at the full 16 Nice. Yeah, I'll be I'll be behind you a few months on just hitting 15 unless I can squeeze out a

victory for something but for sure the fantasy football thing is Counts towards the Hall of Fame, but I'm like fucking middle of the pack right now So I don't see winning that and then I did ask Tanner If the grip contest is gonna count towards Hall of Fame and I'm gonna assume it's not. And you hit me really good with the wrong again Keith on that one on the Discord. So that was perfect timing. But Tanner was not committal one way or another. But it does sound like there's gonna be kind of a grip challenge with multiple awards not all on performance basis.

So they'll probably be like, you know, a best effort or silliest or some shit like that. So that'll be cool. I'm curious what we're actually going to. I can't imagine they're not going to make wooden plaques, but it's got to be something less in depth than that, because, you know, but it'll still be cool if someone gets to walk home with some hardware from the crew falls meet up there. It'll be he said it'll just be a key said stickers. You must still have some of those because I do want someone. Someone just bought the shirt last last week and had my had the stickers.

I got those. Those are still floating around out there. All right. Want to do last week's episode writing there. Or do you want to talk about your shoe story? I the shoe store edge of my seat. It was more just I is more just makes fun of me. I know you guys like that. So I went to the commercial gym. There's the commercial Strongman gym Saturday last week. And, you know, I had my barefoot shoes with me and it was the last thing I took off

before I put my Crocs on. I was out the door and didn't think anything about it until I went to go pack my bag like two days later and I could only find one shoe and I'm like flipping out because it was my barefoot shoes the mad the massonomics barefoot shoes And her ear replace literally like noner yeah So like I can't I can't just go spend $200 and buy a new pair of those they don't fucking exist So you know I DM the you know the guy that runs a gym was like hey if you get a chance Can you look for these I'm like like 99% sure they're there and you know he looked, he looked all over, couldn't find them, had a couple other people looking for him. They couldn't find them, like losing my mind. And I was out of town while this was happening too, because I didn't notice it until like right before I had to leave to go out of town,

basically. And then I finally asked my wife, can you just check the basement one more time? And then so she saw the one that I knew I had. And then the other one was literally like three feet apart, three feet away from it Which is underneath my box squat box Just hidden like at the very back like kind of like wedge behind that in a shelving unit And just shit me a picture of it and was just like you dumbass. I was like yeah fuck So I was like I was ecstatic that I found it so yeah, I was uh not you know so basically I didn't look hard enough apparently but You probably looked at it like three times.

I don't know. Like you looked at the box squat for sure and went. This is what men do. Why would it be over there? And didn't go over there. Like I know. I know the code. I'm giving out too much right now, but that's yeah, it's not over there.

That'd be stupid for it to be over there. I'm not even going to go look. It's that stupid because that's where it was. Yeah. Yeah. Step for the win on that one. Yeah, but relevant because that would have been a hard one to lose because I really do, you know, shout out the barefoot code unpaid. Like, I love you shoot for I love your shoes for deadlifts. Like, you know, I can't with them.

And we don't do we know it's called economics. We have friends with so many codes that I can't keep. Well, I know we don't because I want one. Like that's the thing. That's hysterical. The one place that I get so many weird strangers to buy barefoot shoes. Not so many like two or three that it's just like ours. Yeah. Anyway, maybe I'm just visualizing. That's really you're right though

Look, we definitely don't but man, I got so much shit in my brain. It's hard to manifest. Yeah, but yeah code economics And you know, etc Last week's episode it was supposed to be a title topic and I don't think they ever really got a title topic So ended up yeah, they ended up just being the a mild q&a. An accidental q&a. Yeah, I think my favorite part was the ym when he would you know, Tanner was again at a YMCA and he actually saw a dude benching with like, you know, elbow, you know, with like actual powerlifting gear and went over and kind of shot the shit with him a bit. And you

could tell like, I'm assuming it was a younger guy because like the way he was telling the story, like the kid wasn't super interactive in the story. Like he was just like, oh, cool. Yeah. Leave me alone. Old man kind of thing. Old man on crutches. You're a power lifter. OK, crippled guy. When like in the end, when he was like, yeah, I probably should have invited him to Mastanomics or whatever, or like told him about Mastanomics, because or like told him about his mom He's like in reality that kid probably would be twice as strong in like nine months if he actually got into a real gym and actually like gotten to a crew of People because you know, he kept I think he was like, yeah

I know he was he was he was like doing everything right But he was really only benching like a plate or less than a plate actually so I'm simply was just a smaller younger kid, but I Just found that whole interaction funny that like, you know, cuz I get in Tanner's point of view less than a plate actually. So I'm assuming it was just a smaller, younger kid. But, uh, I just found that whole interaction funny that like, you know, cause I get it in Tanner's point of view. It's like, it is awkward to like peddle your own gym, but like in this case, this is the one per yeah, this is the one person that probably would benefit from that and actually, and be happy that like, you know, it was, it was introduced to him. So, I don't know. So for all that, I will go ahead and give it five out of five missing shoes. OK, yeah. Remind me to talk about the phrase interactions.

I have a thing I want to talk about. But. Yeah, definitely listen to that episode. Love the episode. I love the Q&A episodes because you never know what's coming. I do got to say the. I think Tommy said something about like failing a squat and he just said throw some dirt on me I had a good run. Oh talking about Larry. Yeah. Okay. I have been Larry less as that I've been dying over that phrase throw some dirt on me. I had a good run. I've been looking for every chance I can to use that phrase.

But in something utterly stupid, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you stub your toe, and you just kind of sit down and go, ugh, throw some dirt on me. I had a good run. I'm not getting up after this one. Right? I think that's a specialty of massonomics.

So I don't know. With that, I'm going to give that 5 out of 5 inappropriate gym interactions. What about you, Darko? What did you think, buddy? No, I liked it. I listened to it or watched it. I generally watch most of them on YouTube just because my workstation, I have a TV across my workstation. Gotcha. But yeah, I know it was good. I remember him talking about the kid at the gym wearing like the a7 grip shirt and you know, he had like the elbow sleeves and

then he was like, yeah, he wasn't benching a plate. I'm like, whoa, what's maybe, I mean, I get it. I like cool gear too, but if you're not benching a plate, maybe a lot of other stuff to focus on other than what shirt you're wearing. But yeah, I know it was interesting. I felt bad for Tanner, I know it was interesting. I felt bad for Tanner, you know, sitting there just not being able to sleep is the worst thing in the, that's the worst fucking thing in the world. And so definitely feel bad for him. But yeah, no, it's a good podcast.

And yeah, I'll give it five out of five grip shirts. Perfect. Well done. Well done. A7 grip shirts. Perfect. Well done. Well, a seven grip shirts. It has to be the A7. A7. Yeah. Yeah. Not to be confused with A1 or SBD. No, I just wanted to bring up the interactions thing. It was anybody on the Mastnomics Instagram watching me mess with people.

Oh, yeah. You did mention that. Yeah, it's like one of my new specialties, I think. And in a way, we're like, I'm not going to be confrontational. So obviously I'm also in love with the phrase Zootin and getting Zooted. What the fuck? And all variations of it. I had to Google that and it like and it basically just means getting so fucking drunk or stoned, which I'm like, well, that doesn't sound like something I want to do.

Oh, I probably will get pretty Zooted at fucking Crew Falls. Yeah, getting absolutely Zooted. But I but I'm pretty Oh, I probably will get pretty zooted at fucking Crew Falls. Yeah, getting absolutely zooted. But I'm pretty sure that I've like, now that I look back, like, I don't think anyone's been using that term right there. No, that's the point. But it's like, you already have a fake word. At least use the fake word right. Like, because I'm like, I'm trying to use context of like,

like, I've seen people use zooted like multiple times over the last month or two. And now that like, once I went to like, and actually googled it, and like, there was like a couple different, basically, the general consensus was it's getting fucked up, like beyond recognition, essentially. But then I'm looking back at like the context of how people were using it prior. And I'm like, well, that's not how you use the word. So like mess with that word. It's a stupid word. So I guess as a joke I said oh we're using foul language now. We used to be a proper country because we used to be a proper country is one of the best phrases as well. And you say that this week people are going to lose their fucking minds. I'm going to say it all the time about

so but like nothing to do with it. No, I know. I know. It's great. You only use it in context that has nothing to do with the actual culture of the country. Right. And this one guy, like he got so aggressive with me and he was just he posted the Rock's gift. Shut up, bitch. Right. And I went I was like, OK, I know he's locked account because it's always locked accounts, but I wanted to go make sure he wasn't crew. And I went and I just responded to him. Hey, I had a witty comeback, but I noticed you're giving the finger in your profile picture. So now I know not to mess around. So if you're listening, bro, I like I'm just messing with people as gently as possible, but I thought that was really clever.

Like, whoa, that was good. Better not mess with that guy. Absolutely zooted on Instagram comments. He got an ad read for us over there Darko. on Instagram comments. You got an ad read for us over there Darko. I do. Hit us. If lifting heavy, staying strong and having a laugh are your kind of thing,

then we've got the podcast for you. It's called Unpaid and Underrated sponsored by none other than the legends, Tanner and Tommy and Massenomics. Massenomics isn't just another lifting brand. These guys have created a movement, a community of friends who lift hard, none other than the legends, Tanner and Tommy, and Mastinomics. Mastinomics isn't just another lifting brand. These guys have created a movement, a community of friends who lift hard, laugh harder, and let's be honest, take drink spotter safety to a whole new level.

On the Mastinomics podcast, you'll get everything you love about lifting culture, from in-depth discussions on strength and staying strong, to tips on how to keep your drink spotter game tight, and some hot takes on the fitness industry. So if you want the best podcasts on the Internet for lifters during the Mastodon family, it's almost too cheap not to and also tune in to unpaid and underrated because when it comes to lifting,

we all know it's not just a hobby, it's a lifestyle. I dig it. Very good. A fine lifestyle, indeed. Speaking of drink safety. Had Morgan in the gym the other day. I have two drink spotters. She's putting her drink on the fucking bins over the side. And I was like, what are you doing?

You want to like the drinks potter? You don't like the drinks potters. What's there for? I don't know. It's I guess when you don't like words being used in the wrong sense. I was being used at a table for I bought drink holders. Was it like the O.G.'s or the. I've got the original and I've got the

because because for sure the first magnetic one the light because yeah because the og some depending on what kind of what what Reservoir of liquid she had the ogs If it's like a if it's a if it's a like a one liter one Yeah, one liter one doesn't fit in the bigger one as well just depending on this the rack I guess I don't know I struggle to get some of my shit into the og one Still the best one though strong is Strong as a bison strong as a house. I believe oh with the best nerling yeah Yeah, all right kick out all the look you lose do we have any look loose carbs not here?

They might not know when we're recording Wednesday, so they might be oh This is was the second week in a row we're doing something weird. We did two month fuck No, we did Monday last week. Yeah, we're slick like that. We're keeping it everybody on their toes So like every time we record on a Wednesday though, it's like the one night they record on Wednesday And every time we record on a Thursday, it's the night they record on Thursday So because Mastanomics starts recording in about a half hour themselves Good. I hope they have fun with that. I mean, Evans, Evans, Evanish, Evan, Evan. You know, it's Evan, Evan, Falk.

Now you got me. Fuck. It's his last name's Evan Ash, I believe. So it's is it Evan, Evanish? They can know it's that. Fuck you know, it's Zach Evanish. It's not Evan. It's Zach Evanish. I don't know who that is. Yeah, he's a he's a he's a he I don't know who that is. Yeah

He's a he's a lifting coach And he's like into vintage weights and grip and stuff. I don't know. That'll be good episode I just I just don't know who people is and that's very well He's one of those like where's Instagram handles like it's like a concoction of his name But it's not like super easy to like as you thought isn't you know So as I took me a minute to find him because like I knew he was I just like I couldn't like I stood for a refresher I was like what the fuck why can't I find him on fucking Instagram? Carely as I kept on typing Evan Darko's at you buddy Alright, let's get our guest on the line. You go ahead.

Darko is that you buddy? Say you are you here? Yeah, I'm here. Well yeah, thank you. Welcome to the unpaid underrated podcast buddy. We're glad to have you. Thanks for having me. You want to go ahead and let the listeners know where they really can find you at and who you are. Yeah, they can find me on Instagram under DarkoLifts. I happen to also sell gym accessories for home gyms at DarkoLifting. But yeah, mainly DarkoLifts. Yeah, I don't really post a lot of the work stuff on there. It's mostly

dumb stuff. Dope. Good, good. Alright, well, I know you were newer to the crew, so I want to hear your Mastinomics origin story. When you first heard about them, when you joined crew, how your backlog deep dives going, any of that. Just all Mastinomics, all crew related. Just get us up to date on you. So the first time I ever heard of Mastinomics was probably back in 2021. Just got me the power lifting shirt and they bitch strong one right? Yeah nice that's a good one. Like the Nintendo looking shirt. Yeah they call it 8 bit. Yeah it feels like the 80s is like Nintendo shit. Yep.

So he got me one of those, and then I never really paid attention after that. I just thought they were a short, like an apparel company. Honestly, up until pretty recently. And then I saw them at home, con and they came by my own booth there they came by and then I was like, oh, I think there's like more to this whole just shirt thing and When I got back from home gym con, I started, you know I think everyone did the same thing you start looking on YouTube for videos about home gym con Yeah, and I saw their channel. I was like, okay, so like they're not just apparel they do podcast and

I'm always looking for stuff to watch when I'm working. Because I'm just packing and assembling stuff all day long. So I just started watching, you know, basically all their podcasts would come up. And then I was like, man, they got like, then I started like going on the website more, man, they got a lot of cool shirts and like banners and stuff like that. So then I started ordering shirts and banners and the drink spotter. And then yeah just the more I kept listening I'm like I can't afford not to join as a member. So no I mean yeah we started a couple years ago but I yeah I just didn't really understand there was a whole lot more to it so I'm glad I met them at Home

GymCon and now they're kind of a staple in my weekly viewing. That's awesome. Have you cherry picked any of the backlog or anything? Or are you just pretty much up to date as of like six months ago? I mean, now I got, I don't know, I got like, I think I have like five shirts now. Oh nice. And then, yeah, some of the, I mean, some of the older podcasts, I try to go back on some of the older podcasts if it's people, you know, like, like the basement brand and he did a video. Yeah, he's in a few episodes, yeah. So I try to go back for some of the people that I'm, you know, more aware of or, you know, been in contact with myself.

Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to go back through but it's just you know, there's so much stuff that distracts me on YouTube I think because like one of their videos will win and then something else will pop up about You know brand just random stuff. I've been I've been very much into this deep rabbit hole of old wrestling stuff Oh nice. I can't I can't help myself. I Watch this I'll watch these behind the scenes videos for hours. But so I try to keep going back through some of the older videos. And I just watch

the one with well, I watched the ACL one, then I watched the one with Amber Amber. That was a couple weeks ago. Yeah. So yeah, I'm kind of making my way through some of the older ones. Perfect. And then do you actually so you did pull the trigger and join crew there, right? You are officially a sporting member and sometimes in the last few months or so? Yeah, maybe like three or four months ago, I think. Nice. So you were able to take part of it, so you did get the first, so you got your first crew gift then, this with this, because we're, this is like the fourth or fifth one, I think it's almost the fourth one we've got I believe, but so you've been able to take part of your supporting membership number

card? Yeah, correct. Yeah, I'm number 443, so. Oh yeah, they joined, oh I guess August, they joined in August. You, so that's actually good because that, I would say that's probably you are quite possibly the highest number supporting member. And as what the young kids would say, you are the zooted number member. I think I used that right too, ish. Not in the right context, but the word was kind of... We'll never know. That's the best plan. Hint. Good stuff. Not in the right context, but the word was kind of... We'll never know. That's the best plan. Hint. Good stuff.

Alright, so how are you on your Hall of Fame status? So that I don't know, you know, I was looking that up on the website and is it like there is a checklist somewhere. Yeah, I can... I just, I don't have one and I don't know where to find that. I, I'll, I have a spreadsheet. I'll just text you a screenshot of or something. So I mean, I mean, everyone has their car. I actually I fucking lost my car. I have no clue where it is, but I'm in the glove compartment.

I know exactly where that car is. It's surrounded by lasers and sharks with lasers on their head. I guess that's incoming. So while he's sending you that. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. If you do, that's also dope. Where are you from? Oh, I'm from Orange County, California.

So just kind of a few miles south of Strength Co. Oh, OK. California crew. Yeah, that's, oh, jeez. One of the Davids is out in California. Aaron's out there. And that's all I can think of at the moment. Yeah, I mean, I put some feelers out

to find Southern California people. It didn't seem there was a ton of us. No, there's only three that I know of in Southwestern Ontario. So as as as mofo likes to tell me California is so big and New York is so small. Meanwhile, I'm up here in Canada just like, huh? Yeah, I don't know. You're like a you're in a the fuck. Do you guys call them up there? They're not provinces, provinces, provinces. But then you have but you have count. Do you have do you guys call them up there? They're not provinces. Provincence. But then you have but you have count. Do you have do you have counties as well?

No. Like, yeah. OK, actually we do. OK, so then you have a county towns and like you're what we would be a state. You would just have like five provinces versus our 50 states or seven provinces. Nine. I can't say that word. Nine provinces and province two territories. You lost that word. Nine provinces and two territories. God, you lost me there. There's a lot of, so Joey's obviously Canadian and I'm, you know, there's a lot of Canadian and American kind of back and forth sometimes because I'm like, what?

But don't you guys also have territories like Puerto Rico is an American territory? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, we have two. Well, I was, I just didn't, I thought't I thought I think I might have three of those. I've got none of it. Yeah, the Yukon like clustered of islands, basically, that aren't necessarily a tab. Oh, it's just literally the top of the country that is like almost uninhabitable. Those are just territories and like select people live up there, the strongest and biggest of us.

There's actually a crew from up there nah we should um that week of Thanksgiving it might be easier to get a Canadian crew on because he won't be as focused on family stuff so you might have to do your magic and figure it because I don't really I can't name too many more that we haven't already had on all right did you get that Hall of Fame thing there I I did send it on Instagram, but I don't want to distract you too much. We can. But with the might be good content to go through it and see what you got. This is so I'll tell you, this is actually really fun for me, because it's like his first introduction to the Hall of Fame and we talk about it so much.

Yeah, like this is really cool. Like, this is an. I'm sure this will be a completely, you know, virgin experience for him to read that list. And we're be like, I say it, I say it a lot. Or and people look at like, I because like, I use it in reference to like not approaching this, this, this apartment yet, or this building. And I don't know, it just, it's just a word. I don't know why I say it. I just, I don't know, a non entered just a word I don't know why I say it I just I don't know an a non entered I mean it's the same thing I didn't enter the building like

I don't like I haven't approached it yet like it's so it's version I don't fucking know I don't I probably should erase it from my vocabulary yeah that sounds like HR might get a hold of that one at some point buddy buddy. Well, because I haven't been in it yet. So it's well, I wouldn't explain it like that. Well, no, there's like isn't there. Like there's people who say like virgin crumb rubber or virgin rubber or something. Like that's an actual term in like equipment, isn't it? Or am I am I misremembering?

I think that sounds right. Yeah, no. So to me, it's like I'm using I'm using that as a you know point of reference So looking at this, I think I have the three Like I've been spotted Yep, I'm now appearing on the unpaid and underrated podcast. There you go I'm pretty sure I posted a picture with me in carp on Instagram. Yep. There you go You haven't been to the Arnold yet? No. Uh,

cause like if anything, I'd, I'd, I'd want to have a booth there, but that's for like my size company. That's just not 20 grand or something. Yeah. That's not gonna happen for quite a while. No, I, as a lifter in general though, the Arnold is like, I call it big dumb guy Mecca because it's just like the absolute biggest, strongest most much like it's such a wild and then because it's Ohio, right? There's just no laws. Like you step into the Arnold and there's just like people in bathtubs, like topless people, some woman with beach balls for

breasts. Huck Finn is like overhead pressing dudes. And you're just like, if for me, like, that's my energy is just that silly chaos. But I only get to do that once a year. And that's at the Arnold. Otherwise, I'm just generally very reserved and kind of held back. And then I get to the Arnold and I'm just like hounding bears with huffin and screaming at people like it's. Yeah, it's a it's it's definitely worth the trip. I'm I feel like I have to go this year because I was kind of on the table on the fence about it.

But now I want my jacket table. Yeah. I've set a virgin table? Not after I was done. And then, um, yeah, I got to go to get my jacket. Just got to see if I can bother Tanner for a media pass again. I always tell people the Arnold is definitely worth going once, like 100 percent. Obviously going from California. It's my third time fucking two grand to probably get out there and back, I'd imagine. So maybe it'll be a business expense at least.

Just give out enough business cards to make it worth it. Yeah, pretty much. But, you know, so I think we're gonna get a I don't know. Let's see. Yeah, let's do a little least fun most fun. So I'm sure if you get relatively new game we came up with here, where I'm gonna give you a topic and you just tell me your least fun thing about it, your most fun thing about it. Feel free to talk for 30 seconds or five minutes doesn't matter to us you know you have your druthers so Darko least fun most fun home gym con I mean most ones just you know meeting all the people that I've been talking to online for you know a couple of years you know hanging out at the bar, having some drinks. They're definitely the most fun. Least fun, getting there. Definitely getting there.

Especially from California was. I think. Didn't you miss your flight and have a red eye? I remember you were, I remember I took it. Yeah, we took a red eye. I talked to you. You were definitely sleep deprived when I saw you. Yeah.

By the time we got there, I think I'd been up for like 24 hours and then went down to my booth and a bunch of my stuff was missing. So then I had to go. I'm like, fire. I can't go take a nap until I had to go find all of my shit. So then I was just basically walking around everyone's booth, trying to see like if anyone had my boxes or my rack, because yeah, I mean, I can't. Yeah, because you got to rack. So for anyone, you know, we

wouldn't, you know, anyone that's stupid enough not to go to home gym con and check out his booth in person, you you didn't you order a rep fitness rack to your booth basically, that rather than trying to like ship something from California to spend $1,000 to buy a brand new rack or whatever versus trying to spend the same or more to take your own. So it definitely was a smart. It would have cost me more to ship my, you know, take my part, my rack apart,

ship it out there and then ship it back then to just buy a rack from rep fitness, have them ship it. And then I just sold it to, uh, actually sold to Jake's sister. Oh, nice. So I may, I mean, I took a very large hit on it, but that was still way cheaper than shipping out my own rack So well worth it make a little bit of your money back not too much. It's better than nothing Wait, I know getting there was I mean, I thought it was a really I haven't gone. I'll say it was really cool Man, I'm sure I'm happy. It's not there And were you a were you a?

later Committed person to go. I can't remember like how how were you like kind committed person to go? I can't remember, like how, how were you like kind of right at the end and you're like, yeah, I'll jump in and do it? Or was it kind of like, you know, several months out, you were like, yes, we're doing it and you had all of this time to prepare? No, I actually signed up pretty early for year two. I just, I was still, you know, being a new business was still a little concerned about

the total cost of getting out there and buying the rack. So I honestly, I didn't book my hotel until about five weeks out. And my flight's probably about three weeks out. Well, yeah, I guess that's more of it. Because I think everyone can sign up as a company and then it's just until you actually pay

for your travel expenses, you're really not committed. You know what I mean? Like you can you can take the hit from your, you know, basically just look at it as a donation to Jake versus, you know, the extra several several several thousand dollars to get out there. Yeah, I know it ended up being a little, you know, a little bit more than I would have liked. But definitely definitely made it back on. Well, your net you had to have networked with fucking so many people I can imagine. I got I mean just on I obviously you met hundreds of just friends, but then I'm sure you took it to the next level of like you met other business owners and people at Rep Rogue Titan, etc. Trying to get because you're I know you got to deal with your some of your products are actually on or at least one of your product is on Rogue's website now right?

Yeah correct. So that I was actually talking to Rogue at home. Okay. Okay. So I thought but I either they were actually one of the main reasons I was I did sign up because I'm like okay if I can like get in touch with Rogue while I'm there like maybe I can make something happen and then like four weeks before that you know they reached out to me about reselling some products and I was

like oh fuck maybe I really don't need to go to home gym but look at maybe they only really got on your radar because you were on the same roster of home gym con and they were like who can we network prior to possibly so I think either way yes yeah I know it's awesome. I mean, you know me just yeah Pete Keller, you know Yeah, all good dudes, you know Dean I mean, yeah so many guys there that was pretty it was definitely cool to talk to a bunch of these guys I Liked I liked talking to everyone from ATX just cuz their accents and shit. It was just like it was like a completely different I was like wait what I just like oh, okay Anytime Keith isn't confronted with the fact that the rest of the world exists

is a really fun experience. Yeah, I do live in a I mean, I live in a big bubble. It's called it's called New York State, you know, they're mofo, but it's still a bubble. Jab, jab, jab. So so you've been around for about, I think you said, six months. Is there a piece of massonomics attire that you look at other people wearing and think, damn, I wish I had that one? Um, you know, there was one I just saw.

I don't I don't remember which one it was, though. There was one. Oh, I'll have to look back. We'll talk about it if it if it comes back to you. No, but now, you know, me, though, there was one off though. But now, you know, me, like my favorite shirt of theirs is like the lift hard live easy with the skull. Like to me that like, I bought a second one like a month after I bought the first one, I want to have one for a long time. So I wear that one. Yep.

But so whenever this one wears out in five years... We ask that question on every episode in hopes that Tanner is listening and enough people say one thing that he brings it back. Unfortunately, the one that everybody says is the one that he can't bring back. And that's the Yeah Buddy Lite one. That's the one that I think has been the most common answer. Yeah, it's up there for sure. And the raw power. But of course, nobody bought it.

Nobody bought it. And everybody was like, I should have bought that. It was like it was like the all go no show shirt. Like it's just kind of like, it's great in theory. But then like the sales took them forever to get them. But the one thing I was waiting for was the the crispy boys banner. Oh, because I'd seen a bunch of people that I was waiting for was the the crispy boys banner. Oh, nice. Because I'd seen a bunch of people that I was like, oh, I love lifting.

I love beer. And you get one of those. So when they dropped that one, a couple months back, which one did you get? Because they did like they did like a rerelease of the OG one with I think the band shirt that was like I think it was a discord only. And then there was a one more recently that was like I think it was a discord only and then there was a one more recently that was like the one they're allowed to sell. Yeah, I think it was the more recent one.

Okay. So still a good one for sure. Yeah, I'm just like, I just gotta have that banner. I wrote that within the first five minutes of that dropping. So love it. I'd love a good banner. All right. Well, let's get into some crew questions if that's all right. So carp wants to know what's the weirdest or strangest rack badge that you've been asked to create? Strangest one. Man, I got to think I've done probably done 40 or 50 custom ones now.

Nice. You know, nothing. man, that's a hard question. There's nothing really super. It is. Isn't is. I mean, that one wasn't requested. That was one. OK, well,

put that one up there for fun. Nice. Well, we'll just say so. But that one proved to be really popular. I think I felt like twenty five or thirty of those things. Oh, wow. Which kind of was shocking to me. That is, yeah, I'd be like, I'm going to make this file and just it'll be funny and

it'll, you know, get some Instagram likes and then you get like order, order, order. That would be, I could see the shock in that one because like who the fuck would, like I don't know, like what are you going to, are are you gonna display that on your gym and like two years when like everyone forgets what who she is like I don't know when your when your when your kids ask you what it is like then it's like oh yeah you just say podcast's your favorite podcast host. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's probably the weirdest one I've made but that was not a request from anybody. Most people just do their you know a lot of people have logos for

their gyms now or sports teams or you know just things like that or you know Bible verses stuff like that. So most of it's pretty so you haven't done a no wine cellar one haven't yet actually would be a cool one I mean it's like the NWO logo yeah I'd have to be like I'd have to be vertical though right cuz like you only have so much like with three inches left to right there's only cyber almost one it to like but then it would look goofy vertical because it wouldn't be as legible so I don't know so I've done some where like the

so it doesn't fully align with just like The upright, you know or across member where it'll actually kind of expand out Okay, yeah, the edges a little bit. It depends on the design really. Oh, I can see a better one Like I will because I think you make them, you could go horizontal as well, not just vertical, right? So that would be, I might actually do that for like my back pole, the back vertical cross. Yeah. And there you go. Now you get me thinking, Joey. Yeah. I don't have a thing over my rack. I have a half rack. So I don't have room for that, but the Dilfe Dungeon is the name of my gym.

All right. There you go. Yeah. So where we build. Yeah, we build. We do rack bad for you. That might be the weirdest one. My wife made like three designs. This was the one that kind of won for the sticker.

It looks like the Dungeons and Dragons logo. She did a Barbie one that actually turned out to be incredibly popular. So I figured if I ever do that, I'll do a glittery sticker. For that one. Oh, yeah. Now talking about all right, I actually do know the rack badge. That is the weirdest one. It was for a guy's gym that's called but whole barbell.

I had to find that guy. And so asked for like kind of a logo and I kind of just threw something in chat GPT so I'm like good like draw me an image of like a spoked wheel and that was a logo he went with for his rack badge was a spoked wheel but a whole barbell. That was kind of a weird one. We have a few other questions that are about your business, but I think rather than us just asking, like they're not bad questions by any means, they're actually good questions, but I want to hear your whole, you know, the Darko lifting, you know, business story and, you know, in like five, 10 minutes, if you want to just tell us that whole origin story because we might answer half those questions just in that rather than us asking you random

questions if that works. Yeah, for sure. So, you know, like a lot of people, I kind of really went heavy on my home gym during COVID. And, you know, for a while, I was just doing these silly Instagram reels, you know, about being, you know, a home home gym owner and Kind of built my following up that way And I've always just kind of been a creative person. So eventually, you know, you start finding things in your gym that You either want or someone makes a version of it, but it's not quite there, you know the way you want it So the very first thing I posted on Instagram that was like as far as like a gym product was It was like as far as like a gym product was It was like a little change plate

Adapter thing I guess for Pulleys systems with loading pins, right? Because if you're using a loading pin and you change your weight out it kind of sucks because you got to unhook your carabiner You're taking plates on or off and That just was you know, it was just kind of a pain. So I made this little change plate adapter that would sit on top of the plates on a loading pin and it had two extra weight horns on it so then you could put, you know, extra tens and fives. That way you can do drop sets or if you're working out with

someone that's, you know, a little bit heavier or a lot of stronger, you know, a little weaker, you can quickly do 50, 60 pound weight changes without actually having to unhook your carabiner on your pulley system. So that actually gained a pretty decent amount of traction at the beginning. And I think Jason at Surplus, he kind of reached out about possibly making a version of it.

And Travis from Grip Genie, Jujube Mubu, they were interested in making a version of it also. Eventually it was just kind of like, and Travis from Grip Genie, like Jujy Muthboo. They were interested in making a version of it also. Eventually it was just kind of like the cost was gonna be too high for what the product was. So that was kind of like my first foray into making a gym product. And that was just something out of necessity. Changing the loading pin just was a major pain

in the ass for me. I didn't wanna do that anymore. And so the a major pain in the ass for me. I didn't want to do that anymore. The next main pain in the ass that I found in my gym was my Mars bar. It's a 65-pound bar. I had a four-post power rack with safety straps. Then I had also Monos in there and J-Cups. You're maneuvering the 65-pound bar in and out of your rack every, you know, three times a week or whatever. Sucked. It was like such a painful experience.

So then I was just like, man, I wish someone made like a thing where you can like hang bars up at the top of your rack just because your J-cups can get high, but like if you have a nameplate or anything like that, you can't get your J-cups high so I was like, yeah, I just really wish someone would make something like that and Eventually I was just like man, I'm just gonna I'm gonna make it like I want one I'm gonna make it and you know, I shared it on like the normal like kind of home gym discord and you know, a couple people were interested and Said I kind of really went got like a very like a nice version made with powder coat with UHMW lining and I posted down on Instagram that kind of went bananas for a bit and I still only thought I was gonna maybe sell 50 of you know my anchor and for anyone listening they don't know what that is it's basically like a mount that you attach to the top of your power rack so you can store barbells

up and out of the way. And so the first month I was selling them, I think I sold like maybe 20 in the first 30 days. And yeah, it kind of was like really one thing I was gonna maybe sell 50, maybe 100 tops. And you know, I got really lucky. Basement Brandden was my third customer like he wanted one the second he saw it he wanted one he supports so

many like just homies in the in the you know there's there's yeah he's a good dude so it's awesome yeah so he did a video and then that was crazy you had to have gotten fucking let's see if you see if you got 20 the like your first month or whatever, like you had to have gotten like his eyes had to have probably got you a fucking like 10 X or something or you know. Yeah, I think I sold like 150 in like the next four days after he posted his video. And I was not prepared for that at all. You're like, you just send a lot of emails saying, start this B-ready in six weeks? I mean, so luckily when I initially posted it online,

it was like always going to be a two to four week lead time, just so like I could always make sure I was going to get them out in time. And by the time I was able to get more product in, everything's still made in America. I get all my steel cut in Reno, but it still takes a couple of weeks. It's nothing like overseas, thank God. But by the time I actually got product in, I was up at over 200 open orders and I was losing sleep and I was really stressing. You don't be this asshole that's taking people's money and not fulfilling orders and you know yeah been like this good fucking

you said two to four weeks it's been fucking four weeks in two days what the fuck charge back. Oh yeah I mean something most people were pretty cool I had a couple people that were total dickheads about it But it also like whatever it's in every circle. Yeah, and You know so from there there anchor, you know because of that review. It's kind of just always been consistent ever since then You know, so like that's still that's still my number one product I sell every single month I Think now I think we're over I think think I've sold over 3000 of them. Damn. Wow. And what's the life, so this was like, you know, you started in COVID, but like, what was your first sale still in 2020? Was it 2021?

2022, end of 2022 is when I first actually selling product. We're like for under, so you're basically average, you know, so you've done a three three thousand and three years give or take Two years to you I just crossed two years We're not big math over here. I can't fucking count to three So yeah, they you know, that's it's you know, that was my number one product or my first product and then I started just Kind of figure out other things I wanted in my gym that you know other people didn't make or you could like kind of you know DIY stuff so then I came out with the shorty bar after and the shorty bar was like a d-handle bar but it also combines a landmine feature

so instead of having to buy two or three different attachments you know you bought one attachment, you know, you can use any D handles you want, you can use it as a landmine. It has an acetyl liner to protect people's barbells because that's always a very important thing in everyone's home gym nowadays. It really is from a lot of people. It is, yeah. You can't, like the time of just being like, you know, you know, who cares?

I mean, there's still the assholes in the home gym group that are they're like always mock people They're like pissed off when their brand new equipment comes all fucked up and there's a girl you're gonna scratch it anyway And I'm like, I mean yes, but no and also like if I just paid a premium I want a mint condition product No, a hundred percent, you know, like if there's gonna be scratches, I want to be the one to make Yes, no problem. If I break I'm like, yeah, don't want to, I don't want to have it come to me fucked up already. Uh, so yeah. And you know, I just kept making products that I, you know, I, I

personally wanted in my home gym, uh, that either didn't exist or just the versions of it, you know, that did exist, didn't fit, you know, my needs. Because I mean, for most people space is the ultimate you know factor in what you can put in your home gym so like for me I'm always trying to create things that it will give you either more storage space or more utility but in a small compact package so yeah so I mean now I think I have about seven different products you know between all the new colors I have for liners and stuff like that There's hundreds and hundreds of different variations of my products

You know everything basically comes I mean I'm still doing everything out of my garage So my garage is like two and a quarter spaces wide Like I probably should shrink my gym to have more workspace, but sure as fuck ain't gonna do that anytime soon. Yeah, no, get a bigger garage. Yeah, I mean, hopefully next year, maybe move out of the garage and get a little warehouse, but I'm trying to avoid that as long as I can. Yeah, yeah, unless I mean, I see that unless you're really because then it's like, because

then your next couple years is going to be almost like the same profit margin or less exactly fucking pay it for your building So as cool as it is to be like, hey, I've made this next step. It's like but I'm my net fucking gains are down No, exactly. Like if I'm gonna make the profits gonna be the same at the end of the day I'd rather still sell less and work out of my garage. Absolutely That makes sense to us. So, and that's making, you know, so everything's been picking up and, uh, yeah, rogue, so they wrote rogue sells the shorty bar and they sell the long E bar now, uh, long E bar is basically just a long version of the shorty bar. Uh, that's available in stainless steel.

And, um, so yeah, I mean, things have been going well, you know, I've had a number of companies reach out about either licensing a few of the products. That'd be cool. But you know, one of those things like I personally like my products made in America. Like that's an important thing for me. I could make a lot more if I imported it,

but I like the idea of made in America products. So my stuff will continue to be made in America, but it's cool. You know, it's cool to always hear from other companies that are interested, especially companies that are much bigger than I am that are interested. So, you know, I kind of know on the right track, you know, a number of my products. Um, so that's, oh, no, no, that's, so that's kind of the history, you know, I mean, at a pretty high level, I guess. No, that's what's next. That's always like, that is what several people asked. Do you have something in the work, something you want to talk about?

Yeah, I mean, I'm working on, I'm always working on a few products, some are on hold right now, just because like I've been getting so many orders coming in ever since Home Gym Con. It's been crazy. Before Home Gym Con, I was probably averaging 135 orders a month. Now since then, it's probably been about 200 orders every single month since Home Gym Con. That's a big tick. Yeah. So while I have spot arms that I've been working on, I kind of showed those on my Instagram

a while ago. You know, they're probably not, they're not going to be as heavy duty as some of the spotter arms out there. Um, you know, guys that are squat six, 700 pounds, like probably not for them, but for the, you know, for the normal home gym user, that isn't going to have a catastrophic failure where they're dumping 500 pounds off their back. They're going to have a catastrophic failure where they're dumping 500 pounds off their back. They're going to be ultra lightweight spotters. I think when I weighed them they were about 11 and a half pounds each. Well that is light. I think my rogue ones have got to weigh like 30. Or at least 25.

I don't know. They've just never been 25 for the rogue monster. No they're heavy as hell. Those are the ones I have. That's why I started making my own. I'm like dude these things fucking suck to me. I have to help people move them half the time. Like, I see people struggle and I'm like, no, I'll get it for you. Like, don't worry about it. I'll do it. Well, the thing I also dislike about it is so they're like a three by three tubing. But when you add the UHMW on the top, you got three and a quarter. So a lot of attachments won't work on it. So I wanted to create spotters that would fit, you know Basically be a true three by three, you know as far as their dimensions that way you can put attachments on them

So spotters are in or in the works You know had a few prototypes come in I've done drop tests, you know up to 500 pounds You know the 500 pounds they've suffered some damage on the spotter arms, but that's not altogether surprising. And then I was supposed to release, I got these little mini racks, these little 3D printed mini power racks. I was hoping to release those already, but like I've been so behind on orders that I'm like, I'm not going to release a new product if I'm like

Struggling to keep up with my normal orders. It just it put me even further behind and then you have this I don't want like a lead time. That's two months three months for products. That's just not something Nothing that I enjoy when I buy something That's just not the experience. I want other people to have when they buy from me We saw what happens to companies that do that. As heard on the Mastodonimics podcast. Oh yeah. I'm a little bit of a do you think strange? But yeah, so I got a few products out there.

I'm hoping to have a concept in mind for some new type of monoliths that would function definitely differently than all the other monoliths out there. Which would hopefully solve the issue, because most people don't want to squat out of normal monoliths. At least like home gym power rack monoliths. Because the travel isn't far enough. Yeah, you're still like 2 inches away from the from the upright no matter what? Yeah, so I have a concept where I will probably you know add another like five inches of travel So we need four inches yeah, that's what she said

Yes, sir. Someone picked it. Yeah, but uh, so yeah, I mean I have a few products I you know now I'm trying not to show off even the spot arms I really didn't want to show off. I kind of got forced to do that So I'm trying not to because now now I'm starting to get a you know, a number of companies copying some of my products Yeah Yeah, so I'm trying not to show too much if I don't have to at this point in time And I can't imagine you're in a position to do much. Just we all, you know, the copy or not, patterns are so fucking outrageously expensive that I can't imagine that you've

been able to invest too much in patents, you know, especially with your larger lineup now. No, I mean, exactly. That's where, you know, I see it on Facebook and stuff like that, where, you know, people will be, you will be showing off one of the copycat companies. And, you know, the response is always, well, if you didn't want them copying it, you should have gotten patented. You know, one, I actually didn't think this was gonna be a business,

so I didn't think to get a patent because it's 10 grand, you know, and then you got to pay to defend it, and that's for one product. So then you start having six or seven products and you got to defend. Or, you know, pay 10,000 for every single path, you know, every product. Uh, I mean, if I was out, if $70,000 just dropped out of my bank account tomorrow, well, I'm, I'm out of business, you know? Um, so it's really easy, you know, cause when people are like, oh, well, that company has patents.

It's like, yeah, that company, they make more in a week than I make all year. So I understand why they have patents. They can afford to have an attorney who only does patents on the payroll. I'm a one-man shop. I've been out of my garage. So it's unfortunate, you know, I, it's a smaller companies, you know, that are the ones that are copying me more than the bigger companies. Um, cause I haven't had a call with one of the larger

companies before and we can't, we talked about it. They're like, no, we know we can't copy you because we would absolutely have to deal with a complete shitstorm on social media. So that's kind of what I use as my protection at this point in time is that I've sold enough of them. I'm, you know, I think I'm relatively involved with the community and so, you know, I kind of just protect myself that way. Stuff, good stuff. I think we could probably talk about your business for another two hours but we do get a we're gonna try to get some funny stuff in here so let's uh let's uh unless I was anything else as anything else you wanted to get out there about the business before we move on though?

No you know not really you know people I mean check it out. It's Darko lifting if you're looking for a bar sword or something cool But yeah, you know Business stuff it's fun, but you know, I'd rather you know talking about dumb stuff is yeah Let's get into Darko himself. So Your name is David and your last name is not Darko So just tell the food tell the guy, you know, obviously, I tell the, obviously it's obviously from Donnie Darko, but where did, when did that name become a thing in your life?

Let's see here. It's 18, so 22 years ago, 2002. AOL screen names. So, for a lot of us older people, if you if you had AIM, you know, the chat program you had to have a screen name. Donnie Darko at the time was my favorite movie. So I'm like, I'll just, you know, I'll be XX Davy Darko. And, um, that stuck for a long time.

And then my friend started calling me Darko in real life. And, um, so that kind of just stuck for the last 22 years. But it is like my favorite story of this always is I was at a bar with all of our friends. And one of the girls was kind of newer, but like she'd been hanging out for like a year. But she had only ever heard people refer to me as Darko. So I was like, oh, she's like getting a drink. I'm like, oh, just put on my tab. That's right. And so she goes to put it on, you know, get a drink. She comes back. She's like, they don't say they have Darko on a tab. I'm like, that's not my real name. She's like, what? I'm like, no, that's not my name. That's pretty funny.

So that's where the name came from. it's just kind of stuck, you know, 22 years now. So we'll just keep going with it. Originally the name of my company was going to be Black and White Lifting, but just because, you know, the Darko name, you know, was so synonymous with my Instagram account, which is, you know, at the time was popular for just doing silly ream reels and I read on the. Reels. I want to know what to read me out too hard for that. Yeah. Just the day of the fuckers.

Well, I said you guys are doing we are. I do. I think I actually heard most that story at home gym, can the only thing that was new was You pronounced aim like with the letters I've never heard anyone say a I am and for aim like am I weird like I've only ever called it aim Able and some messenger. It's always been aim. We also do a poll on that one. I have never like

I am oh I Because it was right after there was another one called ICQ. Mm hmm. That's the one I know of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here in Canada, I don't think we ever aim was ever that popular. I only had a well-designed messenger. A. I. M. So like you went from ICQ to A. I. M. It just made sense to do like, no, no, I got you. That doesn't make sense. I just I in my 39 years of now,

I think I've ever heard anyone say it. So like, I listened to your entire story, but like in the back of my, like the, you know, the hamster in my head the whole time was like, I have to ask about that. I have to ask about that. It's someone else listening is going to be like, wow, that was, I agree. But, all right. So we got you as Darko. Good deal. Good deal. You've been lifting for a long time, it looks like. Have you ever done any competing? Has anything ever draw your attention enough to get on a platform or do any actual sanction competitions or anything fun like that? I kind of had the itch a couple years ago to maybe try one, but I just never really got around to it. The closest thing I got to was kind of a mock meet through the home gym discord. They used to kind of throw on their

little meets. Ice cream social or whatever I think it was. Yeah. That's about the closest I've gotten. I'm hoping if I can get some solid training in. The problem is you know I was training five or six days religiously for you know a couple years and then I started my business and that caused a big problem with my training and still does. But I'm hoping at some point, and one of the big problems for me with doing a competition like our own actual meet is my deadlift is shockingly low and embarrassing. Where I just wouldn't want to do that in front of anybody. So I think like at the mock meet, you know, like benching has always been my favorite.

So I was able to hit like a 300 bench, like a 390 squat, but then my dad left 390. like a 390 squat, but then my deadlift 390, you know, it just that number is, you know, at least as far as the ratios of where my deadlift should be in comparison to the other ones, it should be a lot. That means you're a really good squatter, that's all. I just think of it as being a really bad deadlift. Yeah, no, I was trying to be nice, but yeah. No, maybe at some point though, I'm going to try and focus. And last couple of weeks, I've been getting five days in.

So I keep that up for a year or two. Well, you do you buddy. What's you know, it'll always be an option. But you know, I think they even said it on the podcast last week. Like, you know, no one cares how strong you are. Just if it's something you want to do, do it. If it's not, then don't like I will always be proponent of someone getting on the platform, at

least once because then like, I don't know until you've done it once. It's like, yeah, I don't know. It's just it's just fun. But a lot of it too is like, I've done some good mates have done some bad mates have done meets that were ran well and meets that have ran been shitty. You know, I've been done meets with 20 friends of well, not counting literally lift up really easy, like just local meets with like, had like 20 people that I knew and then have done the ones where I was like the fucking the only person that knew in the building. So it's like, it can be intimidating

if you're not already in a crew of people or know a bunch of people in the area. So I can see why people are hesitant, I guess, but you know, I'll always support people doing any kind of lifting. So whatever floats your boat there. So what? That sounds fun. I mean, go ahead. No, you go ahead. No, I mean, like when I did the mock meet, we had 20 of us, you know, all from Discord. You know, and my buddy, you know, he has a full like combo, you know, ghost kabuki rap, you know, combo rack or so. I mean, it was set up like a meet, but yeah, you know combo rack or so. I mean it was set up like a meat but

Yeah, you know once I once I started my company and that's just my training got so erratic that it's just I wish it didn't Because my list would be a lot more impressive at this point in time. Do you Like I always ask my wife to do it because she has her own business too But like it's her secondary job and I always ask her to kind of like, do you like track your hours? Because like she doesn't she doesn't track her hours to kind of like, equate like how much she's actually kind of worked. And to, on average, you know, how much you work a week? Like, are you working seven days a week? Are you like putting in 100

hours a week? You putting in 60 hours a week? Like how much how much time is David working at Darko? Oh, yeah, it's probably about 60 hours right now. But, you know, because I mean, it's like I work during the day when my kids are at school and then, you know, I take a break for a couple hours and they come home, you know, taking to their activities. When they go to bed, you know, I'll go back out. It just depends on what the workload is like. You know, so sometimes I'll just work till nine or 10. But, you know, if it gets crazy, I'll be out there till two in the morning. Some days working, which makes which you know that is a big factor. And I like to work on the mornings before my kids wake up. So it's like I go to bed at two thirty in the morning. The chance to work out is zero.

Feel that. So yeah, it just depends. But yeah, it's probably it averages probably about 60 hours a week. So what is the ideal inseam for shorts? Seven, seven inches, seven inches. Yeah, it's my go to says here that you like obscenely short shorts. Seven inches doesn't sound that obscene. Unless you're fucking nine foot tall. Seven inches come up, you know, I live in California, so skies out, thighs out. The five inches are a little, I think it would just make my wife uncomfortable.

You know, the first, I think the first two months we were dating, we went to Wild River. It's a water park out here in Southern California. And, uh, just a mess with her. I was wearing like the Euro shorts, bathing suits. And, uh, after about an hour, she's like, we have to go. This is, this is so uncomfortable right now. Like this is, there's children everywhere. And like everything about your shorts shows everything. I'm like, tell them not to look, tell them not to look. And so now I do like, it's about a seven. If

companies made a six inch inseam, I think that actually probably be perfect. But it's either five, seven or nine. So I usually tend to go with the seven. be perfect. But it's either five, seven or nine. So I usually tend to go with the seven. That's a. I'm a I'm a good five inch inseam. I think I think that's what the new Masonics ones are. I think they're about five, five and a half, six.

I was curious about that. I like everything relatively form fitting. Yeah, they're there. It's like wearing two fucking mini skirts if you have small legs, though. Like they're they're very. It's like wearing two fucking mini skirts if you have small legs though. Like they're they're very bulky like left and right like per leg. So like I don't have small legs and I look down and I'm like goddamn. There's a lot of fabric there. My leg looks so small. They are very comfortable. I just if I could change one thing about him I would take like two or three inches off the diameter of the leg opening personally, but

I still love my squat shorts. Same as all the silkies bring back silkies. Or we'll do a run of silkies. There we go. We're gonna run out of our shirts first. People go ahead and massonomics and pick your pick yourself up a unpaid and underrated t shirt. I see about a third to half of our guests our former guests have not bought one yet So we would love to see you in those Okay

That's the spirit then you get your keys head sticker. Yeah Yeah, that's one of many in the house I've got one did I mention this last time I brought my laptop to a work event. I have a Keith said sticker here. Yeah. Yeah. Joey, is that you? I was like, look like me. Look closer. Why do you have that? I was like, oh, I have to explain this to a room of my professional colleagues. Okay. With Halloween just wrapping up there last week, Darko did did your streak of dressing as a sexy woman? Continue or was that something from the days past? You know

so, I mean normally if time allows I try to You know get creative with my Halloween costumes, but over the last couple years. It's been it's been tough You know, especially now, you know, I have two kids, so you're trying to figure out their stuff. And then in between work and then, uh, you know, we always do a yearly camping trip right around Halloween. So not unfortunately, nothing this year. And one is a 40 year old. Tired overworked man.

No, nothing too exciting this year for Halloween, but one, one day I'll get back to it. Okay, do you want to hit them with a... I got one more main story I want to hear before we do games. Okay, so it looks like you're the youngest boy of six. You were a pretty big young man when you were born. What was your mother's reaction when she saw you for the first time? Yeah, my mom, you know, my mom is, I'm six feet and 200 pounds now. When I was born, I was 10 pounds, six ounces.

And my mom is about five, two and normally weighs about 100 pounds. And yeah, she was horrified. And like, she tells a story, like it's a very funny story. And I'm like, that's a really mean story. Oh, it's funny because I got the story from your perspective. And I would I think is your brothers or your sisters, possibly. So it's just really funny how the one that you submitted was a little more passive than the one. I'm just going to read what I want to.

I'm assuming it's one of your brothers, I believe. So when he was born, they they brought him all swaddled up to our mother. She started crying and saying, that's not my baby because he was so red, round and ugly. That's so fucked up. But one of your siblings told us. So that's where I was going with. Yeah, no, that's exactly how my mom tells the story to.

I'll take their word for it. Well, I won't tell the story, though. I'm like, that's a fucked up story. Like, that's not a nice story at all to tell people. I mean, when I see my baby pictures, I'm like, I get it. But it's still not nice. Still hurts 40 years later. Is Keith's camera frozen for you as well?

It is, but my audio is still coming through. Yeah, your audio is fine, but you are hot in your vinegar strokes on that picture. Go ahead and get it. Yep. All right. So was that the last one you wanted to do, or do you want to move into games?

No, that was good. Yeah. Do you want to hit him with a Rushmore, then I'll come with FMK. Hopefully my camera will get sorted out. Yeah. And I hope this doesn't fall flat, because I kind of added it while we were chatting.

But that can happen. Brother, we are not professionals. All right. So do you know what Mount Rushmore is? Like the actual Mount Rushmore? Well, yeah, kind of. Because this game is pretty much like, I'm going to ask you a thing. And if you were to build a Mount Rushmore of these things, what's the four that you would put up?

Yeah, they played on the sister podcast. I believe it started on this podcast and it turned out to just be a really fun game for everybody. So the Mount Rushmore of old school wrestlers. Old school wrestlers. Old school wrestlers. You can go. Yeah, no, just you just said you were watching old school wrestling. They always whine. I talk about wrestling too much, so I thought I would throw that in. See, number one for me as a kid was Ultimate Warrior.

Yeah. Yep. Two, Bret Hart. Mm-hmm. No, actually I put Bret Hart first. Put Bret Hart first. We'll go Bret Hart then Ultimate Warrior. I think an old school here. Doink the Clown. Ooh, okay.

I have follow-ups on that one. And the Undertaker. Good. Which iteration of Doink the Clown, the original scary one or the second silly one? It was probably the second silly one. The second silly one. They also rolled out the smaller Doink. Yeah, Dink. Summerslam, right, with them too. Yeah, Dink the Clown. Yeah, dink. Summer slam, right? With them too. Yeah, dink the clown.

Yeah. We'll probably go with that one. All right. I like this scary one. He was weird. He came out like smoking a cigarette and like yelling at kids. He would just stalk in the crowd and do like the lamest tricks because that dude was actually scary in real life.

What about new wrestlers? How caught up are you on it? So I'm not really super caught up. When I started watching the YouTube wrestling, it's usually a lot of the behind the scenes stuff from the 90s, early 2000s. behind the scenes stuff from like the 90s, early 2000s. Yeah, the attitude. Yeah, so I mean, going from attitude era on, I mean, Stone Cold number one, Rock number two, Jericho number three. I think here.

Was probably my top three of the new like mid 2000s era. Oh mankind. Yeah, I'm part of mankind in there. Yeah, make fully. No. Friend of the podcast. Yes. That was good answer. They always I don't know how many episodes you've listened to but they always give me shit for bringing up wrestling on every episode. But it's just because I know it's like, that's my nerd thing. I just I know so much and love it so much. Despite I don't watch it at all anymore. I do what you do. I pretty much watch like the YouTube highlights. Yeah, botchamania. Okay, do you guys did you ever watch ECW back in the early 2000s?

Do you guys did you ever watch ECW back in the early 2000s? I did a little bit when they had like Sandman and Rob Van Dam and yeah, you know, Bloomin a little bit, but not not nearly as invested in that as I was. I would say one of my favorites of all time is Taz. And it just confused me like really? Like you don't remember him at his height. Like that dude could have done no wrong when he was, when he was back, when he was like the ECW champion. Like, you reminded me of like a smaller Vader.

Yes. No, that's a good call. That's a good comparison. All right. Asks to start video. I don't know what you're asking me for here. Trond is here. Keith is asking me to give him video permissions. Dude, I don't know what that...

I shut my video off and now it won't come back on. Okay. I was trying to unfreeze it, but it's just not working. I hit ask to start video, so... Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, well, we don't need you on video. You're ugly. All right, Trond is here. All the audio is still coming in. We're good.

Alright, so we're gonna do a little FMK for you Darko. So we got three characters here specifically chosen for you. So I'm gonna hit you with them and you gotta use your druthers and you know, fuck, marry and kill them. So, Raiders are lifetime players. So, Tim Brown, Charles Woodson, Rich Gannon, FMK. I hope this would be a difficult one. I had to pick the three. Like, because I went and did like top 10 list and I was like, well, these aren't as relevant to like these weren't. I knew you were about my age. These aren't these weren't guys playing in our lifetime.

Whereas these guys were like, you know, you probably watch these guys playing for at least 10 years of your life. So and some of their best, some of their best seasons. Whereas these guys were like, you know, you probably watch these guys playing for at least 10 years of your life. So And uh, some of their best some of their best seasons. These were the players Those are the last good seasons. Yes, sir 20 years ago Tim Brown Rich Gannon, I Think you got to marry Charles Woodson just because he also owns wine companies now And you got to marry Tim Brown because he's one of the greatest of all time

And then you got to kill the rich again just because he's kind of a dick sometimes about the Raiders when he's doing commentary But I do love all three of those guys And he probably is like as I mean he was the quarterback of their and they're like best Best season in the last 25 years, but was he really that good? I mean he was a Pro Bowl player for a few years, but he wasn't he's not he's definitely not a Hall of Fame player Did he play his whole career in? Oakland mostly I can't really remember like because he was not old when I was a kid too. I think if I remember Yeah, I mean a lot of people thought he was kind of old when I was a kid too I think if I remember. Yeah I mean a lot of people thought he was kind of on the downside I think when he signed with the Raiders

and then he kind of had this resurgence and he had an MVP one of those years and yeah I mean he led him to the Super Bowl but that obviously didn't go well. It's close, it was a good game. Yeah that was good for the Buccaneers. They let Gruden go and you know he whooped him in the head. That was that was what like 2004, 2005 something like that? 2002. Okay even later yeah so good deal. Well that was FMK that he hit you with a Rushmore. I think. I did see something. I actually had to look it up. I don't know if you put it in there or somebody else put it in there, but you

had mentioned that you like bench and you had, where the hell was it? You basically, you have, do you have a, I'm not going to call it a disability is not the right term, but you have something on your chest where it's like a concave little thing. What's the terminology for that? I'm butchering it and I'm sounding like an asshole. I googled it earlier and I saw it and I was like, oh, okay, I know what that is now. I've seen that on like other people, but someone had mentioned that in the notes. Yeah, so it's called Peccus excavatum.

And so it's where your chest, you know, normally your chest kind of goes straight across. Or mine sinks in like a big, you know, hole basically in the middle of my chest. And you know, when I was a kid, didn't even notice it, didn't even think about it. Never even noticed it until I was in high school. And then you're getting ready for P.E., you know, and all of a sudden you're like, like, wait, what the fuck? Like everyone's chest looks way different than mine and You know and you know that that's when I started probably lifting I think it's you know in high school and

But the only way to get my chest to kind of look normal Is the bench a lot, you know, so that's why, you know, my bench has always been my favorite lift, uh, because like my whole chest sinks in and then part of X, you know, pecs excavated them a lot of times is your rib cage is kind of deformed a little bit. So like my rib cage flares out at the bottom also. So you have to have like, you basically got to work your chest a lot in order to even have your shirt. Basically, if you're looking at it from the side, you know, go straight down.

Otherwise, it kind of goes down and then shoots out and kind of gives you this pot-belly look, you know, whether or not you have one, just because of the shape of the rib cage. No way to counteract that, really. I mean, people go get surgery and, you know, all sorts of crazy stuff and I'm not, especially now, I'm 40, I'm definitely not doing that now. And now I honestly probably don't care. I don't really care about it as much really. But for a number of years, it was kind of a,

one of the things that I wasn't really thrilled about just because it was obviously much different looking than most people. So yeah, I've always kind of been a bench person, you know, and that's kind of where it started from. It's just trying to get my chest to look relatively normal. But and now I just love bench anyway, it's just I mean, it's I know it's not a very useful lift in real life, but it's 100 percent my favorite lift. It's called it's called Pexus.

Pexus Excavator. Yes, speaking of Pexus Excavator, what's your favorite Harry Potty movie? Prisoner of Azkaban. Preserve Azkaban. Sorry, I had to it does sound a little bit like a Harry Potter. It does. It does.

It does. I had to. It does sound a little bit like a Harry Potter. It does. It does. Svel doesn't it? It's so stupid. Not to make light of your situation, but I'm going to make light of all situations. Oh, I mean, now I don't give a crap. I don't give a crap. I'll be back.

I love how you just answered immediately and didn't clue into what I was doing. That was good, too. That was well played. The only thing he sensed about is his his his mother not thinking he was a pretty boy. Yeah. But when when Orin was when Orin was born and they handed her to more handed him to Morgan. The first thing she said was that's my baby.

I don't know how to take care of you. I was just like dude. That's a very true thing though. Like you're in the hospital with your baby and like the nurses are helping you do everything. And then all of a sudden they're like, all right, get out. And you're like, I don't, what am I supposed to do with this? Don't kill it. Yeah, just don't. They tell you, they make you watch a video.

I don't know if they do that everywhere, but you know, where I live in the hospital, they make you watch a video like 20 ways to like you're gonna kill your baby you're gonna kill your baby this way like they don't tell you how to not kill your baby and then they just send you home like figure it out okay we will do our best we will do our best and that's the best we can do I think all right want to get into some unpaid and underrated? Yes sir, so Mr. Darko we got this game we like to play for anyone for any of our new listeners here. It's a relatively new game we came up with all by ourselves. Similar to what some other people call overrated or underrated, we have this game we call unpaid or underrated. So underrated is still the same, but unpaid in

this scenario would be kind of shitty. So no one wants to be unpaid. As someone that works for himself, you wouldn't want to be unpaid. So keep that in mind when we're doing unpaid or underrated. So I'll hit you off here first. Unpaid or underrated Ford Mustangs. All right, so I'm going to go unpaid. So we had the Ford Mustang in my garage. Yeah, that's right.

And that was the backdrop for my gym for a long time. And so, like, for a while, we had my, my father living with us, who was, you know, older. And, you know, so that was his Mustang. And I personally, I don't care much about cars. It's just not one of those things that I really think about very much. As long as it gets me from A to B and it doesn't break down, I don't really care. Like, it was a beautiful car, super nice. I hated driving that thing anytime I drove it. In my mind the whole time was like,

man, my gym could be so big if that thing wasn't in here. Nice. Yeah, so I'll go unpaid on that one. All right, that's fair. Yeah, knowing, I was actually, I was in a group chat with a couple other guys, the whole, my home gym crew that we'd done the round tables with. And I was like, all right, who's got some Darko

unpaid or underrated? And I think Carp threw out the muscle cars in the garage or something, because he knew that used to be in there. So we got the bottom of that one. So all right, number two here for you, unpaid or underrated Al Davis? Underrated, 100 or underrated Al Davis. Underrated, a hundred percent underrated.

I know he was a crazy person at the end, but he's one of the pioneers in professional sports. Uh, you know, first to hire a African-American head coach, first to hire a Mexican-American head coach, first to hire a female executive in a professional football team. I believe he was the reason why cheerleaders exist in the NFL. You know, he won several championships. You know, he hired John Madden and obviously John Madden has gone down as one of the greatest coaches of all time. Uh, so I, a lot of people just remember the, the last few years of his life, one of the Raiders were horrible.

Um, but a hundred percent underrated, one of the greatest executive owners in sports history, in my opinion. Nice. Yeah. I remember he was, he was always the owner in my childhood and I guess I didn't, you know, their heyday was well before I ever started watching football in the late 90s kind of thing. So, yeah, mid to late 90s. But yeah, I just remember my favorite part about the Raiders, I guess, was always like,

you knew they were gonna, no matter what, they were drafting the one guy that could run a 4-2-40, you know, like no matter what that's just what they did So I will round out here with my last one Unpaid or underrated. We got a few different ones here. Let's go Las Vegas Unpaid Vegas is fine You know just from from a visiting standpoint. If you asked me this question 20 years ago, I would say underrated because Vegas was the funnest place ever when I was 21. Married with kids now. Trying to stay as far away as I can from Las Vegas at this point. Too expensive.

You know, a lot of homeless people now. The idea of going to a club or something that was loud noise, that's like my nightmare at this point. Yeah, that sounds horrible. Horrible. I'm too old for that. Too old for that shit. I was slightly fishing more for the I guess my point of view of it would be I thought you were gonna take the because obviously they're not in Oakland or not in Los Angeles anymore. They are

the Las Vegas Raiders. So are you pissed that you lost your local team? I mean, do you can still consider it your I mean, it's still your team, but it's not a team that you lost your local team. I mean, do you can still consider it your, I mean, it's still your team, but it's not a team that you can like drive an hour and go watch play anymore, however close you used to be. You know, in that regards, I don't mind it. I don't, you know, they were playing in Oakland, which is actually further from me than Vegas is.

Oh, okay, okay. Oakland is like a six and a half, seven hour drive where I can get to Vegas and like three and a half hours. Oh, okay. Yeah. I didn't know that. So that makes sense. Yeah. So, and then I mean, there's pros and cons to it. They get tons of visiting fans now just because like who the hell doesn't, you know, lots of people want to go to Vegas and party for the weekend. because like who the hell doesn't you know lots of people want to go to Vegas and party for the weekend but they have a beautiful stadium it's a Raiders stadium you know it's all blacked out everything out it screams Raiders you know they don't have to play they were the last team playing on a baseball field so you know anytime they do remember that I remember always watching highlights or even playing I remember like Madden was actually good about keeping it true. Like their field on Madden like was running through a baseball field if I recall.

Like, yeah, no. So watching, you know, watching the kicker kick a field goal off dirt, you know, it's never, never fun. So yeah, as far as that, yeah, I'm good with it. Yeah, you know, they, I mean, they're, they're playing in the worst arena, you know, Coliseum and sports. I mean, I've been to Oakland Coliseum and that is a piece of shit stadium. So yeah, I'm happy for, you know, see them get a new stadium. Good deal. All right. You know, it's what's funny as or sad, I don't know, as a Canadian who we consume American media a lot, right. And. I think one of the first times

I ever realized that people actually live in Las Vegas and it's not just the strip. I think was the CSI Las Vegas. Distinctly remember they would show like the drone shots of like suburban neighborhoods. And I was just like the hell is that people actually live in that awful awful city. I think that was the I that might be stupid of me or naive of me because like, obviously, obviously they do. But you never saw that in anything that you would consume about Las Vegas. It was always, you know, the casinos, the hookers and the strip clubs, because that's what everybody

in movies did in Las Vegas. And then you just like, you have yards. Like yards in Las Vegas. And then you're just like, you have yards. You have like yards in Las Vegas. The hell is that? Anyway, but people that live in Las Vegas don't go to the strip. No, obviously, because like you would only do that once and then be like, I see these people later. No, thank you. All right. So I'm going to go actually, as I am drinking what is advertised as an IPA. I'm going to go unpaid or underrated IPAs. I mean, I'm going to say underrated. I know they're super popular, but there's so many people out there that still like my wife is one of them that just

hates them. Yeah, my wife does too. My wife. But it's a bitter taste that you got to get used to, but there's so much more flavor in IPAs than a lot of these other beers. And I mean, depending on which ones you get, you know, you drink two of them, three of them, like, oh yeah, you're two of them, three of them, like, Oh, yeah, you have a good time. You're gonna have a good time. Yeah, those big eight to 10% ones. Yeah, I try to avoid those because those are the things like

I'll have one at like maybe 8pm. And that one will get me hammered. Yeah. And then by 9pm, I'm sober again. And I was like, this is not a good fluctuation. My wife calls them grapefruit farts that she says that they smell like they smell like the asshole of a grapefruit. Yeah, I say that because Keats is advertised as an IPA, but it hasn't been an IPA since like the 1800s. It's actually a logger now. But because it still always has been an IPA, they still get to do that. What's your favorite thing about them? Is it like that citrusy flavor of the hops? Have you ever eaten hops?

We talk about hops a lot. Yeah, we talk about hops a lot. Well, they honestly taste like pine salt. That doesn't sound appealing at all. Yeah, but here we are drinking like constantly. Yep. No, I mean, I you know, I was into the hazy IPs for a while and those definitely

were more fruit flavored. Yeah. But with the I mean, now I'm very into like West Coast IPA's, which don't have really the fruit kind of undertones. Yeah, you know, I think it's the bitterness. I like the bitterness to them. It just makes you at least taste something. Do you ever get into the dipas?

No, just I've learned my lesson enough times with my wife being upset at me enough times with my wife my wife being upset at me enough times so I try I try to stick to like six point seven oh that's a just just a much higher alcohol content so you get fucking zooted a lot harder oh yeah dip a zoo you hard at like eight or eight to twelve yeah yeah they're brutal yeah that'd be fucked up for all buddy yeah one of the like two of those in your your one eye in your TV. Yeah. I've learned my lesson a number of times. There is one I enjoy, but up here it's called the Bone Shaker. And you're just like you have your one to start your day.

Yeah. Right. And then you're like, it's it. I'm good. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. All then you're like, that's it. I'm good. Yep. Yep, yep, yep. All right. Unpaid or underrated rompers? Underrated, they're a fantastic fashion accessory. And you don't have to buy two different pieces of clothing.

You just need one piece of clothing. You look stellar in them. Oh, yeah. They come in all sorts of cool designs. I have two of them, American flag and St. Patrick's Day. That's all you really need. You know, I could probably go for a couple more. Do they have the butt flaps? No, see, that's the only problem with them

is there's no butt flap. The ones I have are very, very, very snug. Where I really got to playing out my bathroom breaks ahead of time to make sure my wife is nearby to help shimmy out. No diffs in the rompers. I get it. Yep. Yeah.

Those are, you got to make sure you can control yourself a little bit. I'm going to do, I think, two more. Yep. Unpaid or underrated BCAAs? Unpaid. I've never bought into BCAAs. And maybe, I don't know. it's just never one of those things

where I was like, I need to have BCAAs in my protein shake or in my water or whatever. I know, I don't know, I just, there's so many things I just don't buy into. And even, I mean, protein shakes and creatine, I think for the most part is what, or not, they don't need creatine or, you know, if you have a healthy diet, you probably don't even need protein either. I eat terribly. So I need protein shakes. But BCAAs, no, I've never, I've never bought into them.

It's never been anything of interest to me. I think I paid money once for BCAAs. And then was it at a GNC? Did you get scammed at a GNC? No, it was one of those things that I just heard I needed because everybody was like, you should take these. And then I took them and I was like, these do nothing for me. And I never, and then my one buddy, he's a bit of a bodybuilder and he's learning boxing, right? And we were talking about supplements and he's like, Oh, you got to have BCAs. And I looked at him and was like, that's why I'm stronger than him. I don't take those. Yeah, you might have a slimmer body and more muscles, but

I pretty much deadlift your total right now, buddy. So I love the guy. So I won't. All right. Unpaid or underrated being a girl, dad. Underrated, I'm one to. Underrated, having girls is awesome. And my you know, my girls, so I have two girls are nine and six. But, you know, both girls, they do jujitsu. You know, they both compete in jujitsu. My nine year olds. She's fucking gnarly.

Now, being a girl down is awesome because, you know, like I see all my friends that have boys and like. Those kids are fucking crazy. They're they're they're fucking crazy. My boy, I've got I've got one of each. Yeah, you know, like we're like that was the goal. You know, we'll have one of each and that would be awesome. We had two girls and I'm like, OK, choose enough for now.

You know, that's that's you. And you don't want to have six of the same gender like your parents did. Yeah, exactly. You know, and I still stay in my house like's like oh you're my last hope for a girl. So six to wow. Yeah my dad reminds me of that constantly too. He's like oh you're such huge disappointment. How old is your older brother? Like how much older? How much older than you is your older brother? He is two. So 22 years.

22 years span with kids. Wow. Oh my gosh. That's a long time to have. My dad's 83. Yeah, my dad's 83. Yeah, I just meant like I couldn't imagine having kids at like 20 and 42 or whatever the numbers were. Oh, Scott, you said I had mine at like 35. I was like, no, I'm not doing this.

This is. Yeah, it's really like that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I was 34 when we had our second already. I'm exhausted already. Keep doing this. Did you go through the three-nager phase? Boys don't get that, but my little girl, she'll be three in a month and she is already trying to call the shots in the house. Yeah. No, my, my youngest is definitely the more sassy matter of fact.

When she speaks, she, she's the one that is definitely more scary. But yeah, my oldest, she was cool as a cucumber and that's why we got suckered into having this. That's what they do to you. Yeah. First, you're so nice. So easy. Yeah. Great baby slept perfect. This is going to be so easy to have a second one. Second one was nothing like that. I was like, this is so terrible.

This is so rough right now. And yeah, she's the one that's like sassy and just like, I'm like, why did you do that? I didn't do that. I'm like, I saw you do that. Like, no, I didn't do that. Like, I literally just saw you do it. No. No doesn't mean. But no being a girl dad's awesome. You know and like especially nowadays with like sports for girls getting you know they're opening up. So like my oldest is jiu-jitsu. My oldest also does flag football now. We're like we were kids, I don't remember girls playing football or really doing it.

Other than Taekwondo, they weren't wrestling. Every now and then I would have a girl wrestler. It wasn't super common. I think one girl wrestled in my whole athletic career. When I was probably in my late 20s or early 30s, I went to a wrestling event here in my city and it was like a non-televised, it was WWE. And I distinctly remember seeing little girls in the crowd cheering for the women wrestlers. And I knew at that point, things are changing. Things are shifting. There's little girls here to see Charlotte Flair.

There's little girls here to see Becky Lynch. I knew things were changing and I'm excited. My little girl today, my work offered to buy us dinner. They said, OK, go out for dinner. Here's your budget. And my little girl ordered a steak and ate almost all of it. And my boy was like, cheese pizza. Little girls like protein. So I'm expecting her to to get big and strong. Right and ate almost all of it and my boy was like cheese pizza Protein so I'm expecting her to to get big and strong. Well, I think you passed unpaid and underrated

Even got a visit from from Dodzilla. They're big hot joined us Yeah, at least at least someone's videos working cuz mine is I've asked you twice to reconnect No, I know it know it and I get the same error every time. And I don't want to. Zoom's kicking you out because your video's broken. Yeah, and I don't want to log out and then make another audio file for Nate to have to clip together. So we're just going to do it live. I appreciate that. We'll do it live. All right.

Well, Darko, this is where we usually hand it off to you. If there's anything you want to ask me and Joey, feel free. If not, we can, you know, round it out. You know, so I was listening earlier to, uh, was it Justice? Yep. Yeah. That was the most recent episode. So I was thinking of questions to ask you. I'm like, oh, I'm going to ask him when to put up Christmas decorations. And literally right at the end of her room, she's like, that's a question. I'm like, damn it. It's a very contentious thing. Yep.

But all your guys answers were like very late because like, I'm, I'm a very early Christmas person. Like I'm going to put up all my stuff next week. I'm that person. And my wife's that person. We are, we are, we are that, we're that house on the street. We'll be the first person with everything up. I was gonna ask that and she took that question. So I was like, damn it. I don't really have too many questions. Again, I do apologize. I wish I would have been more prepared.

All right. You're good, brother. We filled two hours. I was extremely nervous. I was like, man, has he ever listened to anything we've done? Does he really follow Mastanomics that he just joined to like kind of like get his own product out there. So I was very happy. This is awesome. You did great. This is an opposite episode. I always get fucking

No, I've had we've had some stinkers and this was great. I'm very happy. I didn't want this to be like, oh, I'll come on the podcast just to build my own brand. But then we'd like to try to ask shit about you. So you guys coming in last minute with all the questionnaire answers really saved my day. Because I think it was like last night, I was like, dude, I got nothing. Like, please, please. I am. No, no, you're great. This was it's it is my my my burden to bear. And, you know, we do it for the crew. And this was a hell of an episode and I had a blast. Big Scott, did you go for we log off?

I'm literally on his Instagram right now. I had no idea who he was and just looked him up. Who are you? Those dumbbell holders look really sweet. Oh Thank you. Yeah, that's something you just Frankenstein together from ropes rep stuff, right? Yeah. So yeah put that together At some point they're supposed to be sending me. Yeah. Yeah Well now you got to think it. I'm still waiting. Which is kind of a bummer. I sold my new O-Bells a couple of weeks ago to my stepdad.

He had like 20 year old power blocks that broke finally. And I didn't want him buying anything else. I was like, oh, I'll sell you my new O's because they're going to send me a pair of weapons soon. And then like literally the day after I gave them to him, it was that two month away and I was like, Oh, how do you break power blocks outside of maybe like the the nylon string on the thing that you pull in and out? I think I don't know. I don't I didn't really get into it. I didn't really care.

I like I've bought and sold some really beat up power blocks for profit before and like no matter how fucked up they are like they Still were fully functional. So I got you. No worries. Yeah, but he likes the new O bells a lot better. Oh Yeah, they're super easy to just I just don't know about the durability you drop those and the fucking click click click with your Wrist ain't gonna be clicking anymore. Yeah, so I mean that's the main reason I wanted the Rebbins like just in case, like I never dropped dumbbells, but you know, you never know. But yeah, I'm still waiting. So I had to buy some shitty Amazon, loadable, adjustable dumbbell handles just to get you through until they can hook you up.

Well, hopefully those come through and they don't forget about you guys. I mean, that was that was like nine months ago. You said something about that or something. It was like, I feel like it was at least six. It was a long fucking time that I remember. It was like I feel like it was at least six. It was a long fucking time Alright well, I think we can start bringing this in for a landing So I'm gonna hit us with the affiliates here everybody, you know, save yourself some money and help us get that speedboat So go ahead and go use code unpaid at

obsidian ammonia barbell rescue plate snacks home gym con belt fed strength and apparel from the strength Co. And big darker where they're gonna find you at one more time on the Instagram. Instagram you can find me at Darko lifts, or you can visit my website, Darko lifting.com. Perfect. Where you got Joey? And that wasn'tilllifting.com. Perfect, where you at, Joey? And that wasn't code unpaid at Barefoot, right? Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, you can see,

I mean, you can always put it in the show. I mean, so actually, no, so like, anyway, so like, if the next like 30 orders they get all say in the show notes or in the order notes, code unpaid, you know, maybe we'll get an email from our friends over at Barefoot, but no I obviously we obviously don't want to code I don't want to be Shelby what the hell did you do no I don't want to be direct you know obviously our intent is never to take money out of Tanner and

Tommy's pocket it's always does you know fucking put money in their pockets so that is it was obviously a misstep on my behalf and I'm sure there'll be memes and mockery and fuck all you guys. Or they'll like it over it and just make fun of me some more. So I'm Joey underscore Malesco. I'm at least he's at KO. I don't post a lot anymore and it's kind of weird. I used to post like weekly and lately it's just I'm just been at work a lot.

So maybe I'll do something later. Also deadlifts. I would love to deadlift. I had a session last week and it was like it wasn't even that heavy. It was like 380 for four or something. And I could have cried.

It felt so good. I miss deadlifting so much. Like I put them down and I got emotional. It's good for the soul. Yeah, yeah. I miss deadlifting, but with work and being a parent and not feeling great all the time, it's just been like, I'm down to three days a week, but it's not even a consistent three days. I just do like one day and then like three days later, I'll do the next day. So it's like three days within seven days instead of like what I was doing, which was like Monday, Wednesday, Friday. It's like Monday, Wednesday, Friday. It's like Monday, Thursday, Friday. I had to I trained three days in a row last week. It was sucked Friday, Saturday, Sunday, just boom, boom, boom.

And then I trained like once this week, once since like since Monday, basically, or since Sunday, like seven days. I don't understand. Yeah. Yeah. It's a big rock. I'm going to pick up. Maybe that'll be my next video. I keep trying. I keep driving by it and doing one of those like, like creepy. Watch it. And Morgan was like, just pull over, dude. Just go pick it up.

There is a landscaping company on my way to work every day and they just got rock by rock set off for sale. I just want it's so hard to not pull in. How much is this one? All up. Yep. Bringing my scale with me. All right. Thanks. So that's that's Darko. That's Joey. We got big, big hot plug yourself real quick, buddy. Scott does underscore dad's Hilla on Instagram and vote for my gym

in the home gym hub thing. If I win, I think I face Keith next round. Oh man. That'll actually be a good one. I think everyone will vote for you just to spite me because everyone likes to **** with me. So, you'll. That's kind of what I'm hoping for. Yeah, you bastard. Alright, so, our podcast, we got an Instagram unpaid and underrated podcast. Go check out the website where Nate does all his dirty work, unpaidinternpodcast.com. We've got the YouTube, and we'll see you guys next Tuesday.