March 11, 2020
I was the guest this time.....on Adam Carolla's show...tons of fun.

Prior to Adam Carolla being on Wine Talks....I was asked to be a guest on HIS show....honored and humbled....we had a great chat. Shows why he is the king of podcasting as well as a documentarist: No Safe Spaces, The 24 Hour War, Shelby American and...
Prior to Adam Carolla being on Wine Talks....I was asked to be a guest on HIS show....honored and humbled....we had a great chat. Shows why he is the king of podcasting as well as a documentarist: No Safe Spaces, The 24 Hour War, Shelby American and many others. Have a listen, very interesting.
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Hey, it's Paul K. And I was recently the guest on Adam Carolla's show take
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a knee. Have a listen.
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Well, get it on. Got to get on. A choice, Manny. Get on. And welcome
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to our inspirational, motivational podcast. It's take a
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knee. We're going to the wine business today, and we
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talked to people from many different industries. Paul,
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calm Carian. Yeah, that's perfect. I said it right? Yeah. All
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right. Armenian. 100% Armenian. You.
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You know Mark Garagas? I know Mark well, actually went to his
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wedding. Wow. Yeah, his wedding with Paulette, my wife.
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We were all there. Well, this is good. It's a good
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start for our relationship. Well, his mom and my mother were very
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close when they were younger. I gotta tell you, one thing I've learned
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from Mark Garagas is how the Armenians,
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how, what a tight knit community they are. It's amazingly
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tight. However, there's a. A whole bunch of factions. Is the russian
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Armenians in Monabel, there's the Haya Stanse Armenians in
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Glendale. It's rather diversified, but we're all relatives.
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And the podcast, by the way, wine talk with Paul
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Kalamakarian, it's available on Apple
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Podcast. And I'll be on the show
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soon, so I look forward to that. Okay.
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Wine. And you and your family brag a
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little bit. Well, this is. I'm so happy to be
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here looking at your list of the past guests. I'm very honored, actually.
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But the wine, the wine business, the direct to consumer wine business in America is
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a $3 billion business. $3 billion?
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$3 billion. What was it, ten years
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ago or in the year 2000? Oh, 2000 was
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probably 500 million, maybe, something like that.
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So it's gone up substantially. Substantially. And
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just like everything, sort of not eliminating
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the middleman, but just having things brought to your home,
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whatever that. I mean, when I was a kid, if
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a Sears catalog would have showed up every four years, it was like a
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big deal. And now it is literally just
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a round robin of folks coming to my house, dropping off
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stuff all day, every day. The helms truck. Did you have the helms truck when
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you were a kid? That was a little rich. The
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bakery. Yeah, they had milkman and the bakery guy and
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everything. And the Helms bakery, which was famous, but not for
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the Corollas. Cause it costs money. So that's the wine man. The guy
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delivered bottles to your door. So this is a
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family business? It's a family business. My dad started in 1972
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and a little wine shop in Palace Ridge estates. You know,
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interesting story. He bought his last pharmacy, he was actually a pharmacist by trade. He
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was a chemist. Came to America in 1949, got his
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masters at USC and fell in love with wine
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because Queen Elizabeth came to America
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and the Ike served her a cabernet sauvignon
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from Napa Valley. My dad thought that was really interesting. And his
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love of wine started then, like 1958 or something. Mm. Ike.
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As in the president? As in the president, yeah. Well, we're first name basis Ike.
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You know, I like Ike.
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So the wine,
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I mean, God, it's so old, it's so new, it's so
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evolving. We always talk about all the places you couldn't formally
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make wine and now you can. And now every
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time I talk to an expert, it's everywhere in the United States has
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a burgeoning wine industry.
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But the subscription, I should say, not prescription, that
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was your dad's old business.
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How did he begin that? Well, first of all, you said something
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interesting. The oldest winery ever found in the world,
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intact sandals, amphora vessels for fermentation was in
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Armenia. Oh, really? 6000 years old. They found it a few years
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ago. It's now a tourist destination. I mean, the guy's sandals were there,
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so, I mean, that's bizarre, right? So. And my dad would
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tell this story that when he was in Egypt and his father would send him
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down to the pharmacy to get the prescriptions. Next door was the
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wine shop. And he'd say, son, you know, get me a half a liter
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of sweet and a half a liter of dry. I want the guy to blend
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it for me. So when my dad was a child, he would be actually going
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to the pharmacy and the wine shop at the same time, which was kind of
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interesting when you said it was a prescription or subscription. Right. So as
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at the wine shop in Palos Verdes, it was connected to his pharmacy. And people
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were asking him to come across from the pharmacy to the wine shop to make
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recommendations. And he was finding out that really the people that
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came in the pharmacy were, like, sick and tired and aching. People coming in
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the wine shop were like, hey, I'm looking for a good time. That was much
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more fun. Well, I do want to say this to people as
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it pertains to whatever their occupation is or maybe,
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or what they're trying to.
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A lot of folks are trying to get from one place to another.
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My dad worked at a different profession. So my dad worked at
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a place called five acres and it's in Altadena.
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And it was basically an orphanage, you know,
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and it was always. And my grandmother
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worked at the VA hospital in
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Westwood, and it was always like, we don't have enough money.
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Nobody has any money. None of the patients have
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money. They're orphaned kids, you know, or they're veterans, you know,
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and everyone's hurt and injured and screwed up and
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psychologically damaged and whatever. And I remember kind of thinking, well,
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good luck getting paid, because all you can do is sort of beg
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for more money, but you can't ever really get paid
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because your customers don't pay, they don't have
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money. And you're catching them all on a pretty bad
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day because they've been taken away from their
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parents or they've been injured in foreign wars.
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And I thought, while it's noble,
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I'd rather do something where people were having a good
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time, having a good day. You know, when I go out and do
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stand up, people come out on a Saturday night. They're having drinks, they're
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eating, they're enjoying themselves like you're catching them on
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a good day. Think about jobs.
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I would never want to be a meter maid, because I just wouldn't want
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to ruin people's days. I don't. I don't get that. But the
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difference between the pharmacist and the wine is
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the pharmacist is people are coming in because they're having a bad day.
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And the wine, you're probably catching people on a good day,
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or at least the beginning of a good night. That's exactly. Exactly what
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happened. We had one customer when I worked in the store. I was a teenager.
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The woman comes in. My dad used to offer credit because Pauls Verdes is a
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very affluent neighborhood, and she says, I would
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never pay for my good time later.
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I'll pay for it now, and I'll have it, and then I'm gonna go on
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my day. Cause why would I wanna be tagged with a bill later in the
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month? Right? Right. So that's really what happened. Look, the wine guy is
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always welcome at the party. Always. I've literally been invited
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to parties because I'm in the wine business. Yeah. Isn't that great?
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No, it's true. I just hung
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out with a guy. We just met him in a lobby in a
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hotel in Portland two weeks ago. And
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he was like, oh, I'm a fan. I like you guys, or whatever. And I
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started talking, and then he started talking about liking cars,
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and I said, well, we're going to go up to Laguna Seca and do a
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race in a couple of weeks. And he said, I'll cook for
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you. And we never met this guy before, but we're all like, well,
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we like free meat. And the next thing you know, this guy's just
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hanging with us in our Airbnb, cooking up ribs and brisket,
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drinking scotch and having a good time. Like, yeah, it's
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kind of like, you know, if you want to get a chick's bra off, tell
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her you give her a massage. Yeah, right, exactly. You get invited to the
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party. So you probably gonna say we have a relationship. Another relationship.
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Your mechanic, Shawn. Shawn. He is building
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my brother in law's 37 Ford pickup. Wow. There is
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an armo connection, man, that runs deep with us. Yeah,
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this is serious. Very, very serious. Serious vehicle. Easier for you to
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say. He goes by Sean with me. But the
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armo's name is Shunt, right? Right. Yes. So the wine. The wine
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guy, you know, he's always welcome to the party, but in the business is
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a fun business. I mean, let's face it. Wine and see. But it's one of
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those business, like you were talking about. It's not. There's a lot of money in
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it. If you're, for instance, on the wholesale side, or even if you're
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a winery, make money in a winery. That's the old small fortune, you
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know, start with a small fortune, because that's what you can end up with. There's
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no money in the business. So I work very hard to taste wines
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for my customers. Every Tuesday, I taste between 50 and 60 wines. And
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that's a tough day, really, because that's the day I get home from work, and
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my wife's like, I'd like a glass of wine. Thank you.
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I'll just fart near you, and you'll get a buzz. So your
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dad's selling wine, but he's not doing it
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via the. He's nothing. Bringing it via the mail or it's
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not mail order. So people are walking in, customers are
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asking, what do you suggest, Paul? And he makes the suggestions,
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and then they'd move, because he did a lot of business with aerospace firms. A
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lot of customers were from aerospace and pv. So they would move out of town.
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They'd be transferred to Huntsville, Alabama, or something. And he would. They'd say,
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send me your samples, Paul. They're really good wines. I enjoyed them. Just send them
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to me. And that's really the impetus of the show, of the company.
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And I'm saying 1979 is when these
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people started leaving town. He started the club at 72.
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Wasn't much until, really, 84. He was going to sell
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it. He got an offer from a south african firm
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in 88. He said, you know, why don't you come join me? See if you'd
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like this idea. What was your plan at
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the beginning? Yeah, did you have a plan? I never had a plan.
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Well, I. I had the worst
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plan. I think I just grew up
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and I loved football, and I was good at it when I was
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a kid. Like, I was a peewee, you know? And I didn't really get the
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whole part where you don't have the genetics to play football. I was just
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kicking ass when I was ten. And I was like, well, I'll just keep kicking
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ass until I get to the pros. And I just thought, I'll
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play football. And I had no other plan. I had no other education.
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And then at some point, I finished high school.
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I was an all valley football player. But not. Not nearly.
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Not nearly good enough to get anywhere near another. Like I
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said, no level beyond that at all.
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So then I was just stupid. If I could play
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football, but no, there's no football to play. And
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I just started digging ditches on a construction site because I was like, I'll
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do something physical. Cause I'm not a big student, but I could
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dig. I'll work hard. I learned from football. Like, I'll just go out in the
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sun and dig all day. I didn't. I'll do it. And then
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that's. That's what I did. And beyond
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that, I didn't really have a plan. And then almost immediately,
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I was like, oh, this sucks. Like,
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what? The first day, you mean something like that? Just. You're literally sat in the
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sun digging. Like, oh, that's what I did. And that was the plan.
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Yeah, but I was like, the plan was to play football. Now
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I'm digging, and this is miserable. And so I was like,
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hmm, what's a better plan? Plus, I liked
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cars. And I was like, cars are expensive, and you drive.
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You have to drive a pickup truck and live in apartments.
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And I. And I just went, I could do comedy.
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That was my second thought. Well, it was. It
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wasn't. I could do comedy. It's what I could you
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do. And the answer is, I could dig ditches.
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I could be a carpenter, and I could also
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do comedy. I knew I couldn't be in
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accounting, and I couldn't be a professor and I couldn't be a
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lawyer and I couldn't be a schoolteacher. I wouldn't
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be able to take the tests or write the essays or pass the tests or
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get certified or anything. But I knew I had a sense of humorous,
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and I knew I could build stuff. So I was like, that's amazing. The
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building stuff's not paying very well, so why don't I start
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going, pursuing the humor part. And that's what I
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did. I didn't get paid for a million. Years, but still,
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to know that you could take on that role. Cause that's a, you
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know, that's risky and it's scary and people have fear of the stage.
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I mean, well, it's not risky when you're
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destitute and digging ditches for a living. There's nothing. There's not risk.
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I wasn't risking anything because I didn't have any lifestyle, any quality
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of life. But it was a fair, it
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was a fair assessment. Like, I was like,
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I have a good sense of humor and I don't mind digging
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ditches and building stuff. Those are my two qualities. Hey, at least you had
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a self realization of something. Yeah, I wasn't like, you gotta
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sing because I can't sing. I knew what I could
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do and I knew what I couldn't do. People should do more of
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that. So for you. That's true. That's true. What were your
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early thoughts? Well, I left SC. I went to
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SC because my, when my dad came to America in 1949, SC gave him a
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job. They gave him the job to open the very first on campus pharmacy, which
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he did. And I have the daily Trojan from 1954 that shows
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that. And he says, you're going to SC. My sister went to Princeton. My brother
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went to Long beach, and he said, you're going to Sc. I owe them a
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favor. I owe them a living. So I went, I got Sc. I didn't know
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what I was going to do. I went to corporate America. I went to Xerox,
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you know, one of the great sales organizations of the world at that time. It
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was only second to IBM and got a great training for four or five years
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of banging on doors and selling copiers. Some copiers that were like
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$250,000 in 1982. Wow. And then I
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got asked to come join a small company called Telenomics that sold
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software. I had no idea what it did. There was five guys. They gave me
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5% of the company. I thought equity and something was better than nothing.
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And so I sat at my phone in my apartment with a two line phone,
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and I started calling business cards that have a fishbowl. And it was
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a very challenging thing to do. I think I mentioned
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in the pre interview that I left the office probably two
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or three times on a Friday morning with no money in the bank to go
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make payroll. And we had two or three on our staff, and I had to
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go find a check somewhere. Where am I going to get paid? I either had
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to pick up a check from a delinquent customer or
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sell something new and get a check on the way out the door. So you
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kind of cut your teeth that way. But it's all good
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partnerships. They're not too many Johnson and Johnson's and hewlett and Packard's in the world.
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So about five years into it, we started arguing and not
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getting along. And my dad says, you know, I'm a little
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tired, and I think maybe you can do this with your experience.
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So I went and worked for them for three months, tasting wine with them,
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packing wine. I saw your packing line out here.
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And one day we went to a tasting together. We got split up,
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and he was at one chair and I was across the room and we tasted
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about 20 wines. And when we got in the car together, we compared
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notes and we were right on 85% congruency with
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what we liked and what we didn't like. And he goes, yeah, you're
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ready. And I never saw him again. He moved to. He moved.
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He moved to julian, which is. Where's Julian? It's not the edge of the
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world, but you can see it from there. It's like three or 4 hours into
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the Cleveland forest. It's ridiculous. So
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you had these other skills, like, I'm a
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big fan of developing skills and skill sets
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and kind of then transferring them sort of universally to
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other applications. So you felt like you had a
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base, laid down skill set. What would
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your strength or your skillset have been before you entered into the
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wine business? You know, it's funny you ask a good question, because
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I don't have any fear. My wife doesn't. Just can't understand
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how I have no fear to test, to try to risk. It
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doesn't matter to me. I figured I'm land on my feet somehow, some way. And
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so there was one episode with this company where this guy was threatening
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my wife and my kids. We owed him
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$10,000 in modems back then. We had little modems
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used to make the noise. And he went on to threaten my kids. And
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I said, let me ask you a question. This is the guy who's in Colorado.
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I said, well, let me ask you a question. Are you married? He says, yeah.
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I said, have you ever heard of the turkish genocide? Armenian genocide? He goes, yeah.
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I said, well, let me tell you what we learned. And I go on to
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this very graphic explanation of what the Turks did to the armenian
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husbands. I said, so just, you'll get your money and I never want to hear
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from you again. And I thought at that point no one could scare me than
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anything. So when my dad said, do you want to come try this thing? And
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it was. We were selling, I don't know, a couple thousand bottles a month, I
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think. I'm sure I go, we can do this.
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Well, that's a good point, which is I
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think people
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contemplate the
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possibilities. It's a weird thing
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because it's a good thing. It's good to have a plan.
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It's good to go down the road
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a year or six months or five years and go, where would you like to
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be? Or what are you thinking about? But if you
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overdo it in that department, it's stifling. You
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have to just, you know, I'm going on year eleven of doing a
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podcast. And there was no plan, there was no thoughts
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of what it, what, what's the end game or how it's
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going to work out or if it's going to work out. It was just, it
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felt like what, it felt like the right thing to do.
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And it was organic. And I never really sat and
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weighed the pros and the cons. There wasn't even any pros
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per se. Hey, there's that time. The possibility of something one day,
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who knows? And now it seems pretty pedestrian to
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do a podcast. But it wasn't when I started.
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And you know, people always go, how'd you know it was going to work? I
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always hate when people say that. How'd you know? How'd you. Nobody knows. You can't
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do a wine club or a podcast and think it's going to work. Those are
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low percentage jobs. You just do them because you do them.
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And a lot of times stuff doesn't work, but you don't
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drowndeze with it. You let it go, let it sink to the bottom
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and grab on to your next buoy. I think if somebody told you all
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the headwinds you'd run into trying to do this,
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you would have gone, forget it, I'm not going down that road. Because you
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learn as you go, you take on each challenge, and that challenge makes you
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smarter, it makes you wiser, it makes you not make that mistake again if
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you had one. And it's like, persistence is omnipotent. If you
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can't pursue something, then what do you have? What dreams do you have that you
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that you want to pursue. That's my, like, I got. So what,
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what really is, like, what do we file into
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the loss department? You know what I mean? I mean, there's a monetary
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loss, okay? But that's not the end all and be all. People make
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money, and then you lose money. Sometimes you buy a house and you
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sell it, and you lose some money, and sometimes you buy a house and you
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sell it, you make some money or a car or whatever. So
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are we just, what's the yardstick that we're measuring failure
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by? And if you get a ton of experience and you
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learn a bunch of stuff and you're in one piece
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and you come out the other end, then why is it a loss
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or any relationship? You know what I mean? Anybody
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dated when you were in college or something, it's like, is it a loss? I
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mean, every relationship ends. Every job ends. Eventually the house
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moves. You move from the house, eventually you die. So what are we to
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call. How are we even grading this? And I think
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this notion of, like, everything's got to make money, everything's got to work, and everything's
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going to be successful, and it has to be done immediately. That's an unfair
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yardstick to measure success. You're right on. Because
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there's no such thing as a loss, because everything's a win. Everything you
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do that becomes headwinds. That becomes
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potentially, at that immediate moment by a failed at. This
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is really a success because you can't be successful without them. And
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I can't tell you how many people
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that I know have passed away with millions,
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millions and millions of dollars in the bank. So what.
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I mean, what are you gonna do with it now?
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I don't know. But they felt successful. They felt like they had reached the
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goal because they have all this money, but the only people spending it are the
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people that they left behind. Yeah. I mean, you get a little older,
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you get a little philosophical, but that's true.
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You know, I think the plan is, if you want to do something,
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it's not a bad idea, but at
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another point, you have to
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tune yourself so that you're on a frequency
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so you can hear yourself. And when people
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say, why do you want to do this? Or why you? And why are you
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endeavoring to do this new venture or whatever it is? You
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go, cause that's what I wanna do. And then they always go,
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well, how do you know it's gonna whatever? And you go, I'm tuned into myself,
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and this is what. This is what I want. And
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that you end up. When you do that, you're gonna
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end up with some. There's gonna be some swings and some
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misses because you've been to the plate so many times.
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You know, there's going to be strikeouts because you can't make that many plate
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appearances without having a bunch of strikeouts. But there's going to
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be a lot of round trippers and grand slams in there sprinkled in there,
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too. Absolutely. And that's ultimately a life
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well lived. And by the way, what's the opposite? I
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mean, if you want to try to figure something out, go, what's
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the opposite? Well, the opposite is
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working at the same postal sorting
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facility for 57 years and living in the same
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apartment with the same cat. Like, okay, the
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opposite of movement and trying things out and
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love and loss and failure and all that kind of stuff,
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is what I just said. You work at the same factory
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for 60 years and you live in the same apartment. Well, if we can agree
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that's not a good life, then let's do the opposite.
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Were you add, when you were a kid, would you consider that? Would you
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not knowing that that existed then? No. I mean, yes.
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All I knew is I was indoors. I wanted to get outdoors.
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Like, I would sit in a classroom and just kind of go bananas.
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I would have been probably diagnosed, if such a syndrome really
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exists, that I have that and I can't sit. And I
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think it's perfectly fine for some people that, for instance, let's say I stayed
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in corporate America, worked for Xerox, got to be a vice president. I know one
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of the guys I worked with became, I don't know, some head southern South America
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or something. I don't know. I couldn't do that. Right. I'd
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rather be taking step, walk on eggshells to see if I can get
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across than sit in the office and collect my pension when
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I'm done with it. That, to me, was not interesting. I had no interest in
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doing that. And I'd prefer to test myself, test the
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edges, take the risks and make and lose.
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I made a lot of mistakes. You know, you keep pursuing and,
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well. The, you know, the other thing I realize whether it's a business
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or whether it's building, because I get into this sometimes when I'm building, which
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is I like to move fast. Like, I like
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progress. If I'm building something, I want to see something, I want
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to see something done. You know, there's all the
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planning phase of everything. But I like visual
401
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progress, man. I like. And. And so
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sometimes when you're looking for progress when you
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just go, I don't want to, at the end of the week, I don't want
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to look at a slab where the guest house is going to be.
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I want to see a framed guest house. I want to see a guest house
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there. Not finish, but I'm going to see the frame of it
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up. Well, what inevitably happens,
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and I've done it to myself a few times, you move
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fast, and sometimes you'll make mistakes. And when you make a
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mistake in your building and you're moving
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fast, you'll have to stop, go back,
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fix whatever that thing is, and then go ahead again.
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And sometimes you're moving fast
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can temporarily slow you down if you're
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moving fast. But big picture, I
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prefer to move fast, even if it means that
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it's like we're going to speed up the conveyor belt. There's going to be a
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couple more cookies that fall on the ground and break because I've
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sped up the conveyor belt and I'm willing to
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deal with that like that. I understand that part of
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what goes along with moving quickly
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is some broken cookies, but I'd rather
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have the conveyor belt moving faster. That just reminded me of the Lucy
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show. Yes, she was at the chocolate factory. I
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think I have the same attribute.
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My staff, and we have 15 or 20 at the office at any given
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time. They're constantly coming to me and saying, you
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forgot this, or you didn't do this, or whatever, and I'm good with that.
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I'm fine. Let's fix it and move to the next step. Because particularly in today's
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environment, marketing, for sure, of the Internet is ridiculously, it's the wild west out there
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right now. If you're not moving fast, you are losing. It's
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impossible to keep up with the changes. But part of it
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also is just a kind of a wiring. It's a wiring for sure. And
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there's a notion of, like,
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you also realize that whatever doesn't go on for
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eternity and you want to make some hay while the sun is shining. Absolutely. You
437
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just have feelings. Like, there's stuff you want to
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do. I don't know why. You know, I think a lot of people think,
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like, you're
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perfectionist or you're obsessed
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with something, and it's like, nah, just want to do a whole bunch of stuff
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in a short period of time. I get that same. Like, you're
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defining my office environment. In my environment, it's, my wife
444
00:27:04,744 --> 00:27:08,592
is a CPA, and she's all about auditing and make sure. The numbers add
445
00:27:08,616 --> 00:27:10,868
up at the bottom, and I'm like, I don't even know what they look like.
446
00:27:10,984 --> 00:27:14,660
I'm already past that equation, and I'm onto
447
00:27:14,700 --> 00:27:18,300
something new. And maybe that's why we get along. We've been doing business for 25
448
00:27:18,340 --> 00:27:22,012
years together. I don't know about Lynette, but that's just our
449
00:27:22,076 --> 00:27:25,040
yin and yang, the way office works. But
450
00:27:25,620 --> 00:27:28,732
I've got to get to the next step. And I don't think this company would
451
00:27:28,756 --> 00:27:32,356
be anywhere, even still in business today with the congestion that's in my
452
00:27:32,388 --> 00:27:34,556
industry, if we didn't do that.
453
00:27:34,708 --> 00:27:38,444
Wineofthemonthclub.com, by the way, I should put
454
00:27:38,492 --> 00:27:42,226
that out there. Oldest sustained mail order wine club
455
00:27:42,308 --> 00:27:45,838
in the United States. Wow. It's so weird that
456
00:27:45,974 --> 00:27:49,726
time is moving so fast. It's funny that wine is so old,
457
00:27:49,798 --> 00:27:53,550
but the mail order business is not nearly as old
458
00:27:53,710 --> 00:27:57,470
as the wine. But again, going on, what are we
459
00:27:57,510 --> 00:28:01,358
coming up on? Four years. Did you answer on the back of the
460
00:28:01,374 --> 00:28:04,910
cereal box? Of course. Maybe that little
461
00:28:04,950 --> 00:28:08,650
submarine that was activated by vinegar and soda. You know,
462
00:28:08,770 --> 00:28:12,362
baking soda. It wasn't affordable at the house,
463
00:28:12,426 --> 00:28:16,066
but, you know, that was mail order. Right. But that was allow
464
00:28:16,138 --> 00:28:19,578
four to six weeks for delivery. Right. Can you get away with that today? That's,
465
00:28:19,594 --> 00:28:22,994
like, impossible. It's like, we don't have it today or tomorrow. We're. And that's one
466
00:28:23,002 --> 00:28:26,570
of the things my company's been able to manage through all this, is
467
00:28:26,610 --> 00:28:29,830
keeping up with this progress of shipping and
468
00:28:30,250 --> 00:28:34,000
marketing and customer service that expects
469
00:28:34,130 --> 00:28:37,120
at least the next day. Right. It is.
470
00:28:38,100 --> 00:28:41,756
It is crazy. And, yeah, they. When I was growing up, it always
471
00:28:41,788 --> 00:28:45,612
be four to six weeks. Four to six weeks for this, for delivery.
472
00:28:45,716 --> 00:28:49,228
And I haven't thought about one of those weird sub things in a while. It
473
00:28:49,244 --> 00:28:52,476
was a weird little plastic sub thing, and
474
00:28:52,588 --> 00:28:56,020
somehow you put some baking soda in it and maybe a little
475
00:28:56,060 --> 00:28:59,908
vinegar, and it would react with the water. Right. And then it
476
00:28:59,924 --> 00:29:03,292
would take on water and, like, dive down, and then some bubbles would come out,
477
00:29:03,316 --> 00:29:06,712
and it would pop up again, and it was like, kid would beat me over
478
00:29:06,736 --> 00:29:10,448
the head with that thing because he's got Fortnite, and
479
00:29:10,464 --> 00:29:14,136
he's wearing his virtual reality goggles. But for us, that's about all we.
480
00:29:14,168 --> 00:29:17,720
Had, is that Fortnite kid. He's like. He
481
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:21,200
likes. I got twins. They're 13,
482
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:25,176
and they're into fantasy football, which
483
00:29:25,208 --> 00:29:28,856
is like, I don't. I don't know about that. I don't know about fantasy
484
00:29:28,888 --> 00:29:32,656
football. That's my son. My daughter. It's funny. My daughter's
485
00:29:32,688 --> 00:29:36,404
into whatever anyone else is into, because that's the age
486
00:29:36,452 --> 00:29:39,836
he's at. My son likes, he likes video games. He
487
00:29:39,868 --> 00:29:43,612
likes. He likes fantasy football. The thing
488
00:29:43,636 --> 00:29:47,340
that's also weird about my son in kids today, that you couldn't
489
00:29:47,380 --> 00:29:50,940
really. Nothing moves the needle
490
00:29:50,980 --> 00:29:53,120
anymore. Like, I walked into his room,
491
00:29:54,260 --> 00:29:56,920
and him and his friend were playing, like,
492
00:29:58,380 --> 00:30:00,920
they're playing a racing video game
493
00:30:01,980 --> 00:30:05,284
on the tv. And I said, what are you guys
494
00:30:05,332 --> 00:30:09,156
playing? And they were like, we're playing forza. And I said,
495
00:30:09,228 --> 00:30:12,772
oh. And I said, hey, we
496
00:30:12,916 --> 00:30:16,236
mean, my son just got back from Laguna Seca,
497
00:30:16,268 --> 00:30:19,796
like, three days earlier. And I said, is that got
498
00:30:19,868 --> 00:30:23,412
Laguna seca on it? He's like, yeah. And I was like, why don't we go
499
00:30:23,436 --> 00:30:27,148
once you go to Laguna seca? I just drove 40 laps at Laguna Seca, and
500
00:30:27,164 --> 00:30:30,574
he went, we're doing Indie. And I was like, I know, but don't you want
501
00:30:30,582 --> 00:30:34,382
to? It's oval. Don't you want to see what I was seeing? And he was
502
00:30:34,406 --> 00:30:38,010
like, yeah, maybe. And then I said, hey, you know,
503
00:30:38,430 --> 00:30:42,086
Forza has some of my cars. They scanned my cars
504
00:30:42,118 --> 00:30:45,838
and put them in their game. You want to drive one of daddy's cars
505
00:30:46,014 --> 00:30:49,782
at Laguna Seca, where daddy drives those cars? And I'm like,
506
00:30:49,806 --> 00:30:53,646
yeah, we're good with Indy. I thought, holy shit, if
507
00:30:53,678 --> 00:30:56,654
my dad, first of all, my dad's never done a goddamn thing in his life.
508
00:30:56,702 --> 00:31:00,210
But if I was 13 and he, like, walked in and went, my
509
00:31:00,250 --> 00:31:03,850
track, my car, you drive my car, I wouldn't be like, hey, buzz off, old
510
00:31:03,890 --> 00:31:07,706
man. I'd be like, yeah, that's funny. Let's do this.
511
00:31:07,738 --> 00:31:11,466
Like, not interested. Well, let me tell you, a friend
512
00:31:11,498 --> 00:31:14,970
of mine, I had dinner with him here in Hermosa. He says, hey, don't forget
513
00:31:15,010 --> 00:31:18,858
to watch the Fortnite grand Prix or whatever it is. The
514
00:31:18,874 --> 00:31:22,178
World cup. It was two weekends ago, three weeks ago. I said, why? He goes,
515
00:31:22,194 --> 00:31:25,930
well, my nephew is epic whale. I go, who's epic whale? He goes, he's like
516
00:31:25,970 --> 00:31:29,644
one of the top players in the world. Not the country, the world, right?
517
00:31:29,732 --> 00:31:33,428
He was given $100,000 to show up. Wow. Just to
518
00:31:33,444 --> 00:31:37,276
show up. He came at 31, $1.2 million. He's 15 years old,
519
00:31:37,308 --> 00:31:40,652
third place at $1.2 million. Wow. He's 15 years old.
520
00:31:40,756 --> 00:31:44,124
Well, again, as I always say, and we talk about on this
521
00:31:44,172 --> 00:31:47,948
podcast, my son tells me he's going to be
522
00:31:47,964 --> 00:31:51,652
a podcaster. He's going to have a blog, or he's going to be a professional
523
00:31:51,716 --> 00:31:55,392
gamer, whatever. Can you, with a straight face,
524
00:31:55,456 --> 00:31:58,880
even tell a kid there's no way you're gonna make a living doing that anymore?
525
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:02,736
It's impossible because who would have thought there's a million
526
00:32:02,808 --> 00:32:06,300
jobs that haven't even been invented yet. You know, we went through
527
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:10,624
our adult or adolescent life and someone said, like, it would be
528
00:32:10,632 --> 00:32:13,888
a mailman. You want to be a fireman, you want to be a policeman, you
529
00:32:13,904 --> 00:32:17,472
want to be a pharmacist. You know, there was like 14 jobs that a
530
00:32:17,496 --> 00:32:21,254
dude could do. Construction worker. That was about it. We
531
00:32:21,262 --> 00:32:24,814
weren't making up new jobs every ten minutes.
532
00:32:24,942 --> 00:32:28,670
And so you had to kind of sit around and kind of, like, weigh
533
00:32:28,710 --> 00:32:32,438
your options. Like, well, I want to be a fireman or a policeman. You know,
534
00:32:32,494 --> 00:32:35,990
like, that's what he had to do. And some guy would come to the 6th
535
00:32:36,030 --> 00:32:39,810
grade and he was a fireman, and he would tell you about his job.
536
00:32:40,150 --> 00:32:43,878
Did he even have career day anymore? How can they have career day?
537
00:32:43,934 --> 00:32:46,830
Yeah. How would you, what would you define as a career now? Because this kid
538
00:32:46,870 --> 00:32:49,358
could make so much money that he's sitting on the rest of his life. Don't
539
00:32:49,374 --> 00:32:52,954
have to worry about it anymore. Anymore. Also, he's probably going to have
540
00:32:53,002 --> 00:32:56,642
28 jobs in his life, probably because that. Fortnight will be
541
00:32:56,666 --> 00:33:00,474
gone one day. Right, right. I mean, you go to, I
542
00:33:00,482 --> 00:33:03,874
mean, you think about those jobs where, like, doctor
543
00:33:03,922 --> 00:33:07,762
Drew's dad was just a doctor, and then he worked for a doctor, worked
544
00:33:07,786 --> 00:33:11,386
as a doctor for 55 years, and then he retired. Like, I don't know
545
00:33:11,458 --> 00:33:15,162
that there's going to be that anymore. I don't know about. Have we just sent
546
00:33:15,186 --> 00:33:18,612
a nephew off to med school? And I'm kind of going, why? Because who knows
547
00:33:18,636 --> 00:33:20,748
what's going to be in store for him when he gets out. He's going to
548
00:33:20,764 --> 00:33:24,508
change so fast that technology and the way healthcare is
549
00:33:24,524 --> 00:33:27,876
done, who knows that's even a solid job anymore when it comes
550
00:33:27,908 --> 00:33:31,596
to lifestyle. I sort of
551
00:33:31,628 --> 00:33:35,204
said to everybody, when my
552
00:33:35,252 --> 00:33:39,076
radio job came to an end and the economy kind of folded
553
00:33:39,108 --> 00:33:41,760
up in 2009, I just said,
554
00:33:43,020 --> 00:33:46,796
the new world order is just a bunch of hoses just kind of
555
00:33:46,828 --> 00:33:50,396
trickling into the same trough. Like, I don't think there's one job
556
00:33:50,468 --> 00:33:54,148
anymore. I think there's just a bunch of hoses, and
557
00:33:54,324 --> 00:33:57,988
some of them are moving some volume. Like, some are pumping pretty hard,
558
00:33:58,044 --> 00:34:01,652
and that's good. And some of the hoses are sucking water out of the
559
00:34:01,676 --> 00:34:05,436
trough. Absolutely. We got to pull those out and. They'Ll
560
00:34:05,468 --> 00:34:09,020
shut off real fast. We got to figure out what hoses are
561
00:34:09,100 --> 00:34:12,452
pumping and what hoses are sucking and. But it's going to be a new thing
562
00:34:12,476 --> 00:34:16,252
where there's like 18 hoses just all trickling into the same trough. There's
563
00:34:16,276 --> 00:34:19,952
not one big hose in one job anymore. Do you think
564
00:34:19,976 --> 00:34:23,688
that's different than when you're growing up, when you had the choices you did, which
565
00:34:23,704 --> 00:34:27,232
is a comedian and construction or whatever, but isn't it
566
00:34:27,256 --> 00:34:30,456
relative? Do you think it's relative, or is it just changing so fast that we
567
00:34:30,488 --> 00:34:33,380
can't keep track of even the options that are coming our way?
568
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:36,900
I think there's a combination of
569
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,780
technology opening things up,
570
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:44,938
and also there's an emotional part of it
571
00:34:45,024 --> 00:34:48,210
where I don't think of myself as
572
00:34:49,030 --> 00:34:52,678
a comedian or an actor or a writer or podcaster
573
00:34:52,814 --> 00:34:56,334
or an author. I just think of myself as somebody whose job it is
574
00:34:56,382 --> 00:35:00,126
to entertain people and figure out a way to get paid for it.
575
00:35:00,158 --> 00:35:03,598
Like, I don't, I don't really define it that much
576
00:35:03,654 --> 00:35:07,358
anymore. I think in the past you were, like, a tv guy. Yeah, right.
577
00:35:07,414 --> 00:35:08,090
You know,
578
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:15,520
you're Bryan Cranston. You're a tv guy. Yeah, but you're a movie
579
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:19,224
guy. Yeah, but you have a tequila company. You know what I mean?
580
00:35:19,392 --> 00:35:23,224
I think everyone is just the diversification. Is going
581
00:35:23,232 --> 00:35:26,824
to be critical to somebody as entrepreneurs
582
00:35:26,912 --> 00:35:30,616
as we are. Well, you think about what they talk about when they
583
00:35:30,648 --> 00:35:34,472
talk about your portfolio, and they go, you
584
00:35:34,496 --> 00:35:37,800
need a diversified portfolio because you put all
585
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,344
your money into utilities and the
586
00:35:41,392 --> 00:35:45,024
utilities shit, the bad, then you're screwed. So you need to spread it out. You
587
00:35:45,032 --> 00:35:48,824
know what I mean? In case this is, and you think about it, what's, what's
588
00:35:48,872 --> 00:35:52,672
different? I mean, aren't you. Your portfolio, I mean, you know,
589
00:35:52,696 --> 00:35:56,392
what's the difference between your portfolio and you, your career? You know what I mean?
590
00:35:56,456 --> 00:36:00,088
I agree. In fact, one of my old bosses at you are salesman. I don't
591
00:36:00,104 --> 00:36:03,600
care. We're all salesmen. You're a salesman whether you're selling copiers or whether you're doing
592
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:07,156
whatever you're doing, you're selling yourself, you're selling
593
00:36:07,268 --> 00:36:11,068
this Persona, who you are, whether you're inside a big company or
594
00:36:11,084 --> 00:36:14,916
not, you're a salesman. You're responsible for
595
00:36:14,948 --> 00:36:18,660
your own trajectory. So you get to the
596
00:36:18,700 --> 00:36:22,412
company. Is it Aok? Whale's total
597
00:36:22,476 --> 00:36:26,228
earnings are $2.2 million. I don't know how
598
00:36:26,244 --> 00:36:29,868
he spells his first name. Epic. Whale is called epic? Yeah.
599
00:36:29,964 --> 00:36:33,804
Isn't that amazing? The reason, here's my problem with typos. Everyone
600
00:36:33,852 --> 00:36:37,472
around here makes typos. But everyone's name is a goddamn typo now,
601
00:36:37,536 --> 00:36:41,352
so I never know who's the actual fake name.
602
00:36:41,416 --> 00:36:44,976
I don't know if things are typos or non typos. Epic whale
603
00:36:45,168 --> 00:36:48,944
2.2. Isn't that amazing? Total learning. So what's the business
604
00:36:49,032 --> 00:36:52,696
when you start in on the wine business? What's the volume
605
00:36:52,808 --> 00:36:56,368
or approximately? I bought it, I
606
00:36:56,384 --> 00:36:59,512
think that month. I bought it in 1989, January, I
607
00:36:59,536 --> 00:37:02,672
shipped 3700 something
608
00:37:02,736 --> 00:37:06,278
boxes. How many in a box? Two. Two and a bob.
609
00:37:06,294 --> 00:37:10,078
So let's just say that was the average month. Let's say it's 4000 boxes a
610
00:37:10,094 --> 00:37:13,766
month. So 8090, 6000 bottles for that year. Last year, we shipped about,
611
00:37:13,838 --> 00:37:16,862
I don't know, half a million, maybe 600,000 bottles.
612
00:37:17,006 --> 00:37:20,662
Nice. But it's actually off a
613
00:37:20,686 --> 00:37:24,438
little because there's so many people doing this. All right. And you were
614
00:37:24,454 --> 00:37:28,206
talking about the industries, this industry has become this logistical thing you probably
615
00:37:28,238 --> 00:37:31,492
experiencing now a little bit with just shipping things out to your I, to your
616
00:37:31,636 --> 00:37:35,188
listeners. It's. The wine business has gotten down to
617
00:37:35,204 --> 00:37:38,764
where they're literally bringing in €1
618
00:37:38,852 --> 00:37:42,652
liter wines. Meaning like less than a euro for a bottle of
619
00:37:42,676 --> 00:37:45,680
wine. A euro less than a year. Like $0.85,
620
00:37:46,220 --> 00:37:49,932
right? So, yeah. What are you gonna get for $0.85? Right.
621
00:37:50,036 --> 00:37:53,756
Well, I mean, this is another thing, you know, when. When I
622
00:37:53,828 --> 00:37:57,556
started podcasting, there wasn't any money in it,
623
00:37:57,588 --> 00:38:00,904
but there wasn't really any podcasts either, you know,
624
00:38:01,072 --> 00:38:03,976
and I just read somewhere that there are
625
00:38:04,048 --> 00:38:07,424
750,000 podcasts
626
00:38:07,592 --> 00:38:11,320
just on iTunes. Different podcasts, different
627
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:14,880
channels, sort of speak. Yeah. Really well. There's no
628
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:18,584
barrier to entry. Yeah, that's true. It's. You can just go to lip syn or
629
00:38:18,632 --> 00:38:22,264
pot. You ever, you go and just sort up. Now you go
630
00:38:22,312 --> 00:38:25,820
from nobody's ever heard of this to
631
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:28,176
you got to do battle with
632
00:38:28,328 --> 00:38:32,400
749,999
633
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,960
other podcasts. So it's kind of, in a weird
634
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:39,792
way, it took a longer time to do, but when you guys
635
00:38:39,856 --> 00:38:43,568
started, there wasn't competition. People weren't familiar with
636
00:38:43,584 --> 00:38:47,256
the mail order wine business. And so you have to get them familiar with it
637
00:38:47,288 --> 00:38:51,120
because it won't be a business now. They're familiar
638
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:54,732
with it. There's so many, so many. There's so many out there. And they all
639
00:38:54,756 --> 00:38:58,220
have different things, but only one has a story, and I'm the only story because
640
00:38:58,260 --> 00:39:01,612
we invented the concept, and that's it. That's the story because
641
00:39:01,676 --> 00:39:05,468
otherwise I got a team of specialists that taste wine, and we picked
642
00:39:05,484 --> 00:39:08,360
the best wine. Everybody says that what if people,
643
00:39:09,100 --> 00:39:11,720
I'm curious what your take is. Because
644
00:39:13,260 --> 00:39:16,320
I'm into cars, and
645
00:39:16,940 --> 00:39:20,786
I have found that it's not so much about
646
00:39:20,858 --> 00:39:24,202
give me the cheapest car or even the cheapest fastest car.
647
00:39:24,346 --> 00:39:28,034
It's. I want a story. Thank you. And the
648
00:39:28,082 --> 00:39:31,550
cars, and I'll be interested in your take on this.
649
00:39:32,090 --> 00:39:35,810
The cars that were formerly not worth anything were the
650
00:39:35,850 --> 00:39:39,682
old race cars. They didn't have a lot of value to them. And people. The
651
00:39:39,706 --> 00:39:43,338
cars that did have a value were like, you know, Ferraris, sixties,
652
00:39:43,394 --> 00:39:47,090
seventies Ferraris and Lamborghinis and those high end whatever cars,
653
00:39:47,130 --> 00:39:50,908
collector cars, and they still have value. But
654
00:39:51,044 --> 00:39:54,724
the race cars went from almost no value to
655
00:39:54,772 --> 00:39:58,196
leapfrogging past many of the
656
00:39:58,228 --> 00:40:02,036
collector cars. And if you go back and you
657
00:40:02,068 --> 00:40:05,796
look now, basically, 19
658
00:40:05,908 --> 00:40:09,116
out of the 20 most expensive cars sold in the last ten years have all
659
00:40:09,148 --> 00:40:12,932
been race cars. Now, the thing about the race car is
660
00:40:12,956 --> 00:40:16,724
a race cardinal with no history, meaning no story,
661
00:40:16,812 --> 00:40:20,556
it's not really worth anything. But if you find out that Steve
662
00:40:20,588 --> 00:40:24,396
McQueen drove it at Sebring with Mario Andretti or something, now
663
00:40:24,428 --> 00:40:27,980
we got a story. And if it came in first in its
664
00:40:28,020 --> 00:40:31,572
class at Le Mans in 1967, all sudden. So a car
665
00:40:31,636 --> 00:40:35,452
that might have had diminished
666
00:40:35,476 --> 00:40:38,436
value or, you know, worth something, but not a lot. It's all of a sudden
667
00:40:38,468 --> 00:40:41,880
can be astronomical value, based on
668
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:44,620
the story. And I realized
669
00:40:45,240 --> 00:40:48,832
people aren't looking for the cheapest, but they're looking.
670
00:40:48,976 --> 00:40:52,728
Many people are looking for a good story and will pay
671
00:40:52,784 --> 00:40:56,448
a premium for the story. How does that
672
00:40:56,504 --> 00:40:59,860
resonate with you? Well, the wine business is much like that.
673
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:04,096
Just for FYI, I've restored two
674
00:41:04,128 --> 00:41:07,918
tigers, a sunbeam alpine. Oh, you're a sunbeam guy.
675
00:41:07,974 --> 00:41:11,734
I was. I have a GT 350 supercharged Shelby 2008. I
676
00:41:11,742 --> 00:41:15,222
have a 69 Myers Manx boonda doom buggy, dune
677
00:41:15,246 --> 00:41:18,278
buggy, and I have a 96. What year is your Shelby? An
678
00:41:18,294 --> 00:41:22,102
0808. But I had a supercharged at the factory. And then I
679
00:41:22,126 --> 00:41:25,662
have a 1997 Paynows roadster, aiv all
680
00:41:25,686 --> 00:41:29,158
aluminum. Well, look out. That's a scary little car. With a
681
00:41:29,174 --> 00:41:32,912
Mustang power plant. Yes. Cobra power plant. Yeah. Those
682
00:41:32,936 --> 00:41:36,616
are interesting cars. Now, the reason I brought that up, those are all stories for
683
00:41:36,648 --> 00:41:40,472
me, right? The doom buggy. My one uncle had one in Malibu,
684
00:41:40,496 --> 00:41:43,660
and he used to go all over Malibu in this doom buggy.
685
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:47,232
The Panos roaster was my other uncle's. He passed away from
686
00:41:47,336 --> 00:41:50,608
cancer, and it was the last car he bought. And my cousin sold it to
687
00:41:50,624 --> 00:41:54,112
me. And I'm just so proud to have the car. And the Shelby was a
688
00:41:54,136 --> 00:41:57,672
throwback to the same uncle who used to have two or three GT 350s back
689
00:41:57,696 --> 00:42:01,536
in. The day, like 66, 67. Pictures of him
690
00:42:01,568 --> 00:42:05,384
and his tiger and him and his cobra as well. Cobra,
691
00:42:05,432 --> 00:42:09,040
yeah, he had a cobra. So that's the story for me. And wines the same
692
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:12,864
way people want to. They go to Napa and they go to the tasting
693
00:42:12,912 --> 00:42:16,472
room and they establish this relationship. And if, really, if it wasn't for my
694
00:42:16,496 --> 00:42:19,960
father's idea to ship wine in the mail, many winers would be out of business
695
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:23,672
today because they learned from my dad's model that you can go
696
00:42:23,696 --> 00:42:27,442
from manufacturing, the cost of manufacturing directly to retail, and
697
00:42:27,466 --> 00:42:31,290
skip sometimes two levels of hands out because of the
698
00:42:31,370 --> 00:42:34,602
three tier process in America for alcohol. Thanks to Joe Kennedy.
699
00:42:34,706 --> 00:42:38,514
So that story, you come back and you go, I went to the so and
700
00:42:38,522 --> 00:42:41,098
so Napa, and I joined their club, and I get their wines every month, and
701
00:42:41,114 --> 00:42:44,650
they tell that story every time they pour a glass with their friends because
702
00:42:44,690 --> 00:42:48,298
wine is experiential. Let me give an example. I
703
00:42:48,314 --> 00:42:51,874
think, let's say you and I are come back from this. I will listen to
704
00:42:51,882 --> 00:42:54,434
one of your podcasts where you were talking about the soccer games with the kids,
705
00:42:54,482 --> 00:42:57,890
and they got you by the gonads, sitting there with the snack shack and everything.
706
00:42:57,930 --> 00:43:01,740
It was very funny. But you go to that, you have a full
707
00:43:01,780 --> 00:43:04,188
day with the kids in the soccer field, you're tired, you get home, they're tugging
708
00:43:04,204 --> 00:43:07,876
on your shirt tails, they're hungry, and you pour a glass of 33 cabernet,
709
00:43:07,988 --> 00:43:10,508
and it's just a glass of wine at that point because you're a beat and
710
00:43:10,524 --> 00:43:14,188
you don't really care. But if you take that same bottle and you go to
711
00:43:14,204 --> 00:43:17,444
Laguna Seca trackside and you're racing and you're watching all that's going on, and you're
712
00:43:17,492 --> 00:43:20,372
having a glass of wine with your friends, and you're talking about, this is a
713
00:43:20,396 --> 00:43:23,756
throwback to Paul Newman's race cars
714
00:43:23,908 --> 00:43:27,600
33. They're going to go, oh, this is really cool. And it'll
715
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:31,216
taste better. Yeah, yeah. No, I. I know.
716
00:43:31,328 --> 00:43:35,072
I mean, the cars are kind of cars and wine sometimes can
717
00:43:35,096 --> 00:43:38,720
be wine, but it's experience and the story. And I. And
718
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:42,528
I do think that's what we're all
719
00:43:42,584 --> 00:43:46,168
kind of looking for. And I do tell people
720
00:43:46,264 --> 00:43:49,980
all the time, you know, when I'm
721
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:54,032
doing a project around the house, I'm building
722
00:43:54,096 --> 00:43:57,540
a movie theater in my house right now. You're building a movie theater?
723
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:01,072
Well, I. Me and a guy, but yes.
724
00:44:01,256 --> 00:44:04,928
And I think everyone's plan is wait till I'm
725
00:44:04,984 --> 00:44:08,624
done and then go watch a movie. And my
726
00:44:08,672 --> 00:44:12,060
thing is, is we're gonna sit in this movie theater,
727
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:16,072
and we're gonna watch a movie, and we're both gonna watch the same
728
00:44:16,136 --> 00:44:19,730
movie. But I'm gonna have a different experience because I built this
729
00:44:19,770 --> 00:44:23,546
movie theater. That's right. You guys waited for me to finish, and
730
00:44:23,578 --> 00:44:27,306
then you came in to watch the movie. And I don't know if I'm
731
00:44:27,338 --> 00:44:31,002
going to enjoy the movie more. I'm going to have a different experience for
732
00:44:31,026 --> 00:44:34,418
sure with it, because. And every time I walk into that
733
00:44:34,474 --> 00:44:38,098
theater, I'm going to look at that riser, and I'm going to look at the
734
00:44:38,114 --> 00:44:41,122
way the seats are laid out, I'm going to look at the way, and I'm
735
00:44:41,146 --> 00:44:44,882
going to know everything that's going on inside of those walls, and I'm going to
736
00:44:44,906 --> 00:44:48,450
remember it how it was, and I'm going to have the experience of getting it
737
00:44:48,570 --> 00:44:52,058
from this sort of dank, dusty, kind of shell of a room
738
00:44:52,154 --> 00:44:55,750
into this swanky, cool, acoustically sound,
739
00:44:56,090 --> 00:44:59,666
technologically advanced room. And I get that.
740
00:44:59,778 --> 00:45:02,986
I get to have that. You get to feel that. Yes. And I feel like
741
00:45:03,018 --> 00:45:06,842
a lot of people are speeding past
742
00:45:06,906 --> 00:45:10,554
the story to get to the glass of wine or to get to the movie
743
00:45:10,602 --> 00:45:14,202
theater or to get to the car. And I'm like, slow down
744
00:45:14,386 --> 00:45:17,710
and get the story down. Rebuild the car.
745
00:45:18,130 --> 00:45:21,722
You restore that car, and when you hear somebody talk about
746
00:45:21,826 --> 00:45:25,530
a car, and you go, geez, that's a sweet
747
00:45:25,570 --> 00:45:28,470
sunbeam, tiger. And that person.
748
00:45:29,690 --> 00:45:33,310
The difference between the person that restored it themselves
749
00:45:33,770 --> 00:45:37,594
versus the one who just bought it from their neighbor,
750
00:45:37,722 --> 00:45:41,334
it's a completely different story. The ones who did it, their
751
00:45:41,382 --> 00:45:44,782
eyes light up and they go, oh, I had this thing down to the
752
00:45:44,806 --> 00:45:48,182
frame this thing was in. Bo was in rough shape when I got it.
753
00:45:48,206 --> 00:45:52,014
Boy, they wanted this guy. I got it for $500. The
754
00:45:52,022 --> 00:45:55,318
guy said it was a basket case, and I brought it back. You see all
755
00:45:55,374 --> 00:45:59,006
this pride and all the experience you get
756
00:45:59,118 --> 00:46:02,902
from that. Again, if you're going in a
757
00:46:02,926 --> 00:46:06,750
hurry, you can screw things up a little, but you want to get that thing
758
00:46:06,790 --> 00:46:10,546
put back together. I don't. I feel
759
00:46:10,578 --> 00:46:13,842
like there's a lot of people, especially young people, kind of
760
00:46:13,986 --> 00:46:17,722
running from that experience. You know, I tell my
761
00:46:17,746 --> 00:46:20,882
kids all the time, like, come. Come down to the garage. Let's go get it
762
00:46:20,906 --> 00:46:23,914
done. Let's get going with this stuff. They're like, ah, we don't. We don't want
763
00:46:23,922 --> 00:46:27,706
to get, you know, like, why there's no air conditioning in the garage? And I'm
764
00:46:27,738 --> 00:46:31,522
going, you're missing out. Yeah, I agree with that. Well, I
765
00:46:31,626 --> 00:46:35,308
liken that to, hey, if you have all the money in the
766
00:46:35,324 --> 00:46:38,932
world, you can buy whatever you want. I mean,
767
00:46:38,956 --> 00:46:42,284
that's. I guess that's fun when you. The moment you buy it. But if there's
768
00:46:42,332 --> 00:46:45,668
no story to get there in,
769
00:46:45,724 --> 00:46:49,052
particularly with cars, let's just use the same example. And wine's the same way.
770
00:46:49,076 --> 00:46:52,292
But. So you go buy it, a big deal. You can just buy it. That
771
00:46:52,316 --> 00:46:55,716
doesn't mean anything. But if you earn that right to
772
00:46:55,868 --> 00:46:59,528
know that car, like my. I mean, I know everything about tigers
773
00:46:59,644 --> 00:47:03,360
and alpines. Actually, I feel good at 260
774
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:07,072
or 289. The original was a 260. The last, I don't know,
775
00:47:07,136 --> 00:47:10,620
400 were 289. Well, what was the one you did? 260. It was
776
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:15,192
first model year 64. Things are going up. Oh,
777
00:47:15,216 --> 00:47:18,632
they're starting to become the poor man's cobra. For sure. For sure. Well, they were
778
00:47:18,656 --> 00:47:22,328
always the poor man's cobra, but now there's the price. 60 or 70
779
00:47:22,384 --> 00:47:26,104
grand. Yeah, it's squirrely and scary to drive. I
780
00:47:26,112 --> 00:47:29,680
mean, Jay Leno told me he rolled his on mall
781
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:33,488
once or twice, easily. Yeah. Because that was actually a Shelby project,
782
00:47:33,544 --> 00:47:37,128
too. They had two. My model of alpine I restored
783
00:47:37,264 --> 00:47:40,808
was the 62 with the fins. And they gave one to Carroll
784
00:47:40,824 --> 00:47:44,580
Shelby, and they gave one to Ken what's his name in England.
785
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:48,480
And Shelby moved the motor back under the firewall. Ken Miles.
786
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:52,392
Yeah. Ken Miles. Yeah, that was it. Wow. And he didn't. He left the
787
00:47:52,416 --> 00:47:55,826
motor forward. Didn't handle as well as Carol's did.
788
00:47:55,898 --> 00:47:59,258
People don't realize, I mean, maybe
789
00:47:59,314 --> 00:48:02,570
realize that, you know, Shelby and Ac
790
00:48:02,650 --> 00:48:06,378
Bristol and, you know, the whole idea was take the american power plant,
791
00:48:06,434 --> 00:48:09,910
put it in the lightweight european car I used to.
792
00:48:10,370 --> 00:48:14,030
There was a guy who raced a tiger down at Laguna's sake.
793
00:48:14,370 --> 00:48:18,034
You know, the things in life you remember. Yeah, sure. John Morton.
794
00:48:18,082 --> 00:48:21,694
As a professional driver, he's kind of a gun for hire. He drive
795
00:48:21,882 --> 00:48:25,198
six cars over the weekend or whatever, and I was hanging out with him, and
796
00:48:25,254 --> 00:48:28,974
one of the cars he drove was an old Shelby.
797
00:48:29,142 --> 00:48:32,390
Sorry, an old sunbeam tiger race
798
00:48:32,430 --> 00:48:36,086
car. And I remember, like, kind of
799
00:48:36,118 --> 00:48:38,806
talking to him and talking to the guy who owned the car and stuff. And
800
00:48:38,838 --> 00:48:42,438
he said. I said, what kind of
801
00:48:42,454 --> 00:48:45,950
tires are those? Because I knew all the race tires,
802
00:48:45,990 --> 00:48:49,742
and I didn't really wasn't familiar with the tires he had on this car. And
803
00:48:49,766 --> 00:48:52,950
he goes, oh, yeah, my wife hand grooved those things
804
00:48:52,990 --> 00:48:56,722
herself with a soldering iron. What is that? I was like,
805
00:48:56,746 --> 00:49:00,138
what kind of relationship do you have? This is awesome.
806
00:49:00,274 --> 00:49:04,122
Like his wife was actually taking the hot
807
00:49:04,186 --> 00:49:07,970
soldering iron and literally grooving with. Some kind of
808
00:49:08,010 --> 00:49:11,810
tie in behind this. Or their plan on how to. Well, there were channel
809
00:49:11,850 --> 00:49:15,618
water or something. Yeah, there are guys that are kind of hardcore. Some
810
00:49:15,674 --> 00:49:19,002
guys like back in the day would like put their own tread
811
00:49:19,066 --> 00:49:22,914
pattern on a tire. Crazy. And this guy got his
812
00:49:22,962 --> 00:49:26,520
wife to do it. Amy, if you
813
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:30,336
type in John Morton white Sunbeam
814
00:49:30,408 --> 00:49:34,024
tiger, like Laguna seca, I'm sure this car is going
815
00:49:34,032 --> 00:49:37,328
to pop up. But again, that's the
816
00:49:37,384 --> 00:49:40,960
story. Now, I went and saw 5000
817
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:44,816
different cars, but that's the one that stuck into my head. It was a great
818
00:49:44,888 --> 00:49:48,540
story and it didn't. Now if I shed.
819
00:49:49,050 --> 00:49:52,666
What's up with those tires? And he said, ah, the guy over at
820
00:49:52,698 --> 00:49:56,498
tire rack did them for me. That wouldn't stick in my head. Your wife
821
00:49:56,554 --> 00:50:00,242
did it. Right. And now we got a story. It's a story now
822
00:50:00,266 --> 00:50:04,026
that's stuck in my head. There's John Morton. We got a
823
00:50:04,058 --> 00:50:06,470
picture of him at least driving a white. Oh, there it is.
824
00:50:07,610 --> 00:50:11,138
Sunbeam tiger with 13 inch. Look at that guy. That's
825
00:50:11,194 --> 00:50:14,682
13 inch rims. Yeah, John's a good guy and
826
00:50:14,826 --> 00:50:18,624
super fast driver and drove everyone else's. There was a guy
827
00:50:18,752 --> 00:50:22,512
in LA, his name was Joe Alphabet. I know, it's bizarre.
828
00:50:22,536 --> 00:50:23,460
And he had.
829
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:30,480
What was that? The white GT from the sixties. And it was the slot
830
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:34,272
car, very famous slot car. I can't remember now. He had
831
00:50:34,296 --> 00:50:37,808
two of those racers, but he's bought and sold collective cars. Cheetah.
832
00:50:37,984 --> 00:50:41,552
And there was the cheetah that. Oh, I'd love one of those though. This was
833
00:50:41,576 --> 00:50:44,942
a real race cardinal. Anyway, I bought my tigers from him
834
00:50:45,046 --> 00:50:47,918
and his name was Joffa because you couldn't pronounce his name so he had to
835
00:50:47,934 --> 00:50:51,678
formally change to Alphabet. Wow. Yeah. So. And I
836
00:50:51,694 --> 00:50:55,190
bought from him three gt 3500 gt
837
00:50:55,230 --> 00:50:58,130
Maseratis. Wow. Thinking
838
00:50:59,150 --> 00:51:02,782
what year? 58 the year.
839
00:51:02,846 --> 00:51:04,730
What year did you buy them? Oh,
840
00:51:06,510 --> 00:51:10,200
like 92 or something. Well, that was pretty
841
00:51:10,240 --> 00:51:13,632
cheap for you. In 92 it was $7,500 for the three of them.
842
00:51:13,736 --> 00:51:16,584
Wow. One was a rolling shell. Beautiful super
843
00:51:16,632 --> 00:51:20,320
legera. One was a rack which all the. But the dash
844
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:23,800
was good and the instruments were good and the other was the restorable car, which
845
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:27,576
the motor was just a big pile of valves and springs. They're
846
00:51:27,608 --> 00:51:30,900
cool cars. They are very cool. But I. Way over my head,
847
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:34,600
it's pretty advanced. I mean, it's a straight six with a twin
848
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:38,020
cam, twin spark plug. And some are
849
00:51:38,330 --> 00:51:42,090
Lucas injection, others are carbureted. I can't remember,
850
00:51:42,170 --> 00:51:45,202
no idea what I was getting into, so I ended up selling it. But to
851
00:51:45,226 --> 00:51:48,970
not restore. But those cars are worth. They went
852
00:51:49,010 --> 00:51:52,754
up. They've kind of flattened out a little, but 200 grand
853
00:51:52,802 --> 00:51:56,386
a pop today. But they're, I think, for the. That
854
00:51:56,458 --> 00:52:00,106
style, I think one of the most beautiful cars ever built for the. In the
855
00:52:00,138 --> 00:52:03,858
fifties. And that sort of, you know, like this Cobra, not covert, but
856
00:52:03,874 --> 00:52:07,664
the Corvette style. You have good taste in
857
00:52:07,712 --> 00:52:11,272
cars. It's a good looking european car
858
00:52:11,336 --> 00:52:14,816
that's not really an all out sports car, but it's just a
859
00:52:14,848 --> 00:52:18,416
grand tour. It was their big production car, like 2000 units or something.
860
00:52:18,528 --> 00:52:21,020
Yes. So the story. Yes.
861
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:25,720
No, the story. That's what I keep telling everyone. It's about the
862
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:29,536
story. Wine is much the story. And when I interview these winemakers
863
00:52:29,568 --> 00:52:33,190
on the podcast, on wine talks, you get
864
00:52:33,530 --> 00:52:37,274
this new passion I've had for this business, which is really my. This is
865
00:52:37,282 --> 00:52:40,710
my 30th year of tasting wine. I've probably tasted 100,000 wines.
866
00:52:41,450 --> 00:52:45,266
But the passion for the business is probably two years old. And it
867
00:52:45,298 --> 00:52:49,018
comes from these stories, from listening to these winemakers who have been in the
868
00:52:49,034 --> 00:52:52,762
business all their lives, whose families.
869
00:52:52,946 --> 00:52:56,432
Twelve generations. One of the winemakers I interviewed, young lady,
870
00:52:56,626 --> 00:53:00,108
that's fascinating to me. And it sucked me into the industry
871
00:53:00,204 --> 00:53:03,812
to understand wine from the story. Well, I
872
00:53:03,836 --> 00:53:07,508
will say that in any
873
00:53:07,604 --> 00:53:10,880
business, I think, you know,
874
00:53:11,300 --> 00:53:14,988
it sort of bothers me when people are just sort of perpetual
875
00:53:15,084 --> 00:53:18,932
salesmen, you know, like they go, what do you do? And they go, I used
876
00:53:18,956 --> 00:53:22,492
to sell rvs and now I sell siding, you know, and you're
877
00:53:22,516 --> 00:53:26,212
like two great industries. You just sell shit. You know what I mean?
878
00:53:26,316 --> 00:53:30,040
What do you care? Do you like rvs? I like selling rvs and getting
879
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:33,280
commission. Exciting. Like, no, I don't care.
880
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:36,904
Like, it seems soulless.
881
00:53:37,072 --> 00:53:40,872
The guys who have jobs where I'll just sell stuff and get a commission and
882
00:53:40,896 --> 00:53:44,736
I don't really care. I don't care what it is, I'll just sell. It feels
883
00:53:44,768 --> 00:53:48,528
soulless to me. Obviously, crafting wine
884
00:53:48,584 --> 00:53:52,176
feels like the opposite of sales. It is, because it's
885
00:53:52,208 --> 00:53:55,640
like this pure passion and I'm going to put it into this
886
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:58,924
bottle and, you know, it's pure passion
887
00:53:58,972 --> 00:54:02,756
because the chances of you turning a
888
00:54:02,788 --> 00:54:06,324
profit, opening a winery are slim to none. So
889
00:54:06,372 --> 00:54:09,756
you're only there because you love it. So
890
00:54:09,828 --> 00:54:13,428
you're sort of de facto dealing with a
891
00:54:13,484 --> 00:54:16,996
group of self selected, super passionate people.
892
00:54:17,108 --> 00:54:20,320
And that's why if you ever talk
893
00:54:20,620 --> 00:54:24,468
to sales guys like you talk to guys, how many times you
894
00:54:24,484 --> 00:54:27,876
go, you like cars? I like cars. I gone into
895
00:54:27,988 --> 00:54:31,316
car to dealerships, talking a guy about a 60,
896
00:54:31,388 --> 00:54:35,036
$70,000 car, and I go, what's the horsepower
897
00:54:35,108 --> 00:54:38,440
on that? And they go, it's peppy.
898
00:54:39,420 --> 00:54:43,140
Step on it. What's the horsepower? Oh, enough for you? Well, believe
899
00:54:43,180 --> 00:54:45,636
me, you'll get out of your own way. And I'm like, you don't even know
900
00:54:45,668 --> 00:54:49,238
anything about this. Well, you know why? Because he doesn't give a shit about cars.
901
00:54:49,294 --> 00:54:53,046
He's. No, he's not into cars. He's into commission, and he's
902
00:54:53,078 --> 00:54:56,886
selling cars, and he'd be selling computers the next day. He doesn't.
903
00:54:56,998 --> 00:55:00,290
Doesn't care. So the wine guys,
904
00:55:00,950 --> 00:55:04,582
just by virtue of opening a winery or even
905
00:55:04,646 --> 00:55:08,246
endeavoring to do this, care. So you're dealing with a
906
00:55:08,278 --> 00:55:11,710
self selecting group of people that are super into what they're
907
00:55:11,750 --> 00:55:15,390
doing. So true. You're. You're. That's your jumping, jumping
908
00:55:15,430 --> 00:55:19,264
off point. There's the sales guys. I mean, I wanted to infinity
909
00:55:19,312 --> 00:55:22,904
dealership a few weeks ago, and the guy handed me his real estate card. He
910
00:55:22,912 --> 00:55:24,968
didn't even ask me about the car. He goes, hey, you know, he went to
911
00:55:24,984 --> 00:55:27,624
use any real estate, and he gives me his real. I'm like, I thought I
912
00:55:27,632 --> 00:55:31,056
came to buy a car, right? But the wine with the wine guys that come
913
00:55:31,088 --> 00:55:34,160
in, the reason the passion is new, it's
914
00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:37,912
newer, is because I'm starting to understand it more. I'm starting to get the
915
00:55:37,976 --> 00:55:41,768
stories behind it. You. The guys that don't have the story are
916
00:55:41,784 --> 00:55:45,064
these guys that are bringing these €1 wines and putting a billion labels on them
917
00:55:45,072 --> 00:55:48,856
and pumping them into the system. There's no story there you can't tell. I tasted
918
00:55:48,888 --> 00:55:52,704
a Saturday night live wine the other day. Saturday Night Live? Really? It
919
00:55:52,712 --> 00:55:56,408
was horrible, by the way. It was a french beaujolais. It's terrible. But why would
920
00:55:56,424 --> 00:56:00,064
you buy that? What's the story? I bought this because Dan Aykroyd drinks it. I
921
00:56:00,072 --> 00:56:03,800
don't understand. I didn't understand it. But the story from these guys,
922
00:56:03,840 --> 00:56:07,496
when you listen to them and you figure out that they travel the world,
923
00:56:07,568 --> 00:56:10,568
and they take this wine and they put it on the table, and this is
924
00:56:10,584 --> 00:56:13,992
the best explanation I've ever heard from anybody. It was a young winemaker, a
925
00:56:14,016 --> 00:56:17,752
woman from Argentina and Armenia. Oddly, she
926
00:56:17,776 --> 00:56:21,536
said, what other product can you take across the country, across the world that
927
00:56:21,608 --> 00:56:25,184
represents where you're from than wine? You take a widget
928
00:56:25,272 --> 00:56:28,800
maybe a car. But you take a bottle of wine and you open that and
929
00:56:28,840 --> 00:56:32,336
you know that you're in Armenia when you drink that wine, if you
930
00:56:32,408 --> 00:56:36,000
appreciate wine. Yeah, the story. The story's there.
931
00:56:36,080 --> 00:56:38,780
And I think, or I hope,
932
00:56:39,680 --> 00:56:42,860
whether it's cars or wine, that everyone shouldn't be just
933
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:45,560
chasing the cheapest. That's the problem.
934
00:56:46,780 --> 00:56:49,640
And look, obviously, there's going to be a certain
935
00:56:50,460 --> 00:56:53,836
group that does that,
936
00:56:53,948 --> 00:56:57,600
and they're always going to exist. But the people
937
00:56:58,220 --> 00:57:01,780
that are looking for an experience, I mean, look, you could make
938
00:57:01,820 --> 00:57:05,588
this equivalency to food. There's plenty of food to be found, and you
939
00:57:05,604 --> 00:57:09,036
can find plenty of cheap food out there. And you walk out from a golden
940
00:57:09,068 --> 00:57:12,372
corral, the full belly. But I think people would like a
941
00:57:12,436 --> 00:57:15,794
story and an experience. I've become a food
942
00:57:15,842 --> 00:57:19,666
snob. Have you? It really sucks. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Cause
943
00:57:19,698 --> 00:57:23,506
my daughter's a baking chef in New York, and she works for a very fancy
944
00:57:23,538 --> 00:57:27,218
chef, and I'm like, I can't eat some of this stuff anymore. Yeah,
945
00:57:27,274 --> 00:57:31,050
I really want real food. Yeah, I want real wine, too. That's the part
946
00:57:31,090 --> 00:57:34,858
that is kind of getting to me a little bit, because there are guys on
947
00:57:34,914 --> 00:57:38,578
groupon, and you're talking about the cheapest. $45,
948
00:57:38,674 --> 00:57:42,040
you get 15 bottles in a corkscrew. Really? So
949
00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:45,060
$3, it can't.
950
00:57:45,600 --> 00:57:49,392
By definition of the model, it can't be any good. Right? But if you're
951
00:57:49,456 --> 00:57:53,168
looking for fill your rack up with 15 bottles of wine for $45, it's the
952
00:57:53,184 --> 00:57:56,504
right place to go. Well, let's tell people where to go. And we can also
953
00:57:56,552 --> 00:57:59,488
tell people that coming soon, my wine,
954
00:57:59,584 --> 00:58:03,432
33, will be available as well. Wine
955
00:58:03,456 --> 00:58:07,104
of the month club is where you can go. Wine of the month
956
00:58:07,152 --> 00:58:10,580
club. Oldest
957
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:14,400
in the country. Oldest, yeah, oldest in the world. I mean, it's
958
00:58:14,440 --> 00:58:17,920
weird. It's kind of your business and my business the same way because you go,
959
00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:21,744
I'm one of the oldest podcasters. Well, of course, because it
960
00:58:21,912 --> 00:58:25,400
didn't exist before this. And the
961
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:28,620
podcast wine talk with Paul
962
00:58:30,400 --> 00:58:34,168
Calum Carrion. Yeah, we. You know, we. Actually, my pr firm changed it to
963
00:58:34,184 --> 00:58:37,902
Paul K. Oh, Paul. Kate. The rest is silent. Paul
964
00:58:37,966 --> 00:58:41,494
Alphabet, everybody. Well, I'm
965
00:58:41,622 --> 00:58:45,110
excited to do business with you. I'm excited to come on your
966
00:58:45,150 --> 00:58:48,710
program as well. Who knew our love
967
00:58:48,750 --> 00:58:52,534
of Mark Garagas? All things
968
00:58:52,582 --> 00:58:56,414
Shelby talked for a long. Time on both those subjects.
969
00:58:56,462 --> 00:58:59,966
I'm just finishing. Just finishing a Shelby doc
970
00:59:00,038 --> 00:59:03,688
that I'll have to make sure to. Yeah, let's check it
971
00:59:03,704 --> 00:59:07,336
out. Oh, boy, because that guy, that guy's an onion.
972
00:59:07,448 --> 00:59:11,160
You just keep peeling that guy, man. You know, there was a, he was honored
973
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:13,540
by the, an adolescent
974
00:59:14,960 --> 00:59:17,980
organ transplant group at the
975
00:59:18,840 --> 00:59:22,620
universal Sheraton a few years ago, and also along with him was an armenian
976
00:59:23,040 --> 00:59:25,648
doctor who's a very close friend of ours. And I said, well, I got to
977
00:59:25,664 --> 00:59:29,312
go to this. There must have been like 50 people, complete access to
978
00:59:29,336 --> 00:59:32,984
Carroll Shelby. So I took a picture of my mustang, and he said, what do
979
00:59:32,992 --> 00:59:35,472
you got there? And he signs it for me. And we chat a little bit.
980
00:59:35,496 --> 00:59:39,192
We talked about his chili. Totally approachable. He started
981
00:59:39,256 --> 00:59:42,260
a whole chili cook off in Texas as well.
982
00:59:43,000 --> 00:59:46,648
All right, well, I'll come be a guest on your show, and we'll do
983
00:59:46,664 --> 00:59:49,952
it post haste. We look forward to that. And again,
984
00:59:50,056 --> 00:59:53,712
wine of the month, sorry, wine of the
985
00:59:53,736 --> 00:59:57,424
month club. And you can look out for my wines.
986
00:59:57,472 --> 01:00:00,856
33 coming on soon. And until next time, Adam
987
01:00:00,888 --> 01:00:03,512
Carolla for Paul K. Saying
988
01:00:03,656 --> 01:00:04,740
mahala.
00:00:00,840 --> 00:00:04,246
Hey, it's Paul K. And I was recently the guest on Adam Carolla's show take
2
00:00:04,278 --> 00:00:05,810
a knee. Have a listen.
3
00:00:07,870 --> 00:00:11,542
Well, get it on. Got to get on. A choice, Manny. Get on. And welcome
4
00:00:11,566 --> 00:00:14,686
to our inspirational, motivational podcast. It's take a
5
00:00:14,718 --> 00:00:18,422
knee. We're going to the wine business today, and we
6
00:00:18,446 --> 00:00:21,886
talked to people from many different industries. Paul,
7
00:00:22,038 --> 00:00:25,422
calm Carian. Yeah, that's perfect. I said it right? Yeah. All
8
00:00:25,446 --> 00:00:28,844
right. Armenian. 100% Armenian. You.
9
00:00:28,892 --> 00:00:32,212
You know Mark Garagas? I know Mark well, actually went to his
10
00:00:32,236 --> 00:00:36,012
wedding. Wow. Yeah, his wedding with Paulette, my wife.
11
00:00:36,076 --> 00:00:39,612
We were all there. Well, this is good. It's a good
12
00:00:39,676 --> 00:00:43,324
start for our relationship. Well, his mom and my mother were very
13
00:00:43,372 --> 00:00:47,124
close when they were younger. I gotta tell you, one thing I've learned
14
00:00:47,172 --> 00:00:50,692
from Mark Garagas is how the Armenians,
15
00:00:50,836 --> 00:00:54,428
how, what a tight knit community they are. It's amazingly
16
00:00:54,484 --> 00:00:58,246
tight. However, there's a. A whole bunch of factions. Is the russian
17
00:00:58,278 --> 00:01:01,838
Armenians in Monabel, there's the Haya Stanse Armenians in
18
00:01:01,854 --> 00:01:05,290
Glendale. It's rather diversified, but we're all relatives.
19
00:01:05,710 --> 00:01:09,490
And the podcast, by the way, wine talk with Paul
20
00:01:09,830 --> 00:01:13,270
Kalamakarian, it's available on Apple
21
00:01:13,310 --> 00:01:16,846
Podcast. And I'll be on the show
22
00:01:16,918 --> 00:01:20,454
soon, so I look forward to that. Okay.
23
00:01:20,502 --> 00:01:24,192
Wine. And you and your family brag a
24
00:01:24,216 --> 00:01:27,968
little bit. Well, this is. I'm so happy to be
25
00:01:27,984 --> 00:01:31,656
here looking at your list of the past guests. I'm very honored, actually.
26
00:01:31,848 --> 00:01:35,368
But the wine, the wine business, the direct to consumer wine business in America is
27
00:01:35,384 --> 00:01:39,048
a $3 billion business. $3 billion?
28
00:01:39,144 --> 00:01:42,568
$3 billion. What was it, ten years
29
00:01:42,584 --> 00:01:46,016
ago or in the year 2000? Oh, 2000 was
30
00:01:46,048 --> 00:01:49,872
probably 500 million, maybe, something like that.
31
00:01:49,896 --> 00:01:53,582
So it's gone up substantially. Substantially. And
32
00:01:53,726 --> 00:01:57,574
just like everything, sort of not eliminating
33
00:01:57,622 --> 00:02:00,730
the middleman, but just having things brought to your home,
34
00:02:01,190 --> 00:02:04,966
whatever that. I mean, when I was a kid, if
35
00:02:04,998 --> 00:02:08,814
a Sears catalog would have showed up every four years, it was like a
36
00:02:08,862 --> 00:02:12,570
big deal. And now it is literally just
37
00:02:13,110 --> 00:02:16,710
a round robin of folks coming to my house, dropping off
38
00:02:16,750 --> 00:02:20,014
stuff all day, every day. The helms truck. Did you have the helms truck when
39
00:02:20,022 --> 00:02:23,390
you were a kid? That was a little rich. The
40
00:02:23,430 --> 00:02:27,246
bakery. Yeah, they had milkman and the bakery guy and
41
00:02:27,278 --> 00:02:31,094
everything. And the Helms bakery, which was famous, but not for
42
00:02:31,102 --> 00:02:34,798
the Corollas. Cause it costs money. So that's the wine man. The guy
43
00:02:34,854 --> 00:02:38,702
delivered bottles to your door. So this is a
44
00:02:38,726 --> 00:02:42,470
family business? It's a family business. My dad started in 1972
45
00:02:42,510 --> 00:02:46,020
and a little wine shop in Palace Ridge estates. You know,
46
00:02:46,060 --> 00:02:49,788
interesting story. He bought his last pharmacy, he was actually a pharmacist by trade. He
47
00:02:49,804 --> 00:02:53,396
was a chemist. Came to America in 1949, got his
48
00:02:53,428 --> 00:02:57,100
masters at USC and fell in love with wine
49
00:02:57,140 --> 00:03:00,836
because Queen Elizabeth came to America
50
00:03:00,868 --> 00:03:04,668
and the Ike served her a cabernet sauvignon
51
00:03:04,724 --> 00:03:08,492
from Napa Valley. My dad thought that was really interesting. And his
52
00:03:08,516 --> 00:03:12,214
love of wine started then, like 1958 or something. Mm. Ike.
53
00:03:12,262 --> 00:03:15,262
As in the president? As in the president, yeah. Well, we're first name basis Ike.
54
00:03:15,286 --> 00:03:17,210
You know, I like Ike.
55
00:03:18,430 --> 00:03:22,134
So the wine,
56
00:03:22,222 --> 00:03:25,870
I mean, God, it's so old, it's so new, it's so
57
00:03:25,950 --> 00:03:29,646
evolving. We always talk about all the places you couldn't formally
58
00:03:29,718 --> 00:03:33,462
make wine and now you can. And now every
59
00:03:33,486 --> 00:03:36,902
time I talk to an expert, it's everywhere in the United States has
60
00:03:36,926 --> 00:03:39,860
a burgeoning wine industry.
61
00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:46,568
But the subscription, I should say, not prescription, that
62
00:03:46,584 --> 00:03:50,300
was your dad's old business.
63
00:03:51,560 --> 00:03:55,256
How did he begin that? Well, first of all, you said something
64
00:03:55,288 --> 00:03:59,056
interesting. The oldest winery ever found in the world,
65
00:03:59,168 --> 00:04:02,848
intact sandals, amphora vessels for fermentation was in
66
00:04:02,864 --> 00:04:06,688
Armenia. Oh, really? 6000 years old. They found it a few years
67
00:04:06,704 --> 00:04:10,408
ago. It's now a tourist destination. I mean, the guy's sandals were there,
68
00:04:10,464 --> 00:04:14,272
so, I mean, that's bizarre, right? So. And my dad would
69
00:04:14,296 --> 00:04:17,176
tell this story that when he was in Egypt and his father would send him
70
00:04:17,208 --> 00:04:20,952
down to the pharmacy to get the prescriptions. Next door was the
71
00:04:20,976 --> 00:04:24,640
wine shop. And he'd say, son, you know, get me a half a liter
72
00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:27,736
of sweet and a half a liter of dry. I want the guy to blend
73
00:04:27,768 --> 00:04:31,392
it for me. So when my dad was a child, he would be actually going
74
00:04:31,416 --> 00:04:34,248
to the pharmacy and the wine shop at the same time, which was kind of
75
00:04:34,264 --> 00:04:38,040
interesting when you said it was a prescription or subscription. Right. So as
76
00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:41,888
at the wine shop in Palos Verdes, it was connected to his pharmacy. And people
77
00:04:41,944 --> 00:04:45,096
were asking him to come across from the pharmacy to the wine shop to make
78
00:04:45,128 --> 00:04:48,888
recommendations. And he was finding out that really the people that
79
00:04:48,904 --> 00:04:52,744
came in the pharmacy were, like, sick and tired and aching. People coming in
80
00:04:52,752 --> 00:04:55,586
the wine shop were like, hey, I'm looking for a good time. That was much
81
00:04:55,618 --> 00:04:59,346
more fun. Well, I do want to say this to people as
82
00:04:59,378 --> 00:05:03,210
it pertains to whatever their occupation is or maybe,
83
00:05:03,250 --> 00:05:04,630
or what they're trying to.
84
00:05:07,210 --> 00:05:09,830
A lot of folks are trying to get from one place to another.
85
00:05:11,730 --> 00:05:15,514
My dad worked at a different profession. So my dad worked at
86
00:05:15,522 --> 00:05:19,330
a place called five acres and it's in Altadena.
87
00:05:19,490 --> 00:05:23,132
And it was basically an orphanage, you know,
88
00:05:23,276 --> 00:05:26,240
and it was always. And my grandmother
89
00:05:26,660 --> 00:05:30,124
worked at the VA hospital in
90
00:05:30,212 --> 00:05:33,720
Westwood, and it was always like, we don't have enough money.
91
00:05:34,020 --> 00:05:37,332
Nobody has any money. None of the patients have
92
00:05:37,396 --> 00:05:41,116
money. They're orphaned kids, you know, or they're veterans, you know,
93
00:05:41,188 --> 00:05:44,444
and everyone's hurt and injured and screwed up and
94
00:05:44,492 --> 00:05:48,334
psychologically damaged and whatever. And I remember kind of thinking, well,
95
00:05:48,382 --> 00:05:52,214
good luck getting paid, because all you can do is sort of beg
96
00:05:52,262 --> 00:05:55,838
for more money, but you can't ever really get paid
97
00:05:55,894 --> 00:05:59,678
because your customers don't pay, they don't have
98
00:05:59,734 --> 00:06:03,086
money. And you're catching them all on a pretty bad
99
00:06:03,158 --> 00:06:06,654
day because they've been taken away from their
100
00:06:06,702 --> 00:06:10,390
parents or they've been injured in foreign wars.
101
00:06:10,510 --> 00:06:13,610
And I thought, while it's noble,
102
00:06:14,230 --> 00:06:17,854
I'd rather do something where people were having a good
103
00:06:17,902 --> 00:06:21,734
time, having a good day. You know, when I go out and do
104
00:06:21,782 --> 00:06:25,470
stand up, people come out on a Saturday night. They're having drinks, they're
105
00:06:25,510 --> 00:06:29,166
eating, they're enjoying themselves like you're catching them on
106
00:06:29,198 --> 00:06:32,410
a good day. Think about jobs.
107
00:06:32,990 --> 00:06:36,798
I would never want to be a meter maid, because I just wouldn't want
108
00:06:36,814 --> 00:06:40,646
to ruin people's days. I don't. I don't get that. But the
109
00:06:40,678 --> 00:06:44,454
difference between the pharmacist and the wine is
110
00:06:44,502 --> 00:06:48,150
the pharmacist is people are coming in because they're having a bad day.
111
00:06:48,310 --> 00:06:52,038
And the wine, you're probably catching people on a good day,
112
00:06:52,094 --> 00:06:55,830
or at least the beginning of a good night. That's exactly. Exactly what
113
00:06:55,870 --> 00:06:59,302
happened. We had one customer when I worked in the store. I was a teenager.
114
00:06:59,326 --> 00:07:02,494
The woman comes in. My dad used to offer credit because Pauls Verdes is a
115
00:07:02,502 --> 00:07:06,334
very affluent neighborhood, and she says, I would
116
00:07:06,382 --> 00:07:09,882
never pay for my good time later.
117
00:07:10,066 --> 00:07:12,714
I'll pay for it now, and I'll have it, and then I'm gonna go on
118
00:07:12,762 --> 00:07:15,786
my day. Cause why would I wanna be tagged with a bill later in the
119
00:07:15,818 --> 00:07:19,506
month? Right? Right. So that's really what happened. Look, the wine guy is
120
00:07:19,538 --> 00:07:23,346
always welcome at the party. Always. I've literally been invited
121
00:07:23,378 --> 00:07:27,030
to parties because I'm in the wine business. Yeah. Isn't that great?
122
00:07:27,330 --> 00:07:30,938
No, it's true. I just hung
123
00:07:30,994 --> 00:07:34,536
out with a guy. We just met him in a lobby in a
124
00:07:34,568 --> 00:07:38,416
hotel in Portland two weeks ago. And
125
00:07:38,568 --> 00:07:42,072
he was like, oh, I'm a fan. I like you guys, or whatever. And I
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started talking, and then he started talking about liking cars,
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and I said, well, we're going to go up to Laguna Seca and do a
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race in a couple of weeks. And he said, I'll cook for
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you. And we never met this guy before, but we're all like, well,
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we like free meat. And the next thing you know, this guy's just
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hanging with us in our Airbnb, cooking up ribs and brisket,
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drinking scotch and having a good time. Like, yeah, it's
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kind of like, you know, if you want to get a chick's bra off, tell
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her you give her a massage. Yeah, right, exactly. You get invited to the
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party. So you probably gonna say we have a relationship. Another relationship.
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Your mechanic, Shawn. Shawn. He is building
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my brother in law's 37 Ford pickup. Wow. There is
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an armo connection, man, that runs deep with us. Yeah,
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this is serious. Very, very serious. Serious vehicle. Easier for you to
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say. He goes by Sean with me. But the
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armo's name is Shunt, right? Right. Yes. So the wine. The wine
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guy, you know, he's always welcome to the party, but in the business is
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a fun business. I mean, let's face it. Wine and see. But it's one of
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those business, like you were talking about. It's not. There's a lot of money in
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it. If you're, for instance, on the wholesale side, or even if you're
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a winery, make money in a winery. That's the old small fortune, you
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know, start with a small fortune, because that's what you can end up with. There's
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no money in the business. So I work very hard to taste wines
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for my customers. Every Tuesday, I taste between 50 and 60 wines. And
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that's a tough day, really, because that's the day I get home from work, and
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my wife's like, I'd like a glass of wine. Thank you.
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I'll just fart near you, and you'll get a buzz. So your
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dad's selling wine, but he's not doing it
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via the. He's nothing. Bringing it via the mail or it's
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not mail order. So people are walking in, customers are
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asking, what do you suggest, Paul? And he makes the suggestions,
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and then they'd move, because he did a lot of business with aerospace firms. A
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lot of customers were from aerospace and pv. So they would move out of town.
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They'd be transferred to Huntsville, Alabama, or something. And he would. They'd say,
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send me your samples, Paul. They're really good wines. I enjoyed them. Just send them
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to me. And that's really the impetus of the show, of the company.
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And I'm saying 1979 is when these
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people started leaving town. He started the club at 72.
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Wasn't much until, really, 84. He was going to sell
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it. He got an offer from a south african firm
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in 88. He said, you know, why don't you come join me? See if you'd
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like this idea. What was your plan at
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the beginning? Yeah, did you have a plan? I never had a plan.
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Well, I. I had the worst
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plan. I think I just grew up
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and I loved football, and I was good at it when I was
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a kid. Like, I was a peewee, you know? And I didn't really get the
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whole part where you don't have the genetics to play football. I was just
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kicking ass when I was ten. And I was like, well, I'll just keep kicking
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ass until I get to the pros. And I just thought, I'll
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play football. And I had no other plan. I had no other education.
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And then at some point, I finished high school.
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I was an all valley football player. But not. Not nearly.
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Not nearly good enough to get anywhere near another. Like I
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said, no level beyond that at all.
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So then I was just stupid. If I could play
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football, but no, there's no football to play. And
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I just started digging ditches on a construction site because I was like, I'll
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do something physical. Cause I'm not a big student, but I could
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dig. I'll work hard. I learned from football. Like, I'll just go out in the
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sun and dig all day. I didn't. I'll do it. And then
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that's. That's what I did. And beyond
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that, I didn't really have a plan. And then almost immediately,
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I was like, oh, this sucks. Like,
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what? The first day, you mean something like that? Just. You're literally sat in the
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sun digging. Like, oh, that's what I did. And that was the plan.
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Yeah, but I was like, the plan was to play football. Now
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I'm digging, and this is miserable. And so I was like,
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hmm, what's a better plan? Plus, I liked
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cars. And I was like, cars are expensive, and you drive.
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You have to drive a pickup truck and live in apartments.
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And I. And I just went, I could do comedy.
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That was my second thought. Well, it was. It
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wasn't. I could do comedy. It's what I could you
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do. And the answer is, I could dig ditches.
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I could be a carpenter, and I could also
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do comedy. I knew I couldn't be in
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accounting, and I couldn't be a professor and I couldn't be a
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lawyer and I couldn't be a schoolteacher. I wouldn't
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be able to take the tests or write the essays or pass the tests or
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get certified or anything. But I knew I had a sense of humorous,
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and I knew I could build stuff. So I was like, that's amazing. The
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building stuff's not paying very well, so why don't I start
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going, pursuing the humor part. And that's what I
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did. I didn't get paid for a million. Years, but still,
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to know that you could take on that role. Cause that's a, you
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know, that's risky and it's scary and people have fear of the stage.
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I mean, well, it's not risky when you're
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destitute and digging ditches for a living. There's nothing. There's not risk.
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I wasn't risking anything because I didn't have any lifestyle, any quality
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of life. But it was a fair, it
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was a fair assessment. Like, I was like,
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I have a good sense of humor and I don't mind digging
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ditches and building stuff. Those are my two qualities. Hey, at least you had
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a self realization of something. Yeah, I wasn't like, you gotta
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sing because I can't sing. I knew what I could
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do and I knew what I couldn't do. People should do more of
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that. So for you. That's true. That's true. What were your
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early thoughts? Well, I left SC. I went to
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SC because my, when my dad came to America in 1949, SC gave him a
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job. They gave him the job to open the very first on campus pharmacy, which
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he did. And I have the daily Trojan from 1954 that shows
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that. And he says, you're going to SC. My sister went to Princeton. My brother
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went to Long beach, and he said, you're going to Sc. I owe them a
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favor. I owe them a living. So I went, I got Sc. I didn't know
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what I was going to do. I went to corporate America. I went to Xerox,
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you know, one of the great sales organizations of the world at that time. It
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was only second to IBM and got a great training for four or five years
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of banging on doors and selling copiers. Some copiers that were like
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$250,000 in 1982. Wow. And then I
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got asked to come join a small company called Telenomics that sold
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software. I had no idea what it did. There was five guys. They gave me
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5% of the company. I thought equity and something was better than nothing.
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And so I sat at my phone in my apartment with a two line phone,
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and I started calling business cards that have a fishbowl. And it was
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a very challenging thing to do. I think I mentioned
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in the pre interview that I left the office probably two
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or three times on a Friday morning with no money in the bank to go
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make payroll. And we had two or three on our staff, and I had to
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go find a check somewhere. Where am I going to get paid? I either had
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to pick up a check from a delinquent customer or
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sell something new and get a check on the way out the door. So you
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kind of cut your teeth that way. But it's all good
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partnerships. They're not too many Johnson and Johnson's and hewlett and Packard's in the world.
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So about five years into it, we started arguing and not
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getting along. And my dad says, you know, I'm a little
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tired, and I think maybe you can do this with your experience.
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So I went and worked for them for three months, tasting wine with them,
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packing wine. I saw your packing line out here.
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And one day we went to a tasting together. We got split up,
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and he was at one chair and I was across the room and we tasted
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about 20 wines. And when we got in the car together, we compared
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notes and we were right on 85% congruency with
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what we liked and what we didn't like. And he goes, yeah, you're
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ready. And I never saw him again. He moved to. He moved.
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He moved to julian, which is. Where's Julian? It's not the edge of the
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world, but you can see it from there. It's like three or 4 hours into
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the Cleveland forest. It's ridiculous. So
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you had these other skills, like, I'm a
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big fan of developing skills and skill sets
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and kind of then transferring them sort of universally to
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other applications. So you felt like you had a
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base, laid down skill set. What would
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your strength or your skillset have been before you entered into the
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wine business? You know, it's funny you ask a good question, because
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I don't have any fear. My wife doesn't. Just can't understand
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how I have no fear to test, to try to risk. It
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doesn't matter to me. I figured I'm land on my feet somehow, some way. And
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so there was one episode with this company where this guy was threatening
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my wife and my kids. We owed him
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$10,000 in modems back then. We had little modems
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used to make the noise. And he went on to threaten my kids. And
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I said, let me ask you a question. This is the guy who's in Colorado.
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I said, well, let me ask you a question. Are you married? He says, yeah.
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I said, have you ever heard of the turkish genocide? Armenian genocide? He goes, yeah.
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I said, well, let me tell you what we learned. And I go on to
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this very graphic explanation of what the Turks did to the armenian
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husbands. I said, so just, you'll get your money and I never want to hear
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from you again. And I thought at that point no one could scare me than
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anything. So when my dad said, do you want to come try this thing? And
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it was. We were selling, I don't know, a couple thousand bottles a month, I
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think. I'm sure I go, we can do this.
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Well, that's a good point, which is I
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think people
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contemplate the
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possibilities. It's a weird thing
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because it's a good thing. It's good to have a plan.
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It's good to go down the road
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a year or six months or five years and go, where would you like to
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be? Or what are you thinking about? But if you
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overdo it in that department, it's stifling. You
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have to just, you know, I'm going on year eleven of doing a
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podcast. And there was no plan, there was no thoughts
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of what it, what, what's the end game or how it's
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going to work out or if it's going to work out. It was just, it
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felt like what, it felt like the right thing to do.
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And it was organic. And I never really sat and
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weighed the pros and the cons. There wasn't even any pros
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per se. Hey, there's that time. The possibility of something one day,
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who knows? And now it seems pretty pedestrian to
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do a podcast. But it wasn't when I started.
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And you know, people always go, how'd you know it was going to work? I
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always hate when people say that. How'd you know? How'd you. Nobody knows. You can't
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do a wine club or a podcast and think it's going to work. Those are
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low percentage jobs. You just do them because you do them.
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And a lot of times stuff doesn't work, but you don't
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drowndeze with it. You let it go, let it sink to the bottom
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and grab on to your next buoy. I think if somebody told you all
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the headwinds you'd run into trying to do this,
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you would have gone, forget it, I'm not going down that road. Because you
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learn as you go, you take on each challenge, and that challenge makes you
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smarter, it makes you wiser, it makes you not make that mistake again if
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you had one. And it's like, persistence is omnipotent. If you
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can't pursue something, then what do you have? What dreams do you have that you
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that you want to pursue. That's my, like, I got. So what,
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what really is, like, what do we file into
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the loss department? You know what I mean? I mean, there's a monetary
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loss, okay? But that's not the end all and be all. People make
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money, and then you lose money. Sometimes you buy a house and you
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sell it, and you lose some money, and sometimes you buy a house and you
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sell it, you make some money or a car or whatever. So
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are we just, what's the yardstick that we're measuring failure
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by? And if you get a ton of experience and you
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learn a bunch of stuff and you're in one piece
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and you come out the other end, then why is it a loss
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or any relationship? You know what I mean? Anybody
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dated when you were in college or something, it's like, is it a loss? I
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mean, every relationship ends. Every job ends. Eventually the house
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moves. You move from the house, eventually you die. So what are we to
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call. How are we even grading this? And I think
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this notion of, like, everything's got to make money, everything's got to work, and everything's
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going to be successful, and it has to be done immediately. That's an unfair
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yardstick to measure success. You're right on. Because
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there's no such thing as a loss, because everything's a win. Everything you
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do that becomes headwinds. That becomes
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potentially, at that immediate moment by a failed at. This
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is really a success because you can't be successful without them. And
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I can't tell you how many people
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that I know have passed away with millions,
345
00:20:56,420 --> 00:21:00,244
millions and millions of dollars in the bank. So what.
346
00:21:00,372 --> 00:21:03,320
I mean, what are you gonna do with it now?
347
00:21:05,140 --> 00:21:08,772
I don't know. But they felt successful. They felt like they had reached the
348
00:21:08,796 --> 00:21:11,508
goal because they have all this money, but the only people spending it are the
349
00:21:11,524 --> 00:21:15,342
people that they left behind. Yeah. I mean, you get a little older,
350
00:21:15,366 --> 00:21:19,174
you get a little philosophical, but that's true.
351
00:21:19,302 --> 00:21:22,822
You know, I think the plan is, if you want to do something,
352
00:21:22,926 --> 00:21:26,686
it's not a bad idea, but at
353
00:21:26,718 --> 00:21:30,170
another point, you have to
354
00:21:31,310 --> 00:21:34,854
tune yourself so that you're on a frequency
355
00:21:34,942 --> 00:21:38,630
so you can hear yourself. And when people
356
00:21:38,710 --> 00:21:42,532
say, why do you want to do this? Or why you? And why are you
357
00:21:42,596 --> 00:21:46,036
endeavoring to do this new venture or whatever it is? You
358
00:21:46,068 --> 00:21:49,844
go, cause that's what I wanna do. And then they always go,
359
00:21:49,892 --> 00:21:53,588
well, how do you know it's gonna whatever? And you go, I'm tuned into myself,
360
00:21:53,684 --> 00:21:57,520
and this is what. This is what I want. And
361
00:21:58,620 --> 00:22:02,308
that you end up. When you do that, you're gonna
362
00:22:02,364 --> 00:22:06,004
end up with some. There's gonna be some swings and some
363
00:22:06,052 --> 00:22:09,440
misses because you've been to the plate so many times.
364
00:22:09,910 --> 00:22:13,614
You know, there's going to be strikeouts because you can't make that many plate
365
00:22:13,662 --> 00:22:17,494
appearances without having a bunch of strikeouts. But there's going to
366
00:22:17,502 --> 00:22:21,270
be a lot of round trippers and grand slams in there sprinkled in there,
367
00:22:21,310 --> 00:22:24,958
too. Absolutely. And that's ultimately a life
368
00:22:25,014 --> 00:22:28,758
well lived. And by the way, what's the opposite? I
369
00:22:28,774 --> 00:22:32,446
mean, if you want to try to figure something out, go, what's
370
00:22:32,478 --> 00:22:35,888
the opposite? Well, the opposite is
371
00:22:35,944 --> 00:22:39,256
working at the same postal sorting
372
00:22:39,328 --> 00:22:42,728
facility for 57 years and living in the same
373
00:22:42,784 --> 00:22:46,248
apartment with the same cat. Like, okay, the
374
00:22:46,304 --> 00:22:49,944
opposite of movement and trying things out and
375
00:22:50,032 --> 00:22:53,720
love and loss and failure and all that kind of stuff,
376
00:22:53,800 --> 00:22:57,344
is what I just said. You work at the same factory
377
00:22:57,432 --> 00:23:01,024
for 60 years and you live in the same apartment. Well, if we can agree
378
00:23:01,112 --> 00:23:04,920
that's not a good life, then let's do the opposite.
379
00:23:05,220 --> 00:23:08,620
Were you add, when you were a kid, would you consider that? Would you
380
00:23:08,780 --> 00:23:12,080
not knowing that that existed then? No. I mean, yes.
381
00:23:12,380 --> 00:23:16,020
All I knew is I was indoors. I wanted to get outdoors.
382
00:23:16,140 --> 00:23:19,840
Like, I would sit in a classroom and just kind of go bananas.
383
00:23:20,220 --> 00:23:23,844
I would have been probably diagnosed, if such a syndrome really
384
00:23:23,892 --> 00:23:27,652
exists, that I have that and I can't sit. And I
385
00:23:27,676 --> 00:23:31,468
think it's perfectly fine for some people that, for instance, let's say I stayed
386
00:23:31,484 --> 00:23:34,834
in corporate America, worked for Xerox, got to be a vice president. I know one
387
00:23:34,842 --> 00:23:38,658
of the guys I worked with became, I don't know, some head southern South America
388
00:23:38,674 --> 00:23:42,266
or something. I don't know. I couldn't do that. Right. I'd
389
00:23:42,298 --> 00:23:46,018
rather be taking step, walk on eggshells to see if I can get
390
00:23:46,034 --> 00:23:49,794
across than sit in the office and collect my pension when
391
00:23:49,802 --> 00:23:52,802
I'm done with it. That, to me, was not interesting. I had no interest in
392
00:23:52,826 --> 00:23:56,178
doing that. And I'd prefer to test myself, test the
393
00:23:56,194 --> 00:23:59,834
edges, take the risks and make and lose.
394
00:23:59,922 --> 00:24:03,510
I made a lot of mistakes. You know, you keep pursuing and,
395
00:24:03,590 --> 00:24:07,170
well. The, you know, the other thing I realize whether it's a business
396
00:24:07,510 --> 00:24:11,350
or whether it's building, because I get into this sometimes when I'm building, which
397
00:24:11,390 --> 00:24:15,110
is I like to move fast. Like, I like
398
00:24:15,150 --> 00:24:18,918
progress. If I'm building something, I want to see something, I want
399
00:24:18,934 --> 00:24:22,286
to see something done. You know, there's all the
400
00:24:22,318 --> 00:24:25,782
planning phase of everything. But I like visual
401
00:24:25,846 --> 00:24:28,370
progress, man. I like. And. And so
402
00:24:29,340 --> 00:24:33,068
sometimes when you're looking for progress when you
403
00:24:33,084 --> 00:24:36,644
just go, I don't want to, at the end of the week, I don't want
404
00:24:36,652 --> 00:24:40,484
to look at a slab where the guest house is going to be.
405
00:24:40,532 --> 00:24:43,644
I want to see a framed guest house. I want to see a guest house
406
00:24:43,692 --> 00:24:46,860
there. Not finish, but I'm going to see the frame of it
407
00:24:46,940 --> 00:24:50,480
up. Well, what inevitably happens,
408
00:24:50,900 --> 00:24:54,652
and I've done it to myself a few times, you move
409
00:24:54,716 --> 00:24:58,282
fast, and sometimes you'll make mistakes. And when you make a
410
00:24:58,306 --> 00:25:01,466
mistake in your building and you're moving
411
00:25:01,538 --> 00:25:05,298
fast, you'll have to stop, go back,
412
00:25:05,474 --> 00:25:08,922
fix whatever that thing is, and then go ahead again.
413
00:25:09,026 --> 00:25:12,802
And sometimes you're moving fast
414
00:25:12,946 --> 00:25:16,434
can temporarily slow you down if you're
415
00:25:16,482 --> 00:25:20,266
moving fast. But big picture, I
416
00:25:20,298 --> 00:25:24,094
prefer to move fast, even if it means that
417
00:25:24,222 --> 00:25:27,782
it's like we're going to speed up the conveyor belt. There's going to be a
418
00:25:27,806 --> 00:25:31,534
couple more cookies that fall on the ground and break because I've
419
00:25:31,582 --> 00:25:35,246
sped up the conveyor belt and I'm willing to
420
00:25:35,278 --> 00:25:38,850
deal with that like that. I understand that part of
421
00:25:39,350 --> 00:25:42,130
what goes along with moving quickly
422
00:25:42,470 --> 00:25:45,846
is some broken cookies, but I'd rather
423
00:25:45,918 --> 00:25:49,486
have the conveyor belt moving faster. That just reminded me of the Lucy
424
00:25:49,518 --> 00:25:52,962
show. Yes, she was at the chocolate factory. I
425
00:25:52,986 --> 00:25:56,830
think I have the same attribute.
426
00:25:57,890 --> 00:26:01,170
My staff, and we have 15 or 20 at the office at any given
427
00:26:01,210 --> 00:26:05,018
time. They're constantly coming to me and saying, you
428
00:26:05,034 --> 00:26:08,722
forgot this, or you didn't do this, or whatever, and I'm good with that.
429
00:26:08,866 --> 00:26:12,506
I'm fine. Let's fix it and move to the next step. Because particularly in today's
430
00:26:12,538 --> 00:26:16,362
environment, marketing, for sure, of the Internet is ridiculously, it's the wild west out there
431
00:26:16,386 --> 00:26:20,186
right now. If you're not moving fast, you are losing. It's
432
00:26:20,218 --> 00:26:23,890
impossible to keep up with the changes. But part of it
433
00:26:23,930 --> 00:26:27,754
also is just a kind of a wiring. It's a wiring for sure. And
434
00:26:27,802 --> 00:26:29,630
there's a notion of, like,
435
00:26:31,490 --> 00:26:35,298
you also realize that whatever doesn't go on for
436
00:26:35,474 --> 00:26:38,954
eternity and you want to make some hay while the sun is shining. Absolutely. You
437
00:26:38,962 --> 00:26:42,626
just have feelings. Like, there's stuff you want to
438
00:26:42,658 --> 00:26:45,968
do. I don't know why. You know, I think a lot of people think,
439
00:26:46,024 --> 00:26:49,608
like, you're
440
00:26:49,664 --> 00:26:53,288
perfectionist or you're obsessed
441
00:26:53,344 --> 00:26:57,120
with something, and it's like, nah, just want to do a whole bunch of stuff
442
00:26:57,160 --> 00:27:00,960
in a short period of time. I get that same. Like, you're
443
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:04,688
defining my office environment. In my environment, it's, my wife
444
00:27:04,744 --> 00:27:08,592
is a CPA, and she's all about auditing and make sure. The numbers add
445
00:27:08,616 --> 00:27:10,868
up at the bottom, and I'm like, I don't even know what they look like.
446
00:27:10,984 --> 00:27:14,660
I'm already past that equation, and I'm onto
447
00:27:14,700 --> 00:27:18,300
something new. And maybe that's why we get along. We've been doing business for 25
448
00:27:18,340 --> 00:27:22,012
years together. I don't know about Lynette, but that's just our
449
00:27:22,076 --> 00:27:25,040
yin and yang, the way office works. But
450
00:27:25,620 --> 00:27:28,732
I've got to get to the next step. And I don't think this company would
451
00:27:28,756 --> 00:27:32,356
be anywhere, even still in business today with the congestion that's in my
452
00:27:32,388 --> 00:27:34,556
industry, if we didn't do that.
453
00:27:34,708 --> 00:27:38,444
Wineofthemonthclub.com, by the way, I should put
454
00:27:38,492 --> 00:27:42,226
that out there. Oldest sustained mail order wine club
455
00:27:42,308 --> 00:27:45,838
in the United States. Wow. It's so weird that
456
00:27:45,974 --> 00:27:49,726
time is moving so fast. It's funny that wine is so old,
457
00:27:49,798 --> 00:27:53,550
but the mail order business is not nearly as old
458
00:27:53,710 --> 00:27:57,470
as the wine. But again, going on, what are we
459
00:27:57,510 --> 00:28:01,358
coming up on? Four years. Did you answer on the back of the
460
00:28:01,374 --> 00:28:04,910
cereal box? Of course. Maybe that little
461
00:28:04,950 --> 00:28:08,650
submarine that was activated by vinegar and soda. You know,
462
00:28:08,770 --> 00:28:12,362
baking soda. It wasn't affordable at the house,
463
00:28:12,426 --> 00:28:16,066
but, you know, that was mail order. Right. But that was allow
464
00:28:16,138 --> 00:28:19,578
four to six weeks for delivery. Right. Can you get away with that today? That's,
465
00:28:19,594 --> 00:28:22,994
like, impossible. It's like, we don't have it today or tomorrow. We're. And that's one
466
00:28:23,002 --> 00:28:26,570
of the things my company's been able to manage through all this, is
467
00:28:26,610 --> 00:28:29,830
keeping up with this progress of shipping and
468
00:28:30,250 --> 00:28:34,000
marketing and customer service that expects
469
00:28:34,130 --> 00:28:37,120
at least the next day. Right. It is.
470
00:28:38,100 --> 00:28:41,756
It is crazy. And, yeah, they. When I was growing up, it always
471
00:28:41,788 --> 00:28:45,612
be four to six weeks. Four to six weeks for this, for delivery.
472
00:28:45,716 --> 00:28:49,228
And I haven't thought about one of those weird sub things in a while. It
473
00:28:49,244 --> 00:28:52,476
was a weird little plastic sub thing, and
474
00:28:52,588 --> 00:28:56,020
somehow you put some baking soda in it and maybe a little
475
00:28:56,060 --> 00:28:59,908
vinegar, and it would react with the water. Right. And then it
476
00:28:59,924 --> 00:29:03,292
would take on water and, like, dive down, and then some bubbles would come out,
477
00:29:03,316 --> 00:29:06,712
and it would pop up again, and it was like, kid would beat me over
478
00:29:06,736 --> 00:29:10,448
the head with that thing because he's got Fortnite, and
479
00:29:10,464 --> 00:29:14,136
he's wearing his virtual reality goggles. But for us, that's about all we.
480
00:29:14,168 --> 00:29:17,720
Had, is that Fortnite kid. He's like. He
481
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:21,200
likes. I got twins. They're 13,
482
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:25,176
and they're into fantasy football, which
483
00:29:25,208 --> 00:29:28,856
is like, I don't. I don't know about that. I don't know about fantasy
484
00:29:28,888 --> 00:29:32,656
football. That's my son. My daughter. It's funny. My daughter's
485
00:29:32,688 --> 00:29:36,404
into whatever anyone else is into, because that's the age
486
00:29:36,452 --> 00:29:39,836
he's at. My son likes, he likes video games. He
487
00:29:39,868 --> 00:29:43,612
likes. He likes fantasy football. The thing
488
00:29:43,636 --> 00:29:47,340
that's also weird about my son in kids today, that you couldn't
489
00:29:47,380 --> 00:29:50,940
really. Nothing moves the needle
490
00:29:50,980 --> 00:29:53,120
anymore. Like, I walked into his room,
491
00:29:54,260 --> 00:29:56,920
and him and his friend were playing, like,
492
00:29:58,380 --> 00:30:00,920
they're playing a racing video game
493
00:30:01,980 --> 00:30:05,284
on the tv. And I said, what are you guys
494
00:30:05,332 --> 00:30:09,156
playing? And they were like, we're playing forza. And I said,
495
00:30:09,228 --> 00:30:12,772
oh. And I said, hey, we
496
00:30:12,916 --> 00:30:16,236
mean, my son just got back from Laguna Seca,
497
00:30:16,268 --> 00:30:19,796
like, three days earlier. And I said, is that got
498
00:30:19,868 --> 00:30:23,412
Laguna seca on it? He's like, yeah. And I was like, why don't we go
499
00:30:23,436 --> 00:30:27,148
once you go to Laguna seca? I just drove 40 laps at Laguna Seca, and
500
00:30:27,164 --> 00:30:30,574
he went, we're doing Indie. And I was like, I know, but don't you want
501
00:30:30,582 --> 00:30:34,382
to? It's oval. Don't you want to see what I was seeing? And he was
502
00:30:34,406 --> 00:30:38,010
like, yeah, maybe. And then I said, hey, you know,
503
00:30:38,430 --> 00:30:42,086
Forza has some of my cars. They scanned my cars
504
00:30:42,118 --> 00:30:45,838
and put them in their game. You want to drive one of daddy's cars
505
00:30:46,014 --> 00:30:49,782
at Laguna Seca, where daddy drives those cars? And I'm like,
506
00:30:49,806 --> 00:30:53,646
yeah, we're good with Indy. I thought, holy shit, if
507
00:30:53,678 --> 00:30:56,654
my dad, first of all, my dad's never done a goddamn thing in his life.
508
00:30:56,702 --> 00:31:00,210
But if I was 13 and he, like, walked in and went, my
509
00:31:00,250 --> 00:31:03,850
track, my car, you drive my car, I wouldn't be like, hey, buzz off, old
510
00:31:03,890 --> 00:31:07,706
man. I'd be like, yeah, that's funny. Let's do this.
511
00:31:07,738 --> 00:31:11,466
Like, not interested. Well, let me tell you, a friend
512
00:31:11,498 --> 00:31:14,970
of mine, I had dinner with him here in Hermosa. He says, hey, don't forget
513
00:31:15,010 --> 00:31:18,858
to watch the Fortnite grand Prix or whatever it is. The
514
00:31:18,874 --> 00:31:22,178
World cup. It was two weekends ago, three weeks ago. I said, why? He goes,
515
00:31:22,194 --> 00:31:25,930
well, my nephew is epic whale. I go, who's epic whale? He goes, he's like
516
00:31:25,970 --> 00:31:29,644
one of the top players in the world. Not the country, the world, right?
517
00:31:29,732 --> 00:31:33,428
He was given $100,000 to show up. Wow. Just to
518
00:31:33,444 --> 00:31:37,276
show up. He came at 31, $1.2 million. He's 15 years old,
519
00:31:37,308 --> 00:31:40,652
third place at $1.2 million. Wow. He's 15 years old.
520
00:31:40,756 --> 00:31:44,124
Well, again, as I always say, and we talk about on this
521
00:31:44,172 --> 00:31:47,948
podcast, my son tells me he's going to be
522
00:31:47,964 --> 00:31:51,652
a podcaster. He's going to have a blog, or he's going to be a professional
523
00:31:51,716 --> 00:31:55,392
gamer, whatever. Can you, with a straight face,
524
00:31:55,456 --> 00:31:58,880
even tell a kid there's no way you're gonna make a living doing that anymore?
525
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:02,736
It's impossible because who would have thought there's a million
526
00:32:02,808 --> 00:32:06,300
jobs that haven't even been invented yet. You know, we went through
527
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:10,624
our adult or adolescent life and someone said, like, it would be
528
00:32:10,632 --> 00:32:13,888
a mailman. You want to be a fireman, you want to be a policeman, you
529
00:32:13,904 --> 00:32:17,472
want to be a pharmacist. You know, there was like 14 jobs that a
530
00:32:17,496 --> 00:32:21,254
dude could do. Construction worker. That was about it. We
531
00:32:21,262 --> 00:32:24,814
weren't making up new jobs every ten minutes.
532
00:32:24,942 --> 00:32:28,670
And so you had to kind of sit around and kind of, like, weigh
533
00:32:28,710 --> 00:32:32,438
your options. Like, well, I want to be a fireman or a policeman. You know,
534
00:32:32,494 --> 00:32:35,990
like, that's what he had to do. And some guy would come to the 6th
535
00:32:36,030 --> 00:32:39,810
grade and he was a fireman, and he would tell you about his job.
536
00:32:40,150 --> 00:32:43,878
Did he even have career day anymore? How can they have career day?
537
00:32:43,934 --> 00:32:46,830
Yeah. How would you, what would you define as a career now? Because this kid
538
00:32:46,870 --> 00:32:49,358
could make so much money that he's sitting on the rest of his life. Don't
539
00:32:49,374 --> 00:32:52,954
have to worry about it anymore. Anymore. Also, he's probably going to have
540
00:32:53,002 --> 00:32:56,642
28 jobs in his life, probably because that. Fortnight will be
541
00:32:56,666 --> 00:33:00,474
gone one day. Right, right. I mean, you go to, I
542
00:33:00,482 --> 00:33:03,874
mean, you think about those jobs where, like, doctor
543
00:33:03,922 --> 00:33:07,762
Drew's dad was just a doctor, and then he worked for a doctor, worked
544
00:33:07,786 --> 00:33:11,386
as a doctor for 55 years, and then he retired. Like, I don't know
545
00:33:11,458 --> 00:33:15,162
that there's going to be that anymore. I don't know about. Have we just sent
546
00:33:15,186 --> 00:33:18,612
a nephew off to med school? And I'm kind of going, why? Because who knows
547
00:33:18,636 --> 00:33:20,748
what's going to be in store for him when he gets out. He's going to
548
00:33:20,764 --> 00:33:24,508
change so fast that technology and the way healthcare is
549
00:33:24,524 --> 00:33:27,876
done, who knows that's even a solid job anymore when it comes
550
00:33:27,908 --> 00:33:31,596
to lifestyle. I sort of
551
00:33:31,628 --> 00:33:35,204
said to everybody, when my
552
00:33:35,252 --> 00:33:39,076
radio job came to an end and the economy kind of folded
553
00:33:39,108 --> 00:33:41,760
up in 2009, I just said,
554
00:33:43,020 --> 00:33:46,796
the new world order is just a bunch of hoses just kind of
555
00:33:46,828 --> 00:33:50,396
trickling into the same trough. Like, I don't think there's one job
556
00:33:50,468 --> 00:33:54,148
anymore. I think there's just a bunch of hoses, and
557
00:33:54,324 --> 00:33:57,988
some of them are moving some volume. Like, some are pumping pretty hard,
558
00:33:58,044 --> 00:34:01,652
and that's good. And some of the hoses are sucking water out of the
559
00:34:01,676 --> 00:34:05,436
trough. Absolutely. We got to pull those out and. They'Ll
560
00:34:05,468 --> 00:34:09,020
shut off real fast. We got to figure out what hoses are
561
00:34:09,100 --> 00:34:12,452
pumping and what hoses are sucking and. But it's going to be a new thing
562
00:34:12,476 --> 00:34:16,252
where there's like 18 hoses just all trickling into the same trough. There's
563
00:34:16,276 --> 00:34:19,952
not one big hose in one job anymore. Do you think
564
00:34:19,976 --> 00:34:23,688
that's different than when you're growing up, when you had the choices you did, which
565
00:34:23,704 --> 00:34:27,232
is a comedian and construction or whatever, but isn't it
566
00:34:27,256 --> 00:34:30,456
relative? Do you think it's relative, or is it just changing so fast that we
567
00:34:30,488 --> 00:34:33,380
can't keep track of even the options that are coming our way?
568
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:36,900
I think there's a combination of
569
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,780
technology opening things up,
570
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:44,938
and also there's an emotional part of it
571
00:34:45,024 --> 00:34:48,210
where I don't think of myself as
572
00:34:49,030 --> 00:34:52,678
a comedian or an actor or a writer or podcaster
573
00:34:52,814 --> 00:34:56,334
or an author. I just think of myself as somebody whose job it is
574
00:34:56,382 --> 00:35:00,126
to entertain people and figure out a way to get paid for it.
575
00:35:00,158 --> 00:35:03,598
Like, I don't, I don't really define it that much
576
00:35:03,654 --> 00:35:07,358
anymore. I think in the past you were, like, a tv guy. Yeah, right.
577
00:35:07,414 --> 00:35:08,090
You know,
578
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:15,520
you're Bryan Cranston. You're a tv guy. Yeah, but you're a movie
579
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:19,224
guy. Yeah, but you have a tequila company. You know what I mean?
580
00:35:19,392 --> 00:35:23,224
I think everyone is just the diversification. Is going
581
00:35:23,232 --> 00:35:26,824
to be critical to somebody as entrepreneurs
582
00:35:26,912 --> 00:35:30,616
as we are. Well, you think about what they talk about when they
583
00:35:30,648 --> 00:35:34,472
talk about your portfolio, and they go, you
584
00:35:34,496 --> 00:35:37,800
need a diversified portfolio because you put all
585
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,344
your money into utilities and the
586
00:35:41,392 --> 00:35:45,024
utilities shit, the bad, then you're screwed. So you need to spread it out. You
587
00:35:45,032 --> 00:35:48,824
know what I mean? In case this is, and you think about it, what's, what's
588
00:35:48,872 --> 00:35:52,672
different? I mean, aren't you. Your portfolio, I mean, you know,
589
00:35:52,696 --> 00:35:56,392
what's the difference between your portfolio and you, your career? You know what I mean?
590
00:35:56,456 --> 00:36:00,088
I agree. In fact, one of my old bosses at you are salesman. I don't
591
00:36:00,104 --> 00:36:03,600
care. We're all salesmen. You're a salesman whether you're selling copiers or whether you're doing
592
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:07,156
whatever you're doing, you're selling yourself, you're selling
593
00:36:07,268 --> 00:36:11,068
this Persona, who you are, whether you're inside a big company or
594
00:36:11,084 --> 00:36:14,916
not, you're a salesman. You're responsible for
595
00:36:14,948 --> 00:36:18,660
your own trajectory. So you get to the
596
00:36:18,700 --> 00:36:22,412
company. Is it Aok? Whale's total
597
00:36:22,476 --> 00:36:26,228
earnings are $2.2 million. I don't know how
598
00:36:26,244 --> 00:36:29,868
he spells his first name. Epic. Whale is called epic? Yeah.
599
00:36:29,964 --> 00:36:33,804
Isn't that amazing? The reason, here's my problem with typos. Everyone
600
00:36:33,852 --> 00:36:37,472
around here makes typos. But everyone's name is a goddamn typo now,
601
00:36:37,536 --> 00:36:41,352
so I never know who's the actual fake name.
602
00:36:41,416 --> 00:36:44,976
I don't know if things are typos or non typos. Epic whale
603
00:36:45,168 --> 00:36:48,944
2.2. Isn't that amazing? Total learning. So what's the business
604
00:36:49,032 --> 00:36:52,696
when you start in on the wine business? What's the volume
605
00:36:52,808 --> 00:36:56,368
or approximately? I bought it, I
606
00:36:56,384 --> 00:36:59,512
think that month. I bought it in 1989, January, I
607
00:36:59,536 --> 00:37:02,672
shipped 3700 something
608
00:37:02,736 --> 00:37:06,278
boxes. How many in a box? Two. Two and a bob.
609
00:37:06,294 --> 00:37:10,078
So let's just say that was the average month. Let's say it's 4000 boxes a
610
00:37:10,094 --> 00:37:13,766
month. So 8090, 6000 bottles for that year. Last year, we shipped about,
611
00:37:13,838 --> 00:37:16,862
I don't know, half a million, maybe 600,000 bottles.
612
00:37:17,006 --> 00:37:20,662
Nice. But it's actually off a
613
00:37:20,686 --> 00:37:24,438
little because there's so many people doing this. All right. And you were
614
00:37:24,454 --> 00:37:28,206
talking about the industries, this industry has become this logistical thing you probably
615
00:37:28,238 --> 00:37:31,492
experiencing now a little bit with just shipping things out to your I, to your
616
00:37:31,636 --> 00:37:35,188
listeners. It's. The wine business has gotten down to
617
00:37:35,204 --> 00:37:38,764
where they're literally bringing in €1
618
00:37:38,852 --> 00:37:42,652
liter wines. Meaning like less than a euro for a bottle of
619
00:37:42,676 --> 00:37:45,680
wine. A euro less than a year. Like $0.85,
620
00:37:46,220 --> 00:37:49,932
right? So, yeah. What are you gonna get for $0.85? Right.
621
00:37:50,036 --> 00:37:53,756
Well, I mean, this is another thing, you know, when. When I
622
00:37:53,828 --> 00:37:57,556
started podcasting, there wasn't any money in it,
623
00:37:57,588 --> 00:38:00,904
but there wasn't really any podcasts either, you know,
624
00:38:01,072 --> 00:38:03,976
and I just read somewhere that there are
625
00:38:04,048 --> 00:38:07,424
750,000 podcasts
626
00:38:07,592 --> 00:38:11,320
just on iTunes. Different podcasts, different
627
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:14,880
channels, sort of speak. Yeah. Really well. There's no
628
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:18,584
barrier to entry. Yeah, that's true. It's. You can just go to lip syn or
629
00:38:18,632 --> 00:38:22,264
pot. You ever, you go and just sort up. Now you go
630
00:38:22,312 --> 00:38:25,820
from nobody's ever heard of this to
631
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:28,176
you got to do battle with
632
00:38:28,328 --> 00:38:32,400
749,999
633
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,960
other podcasts. So it's kind of, in a weird
634
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:39,792
way, it took a longer time to do, but when you guys
635
00:38:39,856 --> 00:38:43,568
started, there wasn't competition. People weren't familiar with
636
00:38:43,584 --> 00:38:47,256
the mail order wine business. And so you have to get them familiar with it
637
00:38:47,288 --> 00:38:51,120
because it won't be a business now. They're familiar
638
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:54,732
with it. There's so many, so many. There's so many out there. And they all
639
00:38:54,756 --> 00:38:58,220
have different things, but only one has a story, and I'm the only story because
640
00:38:58,260 --> 00:39:01,612
we invented the concept, and that's it. That's the story because
641
00:39:01,676 --> 00:39:05,468
otherwise I got a team of specialists that taste wine, and we picked
642
00:39:05,484 --> 00:39:08,360
the best wine. Everybody says that what if people,
643
00:39:09,100 --> 00:39:11,720
I'm curious what your take is. Because
644
00:39:13,260 --> 00:39:16,320
I'm into cars, and
645
00:39:16,940 --> 00:39:20,786
I have found that it's not so much about
646
00:39:20,858 --> 00:39:24,202
give me the cheapest car or even the cheapest fastest car.
647
00:39:24,346 --> 00:39:28,034
It's. I want a story. Thank you. And the
648
00:39:28,082 --> 00:39:31,550
cars, and I'll be interested in your take on this.
649
00:39:32,090 --> 00:39:35,810
The cars that were formerly not worth anything were the
650
00:39:35,850 --> 00:39:39,682
old race cars. They didn't have a lot of value to them. And people. The
651
00:39:39,706 --> 00:39:43,338
cars that did have a value were like, you know, Ferraris, sixties,
652
00:39:43,394 --> 00:39:47,090
seventies Ferraris and Lamborghinis and those high end whatever cars,
653
00:39:47,130 --> 00:39:50,908
collector cars, and they still have value. But
654
00:39:51,044 --> 00:39:54,724
the race cars went from almost no value to
655
00:39:54,772 --> 00:39:58,196
leapfrogging past many of the
656
00:39:58,228 --> 00:40:02,036
collector cars. And if you go back and you
657
00:40:02,068 --> 00:40:05,796
look now, basically, 19
658
00:40:05,908 --> 00:40:09,116
out of the 20 most expensive cars sold in the last ten years have all
659
00:40:09,148 --> 00:40:12,932
been race cars. Now, the thing about the race car is
660
00:40:12,956 --> 00:40:16,724
a race cardinal with no history, meaning no story,
661
00:40:16,812 --> 00:40:20,556
it's not really worth anything. But if you find out that Steve
662
00:40:20,588 --> 00:40:24,396
McQueen drove it at Sebring with Mario Andretti or something, now
663
00:40:24,428 --> 00:40:27,980
we got a story. And if it came in first in its
664
00:40:28,020 --> 00:40:31,572
class at Le Mans in 1967, all sudden. So a car
665
00:40:31,636 --> 00:40:35,452
that might have had diminished
666
00:40:35,476 --> 00:40:38,436
value or, you know, worth something, but not a lot. It's all of a sudden
667
00:40:38,468 --> 00:40:41,880
can be astronomical value, based on
668
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:44,620
the story. And I realized
669
00:40:45,240 --> 00:40:48,832
people aren't looking for the cheapest, but they're looking.
670
00:40:48,976 --> 00:40:52,728
Many people are looking for a good story and will pay
671
00:40:52,784 --> 00:40:56,448
a premium for the story. How does that
672
00:40:56,504 --> 00:40:59,860
resonate with you? Well, the wine business is much like that.
673
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:04,096
Just for FYI, I've restored two
674
00:41:04,128 --> 00:41:07,918
tigers, a sunbeam alpine. Oh, you're a sunbeam guy.
675
00:41:07,974 --> 00:41:11,734
I was. I have a GT 350 supercharged Shelby 2008. I
676
00:41:11,742 --> 00:41:15,222
have a 69 Myers Manx boonda doom buggy, dune
677
00:41:15,246 --> 00:41:18,278
buggy, and I have a 96. What year is your Shelby? An
678
00:41:18,294 --> 00:41:22,102
0808. But I had a supercharged at the factory. And then I
679
00:41:22,126 --> 00:41:25,662
have a 1997 Paynows roadster, aiv all
680
00:41:25,686 --> 00:41:29,158
aluminum. Well, look out. That's a scary little car. With a
681
00:41:29,174 --> 00:41:32,912
Mustang power plant. Yes. Cobra power plant. Yeah. Those
682
00:41:32,936 --> 00:41:36,616
are interesting cars. Now, the reason I brought that up, those are all stories for
683
00:41:36,648 --> 00:41:40,472
me, right? The doom buggy. My one uncle had one in Malibu,
684
00:41:40,496 --> 00:41:43,660
and he used to go all over Malibu in this doom buggy.
685
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:47,232
The Panos roaster was my other uncle's. He passed away from
686
00:41:47,336 --> 00:41:50,608
cancer, and it was the last car he bought. And my cousin sold it to
687
00:41:50,624 --> 00:41:54,112
me. And I'm just so proud to have the car. And the Shelby was a
688
00:41:54,136 --> 00:41:57,672
throwback to the same uncle who used to have two or three GT 350s back
689
00:41:57,696 --> 00:42:01,536
in. The day, like 66, 67. Pictures of him
690
00:42:01,568 --> 00:42:05,384
and his tiger and him and his cobra as well. Cobra,
691
00:42:05,432 --> 00:42:09,040
yeah, he had a cobra. So that's the story for me. And wines the same
692
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:12,864
way people want to. They go to Napa and they go to the tasting
693
00:42:12,912 --> 00:42:16,472
room and they establish this relationship. And if, really, if it wasn't for my
694
00:42:16,496 --> 00:42:19,960
father's idea to ship wine in the mail, many winers would be out of business
695
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:23,672
today because they learned from my dad's model that you can go
696
00:42:23,696 --> 00:42:27,442
from manufacturing, the cost of manufacturing directly to retail, and
697
00:42:27,466 --> 00:42:31,290
skip sometimes two levels of hands out because of the
698
00:42:31,370 --> 00:42:34,602
three tier process in America for alcohol. Thanks to Joe Kennedy.
699
00:42:34,706 --> 00:42:38,514
So that story, you come back and you go, I went to the so and
700
00:42:38,522 --> 00:42:41,098
so Napa, and I joined their club, and I get their wines every month, and
701
00:42:41,114 --> 00:42:44,650
they tell that story every time they pour a glass with their friends because
702
00:42:44,690 --> 00:42:48,298
wine is experiential. Let me give an example. I
703
00:42:48,314 --> 00:42:51,874
think, let's say you and I are come back from this. I will listen to
704
00:42:51,882 --> 00:42:54,434
one of your podcasts where you were talking about the soccer games with the kids,
705
00:42:54,482 --> 00:42:57,890
and they got you by the gonads, sitting there with the snack shack and everything.
706
00:42:57,930 --> 00:43:01,740
It was very funny. But you go to that, you have a full
707
00:43:01,780 --> 00:43:04,188
day with the kids in the soccer field, you're tired, you get home, they're tugging
708
00:43:04,204 --> 00:43:07,876
on your shirt tails, they're hungry, and you pour a glass of 33 cabernet,
709
00:43:07,988 --> 00:43:10,508
and it's just a glass of wine at that point because you're a beat and
710
00:43:10,524 --> 00:43:14,188
you don't really care. But if you take that same bottle and you go to
711
00:43:14,204 --> 00:43:17,444
Laguna Seca trackside and you're racing and you're watching all that's going on, and you're
712
00:43:17,492 --> 00:43:20,372
having a glass of wine with your friends, and you're talking about, this is a
713
00:43:20,396 --> 00:43:23,756
throwback to Paul Newman's race cars
714
00:43:23,908 --> 00:43:27,600
33. They're going to go, oh, this is really cool. And it'll
715
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:31,216
taste better. Yeah, yeah. No, I. I know.
716
00:43:31,328 --> 00:43:35,072
I mean, the cars are kind of cars and wine sometimes can
717
00:43:35,096 --> 00:43:38,720
be wine, but it's experience and the story. And I. And
718
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:42,528
I do think that's what we're all
719
00:43:42,584 --> 00:43:46,168
kind of looking for. And I do tell people
720
00:43:46,264 --> 00:43:49,980
all the time, you know, when I'm
721
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:54,032
doing a project around the house, I'm building
722
00:43:54,096 --> 00:43:57,540
a movie theater in my house right now. You're building a movie theater?
723
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:01,072
Well, I. Me and a guy, but yes.
724
00:44:01,256 --> 00:44:04,928
And I think everyone's plan is wait till I'm
725
00:44:04,984 --> 00:44:08,624
done and then go watch a movie. And my
726
00:44:08,672 --> 00:44:12,060
thing is, is we're gonna sit in this movie theater,
727
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:16,072
and we're gonna watch a movie, and we're both gonna watch the same
728
00:44:16,136 --> 00:44:19,730
movie. But I'm gonna have a different experience because I built this
729
00:44:19,770 --> 00:44:23,546
movie theater. That's right. You guys waited for me to finish, and
730
00:44:23,578 --> 00:44:27,306
then you came in to watch the movie. And I don't know if I'm
731
00:44:27,338 --> 00:44:31,002
going to enjoy the movie more. I'm going to have a different experience for
732
00:44:31,026 --> 00:44:34,418
sure with it, because. And every time I walk into that
733
00:44:34,474 --> 00:44:38,098
theater, I'm going to look at that riser, and I'm going to look at the
734
00:44:38,114 --> 00:44:41,122
way the seats are laid out, I'm going to look at the way, and I'm
735
00:44:41,146 --> 00:44:44,882
going to know everything that's going on inside of those walls, and I'm going to
736
00:44:44,906 --> 00:44:48,450
remember it how it was, and I'm going to have the experience of getting it
737
00:44:48,570 --> 00:44:52,058
from this sort of dank, dusty, kind of shell of a room
738
00:44:52,154 --> 00:44:55,750
into this swanky, cool, acoustically sound,
739
00:44:56,090 --> 00:44:59,666
technologically advanced room. And I get that.
740
00:44:59,778 --> 00:45:02,986
I get to have that. You get to feel that. Yes. And I feel like
741
00:45:03,018 --> 00:45:06,842
a lot of people are speeding past
742
00:45:06,906 --> 00:45:10,554
the story to get to the glass of wine or to get to the movie
743
00:45:10,602 --> 00:45:14,202
theater or to get to the car. And I'm like, slow down
744
00:45:14,386 --> 00:45:17,710
and get the story down. Rebuild the car.
745
00:45:18,130 --> 00:45:21,722
You restore that car, and when you hear somebody talk about
746
00:45:21,826 --> 00:45:25,530
a car, and you go, geez, that's a sweet
747
00:45:25,570 --> 00:45:28,470
sunbeam, tiger. And that person.
748
00:45:29,690 --> 00:45:33,310
The difference between the person that restored it themselves
749
00:45:33,770 --> 00:45:37,594
versus the one who just bought it from their neighbor,
750
00:45:37,722 --> 00:45:41,334
it's a completely different story. The ones who did it, their
751
00:45:41,382 --> 00:45:44,782
eyes light up and they go, oh, I had this thing down to the
752
00:45:44,806 --> 00:45:48,182
frame this thing was in. Bo was in rough shape when I got it.
753
00:45:48,206 --> 00:45:52,014
Boy, they wanted this guy. I got it for $500. The
754
00:45:52,022 --> 00:45:55,318
guy said it was a basket case, and I brought it back. You see all
755
00:45:55,374 --> 00:45:59,006
this pride and all the experience you get
756
00:45:59,118 --> 00:46:02,902
from that. Again, if you're going in a
757
00:46:02,926 --> 00:46:06,750
hurry, you can screw things up a little, but you want to get that thing
758
00:46:06,790 --> 00:46:10,546
put back together. I don't. I feel
759
00:46:10,578 --> 00:46:13,842
like there's a lot of people, especially young people, kind of
760
00:46:13,986 --> 00:46:17,722
running from that experience. You know, I tell my
761
00:46:17,746 --> 00:46:20,882
kids all the time, like, come. Come down to the garage. Let's go get it
762
00:46:20,906 --> 00:46:23,914
done. Let's get going with this stuff. They're like, ah, we don't. We don't want
763
00:46:23,922 --> 00:46:27,706
to get, you know, like, why there's no air conditioning in the garage? And I'm
764
00:46:27,738 --> 00:46:31,522
going, you're missing out. Yeah, I agree with that. Well, I
765
00:46:31,626 --> 00:46:35,308
liken that to, hey, if you have all the money in the
766
00:46:35,324 --> 00:46:38,932
world, you can buy whatever you want. I mean,
767
00:46:38,956 --> 00:46:42,284
that's. I guess that's fun when you. The moment you buy it. But if there's
768
00:46:42,332 --> 00:46:45,668
no story to get there in,
769
00:46:45,724 --> 00:46:49,052
particularly with cars, let's just use the same example. And wine's the same way.
770
00:46:49,076 --> 00:46:52,292
But. So you go buy it, a big deal. You can just buy it. That
771
00:46:52,316 --> 00:46:55,716
doesn't mean anything. But if you earn that right to
772
00:46:55,868 --> 00:46:59,528
know that car, like my. I mean, I know everything about tigers
773
00:46:59,644 --> 00:47:03,360
and alpines. Actually, I feel good at 260
774
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:07,072
or 289. The original was a 260. The last, I don't know,
775
00:47:07,136 --> 00:47:10,620
400 were 289. Well, what was the one you did? 260. It was
776
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:15,192
first model year 64. Things are going up. Oh,
777
00:47:15,216 --> 00:47:18,632
they're starting to become the poor man's cobra. For sure. For sure. Well, they were
778
00:47:18,656 --> 00:47:22,328
always the poor man's cobra, but now there's the price. 60 or 70
779
00:47:22,384 --> 00:47:26,104
grand. Yeah, it's squirrely and scary to drive. I
780
00:47:26,112 --> 00:47:29,680
mean, Jay Leno told me he rolled his on mall
781
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:33,488
once or twice, easily. Yeah. Because that was actually a Shelby project,
782
00:47:33,544 --> 00:47:37,128
too. They had two. My model of alpine I restored
783
00:47:37,264 --> 00:47:40,808
was the 62 with the fins. And they gave one to Carroll
784
00:47:40,824 --> 00:47:44,580
Shelby, and they gave one to Ken what's his name in England.
785
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:48,480
And Shelby moved the motor back under the firewall. Ken Miles.
786
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:52,392
Yeah. Ken Miles. Yeah, that was it. Wow. And he didn't. He left the
787
00:47:52,416 --> 00:47:55,826
motor forward. Didn't handle as well as Carol's did.
788
00:47:55,898 --> 00:47:59,258
People don't realize, I mean, maybe
789
00:47:59,314 --> 00:48:02,570
realize that, you know, Shelby and Ac
790
00:48:02,650 --> 00:48:06,378
Bristol and, you know, the whole idea was take the american power plant,
791
00:48:06,434 --> 00:48:09,910
put it in the lightweight european car I used to.
792
00:48:10,370 --> 00:48:14,030
There was a guy who raced a tiger down at Laguna's sake.
793
00:48:14,370 --> 00:48:18,034
You know, the things in life you remember. Yeah, sure. John Morton.
794
00:48:18,082 --> 00:48:21,694
As a professional driver, he's kind of a gun for hire. He drive
795
00:48:21,882 --> 00:48:25,198
six cars over the weekend or whatever, and I was hanging out with him, and
796
00:48:25,254 --> 00:48:28,974
one of the cars he drove was an old Shelby.
797
00:48:29,142 --> 00:48:32,390
Sorry, an old sunbeam tiger race
798
00:48:32,430 --> 00:48:36,086
car. And I remember, like, kind of
799
00:48:36,118 --> 00:48:38,806
talking to him and talking to the guy who owned the car and stuff. And
800
00:48:38,838 --> 00:48:42,438
he said. I said, what kind of
801
00:48:42,454 --> 00:48:45,950
tires are those? Because I knew all the race tires,
802
00:48:45,990 --> 00:48:49,742
and I didn't really wasn't familiar with the tires he had on this car. And
803
00:48:49,766 --> 00:48:52,950
he goes, oh, yeah, my wife hand grooved those things
804
00:48:52,990 --> 00:48:56,722
herself with a soldering iron. What is that? I was like,
805
00:48:56,746 --> 00:49:00,138
what kind of relationship do you have? This is awesome.
806
00:49:00,274 --> 00:49:04,122
Like his wife was actually taking the hot
807
00:49:04,186 --> 00:49:07,970
soldering iron and literally grooving with. Some kind of
808
00:49:08,010 --> 00:49:11,810
tie in behind this. Or their plan on how to. Well, there were channel
809
00:49:11,850 --> 00:49:15,618
water or something. Yeah, there are guys that are kind of hardcore. Some
810
00:49:15,674 --> 00:49:19,002
guys like back in the day would like put their own tread
811
00:49:19,066 --> 00:49:22,914
pattern on a tire. Crazy. And this guy got his
812
00:49:22,962 --> 00:49:26,520
wife to do it. Amy, if you
813
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:30,336
type in John Morton white Sunbeam
814
00:49:30,408 --> 00:49:34,024
tiger, like Laguna seca, I'm sure this car is going
815
00:49:34,032 --> 00:49:37,328
to pop up. But again, that's the
816
00:49:37,384 --> 00:49:40,960
story. Now, I went and saw 5000
817
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:44,816
different cars, but that's the one that stuck into my head. It was a great
818
00:49:44,888 --> 00:49:48,540
story and it didn't. Now if I shed.
819
00:49:49,050 --> 00:49:52,666
What's up with those tires? And he said, ah, the guy over at
820
00:49:52,698 --> 00:49:56,498
tire rack did them for me. That wouldn't stick in my head. Your wife
821
00:49:56,554 --> 00:50:00,242
did it. Right. And now we got a story. It's a story now
822
00:50:00,266 --> 00:50:04,026
that's stuck in my head. There's John Morton. We got a
823
00:50:04,058 --> 00:50:06,470
picture of him at least driving a white. Oh, there it is.
824
00:50:07,610 --> 00:50:11,138
Sunbeam tiger with 13 inch. Look at that guy. That's
825
00:50:11,194 --> 00:50:14,682
13 inch rims. Yeah, John's a good guy and
826
00:50:14,826 --> 00:50:18,624
super fast driver and drove everyone else's. There was a guy
827
00:50:18,752 --> 00:50:22,512
in LA, his name was Joe Alphabet. I know, it's bizarre.
828
00:50:22,536 --> 00:50:23,460
And he had.
829
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:30,480
What was that? The white GT from the sixties. And it was the slot
830
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:34,272
car, very famous slot car. I can't remember now. He had
831
00:50:34,296 --> 00:50:37,808
two of those racers, but he's bought and sold collective cars. Cheetah.
832
00:50:37,984 --> 00:50:41,552
And there was the cheetah that. Oh, I'd love one of those though. This was
833
00:50:41,576 --> 00:50:44,942
a real race cardinal. Anyway, I bought my tigers from him
834
00:50:45,046 --> 00:50:47,918
and his name was Joffa because you couldn't pronounce his name so he had to
835
00:50:47,934 --> 00:50:51,678
formally change to Alphabet. Wow. Yeah. So. And I
836
00:50:51,694 --> 00:50:55,190
bought from him three gt 3500 gt
837
00:50:55,230 --> 00:50:58,130
Maseratis. Wow. Thinking
838
00:50:59,150 --> 00:51:02,782
what year? 58 the year.
839
00:51:02,846 --> 00:51:04,730
What year did you buy them? Oh,
840
00:51:06,510 --> 00:51:10,200
like 92 or something. Well, that was pretty
841
00:51:10,240 --> 00:51:13,632
cheap for you. In 92 it was $7,500 for the three of them.
842
00:51:13,736 --> 00:51:16,584
Wow. One was a rolling shell. Beautiful super
843
00:51:16,632 --> 00:51:20,320
legera. One was a rack which all the. But the dash
844
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:23,800
was good and the instruments were good and the other was the restorable car, which
845
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:27,576
the motor was just a big pile of valves and springs. They're
846
00:51:27,608 --> 00:51:30,900
cool cars. They are very cool. But I. Way over my head,
847
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:34,600
it's pretty advanced. I mean, it's a straight six with a twin
848
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:38,020
cam, twin spark plug. And some are
849
00:51:38,330 --> 00:51:42,090
Lucas injection, others are carbureted. I can't remember,
850
00:51:42,170 --> 00:51:45,202
no idea what I was getting into, so I ended up selling it. But to
851
00:51:45,226 --> 00:51:48,970
not restore. But those cars are worth. They went
852
00:51:49,010 --> 00:51:52,754
up. They've kind of flattened out a little, but 200 grand
853
00:51:52,802 --> 00:51:56,386
a pop today. But they're, I think, for the. That
854
00:51:56,458 --> 00:52:00,106
style, I think one of the most beautiful cars ever built for the. In the
855
00:52:00,138 --> 00:52:03,858
fifties. And that sort of, you know, like this Cobra, not covert, but
856
00:52:03,874 --> 00:52:07,664
the Corvette style. You have good taste in
857
00:52:07,712 --> 00:52:11,272
cars. It's a good looking european car
858
00:52:11,336 --> 00:52:14,816
that's not really an all out sports car, but it's just a
859
00:52:14,848 --> 00:52:18,416
grand tour. It was their big production car, like 2000 units or something.
860
00:52:18,528 --> 00:52:21,020
Yes. So the story. Yes.
861
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:25,720
No, the story. That's what I keep telling everyone. It's about the
862
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:29,536
story. Wine is much the story. And when I interview these winemakers
863
00:52:29,568 --> 00:52:33,190
on the podcast, on wine talks, you get
864
00:52:33,530 --> 00:52:37,274
this new passion I've had for this business, which is really my. This is
865
00:52:37,282 --> 00:52:40,710
my 30th year of tasting wine. I've probably tasted 100,000 wines.
866
00:52:41,450 --> 00:52:45,266
But the passion for the business is probably two years old. And it
867
00:52:45,298 --> 00:52:49,018
comes from these stories, from listening to these winemakers who have been in the
868
00:52:49,034 --> 00:52:52,762
business all their lives, whose families.
869
00:52:52,946 --> 00:52:56,432
Twelve generations. One of the winemakers I interviewed, young lady,
870
00:52:56,626 --> 00:53:00,108
that's fascinating to me. And it sucked me into the industry
871
00:53:00,204 --> 00:53:03,812
to understand wine from the story. Well, I
872
00:53:03,836 --> 00:53:07,508
will say that in any
873
00:53:07,604 --> 00:53:10,880
business, I think, you know,
874
00:53:11,300 --> 00:53:14,988
it sort of bothers me when people are just sort of perpetual
875
00:53:15,084 --> 00:53:18,932
salesmen, you know, like they go, what do you do? And they go, I used
876
00:53:18,956 --> 00:53:22,492
to sell rvs and now I sell siding, you know, and you're
877
00:53:22,516 --> 00:53:26,212
like two great industries. You just sell shit. You know what I mean?
878
00:53:26,316 --> 00:53:30,040
What do you care? Do you like rvs? I like selling rvs and getting
879
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:33,280
commission. Exciting. Like, no, I don't care.
880
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:36,904
Like, it seems soulless.
881
00:53:37,072 --> 00:53:40,872
The guys who have jobs where I'll just sell stuff and get a commission and
882
00:53:40,896 --> 00:53:44,736
I don't really care. I don't care what it is, I'll just sell. It feels
883
00:53:44,768 --> 00:53:48,528
soulless to me. Obviously, crafting wine
884
00:53:48,584 --> 00:53:52,176
feels like the opposite of sales. It is, because it's
885
00:53:52,208 --> 00:53:55,640
like this pure passion and I'm going to put it into this
886
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:58,924
bottle and, you know, it's pure passion
887
00:53:58,972 --> 00:54:02,756
because the chances of you turning a
888
00:54:02,788 --> 00:54:06,324
profit, opening a winery are slim to none. So
889
00:54:06,372 --> 00:54:09,756
you're only there because you love it. So
890
00:54:09,828 --> 00:54:13,428
you're sort of de facto dealing with a
891
00:54:13,484 --> 00:54:16,996
group of self selected, super passionate people.
892
00:54:17,108 --> 00:54:20,320
And that's why if you ever talk
893
00:54:20,620 --> 00:54:24,468
to sales guys like you talk to guys, how many times you
894
00:54:24,484 --> 00:54:27,876
go, you like cars? I like cars. I gone into
895
00:54:27,988 --> 00:54:31,316
car to dealerships, talking a guy about a 60,
896
00:54:31,388 --> 00:54:35,036
$70,000 car, and I go, what's the horsepower
897
00:54:35,108 --> 00:54:38,440
on that? And they go, it's peppy.
898
00:54:39,420 --> 00:54:43,140
Step on it. What's the horsepower? Oh, enough for you? Well, believe
899
00:54:43,180 --> 00:54:45,636
me, you'll get out of your own way. And I'm like, you don't even know
900
00:54:45,668 --> 00:54:49,238
anything about this. Well, you know why? Because he doesn't give a shit about cars.
901
00:54:49,294 --> 00:54:53,046
He's. No, he's not into cars. He's into commission, and he's
902
00:54:53,078 --> 00:54:56,886
selling cars, and he'd be selling computers the next day. He doesn't.
903
00:54:56,998 --> 00:55:00,290
Doesn't care. So the wine guys,
904
00:55:00,950 --> 00:55:04,582
just by virtue of opening a winery or even
905
00:55:04,646 --> 00:55:08,246
endeavoring to do this, care. So you're dealing with a
906
00:55:08,278 --> 00:55:11,710
self selecting group of people that are super into what they're
907
00:55:11,750 --> 00:55:15,390
doing. So true. You're. You're. That's your jumping, jumping
908
00:55:15,430 --> 00:55:19,264
off point. There's the sales guys. I mean, I wanted to infinity
909
00:55:19,312 --> 00:55:22,904
dealership a few weeks ago, and the guy handed me his real estate card. He
910
00:55:22,912 --> 00:55:24,968
didn't even ask me about the car. He goes, hey, you know, he went to
911
00:55:24,984 --> 00:55:27,624
use any real estate, and he gives me his real. I'm like, I thought I
912
00:55:27,632 --> 00:55:31,056
came to buy a car, right? But the wine with the wine guys that come
913
00:55:31,088 --> 00:55:34,160
in, the reason the passion is new, it's
914
00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:37,912
newer, is because I'm starting to understand it more. I'm starting to get the
915
00:55:37,976 --> 00:55:41,768
stories behind it. You. The guys that don't have the story are
916
00:55:41,784 --> 00:55:45,064
these guys that are bringing these €1 wines and putting a billion labels on them
917
00:55:45,072 --> 00:55:48,856
and pumping them into the system. There's no story there you can't tell. I tasted
918
00:55:48,888 --> 00:55:52,704
a Saturday night live wine the other day. Saturday Night Live? Really? It
919
00:55:52,712 --> 00:55:56,408
was horrible, by the way. It was a french beaujolais. It's terrible. But why would
920
00:55:56,424 --> 00:56:00,064
you buy that? What's the story? I bought this because Dan Aykroyd drinks it. I
921
00:56:00,072 --> 00:56:03,800
don't understand. I didn't understand it. But the story from these guys,
922
00:56:03,840 --> 00:56:07,496
when you listen to them and you figure out that they travel the world,
923
00:56:07,568 --> 00:56:10,568
and they take this wine and they put it on the table, and this is
924
00:56:10,584 --> 00:56:13,992
the best explanation I've ever heard from anybody. It was a young winemaker, a
925
00:56:14,016 --> 00:56:17,752
woman from Argentina and Armenia. Oddly, she
926
00:56:17,776 --> 00:56:21,536
said, what other product can you take across the country, across the world that
927
00:56:21,608 --> 00:56:25,184
represents where you're from than wine? You take a widget
928
00:56:25,272 --> 00:56:28,800
maybe a car. But you take a bottle of wine and you open that and
929
00:56:28,840 --> 00:56:32,336
you know that you're in Armenia when you drink that wine, if you
930
00:56:32,408 --> 00:56:36,000
appreciate wine. Yeah, the story. The story's there.
931
00:56:36,080 --> 00:56:38,780
And I think, or I hope,
932
00:56:39,680 --> 00:56:42,860
whether it's cars or wine, that everyone shouldn't be just
933
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:45,560
chasing the cheapest. That's the problem.
934
00:56:46,780 --> 00:56:49,640
And look, obviously, there's going to be a certain
935
00:56:50,460 --> 00:56:53,836
group that does that,
936
00:56:53,948 --> 00:56:57,600
and they're always going to exist. But the people
937
00:56:58,220 --> 00:57:01,780
that are looking for an experience, I mean, look, you could make
938
00:57:01,820 --> 00:57:05,588
this equivalency to food. There's plenty of food to be found, and you
939
00:57:05,604 --> 00:57:09,036
can find plenty of cheap food out there. And you walk out from a golden
940
00:57:09,068 --> 00:57:12,372
corral, the full belly. But I think people would like a
941
00:57:12,436 --> 00:57:15,794
story and an experience. I've become a food
942
00:57:15,842 --> 00:57:19,666
snob. Have you? It really sucks. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Cause
943
00:57:19,698 --> 00:57:23,506
my daughter's a baking chef in New York, and she works for a very fancy
944
00:57:23,538 --> 00:57:27,218
chef, and I'm like, I can't eat some of this stuff anymore. Yeah,
945
00:57:27,274 --> 00:57:31,050
I really want real food. Yeah, I want real wine, too. That's the part
946
00:57:31,090 --> 00:57:34,858
that is kind of getting to me a little bit, because there are guys on
947
00:57:34,914 --> 00:57:38,578
groupon, and you're talking about the cheapest. $45,
948
00:57:38,674 --> 00:57:42,040
you get 15 bottles in a corkscrew. Really? So
949
00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:45,060
$3, it can't.
950
00:57:45,600 --> 00:57:49,392
By definition of the model, it can't be any good. Right? But if you're
951
00:57:49,456 --> 00:57:53,168
looking for fill your rack up with 15 bottles of wine for $45, it's the
952
00:57:53,184 --> 00:57:56,504
right place to go. Well, let's tell people where to go. And we can also
953
00:57:56,552 --> 00:57:59,488
tell people that coming soon, my wine,
954
00:57:59,584 --> 00:58:03,432
33, will be available as well. Wine
955
00:58:03,456 --> 00:58:07,104
of the month club is where you can go. Wine of the month
956
00:58:07,152 --> 00:58:10,580
club. Oldest
957
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:14,400
in the country. Oldest, yeah, oldest in the world. I mean, it's
958
00:58:14,440 --> 00:58:17,920
weird. It's kind of your business and my business the same way because you go,
959
00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:21,744
I'm one of the oldest podcasters. Well, of course, because it
960
00:58:21,912 --> 00:58:25,400
didn't exist before this. And the
961
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:28,620
podcast wine talk with Paul
962
00:58:30,400 --> 00:58:34,168
Calum Carrion. Yeah, we. You know, we. Actually, my pr firm changed it to
963
00:58:34,184 --> 00:58:37,902
Paul K. Oh, Paul. Kate. The rest is silent. Paul
964
00:58:37,966 --> 00:58:41,494
Alphabet, everybody. Well, I'm
965
00:58:41,622 --> 00:58:45,110
excited to do business with you. I'm excited to come on your
966
00:58:45,150 --> 00:58:48,710
program as well. Who knew our love
967
00:58:48,750 --> 00:58:52,534
of Mark Garagas? All things
968
00:58:52,582 --> 00:58:56,414
Shelby talked for a long. Time on both those subjects.
969
00:58:56,462 --> 00:58:59,966
I'm just finishing. Just finishing a Shelby doc
970
00:59:00,038 --> 00:59:03,688
that I'll have to make sure to. Yeah, let's check it
971
00:59:03,704 --> 00:59:07,336
out. Oh, boy, because that guy, that guy's an onion.
972
00:59:07,448 --> 00:59:11,160
You just keep peeling that guy, man. You know, there was a, he was honored
973
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:13,540
by the, an adolescent
974
00:59:14,960 --> 00:59:17,980
organ transplant group at the
975
00:59:18,840 --> 00:59:22,620
universal Sheraton a few years ago, and also along with him was an armenian
976
00:59:23,040 --> 00:59:25,648
doctor who's a very close friend of ours. And I said, well, I got to
977
00:59:25,664 --> 00:59:29,312
go to this. There must have been like 50 people, complete access to
978
00:59:29,336 --> 00:59:32,984
Carroll Shelby. So I took a picture of my mustang, and he said, what do
979
00:59:32,992 --> 00:59:35,472
you got there? And he signs it for me. And we chat a little bit.
980
00:59:35,496 --> 00:59:39,192
We talked about his chili. Totally approachable. He started
981
00:59:39,256 --> 00:59:42,260
a whole chili cook off in Texas as well.
982
00:59:43,000 --> 00:59:46,648
All right, well, I'll come be a guest on your show, and we'll do
983
00:59:46,664 --> 00:59:49,952
it post haste. We look forward to that. And again,
984
00:59:50,056 --> 00:59:53,712
wine of the month, sorry, wine of the
985
00:59:53,736 --> 00:59:57,424
month club. And you can look out for my wines.
986
00:59:57,472 --> 01:00:00,856
33 coming on soon. And until next time, Adam
987
01:00:00,888 --> 01:00:03,512
Carolla for Paul K. Saying
988
01:00:03,656 --> 01:00:04,740
mahala.



