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

0:00 Hey, it's Paul K. And I was recently the guest on Adam Carolla's show take a knee. Have a listen. Well, get it on. Got to get on. A choice, Manny. Get on. And welcome to our inspirational, motivational podcast. It's take a knee. We're going to the wine business today, and we talked to people from many different industries. Paul, calm Carian. Yeah, that's perfect. I said it right? Yeah. All right. Armenian. 100% Armenian. You. You know Mark Garagas? I know Mark well, actually went to his wedding. Wow. Yeah, his wedding with Paulette, my wife. We were all there. Well, this is good. It's a good start for our relationship. Well, his mom and my mother were very close when they were younger. I gotta tell you, one thing I've learned from Mark Garagas is how the Armenians, how, what a tight knit community they are. It's amazingly tight. However, there's a. A whole bunch of factions. Is the russian Armenians in Monabel, there's the Haya Stanse Armenians in Glendale. It's rather diversified, but we're all relatives.

1:05 And the podcast, by the way, wine talk with Paul Kalamakarian, it's available on Apple Podcast. And I'll be on the show soon, so I look forward to that. Okay. Wine. And you and your family brag a little bit. Well, this is. I'm so happy to be here looking at your list of the past guests. I'm very honored, actually. But the wine, the wine business, the direct to consumer wine business in America is a $3 billion business. $3 billion? $3 billion. What was it, ten years ago or in the year 2000? Oh, 2000 was probably 500 million, maybe, something like that.

1:49 So it's gone up substantially. Substantially. And just like everything, sort of not eliminating the middleman, but just having things brought to your home, whatever that. I mean, when I was a kid, if a Sears catalog would have showed up every four years, it was like a big deal. And now it is literally just a round robin of folks coming to my house, dropping off stuff all day, every day. The helms truck. Did you have the helms truck when you were a kid? That was a little rich. The bakery. Yeah, they had milkman and the bakery guy and everything. And the Helms bakery, which was famous, but not for the Corollas. Cause it costs money. So that's the wine man. The guy delivered bottles to your door. So this is a family business? It's a family business. My dad started in 1972 and a little wine shop in Palace Ridge estates. You know, interesting story. He bought his last pharmacy, he was actually a pharmacist by trade. He was a chemist. Came to America in 1949, got his masters at USC and fell in love with wine because Queen Elizabeth came to America and the Ike served her a cabernet sauvignon from Napa Valley. My dad thought that was really interesting. And his love of wine started then, like 1958 or something. Mm. Ike.

3:12 As in the president? As in the president, yeah. Well, we're first name basis Ike. You know, I like Ike. So the wine, I mean, God, it's so old, it's so new, it's so evolving. We always talk about all the places you couldn't formally make wine and now you can. And now every time I talk to an expert, it's everywhere in the United States has a burgeoning wine industry. But the subscription, I should say, not prescription, that was your dad's old business. How did he begin that? Well, first of all, you said something interesting. The oldest winery ever found in the world, intact sandals, amphora vessels for fermentation was in Armenia. Oh, really? 6000 years old. They found it a few years ago. It's now a tourist destination. I mean, the guy's sandals were there, so, I mean, that's bizarre, right? So. And my dad would tell this story that when he was in Egypt and his father would send him down to the pharmacy to get the prescriptions. Next door was the wine shop. And he'd say, son, you know, get me a half a liter of sweet and a half a liter of dry. I want the guy to blend it for me. So when my dad was a child, he would be actually going to the pharmacy and the wine shop at the same time, which was kind of interesting when you said it was a prescription or subscription. Right. So as at the wine shop in Palos Verdes, it was connected to his pharmacy. And people were asking him to come across from the pharmacy to the wine shop to make

4:45 recommendations. And he was finding out that really the people that came in the pharmacy were, like, sick and tired and aching. People coming in the wine shop were like, hey, I'm looking for a good time. That was much more fun. Well, I do want to say this to people as it pertains to whatever their occupation is or maybe, or what they're trying to. A lot of folks are trying to get from one place to another. My dad worked at a different profession. So my dad worked at a place called five acres and it's in Altadena. And it was basically an orphanage, you know, and it was always. And my grandmother worked at the VA hospital in Westwood, and it was always like, we don't have enough money.

5:34 Nobody has any money. None of the patients have money. They're orphaned kids, you know, or they're veterans, you know, and everyone's hurt and injured and screwed up and psychologically damaged and whatever. And I remember kind of thinking, well, good luck getting paid, because all you can do is sort of beg for more money, but you can't ever really get paid because your customers don't pay, they don't have money. And you're catching them all on a pretty bad day because they've been taken away from their parents or they've been injured in foreign wars. And I thought, while it's noble, I'd rather do something where people were having a good time, having a good day. You know, when I go out and do stand up, people come out on a Saturday night. They're having drinks, they're eating, they're enjoying themselves like you're catching them on a good day. Think about jobs.

6:32 I would never want to be a meter maid, because I just wouldn't want to ruin people's days. I don't. I don't get that. But the difference between the pharmacist and the wine is the pharmacist is people are coming in because they're having a bad day. And the wine, you're probably catching people on a good day, or at least the beginning of a good night. That's exactly. Exactly what happened. We had one customer when I worked in the store. I was a teenager. The woman comes in. My dad used to offer credit because Pauls Verdes is a very affluent neighborhood, and she says, I would never pay for my good time later. I'll pay for it now, and I'll have it, and then I'm gonna go on my day. Cause why would I wanna be tagged with a bill later in the month? Right? Right. So that's really what happened. Look, the wine guy is always welcome at the party. Always. I've literally been invited to parties because I'm in the wine business. Yeah. Isn't that great?

7:27 No, it's true. I just hung out with a guy. We just met him in a lobby in a hotel in Portland two weeks ago. And he was like, oh, I'm a fan. I like you guys, or whatever. And I started talking, and then he started talking about liking cars, and I said, well, we're going to go up to Laguna Seca and do a race in a couple of weeks. And he said, I'll cook for you. And we never met this guy before, but we're all like, well, we like free meat. And the next thing you know, this guy's just hanging with us in our Airbnb, cooking up ribs and brisket, drinking scotch and having a good time. Like, yeah, it's kind of like, you know, if you want to get a chick's bra off, tell her you give her a massage. Yeah, right, exactly. You get invited to the party. So you probably gonna say we have a relationship. Another relationship.

8:17 Your mechanic, Shawn. Shawn. He is building my brother in law's 37 Ford pickup. Wow. There is an armo connection, man, that runs deep with us. Yeah, this is serious. Very, very serious. Serious vehicle. Easier for you to say. He goes by Sean with me. But the armo's name is Shunt, right? Right. Yes. So the wine. The wine guy, you know, he's always welcome to the party, but in the business is a fun business. I mean, let's face it. Wine and see. But it's one of those business, like you were talking about. It's not. There's a lot of money in it. If you're, for instance, on the wholesale side, or even if you're a winery, make money in a winery. That's the old small fortune, you know, start with a small fortune, because that's what you can end up with. There's no money in the business. So I work very hard to taste wines for my customers. Every Tuesday, I taste between 50 and 60 wines. And that's a tough day, really, because that's the day I get home from work, and my wife's like, I'd like a glass of wine. Thank you.

9:15 I'll just fart near you, and you'll get a buzz. So your dad's selling wine, but he's not doing it via the. He's nothing. Bringing it via the mail or it's not mail order. So people are walking in, customers are asking, what do you suggest, Paul? And he makes the suggestions, and then they'd move, because he did a lot of business with aerospace firms. A lot of customers were from aerospace and pv. So they would move out of town. They'd be transferred to Huntsville, Alabama, or something. And he would. They'd say, send me your samples, Paul. They're really good wines. I enjoyed them. Just send them to me. And that's really the impetus of the show, of the company. And I'm saying 1979 is when these people started leaving town. He started the club at 72.

10:00 Wasn't much until, really, 84. He was going to sell it. He got an offer from a south african firm in 88. He said, you know, why don't you come join me? See if you'd like this idea. What was your plan at the beginning? Yeah, did you have a plan? I never had a plan. Well, I. I had the worst plan. I think I just grew up and I loved football, and I was good at it when I was a kid. Like, I was a peewee, you know? And I didn't really get the whole part where you don't have the genetics to play football. I was just kicking ass when I was ten. And I was like, well, I'll just keep kicking ass until I get to the pros. And I just thought, I'll play football. And I had no other plan. I had no other education.

10:47 And then at some point, I finished high school. I was an all valley football player. But not. Not nearly. Not nearly good enough to get anywhere near another. Like I said, no level beyond that at all. So then I was just stupid. If I could play football, but no, there's no football to play. And I just started digging ditches on a construction site because I was like, I'll do something physical. Cause I'm not a big student, but I could dig. I'll work hard. I learned from football. Like, I'll just go out in the sun and dig all day. I didn't. I'll do it. And then that's. That's what I did. And beyond that, I didn't really have a plan. And then almost immediately, I was like, oh, this sucks. Like, what? The first day, you mean something like that? Just. You're literally sat in the sun digging. Like, oh, that's what I did. And that was the plan.

11:42 Yeah, but I was like, the plan was to play football. Now I'm digging, and this is miserable. And so I was like, hmm, what's a better plan? Plus, I liked cars. And I was like, cars are expensive, and you drive. You have to drive a pickup truck and live in apartments. And I. And I just went, I could do comedy. That was my second thought. Well, it was. It wasn't. I could do comedy. It's what I could you do. And the answer is, I could dig ditches. I could be a carpenter, and I could also do comedy. I knew I couldn't be in accounting, and I couldn't be a professor and I couldn't be a lawyer and I couldn't be a schoolteacher. I wouldn't be able to take the tests or write the essays or pass the tests or get certified or anything. But I knew I had a sense of humorous, and I knew I could build stuff. So I was like, that's amazing. The building stuff's not paying very well, so why don't I start going, pursuing the humor part. And that's what I did. I didn't get paid for a million. Years, but still, to know that you could take on that role. Cause that's a, you know, that's risky and it's scary and people have fear of the stage.

13:01 I mean, well, it's not risky when you're destitute and digging ditches for a living. There's nothing. There's not risk. I wasn't risking anything because I didn't have any lifestyle, any quality of life. But it was a fair, it was a fair assessment. Like, I was like, I have a good sense of humor and I don't mind digging ditches and building stuff. Those are my two qualities. Hey, at least you had a self realization of something. Yeah, I wasn't like, you gotta sing because I can't sing. I knew what I could do and I knew what I couldn't do. People should do more of that. So for you. That's true. That's true. What were your early thoughts? Well, I left SC. I went to SC because my, when my dad came to America in 1949, SC gave him a job. They gave him the job to open the very first on campus pharmacy, which he did. And I have the daily Trojan from 1954 that shows that. And he says, you're going to SC. My sister went to Princeton. My brother went to Long beach, and he said, you're going to Sc. I owe them a favor. I owe them a living. So I went, I got Sc. I didn't know what I was going to do. I went to corporate America. I went to Xerox, you know, one of the great sales organizations of the world at that time. It was only second to IBM and got a great training for four or five years of banging on doors and selling copiers. Some copiers that were like $250,000 in 1982. Wow. And then I got asked to come join a small company called Telenomics that sold software. I had no idea what it did. There was five guys. They gave me 5% of the company. I thought equity and something was better than nothing.

14:33 And so I sat at my phone in my apartment with a two line phone, and I started calling business cards that have a fishbowl. And it was a very challenging thing to do. I think I mentioned in the pre interview that I left the office probably two or three times on a Friday morning with no money in the bank to go make payroll. And we had two or three on our staff, and I had to go find a check somewhere. Where am I going to get paid? I either had to pick up a check from a delinquent customer or sell something new and get a check on the way out the door. So you kind of cut your teeth that way. But it's all good partnerships. They're not too many Johnson and Johnson's and hewlett and Packard's in the world. So about five years into it, we started arguing and not getting along. And my dad says, you know, I'm a little tired, and I think maybe you can do this with your experience.

15:24 So I went and worked for them for three months, tasting wine with them, packing wine. I saw your packing line out here. And one day we went to a tasting together. We got split up, and he was at one chair and I was across the room and we tasted about 20 wines. And when we got in the car together, we compared notes and we were right on 85% congruency with what we liked and what we didn't like. And he goes, yeah, you're ready. And I never saw him again. He moved to. He moved. He moved to julian, which is. Where's Julian? It's not the edge of the world, but you can see it from there. It's like three or 4 hours into the Cleveland forest. It's ridiculous. So you had these other skills, like, I'm a big fan of developing skills and skill sets and kind of then transferring them sort of universally to other applications. So you felt like you had a base, laid down skill set. What would your strength or your skillset have been before you entered into the wine business? You know, it's funny you ask a good question, because I don't have any fear. My wife doesn't. Just can't understand how I have no fear to test, to try to risk. It doesn't matter to me. I figured I'm land on my feet somehow, some way. And so there was one episode with this company where this guy was threatening my wife and my kids. We owed him $10,000 in modems back then. We had little modems used to make the noise. And he went on to threaten my kids. And

16:56 I said, let me ask you a question. This is the guy who's in Colorado. I said, well, let me ask you a question. Are you married? He says, yeah. I said, have you ever heard of the turkish genocide? Armenian genocide? He goes, yeah. I said, well, let me tell you what we learned. And I go on to this very graphic explanation of what the Turks did to the armenian husbands. I said, so just, you'll get your money and I never want to hear from you again. And I thought at that point no one could scare me than anything. So when my dad said, do you want to come try this thing? And it was. We were selling, I don't know, a couple thousand bottles a month, I think. I'm sure I go, we can do this. Well, that's a good point, which is I think people contemplate the possibilities. It's a weird thing because it's a good thing. It's good to have a plan.

17:45 It's good to go down the road a year or six months or five years and go, where would you like to be? Or what are you thinking about? But if you overdo it in that department, it's stifling. You have to just, you know, I'm going on year eleven of doing a podcast. And there was no plan, there was no thoughts of what it, what, what's the end game or how it's going to work out or if it's going to work out. It was just, it felt like what, it felt like the right thing to do. And it was organic. And I never really sat and weighed the pros and the cons. There wasn't even any pros per se. Hey, there's that time. The possibility of something one day, who knows? And now it seems pretty pedestrian to do a podcast. But it wasn't when I started.

18:37 And you know, people always go, how'd you know it was going to work? I always hate when people say that. How'd you know? How'd you. Nobody knows. You can't do a wine club or a podcast and think it's going to work. Those are low percentage jobs. You just do them because you do them. And a lot of times stuff doesn't work, but you don't drowndeze with it. You let it go, let it sink to the bottom and grab on to your next buoy. I think if somebody told you all the headwinds you'd run into trying to do this, you would have gone, forget it, I'm not going down that road. Because you learn as you go, you take on each challenge, and that challenge makes you smarter, it makes you wiser, it makes you not make that mistake again if you had one. And it's like, persistence is omnipotent. If you can't pursue something, then what do you have? What dreams do you have that you that you want to pursue. That's my, like, I got. So what, what really is, like, what do we file into the loss department? You know what I mean? I mean, there's a monetary loss, okay? But that's not the end all and be all. People make money, and then you lose money. Sometimes you buy a house and you sell it, and you lose some money, and sometimes you buy a house and you sell it, you make some money or a car or whatever. So are we just, what's the yardstick that we're measuring failure by? And if you get a ton of experience and you learn a bunch of stuff and you're in one piece and you come out the other end, then why is it a loss or any relationship? You know what I mean? Anybody

20:07 dated when you were in college or something, it's like, is it a loss? I mean, every relationship ends. Every job ends. Eventually the house moves. You move from the house, eventually you die. So what are we to call. How are we even grading this? And I think this notion of, like, everything's got to make money, everything's got to work, and everything's going to be successful, and it has to be done immediately. That's an unfair yardstick to measure success. You're right on. Because there's no such thing as a loss, because everything's a win. Everything you do that becomes headwinds. That becomes potentially, at that immediate moment by a failed at. This is really a success because you can't be successful without them. And I can't tell you how many people that I know have passed away with millions, millions and millions of dollars in the bank. So what.

21:00 I mean, what are you gonna do with it now? I don't know. But they felt successful. They felt like they had reached the goal because they have all this money, but the only people spending it are the people that they left behind. Yeah. I mean, you get a little older, you get a little philosophical, but that's true. You know, I think the plan is, if you want to do something, it's not a bad idea, but at another point, you have to tune yourself so that you're on a frequency so you can hear yourself. And when people say, why do you want to do this? Or why you? And why are you endeavoring to do this new venture or whatever it is? You go, cause that's what I wanna do. And then they always go, well, how do you know it's gonna whatever? And you go, I'm tuned into myself, and this is what. This is what I want. And that you end up. When you do that, you're gonna end up with some. There's gonna be some swings and some misses because you've been to the plate so many times.

22:09 You know, there's going to be strikeouts because you can't make that many plate appearances without having a bunch of strikeouts. But there's going to be a lot of round trippers and grand slams in there sprinkled in there, too. Absolutely. And that's ultimately a life well lived. And by the way, what's the opposite? I mean, if you want to try to figure something out, go, what's the opposite? Well, the opposite is working at the same postal sorting facility for 57 years and living in the same apartment with the same cat. Like, okay, the opposite of movement and trying things out and love and loss and failure and all that kind of stuff, is what I just said. You work at the same factory for 60 years and you live in the same apartment. Well, if we can agree that's not a good life, then let's do the opposite.

23:05 Were you add, when you were a kid, would you consider that? Would you not knowing that that existed then? No. I mean, yes. All I knew is I was indoors. I wanted to get outdoors. Like, I would sit in a classroom and just kind of go bananas. I would have been probably diagnosed, if such a syndrome really exists, that I have that and I can't sit. And I think it's perfectly fine for some people that, for instance, let's say I stayed in corporate America, worked for Xerox, got to be a vice president. I know one of the guys I worked with became, I don't know, some head southern South America or something. I don't know. I couldn't do that. Right. I'd rather be taking step, walk on eggshells to see if I can get across than sit in the office and collect my pension when I'm done with it. That, to me, was not interesting. I had no interest in doing that. And I'd prefer to test myself, test the edges, take the risks and make and lose.

23:59 I made a lot of mistakes. You know, you keep pursuing and, well. The, you know, the other thing I realize whether it's a business or whether it's building, because I get into this sometimes when I'm building, which is I like to move fast. Like, I like progress. If I'm building something, I want to see something, I want to see something done. You know, there's all the planning phase of everything. But I like visual progress, man. I like. And. And so sometimes when you're looking for progress when you just go, I don't want to, at the end of the week, I don't want to look at a slab where the guest house is going to be.

24:40 I want to see a framed guest house. I want to see a guest house there. Not finish, but I'm going to see the frame of it up. Well, what inevitably happens, and I've done it to myself a few times, you move fast, and sometimes you'll make mistakes. And when you make a mistake in your building and you're moving fast, you'll have to stop, go back, fix whatever that thing is, and then go ahead again. And sometimes you're moving fast can temporarily slow you down if you're moving fast. But big picture, I prefer to move fast, even if it means that it's like we're going to speed up the conveyor belt. There's going to be a couple more cookies that fall on the ground and break because I've sped up the conveyor belt and I'm willing to deal with that like that. I understand that part of what goes along with moving quickly is some broken cookies, but I'd rather have the conveyor belt moving faster. That just reminded me of the Lucy show. Yes, she was at the chocolate factory. I think I have the same attribute.

25:57 My staff, and we have 15 or 20 at the office at any given time. They're constantly coming to me and saying, you forgot this, or you didn't do this, or whatever, and I'm good with that. I'm fine. Let's fix it and move to the next step. Because particularly in today's environment, marketing, for sure, of the Internet is ridiculously, it's the wild west out there right now. If you're not moving fast, you are losing. It's impossible to keep up with the changes. But part of it also is just a kind of a wiring. It's a wiring for sure. And there's a notion of, like, you also realize that whatever doesn't go on for eternity and you want to make some hay while the sun is shining. Absolutely. You just have feelings. Like, there's stuff you want to do. I don't know why. You know, I think a lot of people think, like, you're perfectionist or you're obsessed with something, and it's like, nah, just want to do a whole bunch of stuff in a short period of time. I get that same. Like, you're defining my office environment. In my environment, it's, my wife is a CPA, and she's all about auditing and make sure. The numbers add up at the bottom, and I'm like, I don't even know what they look like.

27:10 I'm already past that equation, and I'm onto something new. And maybe that's why we get along. We've been doing business for 25 years together. I don't know about Lynette, but that's just our yin and yang, the way office works. But I've got to get to the next step. And I don't think this company would be anywhere, even still in business today with the congestion that's in my industry, if we didn't do that. Wineofthemonthclub.com, by the way, I should put that out there. Oldest sustained mail order wine club in the United States. Wow. It's so weird that time is moving so fast. It's funny that wine is so old, but the mail order business is not nearly as old as the wine. But again, going on, what are we coming up on? Four years. Did you answer on the back of the cereal box? Of course. Maybe that little submarine that was activated by vinegar and soda. You know, baking soda. It wasn't affordable at the house, but, you know, that was mail order. Right. But that was allow four to six weeks for delivery. Right. Can you get away with that today? That's, like, impossible. It's like, we don't have it today or tomorrow. We're. And that's one of the things my company's been able to manage through all this, is keeping up with this progress of shipping and marketing and customer service that expects at least the next day. Right. It is.

28:38 It is crazy. And, yeah, they. When I was growing up, it always be four to six weeks. Four to six weeks for this, for delivery. And I haven't thought about one of those weird sub things in a while. It was a weird little plastic sub thing, and somehow you put some baking soda in it and maybe a little vinegar, and it would react with the water. Right. And then it would take on water and, like, dive down, and then some bubbles would come out, and it would pop up again, and it was like, kid would beat me over the head with that thing because he's got Fortnite, and he's wearing his virtual reality goggles. But for us, that's about all we. Had, is that Fortnite kid. He's like. He likes. I got twins. They're 13, and they're into fantasy football, which is like, I don't. I don't know about that. I don't know about fantasy football. That's my son. My daughter. It's funny. My daughter's into whatever anyone else is into, because that's the age he's at. My son likes, he likes video games. He likes. He likes fantasy football. The thing that's also weird about my son in kids today, that you couldn't really. Nothing moves the needle anymore. Like, I walked into his room, and him and his friend were playing, like, they're playing a racing video game on the tv. And I said, what are you guys playing? And they were like, we're playing forza. And I said,

30:09 oh. And I said, hey, we mean, my son just got back from Laguna Seca, like, three days earlier. And I said, is that got Laguna seca on it? He's like, yeah. And I was like, why don't we go once you go to Laguna seca? I just drove 40 laps at Laguna Seca, and he went, we're doing Indie. And I was like, I know, but don't you want to? It's oval. Don't you want to see what I was seeing? And he was like, yeah, maybe. And then I said, hey, you know, Forza has some of my cars. They scanned my cars and put them in their game. You want to drive one of daddy's cars at Laguna Seca, where daddy drives those cars? And I'm like, yeah, we're good with Indy. I thought, holy shit, if my dad, first of all, my dad's never done a goddamn thing in his life.

30:56 But if I was 13 and he, like, walked in and went, my track, my car, you drive my car, I wouldn't be like, hey, buzz off, old man. I'd be like, yeah, that's funny. Let's do this. Like, not interested. Well, let me tell you, a friend of mine, I had dinner with him here in Hermosa. He says, hey, don't forget to watch the Fortnite grand Prix or whatever it is. The World cup. It was two weekends ago, three weeks ago. I said, why? He goes, well, my nephew is epic whale. I go, who's epic whale? He goes, he's like one of the top players in the world. Not the country, the world, right? He was given $100,000 to show up. Wow. Just to show up. He came at 31, $1.2 million. He's 15 years old, third place at $1.2 million. Wow. He's 15 years old.

31:40 Well, again, as I always say, and we talk about on this podcast, my son tells me he's going to be a podcaster. He's going to have a blog, or he's going to be a professional gamer, whatever. Can you, with a straight face, even tell a kid there's no way you're gonna make a living doing that anymore? It's impossible because who would have thought there's a million jobs that haven't even been invented yet. You know, we went through our adult or adolescent life and someone said, like, it would be a mailman. You want to be a fireman, you want to be a policeman, you want to be a pharmacist. You know, there was like 14 jobs that a dude could do. Construction worker. That was about it. We weren't making up new jobs every ten minutes.

32:24 And so you had to kind of sit around and kind of, like, weigh your options. Like, well, I want to be a fireman or a policeman. You know, like, that's what he had to do. And some guy would come to the 6th grade and he was a fireman, and he would tell you about his job. Did he even have career day anymore? How can they have career day? Yeah. How would you, what would you define as a career now? Because this kid could make so much money that he's sitting on the rest of his life. Don't have to worry about it anymore. Anymore. Also, he's probably going to have 28 jobs in his life, probably because that. Fortnight will be gone one day. Right, right. I mean, you go to, I mean, you think about those jobs where, like, doctor Drew's dad was just a doctor, and then he worked for a doctor, worked as a doctor for 55 years, and then he retired. Like, I don't know that there's going to be that anymore. I don't know about. Have we just sent a nephew off to med school? And I'm kind of going, why? Because who knows what's going to be in store for him when he gets out. He's going to change so fast that technology and the way healthcare is done, who knows that's even a solid job anymore when it comes to lifestyle. I sort of said to everybody, when my radio job came to an end and the economy kind of folded up in 2009, I just said, the new world order is just a bunch of hoses just kind of trickling into the same trough. Like, I don't think there's one job anymore. I think there's just a bunch of hoses, and some of them are moving some volume. Like, some are pumping pretty hard,

33:58 and that's good. And some of the hoses are sucking water out of the trough. Absolutely. We got to pull those out and. They'Ll shut off real fast. We got to figure out what hoses are pumping and what hoses are sucking and. But it's going to be a new thing where there's like 18 hoses just all trickling into the same trough. There's not one big hose in one job anymore. Do you think that's different than when you're growing up, when you had the choices you did, which is a comedian and construction or whatever, but isn't it relative? Do you think it's relative, or is it just changing so fast that we can't keep track of even the options that are coming our way? I think there's a combination of technology opening things up, and also there's an emotional part of it where I don't think of myself as a comedian or an actor or a writer or podcaster or an author. I just think of myself as somebody whose job it is to entertain people and figure out a way to get paid for it.

35:00 Like, I don't, I don't really define it that much anymore. I think in the past you were, like, a tv guy. Yeah, right. You know, you're Bryan Cranston. You're a tv guy. Yeah, but you're a movie guy. Yeah, but you have a tequila company. You know what I mean? I think everyone is just the diversification. Is going to be critical to somebody as entrepreneurs as we are. Well, you think about what they talk about when they talk about your portfolio, and they go, you need a diversified portfolio because you put all your money into utilities and the utilities shit, the bad, then you're screwed. So you need to spread it out. You know what I mean? In case this is, and you think about it, what's, what's different? I mean, aren't you. Your portfolio, I mean, you know, what's the difference between your portfolio and you, your career? You know what I mean?

35:56 I agree. In fact, one of my old bosses at you are salesman. I don't care. We're all salesmen. You're a salesman whether you're selling copiers or whether you're doing whatever you're doing, you're selling yourself, you're selling this Persona, who you are, whether you're inside a big company or not, you're a salesman. You're responsible for your own trajectory. So you get to the company. Is it Aok? Whale's total earnings are $2.2 million. I don't know how he spells his first name. Epic. Whale is called epic? Yeah. Isn't that amazing? The reason, here's my problem with typos. Everyone around here makes typos. But everyone's name is a goddamn typo now, so I never know who's the actual fake name.

36:41 I don't know if things are typos or non typos. Epic whale 2.2. Isn't that amazing? Total learning. So what's the business when you start in on the wine business? What's the volume or approximately? I bought it, I think that month. I bought it in 1989, January, I shipped 3700 something boxes. How many in a box? Two. Two and a bob. So let's just say that was the average month. Let's say it's 4000 boxes a month. So 8090, 6000 bottles for that year. Last year, we shipped about, I don't know, half a million, maybe 600,000 bottles. Nice. But it's actually off a little because there's so many people doing this. All right. And you were talking about the industries, this industry has become this logistical thing you probably experiencing now a little bit with just shipping things out to your I, to your listeners. It's. The wine business has gotten down to where they're literally bringing in €1 liter wines. Meaning like less than a euro for a bottle of wine. A euro less than a year. Like $0.85, right? So, yeah. What are you gonna get for $0.85? Right.

37:50 Well, I mean, this is another thing, you know, when. When I started podcasting, there wasn't any money in it, but there wasn't really any podcasts either, you know, and I just read somewhere that there are 750,000 podcasts just on iTunes. Different podcasts, different channels, sort of speak. Yeah. Really well. There's no barrier to entry. Yeah, that's true. It's. You can just go to lip syn or pot. You ever, you go and just sort up. Now you go from nobody's ever heard of this to you got to do battle with 749,999 other podcasts. So it's kind of, in a weird way, it took a longer time to do, but when you guys started, there wasn't competition. People weren't familiar with the mail order wine business. And so you have to get them familiar with it because it won't be a business now. They're familiar with it. There's so many, so many. There's so many out there. And they all have different things, but only one has a story, and I'm the only story because we invented the concept, and that's it. That's the story because otherwise I got a team of specialists that taste wine, and we picked the best wine. Everybody says that what if people, I'm curious what your take is. Because I'm into cars, and I have found that it's not so much about

39:20 give me the cheapest car or even the cheapest fastest car. It's. I want a story. Thank you. And the cars, and I'll be interested in your take on this. The cars that were formerly not worth anything were the old race cars. They didn't have a lot of value to them. And people. The cars that did have a value were like, you know, Ferraris, sixties, seventies Ferraris and Lamborghinis and those high end whatever cars, collector cars, and they still have value. But the race cars went from almost no value to leapfrogging past many of the collector cars. And if you go back and you look now, basically, 19 out of the 20 most expensive cars sold in the last ten years have all been race cars. Now, the thing about the race car is a race cardinal with no history, meaning no story, it's not really worth anything. But if you find out that Steve McQueen drove it at Sebring with Mario Andretti or something, now we got a story. And if it came in first in its class at Le Mans in 1967, all sudden. So a car that might have had diminished value or, you know, worth something, but not a lot. It's all of a sudden can be astronomical value, based on the story. And I realized people aren't looking for the cheapest, but they're looking.

40:48 Many people are looking for a good story and will pay a premium for the story. How does that resonate with you? Well, the wine business is much like that. Just for FYI, I've restored two tigers, a sunbeam alpine. Oh, you're a sunbeam guy. I was. I have a GT 350 supercharged Shelby 2008. I have a 69 Myers Manx boonda doom buggy, dune buggy, and I have a 96. What year is your Shelby? An 0808. But I had a supercharged at the factory. And then I have a 1997 Paynows roadster, aiv all aluminum. Well, look out. That's a scary little car. With a Mustang power plant. Yes. Cobra power plant. Yeah. Those are interesting cars. Now, the reason I brought that up, those are all stories for me, right? The doom buggy. My one uncle had one in Malibu, and he used to go all over Malibu in this doom buggy.

41:44 The Panos roaster was my other uncle's. He passed away from cancer, and it was the last car he bought. And my cousin sold it to me. And I'm just so proud to have the car. And the Shelby was a throwback to the same uncle who used to have two or three GT 350s back in. The day, like 66, 67. Pictures of him and his tiger and him and his cobra as well. Cobra, yeah, he had a cobra. So that's the story for me. And wines the same way people want to. They go to Napa and they go to the tasting room and they establish this relationship. And if, really, if it wasn't for my father's idea to ship wine in the mail, many winers would be out of business today because they learned from my dad's model that you can go from manufacturing, the cost of manufacturing directly to retail, and skip sometimes two levels of hands out because of the three tier process in America for alcohol. Thanks to Joe Kennedy.

42:34 So that story, you come back and you go, I went to the so and so Napa, and I joined their club, and I get their wines every month, and they tell that story every time they pour a glass with their friends because wine is experiential. Let me give an example. I think, let's say you and I are come back from this. I will listen to one of your podcasts where you were talking about the soccer games with the kids, and they got you by the gonads, sitting there with the snack shack and everything. It was very funny. But you go to that, you have a full day with the kids in the soccer field, you're tired, you get home, they're tugging on your shirt tails, they're hungry, and you pour a glass of 33 cabernet, and it's just a glass of wine at that point because you're a beat and you don't really care. But if you take that same bottle and you go to Laguna Seca trackside and you're racing and you're watching all that's going on, and you're having a glass of wine with your friends, and you're talking about, this is a throwback to Paul Newman's race cars 33. They're going to go, oh, this is really cool. And it'll taste better. Yeah, yeah. No, I. I know.

43:31 I mean, the cars are kind of cars and wine sometimes can be wine, but it's experience and the story. And I. And I do think that's what we're all kind of looking for. And I do tell people all the time, you know, when I'm doing a project around the house, I'm building a movie theater in my house right now. You're building a movie theater? Well, I. Me and a guy, but yes. And I think everyone's plan is wait till I'm done and then go watch a movie. And my thing is, is we're gonna sit in this movie theater, and we're gonna watch a movie, and we're both gonna watch the same movie. But I'm gonna have a different experience because I built this movie theater. That's right. You guys waited for me to finish, and then you came in to watch the movie. And I don't know if I'm going to enjoy the movie more. I'm going to have a different experience for sure with it, because. And every time I walk into that theater, I'm going to look at that riser, and I'm going to look at the way the seats are laid out, I'm going to look at the way, and I'm going to know everything that's going on inside of those walls, and I'm going to remember it how it was, and I'm going to have the experience of getting it from this sort of dank, dusty, kind of shell of a room into this swanky, cool, acoustically sound, technologically advanced room. And I get that.

44:59 I get to have that. You get to feel that. Yes. And I feel like a lot of people are speeding past the story to get to the glass of wine or to get to the movie theater or to get to the car. And I'm like, slow down and get the story down. Rebuild the car. You restore that car, and when you hear somebody talk about a car, and you go, geez, that's a sweet sunbeam, tiger. And that person. The difference between the person that restored it themselves versus the one who just bought it from their neighbor, it's a completely different story. The ones who did it, their eyes light up and they go, oh, I had this thing down to the frame this thing was in. Bo was in rough shape when I got it.

45:48 Boy, they wanted this guy. I got it for $500. The guy said it was a basket case, and I brought it back. You see all this pride and all the experience you get from that. Again, if you're going in a hurry, you can screw things up a little, but you want to get that thing put back together. I don't. I feel like there's a lot of people, especially young people, kind of running from that experience. You know, I tell my kids all the time, like, come. Come down to the garage. Let's go get it done. Let's get going with this stuff. They're like, ah, we don't. We don't want to get, you know, like, why there's no air conditioning in the garage? And I'm going, you're missing out. Yeah, I agree with that. Well, I liken that to, hey, if you have all the money in the world, you can buy whatever you want. I mean, that's. I guess that's fun when you. The moment you buy it. But if there's no story to get there in, particularly with cars, let's just use the same example. And wine's the same way.

46:49 But. So you go buy it, a big deal. You can just buy it. That doesn't mean anything. But if you earn that right to know that car, like my. I mean, I know everything about tigers and alpines. Actually, I feel good at 260 or 289. The original was a 260. The last, I don't know, 400 were 289. Well, what was the one you did? 260. It was first model year 64. Things are going up. Oh, they're starting to become the poor man's cobra. For sure. For sure. Well, they were always the poor man's cobra, but now there's the price. 60 or 70 grand. Yeah, it's squirrely and scary to drive. I mean, Jay Leno told me he rolled his on mall once or twice, easily. Yeah. Because that was actually a Shelby project, too. They had two. My model of alpine I restored was the 62 with the fins. And they gave one to Carroll Shelby, and they gave one to Ken what's his name in England.

47:44 And Shelby moved the motor back under the firewall. Ken Miles. Yeah. Ken Miles. Yeah, that was it. Wow. And he didn't. He left the motor forward. Didn't handle as well as Carol's did. People don't realize, I mean, maybe realize that, you know, Shelby and Ac Bristol and, you know, the whole idea was take the american power plant, put it in the lightweight european car I used to. There was a guy who raced a tiger down at Laguna's sake. You know, the things in life you remember. Yeah, sure. John Morton. As a professional driver, he's kind of a gun for hire. He drive six cars over the weekend or whatever, and I was hanging out with him, and one of the cars he drove was an old Shelby.

48:29 Sorry, an old sunbeam tiger race car. And I remember, like, kind of talking to him and talking to the guy who owned the car and stuff. And he said. I said, what kind of tires are those? Because I knew all the race tires, and I didn't really wasn't familiar with the tires he had on this car. And he goes, oh, yeah, my wife hand grooved those things herself with a soldering iron. What is that? I was like, what kind of relationship do you have? This is awesome. Like his wife was actually taking the hot soldering iron and literally grooving with. Some kind of tie in behind this. Or their plan on how to. Well, there were channel water or something. Yeah, there are guys that are kind of hardcore. Some guys like back in the day would like put their own tread pattern on a tire. Crazy. And this guy got his wife to do it. Amy, if you type in John Morton white Sunbeam tiger, like Laguna seca, I'm sure this car is going to pop up. But again, that's the story. Now, I went and saw 5000 different cars, but that's the one that stuck into my head. It was a great story and it didn't. Now if I shed.

49:49 What's up with those tires? And he said, ah, the guy over at tire rack did them for me. That wouldn't stick in my head. Your wife did it. Right. And now we got a story. It's a story now that's stuck in my head. There's John Morton. We got a picture of him at least driving a white. Oh, there it is. Sunbeam tiger with 13 inch. Look at that guy. That's 13 inch rims. Yeah, John's a good guy and super fast driver and drove everyone else's. There was a guy in LA, his name was Joe Alphabet. I know, it's bizarre. And he had. What was that? The white GT from the sixties. And it was the slot car, very famous slot car. I can't remember now. He had two of those racers, but he's bought and sold collective cars. Cheetah.

50:37 And there was the cheetah that. Oh, I'd love one of those though. This was a real race cardinal. Anyway, I bought my tigers from him and his name was Joffa because you couldn't pronounce his name so he had to formally change to Alphabet. Wow. Yeah. So. And I bought from him three gt 3500 gt Maseratis. Wow. Thinking what year? 58 the year. What year did you buy them? Oh, like 92 or something. Well, that was pretty cheap for you. In 92 it was $7,500 for the three of them. Wow. One was a rolling shell. Beautiful super legera. One was a rack which all the. But the dash was good and the instruments were good and the other was the restorable car, which the motor was just a big pile of valves and springs. They're cool cars. They are very cool. But I. Way over my head, it's pretty advanced. I mean, it's a straight six with a twin cam, twin spark plug. And some are Lucas injection, others are carbureted. I can't remember, no idea what I was getting into, so I ended up selling it. But to not restore. But those cars are worth. They went up. They've kind of flattened out a little, but 200 grand a pop today. But they're, I think, for the. That style, I think one of the most beautiful cars ever built for the. In the fifties. And that sort of, you know, like this Cobra, not covert, but the Corvette style. You have good taste in cars. It's a good looking european car

52:11 that's not really an all out sports car, but it's just a grand tour. It was their big production car, like 2000 units or something. Yes. So the story. Yes. No, the story. That's what I keep telling everyone. It's about the story. Wine is much the story. And when I interview these winemakers on the podcast, on wine talks, you get this new passion I've had for this business, which is really my. This is my 30th year of tasting wine. I've probably tasted 100,000 wines. But the passion for the business is probably two years old. And it comes from these stories, from listening to these winemakers who have been in the business all their lives, whose families.

52:52 Twelve generations. One of the winemakers I interviewed, young lady, that's fascinating to me. And it sucked me into the industry to understand wine from the story. Well, I will say that in any business, I think, you know, it sort of bothers me when people are just sort of perpetual salesmen, you know, like they go, what do you do? And they go, I used to sell rvs and now I sell siding, you know, and you're like two great industries. You just sell shit. You know what I mean? What do you care? Do you like rvs? I like selling rvs and getting commission. Exciting. Like, no, I don't care.

53:33 Like, it seems soulless. The guys who have jobs where I'll just sell stuff and get a commission and I don't really care. I don't care what it is, I'll just sell. It feels soulless to me. Obviously, crafting wine feels like the opposite of sales. It is, because it's like this pure passion and I'm going to put it into this bottle and, you know, it's pure passion because the chances of you turning a profit, opening a winery are slim to none. So you're only there because you love it. So you're sort of de facto dealing with a group of self selected, super passionate people.

54:17 And that's why if you ever talk to sales guys like you talk to guys, how many times you go, you like cars? I like cars. I gone into car to dealerships, talking a guy about a 60, $70,000 car, and I go, what's the horsepower on that? And they go, it's peppy. Step on it. What's the horsepower? Oh, enough for you? Well, believe me, you'll get out of your own way. And I'm like, you don't even know anything about this. Well, you know why? Because he doesn't give a shit about cars. He's. No, he's not into cars. He's into commission, and he's selling cars, and he'd be selling computers the next day. He doesn't. Doesn't care. So the wine guys, just by virtue of opening a winery or even endeavoring to do this, care. So you're dealing with a self selecting group of people that are super into what they're doing. So true. You're. You're. That's your jumping, jumping off point. There's the sales guys. I mean, I wanted to infinity dealership a few weeks ago, and the guy handed me his real estate card. He didn't even ask me about the car. He goes, hey, you know, he went to use any real estate, and he gives me his real. I'm like, I thought I came to buy a car, right? But the wine with the wine guys that come in, the reason the passion is new, it's newer, is because I'm starting to understand it more. I'm starting to get the stories behind it. You. The guys that don't have the story are these guys that are bringing these €1 wines and putting a billion labels on them and pumping them into the system. There's no story there you can't tell. I tasted

55:48 a Saturday night live wine the other day. Saturday Night Live? Really? It was horrible, by the way. It was a french beaujolais. It's terrible. But why would you buy that? What's the story? I bought this because Dan Aykroyd drinks it. I don't understand. I didn't understand it. But the story from these guys, when you listen to them and you figure out that they travel the world, and they take this wine and they put it on the table, and this is the best explanation I've ever heard from anybody. It was a young winemaker, a woman from Argentina and Armenia. Oddly, she said, what other product can you take across the country, across the world that represents where you're from than wine? You take a widget maybe a car. But you take a bottle of wine and you open that and you know that you're in Armenia when you drink that wine, if you appreciate wine. Yeah, the story. The story's there.

56:36 And I think, or I hope, whether it's cars or wine, that everyone shouldn't be just chasing the cheapest. That's the problem. And look, obviously, there's going to be a certain group that does that, and they're always going to exist. But the people that are looking for an experience, I mean, look, you could make this equivalency to food. There's plenty of food to be found, and you can find plenty of cheap food out there. And you walk out from a golden corral, the full belly. But I think people would like a story and an experience. I've become a food snob. Have you? It really sucks. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Cause my daughter's a baking chef in New York, and she works for a very fancy chef, and I'm like, I can't eat some of this stuff anymore. Yeah, I really want real food. Yeah, I want real wine, too. That's the part that is kind of getting to me a little bit, because there are guys on groupon, and you're talking about the cheapest. $45, you get 15 bottles in a corkscrew. Really? So $3, it can't.

57:45 By definition of the model, it can't be any good. Right? But if you're looking for fill your rack up with 15 bottles of wine for $45, it's the right place to go. Well, let's tell people where to go. And we can also tell people that coming soon, my wine, 33, will be available as well. Wine of the month club is where you can go. Wine of the month club. Oldest in the country. Oldest, yeah, oldest in the world. I mean, it's weird. It's kind of your business and my business the same way because you go, I'm one of the oldest podcasters. Well, of course, because it didn't exist before this. And the podcast wine talk with Paul Calum Carrion. Yeah, we. You know, we. Actually, my pr firm changed it to Paul K. Oh, Paul. Kate. The rest is silent. Paul Alphabet, everybody. Well, I'm excited to do business with you. I'm excited to come on your program as well. Who knew our love of Mark Garagas? All things Shelby talked for a long. Time on both those subjects.

58:56 I'm just finishing. Just finishing a Shelby doc that I'll have to make sure to. Yeah, let's check it out. Oh, boy, because that guy, that guy's an onion. You just keep peeling that guy, man. You know, there was a, he was honored by the, an adolescent organ transplant group at the universal Sheraton a few years ago, and also along with him was an armenian doctor who's a very close friend of ours. And I said, well, I got to go to this. There must have been like 50 people, complete access to Carroll Shelby. So I took a picture of my mustang, and he said, what do you got there? And he signs it for me. And we chat a little bit. We talked about his chili. Totally approachable. He started a whole chili cook off in Texas as well.

59:43 All right, well, I'll come be a guest on your show, and we'll do it post haste. We look forward to that. And again, wine of the month, sorry, wine of the month club. And you can look out for my wines. 33 coming on soon. And until next time, Adam Carolla for Paul K. Saying mahala.