wellRED podcast - #41 - Shredded Pepperoni, Mrs. CHO, and John Brenkus!

Episode Date: November 15, 2017

This week the boys discuss Canadian Pizza, Drew's hippie medicine, and CHO nearly has a stroke during the GA game.CHO is then joined in his living room by his lovely fiancee, Mrs. CHO to discuss serious topics like whether or not he should shave his face into a mustache, and which celebrity she is currently crushing on. After all that lunacy we are joined by John Brenkus! (Sports Science, ESPN) We discuss John's life, career, marriage, and talk a little anthem-protesting. Check out John's Podcast The Brink of Midnight wellredcomedy.com for tickets to shows, our book, and lots of other cool stuff....skeeeewww!

And we thank them for sponsoring the show. Well, no, I'll just go ahead. I mean, look, I'm money dumb. Y'all know that. I've been money dumb ever, since ever, my whole life. And the modern world makes it even harder to not be money dumb, in my opinion. Because used to, you, like, had to write down everything you spent or you wouldn't know nothing. But now you got apps and stuff on your phone.

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put your friend's faces onto funny reaction gifts and stuff like that. So obviously I got it so I could put Corey's face on those two, those two like twins from the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland movies. You know, those weren't a little like the Q-ball-looking twin fellas. Yeah, so that was money. What was that a reply gift for? Just when I did something stupid.

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So cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney. dot com slash well read today that's rocket money.com slash well r e d rocketmoney.com slash well read and we thank them for sponsoring this episode of the podcast they're the the papyes family feast why has everybody suddenly family with papas hits the table feed all those cousins with six pieces of our boldly seasoned signature chicken two famous chicken sandwiches two large mouth watering sides and four flaky biscuits that's enough for

cousin coworker, cousin roommate, cousin neighbor, and all his billion cousin kids. You've got all the cousins coming, even the ones who aren't really your cousins, all for $29.99. Limited time to participate in U.S. restaurants prices may vary additional terms apply. What's up, everybody? It's the show. Sorry, I sound nasly. I'm sick as butt. Great weekend. We just had a great week, excuse me, in North Carolina and at the New York Comedy Festival. appreciate everybody that came out and came to all those sold-out shows. It was fantastic, especially being back in the South and eating some good barbecue. This coming week, two sold-out shows in Denver, Colorado.

Then it's off to Chattanooga, Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee, Orlando, Florida, Tampa, Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, and Birmingham, Alabama. And that will round out the 2017 Well-Red Comedy Tour. We got several dates already booked in 2018 for those. Go to Well-Red Comedy.com. W-E-L-L-R-E-D, comedy.com, spelled just like the website. You can grab tickets. You can grab our book, The Liberal Redneck Manifesto, Dragon Dixie out of the dark. Sign up for our newsletter so that you can just skip this portion of the podcast

because you'll already know where we're going to be because we'll send you a goddamn email. And we do some nice, cool little write-ups, and we're going to write a little Thanksgiving treat for you. It'll be coming up soon. So we appreciate you guys. Download the podcast, subscribe to the podcast, tell your friends, and leave us a review. It really helps. over on Patreon doing some extra content and whatnot. Just go

to Well Red Patreon or whatever and you can subscribe to that at whatever dollar amount you want to. And send suggestions, as always, at Well Red Podcast at gmail.com. Love you so much. I'll see you out there on tour. Enjoy this podcast. A ski.

Well, well, whew! What'd you want to ask me? Are we rolling? Mm-hmm. Okay. Joe. Yes. Shred it. Shredded pepperoni go.

What? Yeah. What do you think? When have I had that? Now, consider it. You haven't. Okay. I'm asking you about the concept of it.

I just saw it on Reddit. It is the thing that people do. For it, I'll go ahead and say that. Yeah, but I mean, on a pizza, so, like, comparatively speaking, I'm saying, as far as pepperoni options go. Shredd meat. You could shred it, like, you can shred it, like, you can shred it. Yeah, you could. If I'm wrong, is it's so tender, and then you just, it just falls apart.

like chicken would be like you're thinking of like grinding oh no yeah yeah yeah okay yeah yeah you just put it through a grinder no no no I thought that I thought you were thinking raw meat grinder you know how it sort of comes out like that

but no you're right but I mean I could shred you some pepperoni right now because it wouldn't be no thing no if I had a pepperoni in a knife and a cutting board I could shred you some pepperoni right now in this scenario the pepperoni covers the whole pizza

Uh-huh. Just like any other pepperoni would, but for it shredded. No, that hits for me. I think it hits for me, too. I know it does. Yeah, right? I'm glad we had this talk. You can't shred it with a knife. How would you do that?

I absolutely shred you your pepperoni with a knife. You could do it like a cheese grater. I take. Now, it needs to be sliced, like a package of sliced pepperoni, which are very easily attainable. Okay. Stack them up however how you want. I've got a fire-ass chef's knife. That would be diced.

No, it wouldn't. Those are strips. And they're very thin strips because I'm talking about pre-slice pepperoni. That is shreds. I bet you that's how they do it. Because that's what I mean cheese shreds. Yeah. Shredded cheddar.

Mm-hmm. No, they grate that, though. Then why ain't it called grated cheddar? I don't know. Man, it is grated, but it's still, sure. Yeah, I mean, good point. You can use a cheese grater to shred cheese. You could do that with meat, too, presumably, like a stick of pepperoni.

Yeah, Mr. Butt, it is time for him to wait a bread. man we is talking about smoke meats of cheeses he's been absent for a while he has which i've been surprised we've actually gotten a lot of uh people wondering they come up to us at shows they're like you know we've been kind of kind of worried about mr but he ain't he ain't been chiming in in a while yeah we well you know he's just taking a break from the public eye right now but he's around oh yeah he's it's to be too much for him yeah yeah but his influence is still very much being felt behind the scenes. At all times.

So on Reddit, what was it? Like, this was just people going, hey, here's a pizza I make. No, apparently in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, which is, you've been there, right? Yeah. It's right across the American border from Detroit. There's a bridge that connects Detroit and Windsor. I've been to Detroit a few times, but I've never been to Windsor, but apparently right over that bridge in Windsor, they make all their pizza with shredded pepperoni on it.

It's like a local thing. I got to check that shit out, man. I mean, I think it hits for me. It's the people of Canada, but Windsor's not, I mean. Since when do they know about stuff? Since when, I mean, again, look what they've done to bacon, you know, don't hit. Yes, but also, Windsor kind of, it's like, it's like Gatlinburg with strip clubs. Right.

Well, again, I'm about saying, boy, they did put it, the sale quit selling. And they did put it by Detroit, you know. So that checks out, but Detroit hits for me. What about them little the pepperonies that curl up into little grease soup bowls? Do I know that? Everybody knows those. Oh, yeah, no, those little like cheap pepperonies. Yeah, that end up burl up.

Yes, I like that. And yeah, they can bubble in either direction. Yeah. But when they bubble upwards, it's a little cup of grease in there. That hits. I do. Yeah. I do like that.

And, of course, we're shredded. You don't get that. that. Exactly. Yeah. You also don't get like the satisfaction of taking a bite with an entire fucking pepperoni on it. That's gone.

Sure. But don't let your dreams be dreams. You can do both. You can make a pizza with both. Okay. No los dose, baby. Hell, fucking all three, if you want. You could just go pepperoni madness.

What hit? No, I'm with it. I'm also, I mean, while we're there, just mix it with the cheese. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, that might be the way they do it. for all I know. I don't know.

And mix it with the cheese and then put regular pepperoni on top of that. I know what you're saying. Like when you got the shredded cheese out of a bag, have it be shredded pepperoni and cheese and just go crazy. I like a layer of cheese, though. Okay, we'll do that too. Layers cheese, then layer of pepperoni stuff, then layer of pepperoni plus cheese,

then actual pepperonies on top of that. What hit? The well-red pizza. Yeah. We're on to something here. Well, I mean, it's really just a metaphor. This is the Social and political

analysis that we're going through right now I was really hoping it weren't I was just messing around Yeah I just woke up Good nap And shit Not really

Not too much You're so stupid Look at your fat It ain't It is Your cheeks Are your eyes eyebrows. That's how much you're smiling.

I took some mushrooms. All your eyes disappeared. Mushrooms, it's harder to lie on mushrooms. Speaking of pizza, it is harder to lie on mushrooms. Because I don't want to. I want to tell you the truth. What shit have y'all been talking? Nothing.

Everybody who was listening to this podcast just heard y'all talking shit about me before. No. No, we weren't. You started when we started. You started when we started. When you called me, we had been talking. talking shit. The podcast wasn't on.

I can't make it worse. I was just in here for no one's entertainment. No, okay. It's actually both. It's actually both. We had gotten the stuff out. We're about to start and was like, you know,

it was fucking Drew coming or whatnot? I don't know. That's what led into you. And then you called, right. This episode. Now I just feel stupid. Right.

No, we had not turned this on yet when that happened. But we were about to. Now, we can record a separate. intro later, wherein we do just talk shit about you. About how much you don't hit. If I'd make you happy.

I have. Oh, man. So, we've been in Riley. We're now in Charlotte. And while we were in Riley, Corey brought something to my attention. Otherwise, I don't think I would have ever even actually thought about it at all. I genuinely don't, which is sort of the whole point of what I'm about to say. Corey brought something to my attention

one of those days we're in Riley about how just weird everything has gotten or like how our lives have gotten like compared to you know what it used to be or whatever because in Riley the two nights we were there the first night we ended the show

in the green room smoking weed and with a wizard or was a magic mic shout out to magic mike he was in there freaking us all the fuck out with magic and then the next night and riley after the show was over uh it was a tiny horse it was a tiny horse kiwi come to the show kiwi was just outside you walk outside of our show and it's just it's just a tiny horse there yeah and cori said that some of the ladies that have been of our show was like what the fuck this is why like did you did you know about this and cori goes

nobody. I set this shit up. Which he did. On the guest list, God damn. And I did set that up. I know. And Drew said that the first night, Corey walked in, and when one of the managers was talking to him,

okay, we all set up everything good. One of the first questions Corey asked was, is Kiwi on the list? Like the dude was like, oh, don't worry about Kiwi, sir. We've got Kiwi. We've got a special stall. was hanging it for him.

No, what the guy actually did was what? Kiwi, tiny horse. He on the list. He probably thought you meant like, are you bringing me some Kiwi fruit? I'm certain that's what he thought, but no, what I meant was

Kiwi the tiny horse, who I'm sure we've talked about a lot on here, but yeah, he was there in full effect. In Riley. Yeah, and it hit. Game starting back, so y'all can do something. stuff without me.

But, yeah, we don't always be having tiny horses outside of our shows. No, I only know of the one. If only. Not yet, we don't. Or magicians. Yeah, or magicians. I don't always happen either. I guess Riley's a weirder town and it gets credit for, you know.

Sure. But we also, I mean, how I feel like I don't think he would care at all us saying and might as well bring up the fact that we also, while we were in Riley hung out with B.J. Barham, who's the front man of a. American Aquarium, which is a fucking awesome, you know, in my opinion, country, you know, band, Americana is what most people would call them. But I have some weird feelings about that. That's what you call good country.

Right. That's just what you call good country music nowadays is fucking Americana. But anyway, whatever. That's what they are. I love it when they do that. Speaking of, we also hung out with Sarah Shook the next night. Sarah Shook the next night, yes. She has a phenomenal band, a country band, Sarah Shook, and the Disarmers.

and everybody calls them Outlaw Country and so what it is if you pay attention right now if country music is good it's called Americana if you sing about love and it's called Outlaw

if you ever get drunk in any songs Right Well in fairness to BJ He'd be getting drunk in his songs too He got a lot of good songs I feel like he always been drunk in his songs Like he's always looking back Yeah yeah yeah you're probably right

Yeah Yeah It's like in the beginning of the song She wakes up with a bottle And the end of the song The bottle is gone And, you know, so is her relationship. Drinking water tonight, because I drank all the whiskey this morning.

That's a sad for you. She sounds better. She sounds infinitely fucking better. That one's called Dwight Yoakam. Uh-huh. Y'all should check it out. You can't name a country song, Dwight Yocum, and suck. And she didn't. Yeah, but no, but we had never met Magic Mike before.

Michael Casey is his name. Y'all check him out if you're looking for a hit-and-ass magician. to come and blow your minds with wizardry. When we mentioned the next day we met B.J. We said, hey, do you know Michael Casey? He goes, yeah, he is Satan. That cracked me up. But anyway, yeah, so Riley is just, you know, we'd be disingenuous of us if we tried to act like that's how it just was for us.

Like, Riley was a particular kind of wild-ass couple of days. That's true. The only reason that I pointed out. Good job, Riley, North Carolina. Yeah, I just, the only reason I pointed out is I felt like we weren't, nobody was giving me the level of like, don't you all think this is a little, we just have accepted that there's a tiny horse in our life. No, I know.

That's what I'm saying. That's what I meant when I said, if you had to brought it up, I literally don't think it would have even occurred to me that any of that is at all weird. Yeah. And that's, that is weird. Yeah, that is weird. It kind of make, well, no. It doesn't make you realize or sympathize with any of these motherfuckers

like that's been being called out lately. But I'm saying you can sort of see how like people just go completely insane. Insane, yeah. And I don't mean and then start raping. Right, of course. But just how they go. How quickly you can lose touch with shit. Like how things really are.

It's like, yeah, dog, people don't just have tiny horses. Right. Kind of sure, is that Ninja Turtles? No, I got it from this. Bar called the Lily Pad at Morgan County. It wasn't there when I was growing up, but I'm going to be wearing it on stage. I want them to sponsor me. Marty and Dale on it, they have bought five copies of the book.

They pass them around from time to time. At a hammering in the woods. At a bar in Morgan County called the Lily Pad that makes shirts like that? Yeah, they hit. That does hit. This couple moved in. I want to say when I was like in seventh grade is when I met them. They're teachers.

And he teaches at UT and she teaches at Sumbrite. And mom was like, you know, know tight weather or whatever and i like went down there i think a couple times they're like rock climbers and shit the one thing we have in morgan county you know other than pills that we can export to the world well i guess you can't export it but the one thing people give a fuck about is our outdoor shit we got the obit river which is one of the best kayaking canoe and spots on the east coast and then we got the lily boulders which is people have told me the best boulder field on the east coast to rock climb anyway they moved down there got some land they're hippie-dippy-dippy

types and they eventually have a, you know, fast forward 10 years, they got a brewery and a camping spot at a bar. Damn. Great sires. They got the best sire beers in the game. Well, that's fire, man. They ain't shit like that in Salina unless it's come in

the past, no, they're just ain't. It's not. Shout out to the lily pad. Hell yeah. And like I said, they bought like five of our books to just give people and have a round about. Do you think that? So speaking of a weirdo hippie type people up in that part of the country, you're wife, Andy, we found out it's been slowly poisoning you with colloidal silver. And, you know,

she would have got away with it, too, if it wasn't for those meddling tweeters. Yeah. No, I don't, I actually don't know because you told us, I'm not going to talk about this until the podcast. So why don't you just go ahead. If y'all were listening last week, we opened it with saying Drew's taking colloidal silver for his stomach. Of course he is, you know, or whatever. And then what happens? well first of all i don't think i'd ever take it i may be taking this stuff once before but i was real sick my understanding of it is is it's it's it's like it just kills shit inside you what's left i'll see exactly i'm about saying like why do you need that the final boss battle before he'll get it and uh this is drew's last gas because the light inside

him just pure liquid fucking metal and ah ah you hate this up first yeah oh anyway

I've been trying to take my final form fuck my stupid butt fuck my stupid butt good Lord so people was tweeting at me you know warning me

that it was bad uh I mean and you know it can be you can get poison from it just like you can anything that oh god damn it

god fucking damn Oh, shit. Don't have. Oh, man. God fucking damn it. We're watching the football game right in the middle of this. We're going to have to pause. God damn fucking.

God, Jesus. Okay, so what you just heard there at the very tail end of that podcast was me, the show, having pretty much a stroke because what had happened was, is I'm pretty sure that was when Georgia is when we muffed a punt, right? So, you know, I'm a Georgia fan. We were sitting there watching the Auburn Georgia game, and I told the boys, it's like, guys,

let's not do this goddamn podcast while it's games on. They're like, no, just turn the sound down. It'll be fine. I was like, no, it won't be fine because some horseshit's going to happen, and I'm going to freak out. And what happened was they muffed a punt, and then I lost my mind. You can hear me cussing,

and then I kicked the fucking Ottoman that we had the podcast stuff sitting on and it threw the podcast shit across the room and completely cut it off and then we couldn't get the damn thing to work again. So, uh, I mean, that's my fault. I don't know what to say other than that's my fault. And then we literally, we couldn't get us going. And then we had to go to a damn show and then we didn't have time to finish the podcast. So we only did about 15 minutes there. But we like to keep these things consistent time-wise. So you got me for another 15 minutes to round out this portion of the episode before we get to the interview with the insanely talented John Brieckis, but it's not just me.

Joining me today is, very reluctantly, may I add, because she does not want to do this, which I think is going to make it even better, is my lovely fiancé, the love of my life, Mrs. Cho, Amber Roberts. Hey, Amber. Hello. What are you doing?

Hang out. Hold the microphone to your face. I know you're not used to doing this, but... It's to my face. Well, this is kind of neat because... I felt like I was breathing into it, So I didn't want that to... I understand.

Now, we have... Well, they're used to us breathing into it. And so it's... No, you're fine. You don't huff and puff like me and Tray do. This is kind of neat because I've been home for like 32 hours or something, but I've been sick the whole time. So me and you haven't really had a chance to catch up on what's been going on the past week.

So I guess we can just do that here over the podcast. So what did you do while I was gone? I noticed that the house is decorated with Christmas. It is. But most of... Mostly at a really good time watching your team fell extremely hard. I hate you. I think that's what I enjoy the most about this weekend.

Amber is a Florida fan, so this house is very much divided. And we already suck, so I already accept that. But it was very nice to watch you film. Right, and we beat y'all, so. Yeah, so it was really nice to watch you get an ass whipping after we got the ass whipping. Yeah, and it was terrible. But the house looks good, and it smells good. It does.

It's very Christmasing. Yeah. our 1987 Christmas tree. Is that how long that's been? Yeah, for sure. My entire life. So that tree's as old as me. Older than you.

God damn. It's somehow still rocks it. Uh-huh. No, it looks good. So, uh, house is decorated for Christmas and, uh, you know, did I, did you see the pictures where we met Kiwi? I did. And I'm very excited to me, Kiwi.

I don't know if I've told anybody here on the podcast, but I'll go ahead and tell them now. Um, so we talked. we talk about it a little bit in our brief conversation, me, and Drew. Kiwi is, you know, the tiny horse our friend Tara has in,

and, uh, and Raleigh. And so, yeah, he came to our show and we finally got to meet him. But what's so you, I don't think I've told this. So when me and Amber,

me and Amber, uh, back in March. March. Right. Okay. And let me ask you this. Is that like me not knowing the day we got engaged?

Is that fine? I don't know the day we got engaged. Okay. Okay. I didn't know because I was sitting here. I was like, um, I know it was right.

before St. Patrick's Day. Okay. And we were in Vegas. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I feel like no one should really know the day when you're in Vegas. No, I agree. Like the day that you're in Vegas.

Like, it's all the same. Right. No, I agree with you, but it just like occurred to me, I was about to say, back when we got engaged and I was like, oh shit, I don't know the date. And I don't know if that's one of those,

like, dude has to know the date type things. Anyways, we got engaged and so we're both, I mean, we weren't hammered, hammered, right afterwards, but we got in

pretty buzzed up at the Isabel concert. And so we get back in the cab and we're sitting there. And Amber knows who Kiwi is because I just, I go on and on about it. I mean, it's a goddamn tiny horse. So we're sitting there in the cab and Amber's kind of a little buzzed up. She's leaning over on me. And Tara had posted something about Kiwi.

And I was trying to tell Amber, hey, look, Kiwi did whatever it was. And I just go, hey, Amber, Kiwi. and then Amber finished my sentence by going, should be the ring bearer in our wedding. And I started dying laughing, and she's like, is that not what you were going to say? And I was like, that's not what I was going to say, but that's totally fucking happening now.

And it's funny because I'd already asked her to marry me, but that was the moment that I realized, like, okay, you did the right thing. That's the way we sealed the deal. Yeah, good call on this one. So Kiwi, the mini horse, is going to, we're going to stable his ass up and bring him down to Chickamauga, Georgia. He's going to...

I'm looking very much forward to that. Uh-huh. Keep the mic on your mouth. God damn, you're worse than Trey. I'm afraid I'm breathing on it. You're not, I'm just... But when you're talking, though, you're over here. Just blah, blah, blah.

You're not... It's fine. I can take your breath out. I'll edit this sunbitch. So I do have a couple questions for you to keep this thing moving along. We're going to Denver next week. You're going on the road with us.

Yes. So that's... We're very excited for you just... When's the last time you're on the road with me? Um... I don't know. See, I can't remember either. I really can't remember the last time.

So number one, you're going to see an entirely new act. We've got a new act now because you haven't been there for the... Oh, I'm very excited about that. Yeah, I'm sure you are. So we... Amber, another thing about Amber that's probably unique that a lot of y'all don't know. She doesn't like stand-up comedy. No, I really don't.

And let's say this by the fact that... that I get second-hand embarrassment for people and I can't stand for people who have kind of like that pause in between their funniness. Timing?

Yes. I don't like it. And it makes me feel like I just get second-hand embarrassment for people. So I'm going to explain this to you because I don't think we've ever had really this conversation. I'll explain it to you in the audience at the same time. If you go to an actual comedy show, like a real comedy show,

show, that's not going to happen. What has happened to you is because a lot of people don't know this. Amber lived with me for like almost two years before we ever started dating or got engaged during that shit. We were just roommates who were friends. I mean, you know, your boy wanted it pretty bad, but she wouldn't have

none of it. But so Amber being the supportive roommate and friend that she is would go with me a lot to like comedy catch shows. And a lot of them were open mics and like giggles grill and shit like that. And it was so awkward. Of course, but I know, but I always tell you like, I was good though.

Yeah. I've honestly always thought you were good. That's not just me liking you as a person. Well, I know, but I've tried to explain to you. Like, if you go, like, yeah, you got ruined basically because that's all the shows that you went to. If you go to an actual, like a good comedy club when it's an actual show, you know, good MC feature headliner, like, you don't have to worry about that because they are good. Well, every time I've gone. It's been that.

Yeah. I mean, it's been good. No, it's been good. Like, recently. in the times that I've gone. But. No, I know. But I'm just saying, like, you're not, like, at our show, you don't get that because we're all three very, very good.

No, I don't. And I would never take you now. Like, then, yeah, you had to put up with some bullshit because, like, you know, look, it's open mic. There's going to be some people coming through that, you know, might not hit. But, like, if I'm taking you to a show, like, if we're going to see fucking Bill Burr, you know, like, there's not going to be any of that awkward. Oh, my God. No, not at all. They know exactly.

Yeah, but like because of, I mean, and it's, that's kind of a testament to what I've said to a lot of people is like, look, if you've got to, don't put shitty comics on your fucking show because somebody like Amber is going to go to that show and that's all the comedy she's ever seen, and then she's not going to come back and see stand-up. I think I just got scarred from an early age. Yeah, which, which, you know, most people should know the different, like an open mic is, it's, there's allowed to be shitty people in an open mic. That's how people get better. Well, no, there is, but I'm saying for somebody who didn't really know this circuit of that. Sure. And they don't understand how that goes. No, they don't.

And that's, I've seen comics, like, put up, like, they'll do a set. They've been doing comedy for, like, six months, and they'll do a set, and they'll put it up on YouTube. And, like, everybody will be sharing it. And I'm like, dude, get that the fuck down. Because, like, someone's going to see that and be like, oh, well, Jesus Christ, if that's what stand-up is, I'm not going. I don't want to be involved in them. Yeah, yeah. It's like, yeah.

It's like, you know, 14 years in the making. It's very fucking good. Yeah. So, I said all that to say this. You're going to get to see me to do new material, which you haven't seen. And I'm very excited for that. I mean, you hadn't been around me in like a fucking year. Yeah.

And I mean, I'm not hating the fact that I've seen the same show when you guys do the same type of things. I just love to see new shit. Sure. But I really can't remember when it was. But regardless, you're going to Denver with us. We have two sold-out shows at the Oriental Theater in Denver, which I could not be more fucking excited about. I'm very excited to go to Denver. The last time we did Denver, we sold out one show at a comedy club and couldn't believe, like, it was the most mind-blowing thing ever to, like, sell out tickets outside of the South.

and now we just sold out two theaters. So I'm on a personal level pump that you get to see that. Like, you know, you get to see Daddy go up there and work. Daddy. But anyways, what are you most... This is what I want to ask you. What are you most looking forward to about Denver? Well.

That you can say on this podcast. I don't think I can say it out loud. But I think that we can all assume... Everybody knows what you may. I think we can all assume without me having to say it. Right. but I mean we ain't trying to go hiking or know that shit, are we?

No, we can just run a car and drive through the things. Right. We don't actually have to walk through anything. Because I've told you this, and this applies to you more than most people I know, like, you know that like, you're going to get fucked up on like three beers, like first day.

That's fabulous. Or whatever. I can save so much money, or you can save something. Yeah, okay, I'm glad you said that. I wasn't going to say it because I didn't want you to slap the shit out of me. No, I'm pumped up about,

uh, I want you to, well hey no fuck it i'll go ahead and say it of course amber does not consume any of this at all she wouldn't she's a great girl but i'm at least take you to one of the uh what are they called the depositories or whatever where they got the weed is that what they're called whatever all i can have put in my mind is suppositories no that's not it well you don't put those in your mind you put up your butt yeah i take that out that's going outside of maim no i want to take you to one because they're wild of shit to see um i also want

want to take you to a really nice steakhouse and get wine drunk and roll around in the bed. Well, I plan to get wine drunk at least every night. Right. Now, I'm just pumped up because if y'all want to know what the life of a road comic is like, Amber, question, when is the last time that me and you woke up in the same bed together? Now, we've done that, but when's last time we woke up in the same bed together and then we're able to both lay there in bed and not do anything? I couldn't tell you a single time.

I literally don't remember. I don't know when that's happened. Because if I'm sleeping with like, number one, I'm always just fucking gone. And then when I am here and I'm sleeping in the bed with you, you got to get up and go to school. Yeah. Because the only time we could ever lay in bed together will be on a Saturday and you know my ass has a show. Yeah, I mean, our schedule is already screwed up. I've no idea.

Right. So I'm kind of just looking forward to doing that. That's going to be pretty fucking sweet. Another thing I want to talk to you about. I think I'm going to shave my entire face and just keep this mustache. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, I'll accept whatever you want to do. You're just saying that because everybody can hear you and you know that my fans are going to shit on your face if you're mean to me.

No, I mean, you didn't have a beer for the long time that I've knew you. A beer, though, but I'm so I'm just going straight stash, like, Doc holiday, chubby cheeks. I mean, I'll let you do it for like a couple days. That's what I wanted to know. Yeah, that's all you did. I'll let you do it for a couple days. Yeah, that's it. Okay, that's what I thought.

Another question. What about if I just shaved my head? I would, I fucking told you. No, you would say that you. No, no. Whatever. No, not true. When we were watching Game of Thrones and they cut Circe's hair all the way off,

I was like, fuck yeah, you could rock that. Yeah, you'd be okay with it for like a week. No, if you shaved your head, I'd be, I like, how was it, Amber Rose? How she has her head shaved. Isn't it her? What does she do, by the way, question? What does she do? What does Amber Rose do?

She's just basically a known slut and she just accepts it. Okay, well, that hits. I mean, she, you know, makes money off that, I guess. but like does she rap no so she's just like an Instagram like a model

okay and she just hooked up with Wiz califa oh okay well I didn't even know that yeah so she's a model okay so she's a model

yeah okay word I mean she rocks if her being bald no that's fine there's nothing wrong with that okay so no she had a shaved head and I was into that

um fucking who was that porn star uh oh god damn it the one that I really don't know any way to say this, but... I mean, I don't look like her with a shaved head. Like, I don't look like that with a shaved head. How do you know?

When's the last time you shaved your head? There is no way I look like that with a shaved head. How do you know? I look at myself when I have a hat on and I don't even look like that. You look cute with a hat on. You look like a little fucking, like a Martha Stewart end's turn or something. Who's the porn star? I don't know any other way to put this other than to say that she's the one that got her ass whooped not that long ago.

Oh, Christy Mac. She had like the side of her head shaved and that hit for me. Shave the side of your head. That's a pretty big, that's a pretty big thing. I just don't think that would work for me. I mean, I guess maybe. I'm telling you, I'm imagining it right now, and it's pretty fucking hot. I think all the kids in my classroom would really love that.

Uh-huh. It would probably give me some major cool points in my classroom. Okay, another question, because you always, Amber's got this thing, and it started off kidding, but now it's just in our vernacular, and we can't quit saying it. Whenever there's an attractive dude, like, whatever her attractive dude is, that's daddy. So like,

is it Jason MoMA? Yeah. Like, he was daddy for a while. He's daddy. Okay. Who's the new daddy? Because I feel like you rotate daddy.

It's never me. That's the most, the only constant is that I'm never daddy. Well, you're all, you're standard daddy. Uh-huh. I'm uncle daddy.

It's Shacks. Huh? I'm sons of anarchy. He's current? He's my current daddy because I've been rewatching them. Oh, right. Because you've been, yeah.

Okay. I was about to say, what the fuck that shows? I mean, I got daddies in like all different. I know. but like, you know, I've got, I've got like seven porn stars that are constantly in rotation that I watch, but like there'll be like a week where it's like heavily, you know.

Yeah, no. I'm currently on my sons of anarchy daddy status. Okay, so it's Jacks. It's Jacks. Did we watch, um, did we watch King Arthur together? Yeah. We did, didn't we? He was, I thought that movie was criminally underrated.

I thought it was pretty good. Daddy. So I like Guy Richie. Trey told me, but he's like, dude, if you like Guy Ritchie, fuck it, it's good. Yeah, no, it's great. Well, Amber, you thought that this would take forever, but it's already been 15 minutes. Did that feel like an eternity? Was that really 15 minutes?

I fucking told you. She's been bitching for like... Okay, first off... First off, if I only knew today. So I've been bitching all day about it. I know, but all day, I was like, hey, I'm going to need you to do this. And she's like, oh, my God, fucking da-da-da-da. I don't know what to say.

And I was like, just... I haven't really talked to you in two days, so why don't we just do that on here? And she's been... It's kind of like we're a reality TV show, and it's like the Cardack. When they're like, hold all your information in. And then when we film you, that's when you act like you found something out. Yes, it is. It is.

Except for none of this was fake. Yeah, no, this was totally real. Yeah. We could have done that. But anyways, well, do you want to give us a skew and get out of here? Skew! That was perfect. I love you.

Our guest this week on the podcast is the very talented John Brinkus. John Brinkus is an American producer, director, and television personality, and the co-finding founder of base productions, a production company that specializes in creating reality television programs for channels such as Spike, National Geographic, and ESPN. If you're like me, you recognize him from sports science, which is that super cool show that breaks down all the ways in which our favorite athletes are literally defying goddamn physics when they do cool shit. My favorite was Bubba Watson.

You need to go check that out. It was awesome. John Brinkus is one of those dudes that is just immediately impressive and made us feel like complete bags of shit. because of how in shape, gorgeous, talented, and driven he is. So please enjoy this podcast with John Brinkus. Love him. So maybe get this out of the way.

What do you think about everything that's going on right now? Politics and sports are colliding at present. All the protests and Trump's doing his thing, talking shit, and people are responding. Where you stand, or Neil, on all that. On all that. you know what's interesting is they're obviously

very different points of view on this I feel like we live in a country where there's freedom of speech and expression I don't think this is my opinion I'm not sure that the kneeling aspect of

you know what's going on with the anthem is a protest against the country I feel like it started as a protest against equality and there's a huge difference in huge chasm. I don't think anybody's saying, I hate my country.

I think they're saying, hey, there's inequality out there, and I want to make people aware of it. And that's the manner in which these athletes have chosen to do that. And it's worked. I mean,

it's worked. But I think that what has not worked is, you know, when the president is talking about, oh, we should fire them because they're,

you know, they're desecrating the country. And, I mean, there are all kinds of, protests that go on. They're all kinds of messages that try to get out. But I just feel like it's just being misconstrued.

We're making too big of a deal. People on both sides are just making too big of a deal about it. And I think that we just need to say, you know what? You have freedom of speech. You can do what you want. And just kind of be done with it. In that way, then the protest kind of loses its steam because we're like, whatever, Stan, sit,

Neil, it's all good by me, whatever. And then it's, then I think that we're not focusing as much on it. And with the media coverage and the way that,

that they're sort of couching it, you know, now, I mean, I think Trump was not correct in singling that out and saying, we should fire them.

I think that that was just, like, why get involved in that argument at all? Well, I mean, it seems like it backfired. It seems like it backfired. Were you surprised by anything that happened this weekend? No, I fully expected.

Did you? Oh, the president said not to do it, so what are we going to do? How many of the athletes voted for him anyway? But what about the ones that did? I was surprised to see Tom Brady locking arms. I was surprised to hear Terry Bradshaw say, that's ridiculous. Like, that's what I mean where I think it backfired on him a little bit. Well, what do you think he thought was going to happen, though?

I didn't think he was going to write. He thought people would stop going to football games because they're on the side. I think he would rile up the base and people would be like, rah, rah, thank you for standing up for the troops. And then that was what he was going for. And he, I guess, got a little bit of that. But I don't think he expected Tom Brager to be locking arms, you know,

during that instead of standing there with his hand over his heart. I don't think he expected Bill Belichick to allow his team to do that, just as some examples of people who've supported him in the past. The coaches are put in a position where, where are they supposed to to say. Like, you're going to be fired? Right. Right.

They got to field the team. Right. Yeah, absolutely. So if the whole team is going to be kneeling, they can't really say, we're getting rid of everybody. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm a Raiders fan. And when Marshawn, during the preseason, Marshaun Lynch was sitting down during the

anthem in one of theirs, like not Nealon just sitting on the bench. But turns out he's been doing that for years. But like, no one, no one ever cared. until it became like a thing that you do. But Marshawn is like always done that. And Jack Del Rio, the head coach of the Raiders, he said, At Progressive, we know how much you love your recreational vehicles. So we decided to record this commercial in an RV.

With a family on vacation. Mom, who are these people? Oh, that's Flo and Jamie. They're recording a commercial, sweetie. Don't they do that in the studio? Normally. No. But we wanted to feature a family who bundled their home in RV and saved with Progressive.

Yeah, it looks like you're all out of chips. Okay, I think we'll just drop you off at the next gas station. Bundle your home and other vehicles with Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Discount not available in all states or situations. You know, support the troops, love the country. I do the flag, whatever. He was like, but Marshaun can, you know, he has the right to do that,

and I don't have any problem with it, and it's a total non-issue. And for them, that was the end of that. You know what I mean? Like, it just, that was all. And I, that's all it should be. Don't you feel like the rhetoric has gone so far off the rails because it's like no longer about what's your opinion on an issue? It's do you love your country or not? Yeah.

Like there's no in between. And I'm like the problem with the rhetoric that's being spouted about from both sides is you can only love your country in one of two ways. It's like this way liberal side or this way. conservative side. And if you're in between, then you're just not loving it. You're not doing that. And I'm like,

it just seems like we're picking crazy arguments. And I've said this. I've said this before, and I'll say it over and over. Pick arguments you can win. Be really careful about the things that you're going to toss out there and pick arguments you can win.

I'll give you a perfect example, climate change. Here's a perfect example. example, we're arguing over global warming and climate change. And we're saying, okay, the climate is changing due to manmade effects. We're like, okay, I'm like, how could you ever win or lose that? How could you prove it one way or the other? That's the wrong argument to pick. We don't have a control planet that is the exact same distance from the sun, the exact same side. And we don't have that.

But what we do have is pollution. We can all agree pollution sucks. Like if I was running for president, I would say pollution sucks. I don't want to be breathing dirty air. I don't want to drink dirty water. Right. I don't like that's an argument I can win.

I feel like this, you know, if for whatever reason somebody doesn't believe in global warming, you know, somehow they're like, they're a doubter. They're a conspirator. conspiracy.

I'm trying to imagine the person running against you in that scenario. Nobody's going to tell me I can't breathe dirty air, God damn. I'll drink dirty water all day long. Fuck him. I don't want big government in my air.

That's my point. But as far as that goes, to be fair, you know, you're like, we don't have a control planet. And your whole thing, you're sports science, you know, you're about data and facts and all that. The people that are climate change deniers,

facts ain't, that ain't their thing. You know what I mean? Like, even if we had that shit, they would still be like, oh, but it's a liberal conspiracy or whatever, like, no matter what kind of evidence you had, because they don't give a shit about evidence. As a science guy, I will tell you this. When you hear these records of, it's the hottest it's ever been since 1882.

I'm like, you mean when Jed went out with his finger and was like, damn, it's hot today? Like, how exact were the measurements back then? Yeah. Like, it happens over and over, and I'm like, you got to consider the source of all these things, and you got to pick arguments that you can win. Right. Yeah, absolutely. What about the fact that, like, you know, fossil fuels, like, eventually, you know, there's a

limit to how much of that we can even do even if we want to, like, shouldn't that be part of the equation? Also, like, we have to pivot at some point because we're going to run out. Yeah. At some point, there are awesome studies being done. And you can look at this from both sides of the perspective. You're like, well, electric vehicles, electric vehicles are powered by electrical power plants that are emitting more pollution per charge than a car that's driving around on normal gasoline engine. You know, like there are all kinds of those kind of studies. You're like, okay, so what's the answer to that?

It's kind of like the not in my backyard thing. Right. Like, well, if I don't, well, if I don't see it, it doesn't exist. Right. You know, so I, Bill Burr has a good answer. There's too many of us. People need to die. Do you know what?

Do you know what on the, here's the, here's the crazy thing. So I live in Park City, Utah now. And I drove from Mammoth, California, actually from Yellowstone, drove from, no, I'm sorry, Yosemite. I drove from Yosemite to Park City. And you drive up and over the mountain, you get to the mammoth side and you drop down. You go hundreds. of miles of nothing.

There are no power lines. There are no structures of any kind. There are no call boxes. There's just road and nothing. And I sat back and I like if you actually look at a, look at the map of the United States, the vast majority of this country is full of nothing. The, like overwhelming vast majority. We just move to the places where there are other people.

but there is lots of room to actually expand. I meant in terms of running out of fuel and polluting the world. I don't mean there's not enough literal space. Right. It's funny. Corey said almost the exact same thing recently in a similar argument. I was making the argument about, you know, they keep saying like, you know, we're getting overpopulated over here.

We got to build a wall. There's too many Mexicans coming in. I was like, if y'all ever drove through Indiana, we got plenty of room. You know what I mean? You know, there ain't anybody else over there either. But, you know, goddamn, we got space. what about the and this would be very brief

but that's not the only sports related thing Trump did this weekend he also disinvited the Golden State Warriors from the White House after they had literally just said that they were not coming to the White House

that's right is that not like the most ridiculous shit that's like third grade type you know what I mean it's like hey you want to play with my game boy or something's like no not really it's like well good because you can't anyway you can lose her you know like

it's you know what I mean it's absurd real quick real quick they announced that they were thinking about not coming and they were going to have a meeting on it and so he disinvited him

before they could make their mind up which is almost extra petty Steph Curry though had said that he was he had yeah he said he was voting no they were going to have this vote but he said like no everybody knew they weren't coming man

well I mean they released a statement after that where they said we didn't even get a have a vote so you know maybe I'm I read that differently than you did or whatever, but either way. Yeah, I heard the same thing you did, but regardless, I mean, regardless of what the truth actually is, again, you just kind of let it go. Right.

Right. You just kind of like, if someone says, I don't want to come to the White House, you haven't, he hasn't issued anything formally and was like, okay, I'm going to take that. You just kind of like let it go and it doesn't become a giant news story. Yeah. Right. Just fly, flies under the radar.

No one's like, today's the day, Steph Curry is supposed to be here. You're like, it just wouldn't occur to anybody. It's like, yeah, but he can't let anything go.

You know what I mean? Like, that's his whole thing. Like, he just takes stuff personally or whatever. I don't know. It's ridiculous. So he also has no reason to want to let it.

Because when he does that, we talk about this for two weeks. And then two weeks from now we go, Kim Jong-un did what? You know what I'm saying? Like, dude, that motherfucker knows what he's doing

in terms of, well, in terms of, in this regard, like ducking and dodging and getting people to talk about stuff that he can, that he has the capacity to talk about, such as, you know, third grade insults, which is about it. But yeah. I will say, I will say, I think Donald Trump has done two amazing things that nobody has ever been able to do. One is to control a narrative.

I mean, you've never, like, during the primaries and during his presidency, I mean, the news will talk about whatever he wants them to talk. Right. Yeah. Right. And controlling a narrative like that, I mean, there have been plenty of presidents who have done silly things and they're, they try to just get their way out of it and they can't get out of their, can't get out of the one thing. The Russian investigation isn't even a topic, right? Oh, God, man. That thing is like long gone.

He just is like, I'm piling it on. And you know what? And every time I tweet something, it's a news story. So I'm going to make it newsworthy. The second thing that he did is he literally changed the discussion of, well, who's going to be our next president? When I say to you, who will be the next president? There is no way you can answer. It could be Martha Stewart.

Right. It could be Dwayne Johnson. Right. It could be Dwayne Johnson. It could be anybody. That's true. I mean, that's true. Yeah.

So that's seismic shift. I wonder if the good that comes out of all of this is we as a country start paying attention to our local politics and our local politician start stepping up. And people who have no political background that want to be representatives or senators or whatever start stepping up saying, you know what? We do need some change and we do need some free thinking people who are. really looking after the interest of the people. That's what we need. I completely agree with you. This guy Tim Dillon, who's a comedian who dabbles in politics, he posted the other day.

He goes, you know, it's really pissing me off. These players, Neeland, I think that, you know, is offensive to the legacy of all of our presidents who have served. You know, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and the list of people who just dodge drafts. I had no, I said George W. Bush. I should have said. I know Bush served. who had no or almost no military experience. I think that what you said is true.

Like Trump falls into that category with them, but he's in a different category in terms of he wasn't a blue blood. I guess he was kind of a blue blood, but his family was a little different. I guess what I'm saying is politically he didn't come from like a political blue blood family. Maybe there's room now. It might be the rock, which would be wild. But it might be like,

I think what you were getting at, a person who cares about, their community and who is intelligent and who really wants to work hard but didn't go to Harvard and wasn't a senator for 15 years and hasn't been sucking at the teed of the DNC or the GOP or whatever it is. I'm going to make an argument. I think without Barack Obama, Donald Trump could not be elected president. Oh, that's true in like 15 different ways.

I think you're 100. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. 100%. Yeah, because he, well, yeah, like you said, a million different ways. but like he got, it became such a thing of just hating him. You know what I mean? Also, he barely had any experience, right? Yeah.

He barely had any experience and he got elected president and he didn't look like anybody before him. He didn't act like anybody before him. He didn't have a lot of experience. So long, it opened the door to, hey, let's think outside of the box. Well, just off the top of my head, he didn't have experience. He was kind of an outsider. hope and change was a catchphrase that made room for make America great again.

Backlash, I mean, I'll say it. Then everybody agrees with this, but the fact that he was black and then like you go the other route. It brought out a lot of people like the alt-right. They became a very big voting block for Donald Trump. Right. And Steve Bannon got interested in politics at that time. And then, fuck, there was one more related to that. Oh, he became a political actor because of the Obama birster tick.

That was Donald Trump's first national political intro. Right. Entrance. Was going after Obama. Yeah, that was the first time he even, like, got into it. And that was also the first time that I've said this a million times about it, it blows my mind that, like, the people where I'm from, you know, like, working white-class rural rednecks, right?

It blows my mind how far, how much they fell in line with Donald Trump. Because I know for a fact, like, this isn't an opinion I have. I know this. If you had asked those same people before he went after Obama. and which was his first entree into politics. 2012, he's been running. What do you think about Donald Trump? I guarantee you it would have been almost universally negative.

He's a rich, blue blood Yankee with a silver spoon up his ass and thinks he's better than everybody. He needs his ass whip. That's why they hated him. But then he went when he went after Obama, that's like when they were like, well, hell, maybe he's all right. And that's when it all started right there. It's so funny that as much shit as Obama got in as much as he's. got blamed for so many things that even this, when Trump gets elected, you're like, well,

you know who's fault? Thanks, Obama. That's hilarious. That is funny. That's kind of what we just did. But you're right about the outsider thing. I think that outsider thing, it obviously started with Obama. I mean, how much does everybody sit back down and go, oh, I wish President Obama was still

president? As much as everybody may not agree with this politics, you're like, man, every time. he spoke every time he said something, I felt good about it, even if I didn't agree with him. I just felt good. Right. Yeah.

Well, and that might have been another backlash of people who, you know, the people who didn't like that who maybe felt dumb every time he talked or whatever. It's like, I want someone who's a little more

homespun because, you know, that was a big part of the narrative too. He speaks like a regular person talks. Trump just, you know, I know he says rough things, but at least that's how a human being speaks. Yeah. So, all right, let's shift gear somewhere.

I do politics the whole time. Actually, I'm kind of, well, we'll get into, we're going to get into all the awesome stuff you're doing now. But I did want to know, and I mean, you know, we can make this as brief for as long as you want it to be. But, like, how, so you kind of have had one of those jobs as the host of sports science, or just one of those things that when I see it, the first thing I think is like, how do you do that? Like, how do you get into that? You know what I mean? Like, how does that happen?

You kind of, to me, have one of the. I thought that about you before watching it. That's interesting because it was such a great and popular show that for me, I was like... Why has nobody done that? Well, also, I was like, this wasn't always a thing? That was genius. Why wasn't that always a thing? It always should have been a thing.

Here's what's crazy is that sports science was started. It was sold in 2006, and so it basically went 11 years, right? And it's going, it's, what's crazy about it is people say to me all the time, What do I need to do to get your job? What do I need to do to get into it? And my honest to God's story is I made my own job. I just literally the my brother-in-law and I own the production company. We were specializing in sport TV and science TV.

We make a show called XMA Extreme Martial Arts that was on the Discovery Channel. Tom Cruise did the wraps for it. It was all about the biomechanics of martial arts. Then we did a show called Fight Science. that was on National Geographic, all about which style generated the most amount of force. And then we went to Fox Sports. Yeah,

my nephew was really into. Fight science is just, it is amazing. And Fox Sports, it's that Fox owns Fox Sports and National Geographic. They aired fight science opposite the original Peyton Manning versus Eli Manning, Sunday night football game. And it was the third highest rated show of the year.

So we go in and they say, dude, what else do you have? And say, well, I got this thing. sports science we're going to take this you get all the world's greatest athletes to come in and we're going to put them to the test and have them do crazy things and show people how great they are and he said god that sounds amazing who are you going to get to host this and in the room i said if they were doing a license deal so they were paying us for the show and i said anybody you guys want to pay for because i'm not paying somebody so whatever you want to do and the

person running fox sports at the time said you're going to do it and i said you're going to do it and i said, fine, if I suck, fire myself. Like, I really, you know, this was not my goal. Yeah. Turns out that it was a really good thing. But it's a big lesson. And lesson was my entire life, I'd been pitching things, pitching projects, having to go into rooms and saying things in a concise, articulate way.

And really, I was practicing to be a host on TV of know what the audience needs to know, say it quickly, get in and out, you know, show up on time. And since I own the production company, I'm like, I'm going to show up on time. I'm going to do what needs to be done. And it's all going to work out. The tricky part was that people doubted that it could actually happen, meaning I said, well, we're going to get athletes and we're not going to pay them anything. They're going to do it for free. They said, it literally, it was like, you are insane. Yeah. And I said, you know what? truly believe that people are great, not because of the financial benefits that go along

with greatness. I think that just happens to be a byproduct, but it's not the motivation. And that greatness occurs because whether or not it's an athlete or a musician or an actor or whomever, it's just this never-ending desire to get better. And I'm like, if I invite somebody down to a lab to put them to the test, they're going to either confirm something they know, they're either going to learn something that they didn't know, but they're certainly going to be able to show people how great they are. And that's an awesome platform. And to this day, we'd never paid anybody, got obviously the biggest of the big stars,

and, you know, kind of went that way. Don't you also? A lot of times, I mean, it's guys that are, like, you know, about to be drafted and that kind of, like, Derek Henry's was before that. And so, like, you can see how it's like, that happens in. comedy too and stuff of that and it's like well but the exposure though you know right and i'm gonna pay you but the but like the thing is and that's always like kind of a running joke you know it's like oh let me guess exposure but i mean it's true you know what i mean like uh you know that doesn't make it any less true but yeah that's brilliant because i honestly i would have if i was in those meetings i'd have said the same thing probably but what you just said

completely makes sense you know had to how to pitch it if you guys were invited to Greatest Comedy Tour, right? It's like, it becomes like this, oh, God, we got to get on that, right? I got to get on that. It might have to make some sacrifices, but if you get a couple people to go along with it that are bigger names, you're like, God,

I want to be in that company. You know, like, and for us, it was, you know, getting Ray Lewis and Drew Breeze and Larry Fitzgerald and Ben Rothusberger and you're like, you just get these giant stars. And then all of a sudden, you're like, who are you to say no? Do you remember was Ray Lewis the first one?

The first one was Ben Rothusberger. So he was the first, like, really big get. We had Ocho Cinco also that same season. He was a huge get. I was, like, in his prime. I see he was very popular. He had a good brand at that time. He had a great brand.

He was still in the league. Yeah. So what, but you had a production company before that, and you did fight science and all that. So was your interest always in making shows, like making TV and stuff, or was it more in, you know, the stuff that you were covering? Well, what we did is my brother-in-law and I, we always just want to do programs that we believed were spreading positive energy. Like, we never did, you know, two girls fighting kind of, you know, kind of reality TV.

We really developed a specialty in sport TV and science TV. I'm a total sports nut coming from D.C. I had three Super Bowls growing up with Redskins. World Series with Cow Ripkins' rookie year, had an NBA championship with the bullets. Like, DC was Sportstown, USA. So I was, like, really invested in sports. Then I, honestly, I'm just a science geek. I just read, I like read science.

I don't like to read nonfiction stuff. I like to read fiction. I like to read science. That's what I really enjoy. So I've been studying science my whole life. and doing experiments, no one's had the chance to do and really learning from it, you know, every day in my life. How did you learn how to have a production company, though, or like, I'm going to start making a, I'm going to start making it. How the hell did you, you know? Great question. Again, true story. I was in college at the University of Virginia, and I was thinking about dropping out. I'm like, I want to be in entertainment. I don't know if college is doing anything for me.

I went to the director of the Virginia independent film festival. And I said, God, I wanted to be in film and TV. And he said, well, there's this kid in town named Stephen Soderberg. And he just won con and he's finishing up his second movie. He lives right here in the Charlottesville area. Why don't you track him down? And I literally tracked him down, did an independent study with him and said, How do I even get into entertainment?

And I literally got credit for this in college. It was called an independent study. He said, learn to do everything yourself. Don't go to school for it. Don't think that you're going to get trained by somebody. Pick up a camera and shoot. Mess around with the settings, shoot stuff, figure out a way to edit it. He's like, go get an internship at a video house or something.

Just direct, just make short stuff. because he said, it's really important to make things that are really bad to figure out how to become really good. And he used the phrase, fail quietly. And he said, just learn how to do it yourself. So I literally in college made a bunch of short little films by myself, got out and I had written a screenplay. And we went out, raised some money, made a movie, you know, got distribution for it. and our investors were so impressed with it. They bought us this space age machine called The Avid,

which was the first non-linear digital editing system. And it was in the basement of my parents' house. Couldn't pay myself anything, couldn't pay my brother-in-law anything. And we ended up getting the contract for the Washington Bullets. They were the Bullets before the Wizards and the Washington Capitals. And we had the exclusive production contract for it. My brother-in-law and I were shooting everything, directing everything, producing everything, editing everything, mixing everything,

graphicing everything, just the two of us. And I was the primary, you know, it's sort of like the shooting and editing and graphicing and all that. That's what I was doing. He was more of the business end and producing side. And we just taught ourselves. And literally out of the basement of my parents' house in Vienna, Virginia, we just grew this business and just got bigger and bigger and bigger.

And then we ended up selling the company. So it was great. That is awesome. Yeah, that's another example of something that I've become more and more convinced of. I mean, hell, based on my own experience so far, but we talk about it a lot. Like, I think that the best thing that you can do if you're trying to get into all this stuff or whatever is just to make things yourself. Like instead of, you know, if you're an actor or whatever and you're always auditioning, you're trying to get into somebody else's thing that somebody else is making. Obviously, you know, if you're awesome and it works out or sometimes even if you are awesome, it doesn't or whatever.

But if you are making stuff yourself, then, you know, you can cast yourself. You don't have to go through. You're the guy. Nobody takes it from you. Yeah. And even if it's bad, you know, okay, whatever. Like, you learn from that and keep going. We've been there.

Well, we got to fail quietly. We got in a fake argument about some of our quiet failures, a fake argument about whether or not we actually failed. this weekend and I think that it helped us immensely like to do that and do it the way that we did it. We shot a bunch of sketches. Five of them were okay. 20 of them were awful. And even the father were okay didn't really look or sound like they weren't at even at all like pro or legit quality. And it's like yeah, it was a huge bummer and it's like still like a bit of a sore spot except not really for me anymore because again like we're not going to do that again.

you know like we we know better we made those mistakes then and that's not something that we're going to repeat but i think that's you hear that same kind of thing over and over isn't that amazing how success begets success right and the question is is where do you get that first success it's like you've got it somehow make it yourself in some way whether or not it's walking on to a movie set and volunteering to be a you know a PA or you know a PA or you're whether or not it's going to open night mics as a comic and saying, I'm going to give this a try and hone my craft. Like, just do it yourself.

That is the key to it. And when you look at anybody, when people admire all these athletes and they're like, oh my God, they're so amazing. Like, they got a ball. They bounced it and they shot it on a playground a lot, just a lot. And so when their opportunity came, it's that, you know, when the opportunity comes for your,

you don't know when that opportunity is going to happen. Right. You just need to be ready for it. Yeah, exactly. Right. You better have practiced a lot before that opportunity happens. Otherwise, it's going to go right on by. Right.

Right. So, all right. Well, let's now jump back up in time because obviously we want to make sure we talk about the podcast, the brink of midnight, right? Yeah. Yes. So explain to us. I mean, you told me earlier, but explain to these guys and everybody listening to the concept of it, what it is. So the podcast that my wife and I have started is called the Brink of Midnight podcast.

It's all about those pivotal moments in your life where this thing happened. And from that point forward, nothing was ever the same. So it's really inspired by the way that my wife and I met. We met literally. I was in Aspen scouting for a show flying back to L.A. through Denver. In Denver, I had to transfer planes. I was traveling with the business associate. There was a ticket mix up.

So he and I got separated. I sit next to the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. I'm unchowered. I'm like completely not ready for this. I'm like, oh my God, this is it. Like love at first proximity is what this was. So I sit down, I say to where John Brancis, nice to meet you.

And we start chatting. There's a mechanical problem on the plane. We all had to get off, spend five hours in the Denver airport. We get back on the plane. and when we got off the plane, I went up to the guy I was traveling with who was kind of a chatty kind of guy. He said, I'll give you $100 to stay away from me.

Just met the girl I'm going to marry. She called her parents, said, just met the guy I'm going to marry. We get back on the plane, land in L.A. I said, what are the chances I can get your information? She said, pretty good. Turns out that we live two blocks away from each other on the same street in L.A.

Wow. What are the odds? Yeah. She had bought a book that she was holding when she met me that was called a perfect match. I'm like, we live two blocks away from each other,

both fell instantly in love. Sometimes God throws you a softball. Right. And it's like, here you go. You know, we now have been married 14 years and we have two wonderful children

and just have that ideal, you know, it's that soulmate idea of like, it, when people say, how do I know what I'm in love? I'm like, you, you'll know.

Like, it presents itself in such an obvious format. So, you guys were just talking about that at you know at some point and you had like a light bulb moment where you were like you know everybody has something like that right i believe everybody has that moment in their life where this thing happened and then nothing would ever be the same so we're on about episode 40 right now you know we have people like ray lewis and rob wriggle and dr drew and damon john and you know michael vick um ryan leaf i mean some i'm Amazing guest. How was the Michael Vick episode? Michael Vick episode?

It's, honestly, you have to listen to it and you have to just hear how honest he is. You know, and when I point to Michael Vick and people are like,

how could you have somebody like Michael Vick on? I'm like, look, our capacity is human beings to do horrible things blows me away. Equally so,

our ability to not forgive blows me away. I know. Right. Like here's a guy who did not get the celebrity treatment in a good way. No. Who do you know who went to jail for 18 months for animal brutality? Who do you even know or ever even heard of?

And who do you know that went to jail and lost hundreds, plural, of millions of dollars? Didn't happen to Ray Rice. Didn't throw him under the bus too hard, but I mean. Didn't happen to everybody, right? Michael Vic paid a giant price. And he has come back. And he said, you know what? I made a giant mistake.

Need to learn from it and need to move on. The odds of him coming back and playing at a high level in the NFL and like just being a total stand-up guy, they're really slim. He is an amazing. He genuinely is the kind of person that I point to and I say, redemption exists. Right. Well, he also should be, I have a, we have talked before about, well, first of all, we've talked about Vic on this podcast and we're all on the same page with you.

but like people and you know we all are liberals politically the three of us and like one thing that liberals will say is that like when it comes to the judicial system or prison or whatever that it should be about rehabilitation you know rehabilitating people and then you know allowing for them to learn from what they did and then get better and I think you know it's pretty clear in most cases that that's not the way that it normally works right now and liberals will say but it should work that way and we should work that way and we should be. make that shift and I would think you would look at a guy like Michael Vick and be like, see, that like this is why. You know what I mean? Because if you can rehabilitate people, you know, people can change for the better it is possible. And this is what we should be trying to do with everybody instead of just throwing people in the trash, basically. But because it involved animals and dogs or whatever, so many people just don't do not. I've literally had super liberal friends of mine tell me they think Michael Vicks should have been executed.

Right. Executed. And it's just insane to me. And when you hear I'm talking on the podcast, he's like, look, I, I, look, deep. He's like, where I grew up, dog fighting was just part of the culture. It was just part of the thing. And he's like, deep down inside and knew it was wrong, but the cops never showed up my entire life. Like, it was just around me all the time.

Yeah. So he's like, it's very easy to kind of get roped into that when there are no consequences. Right. And it's just part of the culture. He's not saying that as an excuse. he's saying, I did know better, but I didn't really walk away from it in time to save myself. And he's like, maybe that's the way it was supposed to unfold so that I could spread the message, hey, don't do this. Be aware of this. You know, this is a problem. I'm a big believer in redemption, that redemption exists. You know, when you say, when you think about it, think about in your life, think about the

number of things that you've done where you could have killed somebody you could have killed yourself you could have I mean the number of times you're like like I think of you know I think of like beach week in high school and I'm like oh my God yeah the number of things that could have gone wrong that didn't you're sitting with three comedians I mean yeah we got some kind of broken part of those man believe me yeah no you're right I'm just handing the mic to Corey like yeah I've almost probably killed myself a bunch this year. Like, not on purpose, but, you know, there's a lot of, even as a, I'm probably the most mature I've ever been as a human now, and there's still, sometimes I look back and go, how damn,

last week, you're almost 30. My God. What the fuck are you thinking? We just went to get pastries, and you're welcome to one. We're done here for about five or six people, and there are literally seven boxes of pastries. That's my dog. That's right. Yeah, I spent $60, which is roughly $10 a person.

You can break it down like that. Don't think it's that weird. I agree. Like I said, that's my dog. It's not weird, baby. So, all right, how do we, how do we get it? So for Brink of Midnight, we're both, my wife and I were both a band called Brink of Midnight. Which one came first?

The band came first. So, this is another crazy story. So I had played guitar when I was younger and I put it down for 20 years. and I decided to pick it back up, and I taught myself pro tools because I just wanted to write songs for fun. So I'm writing the songs, my wife's walking by the office one day,

and she just starts singing over it. And I'm like, how are you making this amazing melody? And you can sing really well. She's like, well, I was classically trained in the Long Beach Opera Company. And we'd been married 10 years.

And you didn't know that? I'm sure she had told me 50 times. What did you all talk about on that goddamn way over? Do you know, I honestly, honestly on that layover I can't remember a single thing you know like when you're sitting there

just looking at somebody her lips are moving I'm like uh huh uh huh like she could have been saying complete nonsense to be like uh huh got you so anyway see so we decide

we end up putting out a Christmas song that's called Christmas is my favorite time of year by Lizzie and John Brinkas you like it's all over iTunes it's all over Brink of Midnight page and it ended up charting at number 30 on the adult contemporary chart

for holiday music. It was literally like you had Bing Crosby, Madonna, Lizzie and John Brinkus, Bon Jova. You're like, what, how did this happen? And it was all because she walked by and we decided to just take a chance. And because of the success of that song,

we formed a band called Brink of Midnight. You can go to Brink, B-R-I-N-K-O-Midnight.com and find all the music and all the podcast. You can subscribe to the podcast. on every platform. Okay. It's available anywhere that podcast exists. Are you guys going to tour?

We, you know, it's funny is that, you know, being now, being where we are in life, I think we're going to, we're going to kind of virtual tour. You know, it's like the putting out, you know, putting out videos, playing spontaneously. You know, eventually, you know, of course you're like, oh, I'd love to tour, but got a nine-year-old and an 11-year-old. Yeah. That's both of y'all. It's both of us, right?

I've got to do one live show. See what that feels like. We just played live down and out. We just launched a new charity called Ray of Hope with Ray Lewis. And it's all about, we have a roster of celebrities who are spreading positive messages to people who are in dire need of some positive energy in their life because of the circumstances they're in. And we ended up playing live at that event. It was so much fun. Was it awesome?

Yeah. I mean, it's awesome. That's great, man. That's fantastic. We're going to wrap this up here in a minute. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you want to make sure it gets covered, it gets out there for the people to. You know,

make sure you go to brink of midnight.com. Make sure you get a ray of hope foundation.org. That's the new charity. If you know somebody who's in dire need, you know, somebody who's suffering from cancer or some other horrible circumstance, it's Ray of Hope Foundation is there to send a positive message. We send personalized, inspirational positive messages from a huge roster of celebrities. So if you know anybody who's in need, definitely check it out.

All right. Awesome. Well, it's been a pleasure, John. Thank you very much for joining us here. It's been great. Listen, you guys are amazing. Kent, thank you enough for having me on. Absolutely.

All right. John Brinkus, everybody. Join us next time. Thank you all for listening to the well-read show. We'd love to stick around longer, but we got to go. Tune in next week if you got nothing to do. Thank you, God bless you, good night and skew.