Just Two Good Old Boys

013 Just Two Good Old Boys

January 29, 2023 Gene Naftulyev Season 2023 Episode 13
Just Two Good Old Boys
013 Just Two Good Old Boys
Just Two Good Old Boys
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Ben:

Dude, it was a

Gene:

a little tired man.

Ben:

not gonna lie. Two delayed flights and hours and hours of travel kind of wore me down.

Gene:

Yeah. Well, I remember those days. Haven't done that for a while, but man, I, I, there was one year where I literally flew 50 out of 52 weeks.

Ben:

You know,

Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

my, my boss is working on lifetime titanium and it's just like, I don't wanna travel that much.

Gene:

lifetime, titanium. Wow. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, that's what I got. So, you know,

Ben:

good job.

Gene:

That that is a, a, a level of

Ben:

Yeah. And lifetime titanium means that you're at titanium for

Gene:

that don't know

Ben:

or five years in a row.

Gene:

Well, so when I got it this was before the merger, it was very straightforward. It was a quarter million dollars in spend and a year and a half living in the hotel.

Ben:

No, thank you.

Gene:

So took me

Ben:

so now the way it works, like I have Lifetime Silver, I'm about to be Lifetime Gold and that is at or higher than the level for x number of years with X number of minimum nights. So I don't travel that much.

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, you got

Ben:

Don't you put that evil on me, Ricky, Bobby?

Gene:

May you live in interesting times. Congratulations, Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's not even

Ben:

do we wanna start with something serious or do we wanna start with like Shot? True. Okay.

Gene:

shots show for sure.

Ben:

Did you see the new PSA line that's coming out? Dude, that is awesome. So, Palmetto State Armory is coming out with the kind of these retro classics. They started kind of with the their AK 47 clone, and they've just kind of expanded what they're doing with that.

Gene:

Yeah, I mean, it's cool that they're doing it. That to me wasn't the most exciting thing at the show. It's, I'm not a old gun guy. I'm more of a, show me the cool new electronic whizbang gun

Ben:

The in that vein, the 2311 was

Gene:

was pretty excited about a 2311, which I still think should have been called the the three 20. But it's, it's, it is an interesting concept and the fact that he said it could use slides from a 1911 was

Ben:

why is that so surprising to you?

Gene:

Because it uses different magazines and it has different controls

Ben:

Similar controls. Now the slide portion though, in, in, for those who don't know, and 1911 is a very custom fit gun. Your armorer is going to do a lot of work on each individual gun, which makes it problematic for mass production. The 2311 is kind of modernizing the 1911. And what, what controls were different that you saw? Because everything I saw was, you know, beaver tail grip safety. Amary safety.

Gene:

like the take down look like it was in a different place. I don't know, take down

Ben:

like that. Sure.

Gene:

mm-hmm. And the fact that it uses the magazine from the P three 20, the, the sig, which is interesting. I've always thought that more companies oughta use other companies magazines. I've been a huge proponent of like, let's just fricking standardize on like, Glock mags are probably the most standard mag as far as other guns using'em.

Ben:

For pistols. Sure.

Gene:

great. But

Ben:

too.

Gene:

yeah. Well, other than they are uses the Air Mag.

Ben:

You're Tavo for one.

Gene:

Yes, Tavo does. Most fn guns cannot.

Ben:

Psa,

Gene:

I should rephrase that.

Ben:

44, whatever that they just announced will use AR mags. I mean, there, there are lots of guns that use

Gene:

Yeah, but they're so, like I had the FS two thousands or two, well, I had a couple of'em, but anyway, that gun it did use the, the ar mags, but only the gi ar mags, not the, not any other brands.

Ben:

yeah. And the, there are

Gene:

be the metal

Ben:

that floating around. Sure. But the fact of the matter is, standard pattern mags is kind of becoming a thing and we want it to become more of a thing.

Gene:

It really should be. I, I'm all for that. And I think like I've got that 40 caliber foldable rifle that uses the Glock mags. So yeah, the more standardized stuff there is, the better. And I'm also a little surprised that the more more companies didn't like prevent others from using their mags, cuz you would think that's the patented c. I'm glad that they don't

Ben:

It, it, now if you go to Clone Mag, then you could get into patent infringement. But if you're buying magazines from the company that has the patent and you're just saying, our gun is going to use these magazines and we're literally buying from them, there is no patent

Gene:

Hmm. That's a good point. Yeah. They're not really losing. Yeah. Yeah. So, and that's a very good point. So if you make something that isn't a mag but is accepts the mag, that's probably not covered by a patent unless they specifically patented the mechanism for

Ben:

Well, but that, I mean, that would be a really shitty patent and should be kicked out by the patent office. If, so this, this is the whole thing about patents. Most patents are bullshit and not legally enforceable. Most of the patents that are issued. And the reason why is because if there's the whole prior art thing, there's the whole normal evolution thing. There are lots and lots of reasons why most patents are garbage. So anyway like PSA even talked about them having some lawsuits over some of the new guns that they're releasing because of patent discussions that they ended up getting past it. But yeah.

Gene:

Yeah. What else did you see that was interesting at the

Ben:

Well, I've only seen a little, like I said, I was traveling, so I've only seen a couple videos from it. I didn't, you know, since I was traveling I didn't get to go to shot show. You have it being in Houston and you know, you could have gone, but I don't know why you didn't

Gene:

I'm an idiot.

Ben:

I, I really want

Gene:

I really should

Ben:

out, and just have that ready to go. Yeah. So the s STG 44 was definitely something that I'll be looking at, just cuz I think it's a cool gun. Palmetto State also had a new dagger that they're releasing. Basically everything else was pretty additive, iterative. There were a couple cool shotguns, but that was about all that I've seen so far. What about you?

Gene:

Mm-hmm. So let's see. What did I like that was out there? Well, there was we, I think we both liked the the Texas 1911,

Ben:

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Gene:

the one with the Republic of Texas. That was, it was just pretty, it's not a, there's

Ben:

a gun you wanna put on your

Gene:

about it other than it's a, a Chrome 1911 that says Republic of Texas on it. So just from a interesting standpoint the other thing is there was a sneak peek and an upcoming Iwi gun that is based on the the what the hell's it called? The,

Ben:

Well, while you're blanking out, gene had a

Gene:

I can see it in my head, but

Ben:

Texas Republic, Texas gun earlier in our conversation. Cuz you know, we chat every now and then and it was put in a glass case that says breaking case of su succession.

Gene:

Oh yeah, yeah. break in case session. Exactly. Because I would not want to just use that gun,

Ben:

were fighting the New War for Texas

Gene:

would not want to clean

Ben:

you'd want that gun

Gene:

Oh, yeah, yeah, that, oh, absolutely. No, no. That's, that's the gun to have. Although technically I did buy a ultrasonic cleaner. I haven't set it up yet. It's actually been sitting in its box for like three months. But I did that my, my laziness kicked in. And after going out shooting for a while, I was like, yeah, I really need to pick up a cleaner, cuz the place that I used to have my guns cleaned no longer does that.

Ben:

You're joking, right?

Gene:

Yeah. Well, who do you use to clean your gun? No,

Ben:

Why would you

Gene:

It's, it's a service that's 15 bucks a gun. They do a great job cleaning guns. It

Ben:

What, what, what do you lubricate your guns with? No. No.

Gene:

I don't know what

Ben:

do you put on your gun?

Gene:

Oh, back when I used to

Ben:

Gene

Gene:

'em. Oh. Well, I usually, yeah, I mean, that was back in the nineties, but I, I used, you know, hopies to clean'em. I always like that smell.

Ben:

So much

Gene:

Oh, it's a great smell. Anyone who hasn't smelled Hopies, number nine.

Ben:

Horrible, horrible, toxic

Gene:

It's, dude, first of all. Yeah. It's toxic, which means it works. And I don't think there was anything else available in the nineties. And then I don't know, it's some whatever brand gun oil back then.

Ben:

Science has advanced. There are lots of CPLs out there, clean lubricate, protect all in ones that are absolutely fantastic, huh?

Gene:

yeah. Don't trust all ones guys. It's no good. It's gotta, it's gotta be corrosive and toxic and it can't be an all in one, otherwise it's

Ben:

I'll give you an example. Frog Lube.

Gene:

Mm. Kind of true.

Ben:

absolutely awesome.

Gene:

heard of it.

Ben:

No, but it's anyway, it, it, it's one of those things. It comes in a paste and,

Gene:

it have carouba oil in it?

Ben:

you need to heat it up and so on. But it's fantastic. It's one of those lubricants that you can, it's almost like cosmoline in the paste form where you can just dab it on something and then as you shoot the gun, it becomes a liquid, you know, as it heats up and is fantastic. You, you, depending on the gun, you need to be careful not to overly, because if you, like, a 1911 is a great example where if you get too much of something on there, you know, the f it can cause issues with the action because it is a paste. Now they have a liquid, but I prefer the paste that said like an ar, ak, anything like that you throw, you just gobbit on there. And the great thing about especially a very tight fitted AR with this stuff as you're shooting, it becomes liquid very quickly from the heat. And, you know, if you've got a tight fitted ar they generally like to run pretty wet, and it's a way of having that lubrication on there without it being, you know, real wet when you're moving it around and carrying it. So anyway, there's some good stuff out there. I am a firm believer that everyone should know how to break down and clean and service every firearm.

Gene:

yeah. At least have somebody that knows how to do it.

Ben:

do it.

Gene:

Well, sure, sure. But if there's a service available,

Ben:

Change changing

Gene:

Anyway, so I bought the ultrasonic cleaner, so now I can totally clean guns home.

Ben:

cleaner, but Sure.

Gene:

I know, but do you know how long it takes? Like three hours?

Ben:

take three hours.

Gene:

Oh, it totally does. No, I remember doing this, dude, I distinctly remember doing this.

Ben:

you're a little slow and not capable of doing something effectively and

Gene:

you Ah-huh. You start with the the little tabs and then little cloths, and then you go down to cotton swabs and then eventually you get down to using a toothpick. So that whole process is multiple steps of continuously decreasing size and surface contact surface to get every last bit of everything off of it. To have a nice,

Ben:

Yeah. And what is the purpose of cleaning a gun to you? Is it? Yeah. Okay. No, it's

Gene:

Let's make it look nice.

Ben:

It.

Gene:

Mm-hmm. no, no, no, no. That's only if you use crap guns like an ar. If you use good guns like Glocks, that can go 20,000 rounds without a single clean cleaning. It is to make it look.

Ben:

I call bullshit on anyone saying that they don't need to clean their gun, that it can just function for whatever while true. Hold on, hold on,

Gene:

Oh,

Ben:

While true,

Gene:

done

Ben:

why would you not clean your gun as a normal maintenance process? You know, cor

Gene:

kind of like, why you don't need to work on your car if you have a

Ben:

no, you still need to change your oil. That's the, that's the equivalent analogy.

Gene:

Sure. Except every 20,000 miles, not every 3000

Ben:

Okay. I, I, I, I am,

Gene:

I'm just saying that if you have a gun that was made to work when it hasn't been cleaned like an AK or Glock, you can clean it. There's nothing wrong with cleaning gun that doesn't require cleaning. It will look nicer. Absolutely. But unlike guns like the AR platform, which will just simply seize up and fail to function, there are guns that were designed to not do that.

Ben:

no, it is not, I mean, I'm sorry, but I have beat the hell up out of some of my ars and run'em through the ringer, multiple times adverse conditions.

Gene:

Yeah. And clean'em every 300 rounds.

Ben:

anyway, I, I, I grew up that you go hunting, whether you fire the gun or not. You come home, you clean the gun. Now, mostly this is you know, coming from hunting in southeast Texas in the marsh, brackish water, shotguns, blue barrels,

Gene:

Yeah. Salt and water. That's bad combination. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I would agree there, if you're in corrosive environments like the Gulf, you totally need

Ben:

and this is just the way I grew up. So it's just a habit I've carried on for forever.

Gene:

Mm-hmm. Well, and again, there's nothing wrong with doing that. I'm just saying it's, it's false to suggest that every gun

Ben:

not a requirement. Sure. And you know, like what's on my hip right now, my edc gun doesn't get cleaned every day at all. It just stays in the holster. So yeah.

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. You just gotta make sure you take the the what do you call those things? Little, little bits of,

Ben:

Lint.

Gene:

of crap that you have, like in the, in, in the dryer. There you go. Lint. You just gotta make sure that you

Ben:

By the way, did you get your xds yet?

Gene:

Mm-hmm. I got the notification that it came in. I haven't picked it up yet.

Ben:

I like this gun. I like this gun a lot.

Gene:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben:

It is my EDC now.

Gene:

I have played around with the 45 caliber version that my buddy has. I thought that the that it was a little too big for concealed carry, so I never got one. I think the Nile millimeter is probably a little slimmer than the

Ben:

It's a fantastic concealed carry gun and with the k crimson trace optic and at the price point we just got it at. It's just,

Gene:

yeah. Yeah.

Ben:

which by the way, I sent that to Adam and he's

Gene:

Well, and

Ben:

too, so yeah, he's like, shit at that price, I think I'll get one too.

Gene:

funny. Well, he bought one of my old carry guns. He bought the bursa I can't remember the model number. And he originally bought it to for his wife cuz he wanted

Ben:

was this for Tina or which wife?

Gene:

and yeah, yeah, for Tina. And he he, after that texted me, said, did he really like shooting it himself? So I don't know if he kept it or if he ended up giving it to her or not. But and that gun was good. So I had a originally I had a Walter ppk and that gun, I think I, I got a bad version of it because it, I had it back to the shop twice. And so after that happened, I was like, okay, I need to sell this thing. I just don't trust a gun that's

Ben:

you know, a buddy of mine had a Walter ppk in a 22 long rifle with a threaded barrel. And we put we got one of those thread changers registered of course, and used a oil filter. And no, actually they, they, this is 100% legal. They actually sell a thread changer that is registered as a silencer under, you know, all the N F A stuff. And you just put an oil filter on it. And for like the ppk it's fantastic because you just do it real quick. And anyway, shooting subsonics outta that thing, all you heard was the clack clack of the of the.

Gene:

Yep. Yep. So there was a gun that I looked up last night that I can't remember the name of anywhere. It was a, a video guy had says like the quietest the quietest gun ever or something like that. And it was a single shot gun. So it's like a break action, single shot chambered in 300 blackout. So shooting subsonic with a suppressor.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Gene:

sounder. And that thing made less noise than a daisy BB gun. It was at 76 decibels. 76 decibels is quieter than what I'm talking

Ben:

quiet depending on the system, right? So obviously semi-autos because whether gas or recoil operator are gonna have some, well, and

Gene:

Yeah. You got more

Ben:

gas feedback right back pressure from the suppressor. Something like that, or a bolt gun can really suppress very, very well.

Gene:

Yeah.

Ben:

you combine it with a round, like 300 blackout outfit's made to be suppressed,

Gene:

right. So it is super quiet. The, the problem is I also watched another video by a different guy that tested the Subsonic 300 blackout in its capability.

Ben:

Wall.

Gene:

it is shit. Yeah, exactly. Like literally equivalent to a 22

Ben:

funny part is, so, you know, 7 62 by 39 is actually superior.

Gene:

It is. And that's, he tested that against it and that was absolutely superior. And here's what you can't get, at least I couldn't find in a 300 blackout is a steel tip there, there is no armor piercing. 300

Ben:

there are many reasons why.

Gene:

There is 7 62 by 39

Ben:

I'm not a fan of 300 blackout never have been. But yeah.

Gene:

Yeah, I, I mean, I, I think it's a cool idea. I just, I don't know. I got one. Whatever. I haven't shot it yet. Don't have any ammo for it

Ben:

would you have a gun that you don't have ammo for?

Gene:

I bought a bunch of guns. Remember I was buying like a gun the week for a while.

Ben:

gun later.

Gene:

I haven't bought the ammo yet. No, no. You could get the ammo later. No, you, in fact, the guns are not, most of these are no longer available because of the new ATF

Ben:

dude, that ATF ruling by the way, there are multiple YouTube videos out there explaining why you should not go for the$200 bait and switch trap.

Gene:

Well, yes. There, there's a couple things there. One is, if, if you don't have an authorization. Take place then It's an automatic denial of authorization. And since the weapons already put together, it technically means that you are now breaking

Ben:

And there's another little nifty thing in there that if it is an imported firearm.

Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

Yeah.

Gene:

Yeah. That's the bigger issue

Ben:

So if it's an imported firearm and there was ever a brace added, you cannot remove the brace and remove it from being an S B R. It is an s b R permanently now, which is absolute horses shit.

Gene:

And it's worse than that. It's actually worse than that. If it's an imported firearm and it has the brace, then it has to be

Ben:

no, no, no. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope,

Gene:

It does. No, it's in there. Page

Ben:

I'm

Gene:

272. It's in there.

Ben:

My, my understanding is that you can still register it and if you do not register it, then your only options are to surrender or destroy.

Gene:

Well, that's the options for every gun, but not for the imported guns. The imported guns. See, it was technically illegal to make the S B R out of an imported gun.

Ben:

Interesting.

Gene:

They don't grant those for imported guns, only for US guns. It's part of the 1987

Ben:

repeal the N F A already?

Gene:

Or the 80 86 amendment. Yeah. It that's, see, this, the good news is I think this is showing just how problematic the NFA is to more people, and maybe we'll have some action. We have known that, but to the average gun owner, I guarantee you they're not paying attention to the N F A. And so the problem is it looks like there might be, oh, I don't know, maybe five grand worth of guns that I own that can't be put into this, that have to be destroyed.

Ben:

you just suffered.

Gene:

I know, right? It's, it's amazing that, that I had those guns. Luckily, I, I was able to get rid of'em before this came out, but it's like, holy shit, that's, that's egregious. Like taking something that was legally available and then reclassifying

Ben:

Well, what's really crazy about this is that it's not grandfathering anything in it's retroactive law, which is in English. Common law is

Gene:

No, nothing.

Ben:

something's legal,

Gene:

It is bullshit. And it, and it's not even a law. It's not a law passed by any elected

Ben:

is that under normal English common law, which is the tradition that America's legal system is supposed to operate on, if something is maybe illegal and you were doing it before, it was maybe illegal, you're grandfathered in and allowed to continue to do it.

Gene:

Yep.

Ben:

For instance, you live out in the country and you have an outhouse. All of a sudden the county puts in septic regulations. Well, my outhouse is still there and I can still use it. New guy comes in,

Gene:

Yeah. Not, not if it was manufactured overseas, then you gotta tear it down.

Ben:

Abolish the a tf, abolish the fbi. Any, any three letter agency name, one three letter agency that you think should stay? Gene, CIA

Gene:

c

Ben:

Kill him. Garrett, him.

Gene:

I, I don't agree with that. In a lot of ways, the the mess that we're in is partly because of the CIA's change in role, but the original role of the CIA was important, and I do think that that agency needs to

Ben:

sine.com.

Gene:

Yeah. No, it's, look, what, what do I usually talk about? The the u the US caused conflict in Ukraine. Right? That's State department. That's not the cia.

Ben:

you do realize the State Department is generally just a front for the cia, right?

Gene:

No, no. That's like saying everybody that works for your company is a spook. That's, it's not a

Ben:

It's pretty damn

Gene:

statement. Well, if you say so, you work there.

Ben:

Thank you, Dude, I, I am the least glowy person ever and you're trying to make me out to be

Gene:

I know. You're the perfect candidate. I know, I know.

Ben:

anyway.

Gene:

Yes. Which is so funny because that's kind of the conversation I was having with

Ben:

Uhhuh

Gene:

with Adam earlier. He's really got it in for Whitney Webb. You know who she is. She's a reporter. Been on Glen Beck in a few other places. And he was telling me from the get go, oh yeah, yeah, you can't, you can't trust this, this woman. Why, why is she living in you know, what's the country? Peru? Why is she, you know, like all these things. And so he's still sending me He's found a hilarious video. I'll forward it to you of this dude that's like supposedly Underrun from his country. And, you know, he's putting out videos on YouTube, talking about how he's gonna expose her. And and, and it like the definition of conspiracy theory video, right? He's got a, a conspiratorial theory about how she's in cahoots with, she works for the the. What's the company? It's one of these big think tanks that Kissinger, Kissinger and Associates, and her dad was in the skull and crossbones Zales stuff. And you look at the guy's video.

Ben:

Yeah. You, you mean sculling

Gene:

to Yale and you, you look at the video. Yeah, yeah. That one I'm clearly, I'm not in it, so you know what the fuck? I wouldn't know about what their names are.

Ben:

of Crossdressers.

Gene:

he, he is shooting this video with awesome quality, like it's a dslr, not a webcam that's shooting him. He's got perfect green screen lineman, I'm like, you're on the run in another country shooting a video with clearly a high production studio doing this. Yeah. And it's not like, it's not even, it, it's not even like, it's like the shot was framed by somebody who knows what they're doing with a pro green screen and, and more importantly, not the screen behind them that had to be well lit, but the, a professional quality adjustment of the software. I've done this enough times to know how even subtle laing changes on a green screen. Make it a pain in the ass to make the green screen look clean. This was one of the best looking green screen. That you've ever seen. It's like, you know, CNN Quality and this guy's talking about like exposing this Whitney Webb person as being pro-Israel. The irony is Whitney Webb used to work for a pro-Palestinian organization for like five years

Ben:

Yeah, and I will say that Chromic key and technology has progressed. Definitely since the last time I was doing any green screen work and it's gotten a lot better on being able to select multiples. So the shadowing effects and stuff like that has gotten less troublesome, but I agree with you that

Gene:

It, it's still a pain. There's a lot of manual tweaking. You gotta do the automated things. You will always see artifacts if you do it automatically. Like one of the things that the green screen that's built into zoom, meaning one of the things that it consistently does is it can't figure out that the area underneath my headphones, but above my head should be green screen. Even though it's the right color. It, it seems to think that's part of my head. And so if I use that green screen, which is otherwise relatively good, I mean, does a pretty

Ben:

screen or are you using the automatic with nothing behind you?

Gene:

Yeah. No, I'm using, no, I'm using green screen. And why haven't you noticed I'm, I'm always in front of a green screen because that's what.

Ben:

Uhhuh.

Gene:

in Texas looks like here always. So anyway it's there, there are always little things like that that you can find if you're just doing automatic green screen where it just, software just does not quite work or, or it blends a person's

Ben:

you know, it's interesting because Zoom, in my experience without any background, just doing the virtual background Typically does a pretty damn good job actually. It's scary. Good. Teams not as good.

Gene:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think the, the zoom makes sense that it's good because they're, they're used to doing that for the Chinese media. It's the same technology that they use to show that there's no actual protestors in the streets everywhere. So it does a good job of removing protestors as well as apparently hair lines. But, um mm-hmm. So yeah, the not good news, but maybe there'll be a silver lining about this ATF ruling, which is insane. Covers an awful lot of people. Their bump stock ruling got kicked off, kicked back didn't go through reversed. And as more and more legal lawyers review the ruling, cuz it is pretty lengthy, it's almost 300 pages. There, there seemed to be more and more errors with it. Like one of the lawyers who was a again, I suck at names. I can't remember this guy's name, but he, he's spoken in front of the Supreme Court and stuff, like he's a real lawyer not a hobbyist lawyer. And he said that they failed to mention a case that is extremely relevant, which will definitely open up the door to an appeal, simply pointing out the fact that they never considered this. And that was a case that, that this was the US versus

Ben:

US versus Jimy

Gene:

the,

Ben:

who cares?

Gene:

I know it's, it's basically no, it's staples, us versus Staples case. And so in that case, there was, it was an ATF case that had to do with a, a guy who they alleged had a fully automatic firearm and it was not registered and they demonstrated that it could shoot fully automatic. And the guy's defense was that he bought a semi-automatic gun and that the fact that this gun man functioned was not. In any way his fault, and therefore he could not be. Well, it was, you know, the, like, the outcome was that the ATF failed to prove any knowledge of that this guy may have had about the weapon being a fully automatic weapon. So they're saying that it, it's effectively if, if you have something that is illegal, but you didn't make it illegal and you bought it under the premise that it was legal, then you are not guilty

Ben:

And I'll give you a great example. So I had a, as a kid, I had an SKS that was a Chinese surplus cheap ass, you know,$90 in the nineties, ak sks, that was in Cosmoline. I cleaned it and stripped it. You know, this is me. And at like 12, 13, well, one of the things I didn't know to do at the time was take the bolt apart to clean out the cosmoline in the bolt. Well, I got a few hundred rounds into this gun, and enough carbon had built up in that cosmoline in the bolt to cause the which the sks for those who don't know, is what's called a floating firing pin. Right? So the firing pin is loose in the bolt carrier and is only sent home by the hammer, right? Well, what ended up happening was it got dirty enough and there was enough cosmoline still in the bolt that the firing

Gene:

out, stuck

Ben:

stayed forward. So what this ends up happening is what's called a slam fire. So as soon as the bolt goes home, hits the firing firing pin.

Gene:

Which was actually a design of some World War I guns, which was a design on some World War I guns.

Ben:

the SKS actually falls into. So essentially what ended up happening is luckily I of paying, you know, safety rules and everything else stayed on the gun and emptied the mag. You know, just real quick.

Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

Well, so I was actually, I had removed the internal box mag and used detachables on it. Yeah.

Gene:

Oh, oh,

Ben:

yeah, it was like a 20 round mag,

Gene:

have been bigger. Yeah, because it came

Ben:

Five round mag loaded with stripper clips.

Gene:

Yeah. Internal.

Ben:

Actual

Gene:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben:

back in the day.

Gene:

And I had a similar thing, but with a different gun. Slightly different operation, but the same effect. I had a, a very futuristic gun cuz you know, I'm all about the future. So this was futuristic for the nineties. It was a, a Calico 900 I believe. And there was a, a very interesting design. The Calico had a lot of really unusual and well-meaning future designs in it, like the, the, the grip was behind the barrel, not below the barrel, for example, so that the recall impulse was completely linear forward and back. There was no rise at all. Yeah. So it had interesting, it had a a hundred round magazine that was a helical mag. And some of these guns I think were used as prop guns in sci-fi movies to look like laser guns, cuz they don't actually look like a normal firearm. It had what looked like a magazine well on the bottom of the gun, but that's not where the magazine went. That was just where the spent rounds dropped from straight down. And you could clip on a little bag in there to collect your rounds. It was a very interesting design gun, I think a lot of high-tech stuff. But the company went bankrupt because that gun was included by name in the Clinton anti-gun. And so, like a lot of companies back then whose guns were named in the in the gun ban it went out of business, but it was a, a California company and their original purpose for designing this gun was as a police and military gun

Ben:

California Gun Company. What could go wrong? Oh, I know, I know,

Gene:

There used to be more gun companies in California even Barretts. Yeah. It's California, you know, used to be the place that was the last bastion of the West. And it, it, it just completely fell apart into the, the American Chinese

Ben:

Speaking of shithole, Newark and New York City is a shithole. There's nothing redeeming about that place. No, no, no.

Gene:

First time you've been

Ben:

been a while. But this was just a glaring reminder of why I can't stand the northeast.

Gene:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Northeast pretty much sucks there. There's a few small exceptions and I think if you're there as a tourist, like if you wanna go through Boston to see the revolutionary sites and stuff,

Ben:

Boston is totally d 100% agree,

Gene:

a shit

Ben:

100% agree. But you can get outside of Boston and into some of the bedroom communities, and there's green, there's trees, there's things. New York, Jersey City, Newark, et cetera, is n

Gene:

Well, you could go to Long Island. Long Island.

Ben:

a metropolitan shithole sprawl anyway. Can't stand it

Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

that my flight was delayed for two and a half hours trying to leave. So,

Gene:

Well, that didn't help, but you know, hey, at least while sitting in a bar, you called me to spend some

Ben:

Yeah. And you, yeah. Well, it's funny, I called you and you're like, you're at the bar already. Dude, my flight's delayed. What, what am I gonna go sit by the gate with my thumb? No, no, no, no, no, no,

Gene:

Mm-hmm. Now are you, you are flying

Ben:

United mostly, yeah,

Gene:

what's Airline? United, so are you in

Ben:

do, I I do have United Club passes. Unfortunately at Newark, which was where I was flying out of I was at terminal A and the United Club was at terminal C,

Gene:

Oh, and the club was in the different Yeah, they used to, New York was a big continental hub, so I'm, I'm surprised he didn't have multiple United Hubs, United

Ben:

the way, Newark travel tip,

Gene:

I used to, that's,

Ben:

trick of, Hey, I can't lift my arm over my head doesn't work at Newark because they've got new back scatter scanning machines where you keep your hands at your sides. So, oh, and they had facial recognition, which I kept my head down and flicked them off on the way through.

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it is a little bit like them off putting facial recognition devices. It, it is very, very bordering

Ben:

It's not bordering, it's there.

Gene:

Right. But I mean, most places they do it sort of,

Ben:

Yeah, sure. But this is in your fucking face, literally.

Gene:

silver screen. This is in your face. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then you like, you know, that the the TSA agents that, that make like 50 grand a year, they're underpaid and stuff that they're printing out photos of hot looking chicks from that thing and then masturbating to'em at night.

Ben:

why I take my free massage whenever I'm not in a hurry and you know, ate them.

Gene:

Yeah,

Ben:

Yep.

Gene:

exactly. Free massage time. That's might as well do it. So, speaking of guns, there's also another shooting that happened in California since we're on the gun topic.

Ben:

But I thought they had gun control. Didn't that stop everything?

Gene:

Well, yes. There are no, no more guns in California, but there's still bad people with guns apparently. It's a weird concept.

Ben:

So you mentioned this before the show, and I've got Los Angeles Times pulled up and I've been skimming it, but you apparently know more than I do. So tell me

Gene:

Well, the, the all I know is there's 10 dead people, which is significant. It was in Monterey Park, California. And it's the, the, I don't know if this is, has anything to do with it, but the news media at least is saying that this is somehow tied to the lunar New Year. Now, I don't know if that means that the 10 people that are dead are all Asians, or if it's that an Asian person who did the shooting, I don't know why they're mentioning the Lunar New Year, but they, they are. So that probably means it's some chicken shit way of saying that either the victim was sort of shooter were

Ben:

Well, Asian, because Yeah. I mean it doesn't necessarily have to be Chinese, but the Chinese calendar is

Gene:

yeah. Yeah.

Ben:

that

Gene:

Right, right. So now they're, I, I don't know. I don't know a whole lot about it, but I, I do know that this is clearly going to result in more anti-gun rhetoric and why we need to control guns more because crazy people go off and do shit like this. Then clearly the, the 200 million Americans that have guns need to lose some

Ben:

So funny story. From my trip, I was in an Uber and I was going to meet a coworker for, he was grabbing, I had already grabbed dinner, but he was grabbing dinner and I was gonna have a drink with him and talk. And I didn't realize how close the place he had su selected was. So the guy was like, oh, you could have walked, you know, I was like, I don't know, you know, I don't know the area, so whatever. And we're on our way and he is like, yeah, so going now as long as you're, you know, back before X amount of time, you know, you should be safe to walk back. It shouldn't be that big a deal. And I looked at him and I said, you know, in Texas, I never would've even thought of that. I never even would've considered what time I walked back as being a safety thing. He goes, oh yeah, yeah, small town, whatever. And I'm like, no, because I'd be packing and hi his eyes. He just looked at me, you know, like, what the hell? I'm like, yeah, I'd be carrying a God and I wouldn't be worried about it.

Gene:

Well, and that's again, I mean, I hate to do what the left does, but which is to use a tragedy for political effect. But honestly, if all these 10 people were armed, they probably wouldn't be dead.

Ben:

And you know, that's it. It it really is a truism though. But, you know, walking around Newark and New York and Jersey City and everything else, I didn't run into any problems or anything, but, you know, I just, the. The sprawl and the mass of people all on top of each other is just not the way humans were meant to live. And the fact that these fuckers have such a superiority complex about it is just insanity.

Gene:

Oh, they, yeah, they're, they don't smell their own farts, man. If you live either in New York and surrounding area or in LA or any of the big cities in California, really?

Ben:

the r the irony is all of these cities stink.

Gene:

oh yeah. Yeah, totally. More, more so on the East Coast though, I think. But people there really assume that everybody else is an idiot for not living there. That like, if you're not smart enough or don't make enough money to live where they live,

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Gene:

there's something wrong with you. Not that, that they're smoking crack to believe that.

Ben:

Yeah.

Gene:

Yeah. So. Well, it sounds like you had a interesting time out there,

Ben:

to Western Pennsylvania was much better. Yeah. I got to go to a fairly new construction power plant and walk it down and meet with the plant engineer and plant director and get to know'em a little bit and a pretty cool new site that was built. Actually, they went commercial availability in 2020. So it's a brand new power plant. Yeah.

Gene:

Oh, that is, that is pretty brand new. Hmm. Now you also sent me an article I haven't read yet about the first

Ben:

yeah, yeah. Yeah, the, the powers at be at the nrc have approved the, which we knew NewCo was going to most likely be the first re small modular reactor to be approved, but they've actually approved it so we could see construction here in the next few years. Which is a major milestone. I mean, the fact that the NRC has approved anything, I mean, vocal three and four are not technically yet approved and they're a traditional lightwater reactor design. You know, they, but there, there are stages. The design stage vocal is actually obviously already passed through cuz they're nearing the end of construction. But the reality of any power plant nuclear power plant built in the United States is you have a design certification phase, you have a construction phase, and then a build phase, and then you have first fueling. And you have to get certified every e every step of the way. And part of the reason why I say vocal three and four aren't certified and finished, you'll never see another lightwater reactor design built in the United States is because it costs, I mean, Southern Company for three and four are paying, I think somewhere over 20 billion in construction. And they have no guaranteed right to run. Yeah. So it's a huge

Gene:

Yeah. Which is insane. Yeah. Which also means that whoever's investing the

Ben:

Yeah, I mean, VO three and four will likely be in operation for a hundred years, you know, I mean, seriously,

Gene:

Now

Ben:

it's owned by

Gene:

privately owned

Ben:

which owns Georgia Power Mississippi Power and multiple others.

Gene:

are they publicly traded? Can you buy stock in them?

Ben:

I actually don't know. I believe they are. Let's look it up. Southern Company Stock price. Yes, they are publicly traded. They're New York Stock Exchange, their symbol as, so they're currently trading at around seven$67 and 12 cents. Their five year peak was at 78. Their five year low was at 44.

Gene:

mm

Ben:

Not horribly, but I mean they've increased. Let's see, 2020 was a peak, then they fell off and then last July was a peak and they've fallen off and now they're coming back up. So, yeah.

Gene:

Hmm. Interesting. Well, it does look like the suspect. I was doing little Googling while we're talking here. The, it looks like this happened in a very Asian populated area. So my guess is the suspects were predominantly Asian or all Asian, but they don't have the shooter yet. So they, they don't know if that's an Asian or an evil white man or what, what that, I mean, couldn't possibly be a black guy of course,

Ben:

Gene, now you're just talking crazy

Gene:

you know, whoever it is. Well, I'm just saying, you know, we can't assume things like that because it's highly impossible that it could be a black guy, but it's more than likely some crazy white guy, probably a southerner. That's what the news would say anyway, so, yeah, which, you know, sucks anytime somebody gets killed, obviously. But but unfortunately I think the, the likelihood of them using this to try and push through more egregious anti-constitutional registrations are high.

Ben:

I mean, problem you know, problem, solution. Don't let any good crisis go to.

Gene:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's who said that? Was

Ben:

Oh,

Gene:

Hitler or Obama? I can't remember.

Ben:

it up. Yeah, sure.

Gene:

Or both. I dunno. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, whatever it is. Hey, so have you been following at all the, this, this you conservative media

Ben:

want to even bring this up and dignify it with coverage?

Gene:

I spent way too much time watching videos about it. So yes, the answer is yes, we do. So Steven Crowder, who I've always enjoyed watching his outdoor videos talking about, changed my mind. And he is a child actor, turned comedian, turned conservative, political pundit. He, he's definitely got a large following of people that enjoy him. I think the, the high point here was during this midterm elections, he had the highest watched livestream on YouTube at I believe it crossed over 500,000 people concurrently watching him, which was pretty good cuz Tim Cast only had like 320,000. And all of those guys are doing better than what the traditional media had as far as viewers. But he just, he used to work for the Blaze. He was a, I don't know, employee, contractor, whatever.

Ben:

for three different companies. He's never been on his own

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he was on Wright, right? He worked for Fox for a while. He worked for Comedy Central, I think for a while. He worked for the Blaze, so he's worked for a number of outlets. He's always had kind of political humor. He really rose to prominence, I think by, by having a feud with Amy Schumer and really going after her for stealing jokes. That was the first stuff that I ever saw with him doing, and it was not obviously political. Other than that, Amy Schumer is a huge feminist

Ben:

She's huge. That's

Gene:

you know, he was going over her bu bump. Yeah. So, he has left the blaze, I think, of his decision.

Ben:

I mean, there's a few things that are unclear on that. everyone's focusing on obviously what happened with Daily Wire and everything else, but you know,

Gene:

yeah.

Ben:

Glenn Beck and the Blaze ha have about as much money as anyone in this space. And you know, I, it does beg the question of what happened there which isn't part of this story for, I'm sorry.

Gene:

Who's there for quite a while, but apparently he was there for quite a while. But according to friends, he's been unhappy for at

Ben:

I mean, so my entire take on this is Stephen Crowder has shown himself to have a lack of understanding of the world and seems to be a rather vigilant child,

Gene:

Mm-hmm. that's very much my take on it as well. You're kind of putting the card in front of the horse, but Okay. Yeah. So the bottom line is he'd left there and then what happened was he started shopping himself around, or he had

Ben:

while saying he was not.

Gene:

and Sure, sure. And, and one of the potential companies big enough to be able to have him work there now that he hadn't yet worked forever was Daily Wire. And so they had enough conversations for Daily Wire to put together a proposal a term sheet for him, which is the standard, typical thing that happens is like, well, thanks for your interest. Here's kind of what we're thinking. What do you

Ben:

what they considered kind of their standard clauses, what they did for pretty much everybody, including Peterson and Candace

Gene:

Which a term sheet is

Ben:

out on this.

Gene:

e Exactly. Term sheets tend to not be horribly customized because the idea is you wanna get a level of interest from the other party, and then the other party will take care. Putting things in that they want to strike. So the, the term sheet will have every covenant in there that you may possibly want because it's the starting point. And so you're not going, what you wanna avoid doing is give a term sheet that has fewer restrictions than the final contract, cuz that will be seen as a bait and switch. So you start with the most restrictive version that you would like, assuming that the other side will then not be comfortable with some of these restrictions, will redline'em. And then you have negotiation and you come up with,

Ben:

Right.

Gene:

know, money versus

Ben:

is any contract, right? You always ask for more than you really want.

Gene:

Yeah. It not just for, not just for talent. This is just standard PR procedure. So to me it read like a very normal

Ben:

I mean, quite frankly, the term sheet that he

Gene:

Stephen Crowder.

Ben:

which when this first all broke, he put out a video that redacted the term sheet, didn't show the full picture. And he was like, oh my God, look at these egregious terms. This is why you shouldn't work with, you know, the conservative con, which, you know, what you say about me is what you say about yourself through, through this Stephen Crowder comes out to me, huh?

Gene:

Yeah. Right. I just did a fake Dutch

Ben:

So Stephen Crowder in, this comes out to me as the penultimate fake conservative, right? You've just shown us that you're nothing but an actor,

Gene:

Yeah, totally.

Ben:

You're playing a part

Gene:

Yep. Yep. He figured out a way to make money by spouting conservative stuff and pretending to be totally in it for everything other than the

Ben:

He's really just a

Gene:

in it for is the

Ben:

But anyway, neither here nor there. You know, one of the things that is in the term sheet for example, was if you don't do a show because you don't want to do a show, not because you're sick or hurt or anything else, but you don't do the agreed upon terms, we're gonna dock you a hundred thousand dollars. Okay.

Gene:

right? Which like, oh my God, a hundred thousand dollars, I'm gonna lose money on this deal if every time I can't do a show because I broke my

Ben:

another part of the

Gene:

then I'm gonna have to pay a hundred grand. Right? Right. So he is, he's lied in multiple ways by both a mission and just plain old lying, because that is covered by a different section and it would be a different amount, it'd be a much lower

Ben:

the, the whole thing that he left out was what they offered him, which is a four year, 50 million deal.

Gene:

Yeah. With the expectation that he'd pushed that number upwards. So this was like their, this is where we wanna start number, knowing that

Ben:

I, I think they were completely ready

Gene:

And he was.

Ben:

around 75. Jeremy Boing and his rebuttal, you know, talks about the amount that they were expecting to invest overall production costs and everything else being well over a hundred million. I mean, they were ready to lay out essentially a Joe Rogan esque deal for him, which is.

Gene:

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Which is I think, a great overestimation of his worth. And

Ben:

Well, I mean

Gene:

so Crowder

Ben:

Crowder has come out and said that Mug Club has like 350,000 subscribers,

Gene:

Yeah. And he's full of shit because there is, first of all, there is no Mug Club Mug Club is a, something that was owned by Glenn Beck's Company. And so the, and still is incidentally, still is owned by Glenn Beck. So what he's referring to is the mailing list of people that have ever been a part of Mug Club that apparently he was able to get from Glenn Beck before leaving. So they didn't, they like didn't transfer Mug Club to him, but what he was able to negotiate

Ben:

Do we know that he actually negotiated that and didn't just walk off with intellectual property? Because that's what it sounds

Gene:

we don't, I'm assuming that, but, but listening to other people that have left Glen Beck, which I've now listened to, they didn't get that. They said that's a standard thing when you're in Glen Beck, is they will set. You know, whatever monetization, Patreon type thing, but you have no access to it. In fact, you don't even know how many people are paying. You don't have any of the numbers. And the presumption was since he was calling out this number, that they must have given him at least a copy of this list. But this is by no means the current paying number. This is across the five years that he's been there. The people that have paid at least one month into Mud Club would be on that list. And that

Ben:

that. Or he pulled a James Comey and walked away with shit he shouldn't have.

Gene:

he could have, but I think there'd be some legal ramifications if he did that. But we'll see. We'll definitely see. But let's say just for sake of argument, they gave him that right as a Goodwill gesture or whatever, maybe traded it for something so that he doesn't say anything bad about'em. Who knows? So now he and his idiot Simp followers, which I'm so sick of reading these comments by Crowder fans who are idiots. They, they have an IQ of 10 saying, oh, the Daily Wire are such assholes for giving him an offer like that. Don't they know that he's coming with 320,000 people that are paying 120 bucks a year already, which, like that alone is gonna be as much as their

Ben:

Then why the hell is he even looking at offers?

Gene:

yeah. Why is he trying to find a boss if that's what he's

Ben:

Well, and because he is

Gene:

he doesn't have it

Ben:

on his own, he's always been an.

Gene:

That's the, he's never run a business. Exactly. Exactly.

Ben:

this, where we, I, I'm not a huge daily wire fan. They have people that I like.

Gene:

yeah, I'm not either. I, I I, I like Ben in, in the, in the same way that like you know, a few different groups that are more mainstream or more rhino esque in that at least they're doing something for the conservative side.

Ben:

No, he's

Gene:

not a libertarian by any stretch, he's a total status and he is as much as he is being a lightning rod for a lot of the liberal media to really go after him. Which is, I guess good for other people, but his ideas don't really represent my ideas to a large extent. But also I think that there's a lot of people that are attacking him for

Ben:

yeah. And you know, full disclosure, disclosure, I give the Daily Wire$10 a month because of Peterson mainly I'm a huge Jordan Peterson fan. I think everyone knows that and I wanna watch the, some of the stuff he's putting out. So, you know, I literally, only thing I watch on Daily Wire is Peterson stuff. Yeah.

Gene:

Yeah. And I, and I don't give him any money because I just Yeah. Well, and I, I've actually added another guy I'll mention too recently be for his commentary. So bottom line is Jeremy Boring, who's the CEO of Daily Wire, put out a 45 minute, or probably like 55 minute video going through the contract line by line and explaining, and I assume the same way he explained to Crowder when they were on the phone of why each of these sections is in there. But also mentioning that, look, this thing we kinda expected him to push back on this probably wouldn't be in there the dollar amount. He'd probably come back with a higher number. We'd be, you know, we'd probably meet somewhere a little above what we're initially offering him. So he, this was not quote unquote their final offer. This was literally the starting point for negotiations and Crowder instead of actually negotiating, he said, this contract is an insult to me. You guys are crazy. I'm worth at least 120 million. Come back when you have something more real is the words that he used. And they, they, they came back with, yeah, you're too expensive for us, so wish you, best of luck. We're not interested. And that was that for a couple of

Ben:

You, you've seen the latest where he put out the recording of a phone call.

Gene:

Yes. Yeah. Well, I'm getting to that. I'm trying to go in order. Dude, you're

Ben:

I don't want to

Gene:

ahead to

Ben:

do.

Gene:

I'm, as I'm assuming people aren't familiar with this story. Okay.

Ben:

Guess dad,

Gene:

So he, yeah. So then he has a phone call with Jeremy and to, I guess give him one more chance to hire him. And then after that phone call, about a week later is when he put out his video talking about how Big Khan, that's his strongest, like, it, it's a plan words for big, big conservative media,

Ben:

the way, he registered that domain

Gene:

they're not in it. Right. Which was interesting. So you registered Domain before he left the Blaze and before he had that second call with Jeremy, which as you just mentioned, he also happened to have recorded. Now it's perfectly legal to do that in Texas. I record pretty much all my phone calls, standard practice for cya. But there's a difference between recording something to be used in court and recording something to put out on the internet out of context. And that's exactly what Crowd re did in his response video is during that conversation, he asked some leading questions, clearly assuming that he wanted to get a clip. Or a bite. He was using the same tactics in his conversation with Jeremy, a guy who was offering him 50 million that he was with Saint Yer, a guy that is, that diametrically opposed to him politically. And so to Crowder, clearly there's no difference between somebody who's on your side and giving you money and somebody who's on the other side and hates you. And so he recorded this clip of Jeremy saying something, which probably Jeremy shouldn't have said, but nonetheless, completely understandable why he would, which is yeah, when there's new talent that comes up and they come here to work and no turn of them we're gonna spend the money to advertise them, to get them viewership. And then eventually when they leave here, they're gonna be much better known and have a big audience that goes along with them. But while they're here, they're gonna be gonna be wage slaves.

Ben:

unfortunate

Gene:

term wage slave, yeah, it's a normal thing that a lot of people you talk, I mean you, you don't say this when you know you're gonna be recorded, but you definitely use phrases like that when you're assuming you're not being recorded and you're trying to get the point across that yes, we will not be paying people top dollar if no one's ever heard of'em. We're going to make money as we grow their brand. And get profit back from that. But when their contract is over, we, we don't have a lifetime contract with them. We have a contract for X number of years, usually three or four when their contract's over, they're gonna have all the benefit of being a much better known, more valuable person when they leave. And that's not something we can take from them. So we're just getting our money while they're

Ben:

the daily wire term sheet that has been released. And some of what Jeremy has come out and said, and what Candace and other people have corroborated is the Daily Wire is not holding onto your show. So, for instance, if you know, he were to go through, if crowd were to go through and do this, you know, and he's doing his normal show that existed before the Daily Wire, the Daily Wire does not retain copyright on that. They let it go with him. The only things they retain copyright on are the documentaries that they want him to produce, the original stuff that he wasn't already doing. Which to me is was a little bit of a shocker. I'm surprised that if they're paying for these episodes, they're paying for the production of the episodes, but they're not going to retain rights to the episodes is

Gene:

Well, they do have a perpetual license though.

Ben:

okay. Sure. But he can take them and put them somewhere else is the point, which is not typical.

Gene:

I would agree. I don't think that's typical. You're generally, when you're working for somebody, and the example that I think is absolutely brilliant that somebody use is like, you know, when Jay Leno left the Tonight Show, he didn't walk away with all the episodes of him being the host of The Tonight Show to keep as his own. Like, that show is the show. He, as the host is the employee in that show. It's not his show because he's not the one paying for it. He doesn't own it. Now, well, I it is just gonna say that, that that's, that's even true of if a comedian's performing at an event, right? So that if the event has in their contract, the, that they can film the comedian that comedian doesn't get the rights to that video of him performing. He owns his material, but he doesn't have the rights to the video shot of him performing.

Ben:

What I would say to give

Gene:

by the

Ben:

a, I guess, more real world example for them, if I'm working for a company and I come up with some Excel spreadsheet to track a process that said intellectual property remains with a company, I cannot take an exact copy of that to another company and replicate it now. Now through my own mind, I can replicate and create something similar from scratch. That's fine. But to actually take a copy and run with it

Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

generally be a thing that I could be sued for.

Gene:

Yeah, because you got paid to do that thing for the benefit of the company. So it's not yours. Once you get paid, it's if, if you're not getting paid and you do something, then the expectation is it's yours and you maybe are just giving it somebody else to use for free. But if you're getting paid, you're doing it for them and they own it once you're done making it, whatever the thing is. Comedy show or spreadsheet. Yeah. So the fact that he recorded Jeremy without saying anything, and, and again, recording somebody for potential use in court is one thing. Recording somebody in order to put it out on the internet to make them look bad by doing it outta context,

Ben:

let's be real while legal total douche bag move.

Gene:

What do you mean? Oh yeah. Well, that's what I mean. I mean, like taking things outta context and putting'em out publicly is a total douche. Back move's. Nothing wrong with recording people. It's standard practice for

Ben:

says the guy who has cameras in his house,

Gene:

anyway. Well, you gotta record things. I mean, honestly, I don't know how people can have sex without recording it and because there's always an opportunity for somebody to lie about what transpired, how best, how better way to prevent any future lying other than through show video evidence that it didn't happen. If, if Bill Cosby had a camera with him, he probably wouldn't have been in

Ben:

in jail sooner.

Gene:

No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think I think a lot of these women

Ben:

Well, and the fact of the matter is when a lot of the Bill Cosby allegations happened, the man didn't need to roofy anyone to get whatever the hell he wanted.

Gene:

he really did not. No, exactly. Exactly. It's, if anything, he probably needed to keep people out of his hotel room more than he needed to keep them in his hotel room.

Ben:

that

Gene:

Yeah. So anyway bottom line is Crowders created this drama and what I've been posting on a lot of these websites of people's reactions to him is Go Crowder, go.

Ben:

Yep.

Gene:

It's like the goo Go broke, except it's less, you know, it doesn't make as much sense. But I think it's true. I think that Crowder has kind of slit his own throat here. He thinks that he's got this loyal following of people. One of the people that had posted a comment, and who knows if they're true or not, but I tend to think this is probably close to reality. That expressed disappointment in Crowder putting up. Like the guy was totally with him until Crowder posted the phone call and he said, and, and, you know, and I was a huge fan of Crowder and I was a member of the Mud Club, and when he asked for people to put their emails in for if they're gonna be willing to do the new mug club, I, I put in my name 10 times because I really like Crowder. And and now after he did this, there's no way I'm gonna give him money. Well, it tells you two things. One, he probably lost some fans that would've given him money as a result of this. And two, there were probably people that did put in multiple times in there because they're thinking is if he's using this as a negotiation tactic, let's help him by blowing this up way bigger than it actually is. But that doesn't translate into actual donations coming to him. And this is where he's gonna get a bit of, a bit of a reality bite. Because my prediction is that of this 320,000 alleged list of people that are, as he says in Mug Club, but there, there is no Mud Club. So they're really, they're just names on a list. I'll bet you they'll probably be about 3000 that actually donate to him and he's gonna, he passed away. He quote unquote, walked away by being an idiot from a 50 million deal. Really? It was a 75 million deal cuz there was also a two year extension for an additional 25 million. But he walked away from that. He's probably going to have to do this on his own or hire a production company to do it for him,

Ben:

Well,

Gene:

all out of his own pocket. And he's probably gonna be making less than 5

Ben:

50 million for four years did include him paying for the production and that he would have to keep the production quality up and things like that because he wanted control. So they said, okay, we'll give you control.

Gene:

Right. Which, which is what he was doing with Glenn Beck as well, is he had his own production crew and they didn't do it out of the Beck Studios. They were doing it out of his own studio that he rented. Which is fine. And I, I suspect Crowder does not pay his people all that much. So the cost of production is probably fairly reasonable. But by, aside from the production cost you have, the distribution, the marketing and all the stuff that Glenn Beck's company did, the Daily Wire would do that he's gonna have to do himself. And that should be interesting because, for example, daily Wire spends 7 million on Facebook ads for Ben Shapiro's show. That's a lot.

Ben:

I mean,

Gene:

7 million bucks on advertising on Facebook to get people. And Facebook is not exactly the bastard of Conservatism

Ben:

well, I think a lot of people are on Facebook just by

Gene:

but Ben Shapiro.

Ben:

not normal for not having a Facebook.

Gene:

Yeah, I'm not, I got banned like years ago.

Ben:

left.

Gene:

Yeah. So Facebook is man, that's a lot of

Ben:

Well, but they're,

Gene:

anyway, Crowder's going to learn a thing or two about being

Ben:

a return on that is the thing.

Gene:

e Exactly. And that's what he, that's what it, it seems like, not necessarily even just him, but all these sys that are following him that clearly are wage earners. They're, they're just like people that have never run a business, don't understand how business operates, cuz they're all saying that. Well, they're just trying to get money from Steven. They're, they're like, they're trying to rob him. It's like, dude, he's the one trying to find a boss. Okay. He's the one looking for somewhere to work. Of course, if some talent shows up to a company that is a production slash marketing company, it's, they're not gonna do this for free for them. And that's the other point is like, you know, he was enraged about the concept that if, if he gets kicked off of YouTube, if he gets banned off YouTube, that he loses part of his salary,

Ben:

that was a little bit of a tone deaf thing on daily wire's. Part is that he is demonetized on YouTube, so they probably should have struck.

Gene:

I don't think it was tone death. Like I said, it's the same term sheet that they sent to everybody. Like his people should

Ben:

But that was a little tone deaf. That said, one of the things that everyone should recognize is no matter what job you have your, the company you work for, your boss, however you wanna put it, should be making more from you and from your labor than what they are paying you,

Gene:

Mm-hmm. well, I, I'll go way beyond that. So I'll tell you for consulting jobs, which is where I have extensive. If you are working for a company as a consultant, then your salary should be at roughly one third or less of the billable rate times the numbers of hours you worked. If it's not, if it's more than that, then the company you worked for doesn't know how to sell you, you should probably look for a better company. Conversely, if you're a consulting firm and you're hiring people, you need to make sure that you have sufficient capabilities to sell those people to customers at a minimum of three x of what you're paying them. So if somebody's coming in, you're gonna pay him$120,000 a year. You better be able to make$360,000 a year off that person's billable time. If you don't then you're not gonna have enough money to really grow the business and to pay all the expenses and costs associated with that. If you can make a lot more than that, well that's great, but then you have to worry about that person leaving. Like if you're, if you pay somebody 120 grand, but they're billing a million a year,

Ben:

that

Gene:

could be problematic

Ben:

some bands on that. You know, the Big five are now big four. Generally double two triple is where they hit. A lot of times, especially as you get into the higher end and higher billable rates you move more towards that double versus the triple. Just because, you know, overall cost. When you're paying someone a quarter million plus a year, you're not tripling their salary usually.

Gene:

Oh, I disagree with that.

Ben:

as, as a customer former customer that's what I've seen, so,

Gene:

Yeah, it, it's, it does vary by industry for sure. And in some industries you're gonna have closer to two than three. But, you know, if, if Daily Wire offered 50 million in that contract, I got imagined their assumption was that there would be at least a hundred million in sales at least. And I think all the Crowder fans were shocked that they would want to keep anything more than about a million or two. Like they, in their minds, Crowder should be getting the vast, vast majority of the money coming in and the company is just being jewy if they're trying to keep more than that. And that's the other angle that, that is clearly the subtext here. Is that they're like, well, of course Daily Wire, you know those fucking Jews, they're just trying to steal money from poor old Steven Crowder.

Ben:

don't remember, gene is a Jew

Gene:

Well, I don't know what

Ben:

if I say

Gene:

but Yes.

Ben:

know. Yeah. It's antisemitic.

Gene:

Well, no, it's, how's it anti-Semitic to refer to people that are being anti-Semitic? Like anybody should be able to say that if, if somebody uses the N word right, and you're describing that person doing it, it doesn't make you a racist.

Ben:

anyway, so one of the interesting things we learned this week.

Gene:

Like Carman is not racist. Carman is just a realist.

Ben:

week is Tim Cast makes about$10 million a year and has 30 employees.

Gene:

I mean this is the, this is part of the silver lining This is part of the silver lining around this whole incident is we've, we're learning a lot of numbers coming out now.

Ben:

But I think you and I both

Gene:

So Tim Cast, which I

Ben:

employees for his revenue.

Gene:

way too many, but I will say I think most of'em are very low pay. And we also found out that he doesn't pay Luke at

Ben:

me because,

Gene:

is there just to sell T-shirts. That's his only means of getting funding from being on Tim

Ben:

I mean maybe, maybe Tim should reconsider

Gene:

I don't pay you either, so you know.

Ben:

exactly, and he should pay him to stick around because he is too good of part of the show.

Gene:

Yeah, he should.

Ben:

But Luke's show, his own show sucks

Gene:

it totally sucks and I, I don't understand people that, like Luke, his show is basically playing videos

Ben:

and he

Gene:

and he's, it's kind of like, like Tim's solo thing. It, yeah. Except worse, like Luke is great when he's just verbally in conversation with somebody. That's what he does on Tim Cast where he's really good. Luke, Luke Rudofsky, Ru Rutkowski, and a, a good Polish boy and who has the proper perspective on the whole war, by the way. But he, he is very good at that in his show where he's looking at a computer monitor and reading a story. It's really bad cuz he talks fast. He repeats what he says at least two, sometimes three times. And you're looking at you know, a text story on his computer

Ben:

very ala some of Tim Pool's morning show sort of stuff, but way poorer execution.

Gene:

Yep. Yep. That's exactly, that's exactly right. So I think Luke's benefit and what he should focus on, if I was to give him unsolicited advice, is even if you don't do it with Tim Pool, try and have a co-host try and have somebody that you're speaking to who's a human, not a computer screen,

Ben:

Luke could totally do a I R L style show on his own. That would be great.

Gene:

The only thing about that is I think Tim is better be because he's called the fence center by so many people. That is one of the advantages because he can flip flop on the arguments where like, you know exactly what Luke's gonna say

Ben:

agree with it, so I'm okay with that.

Gene:

It's consistent. Yeah, I do too. And it's very consistent. But if you're gonna have a talk style show with guests, then you need to be able to

Ben:

Luke could be the libertarian, Howard Stern and it'd be great.

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. But yes, in the sense of having a whole bunch of people in the studio to talk to.

Ben:

Just your general crew sitting there talking ala, you know, Smedley or whatever it was for us, that sort of stuff.

Gene:

yeah. Although he didn't, he didn't really hear. Smedley on, on the microphone. You just heard Rush talking

Ben:

But I'm talking about Howard, how he

Gene:

Snarly, both Snarly

Ben:

who talk back to him and they're part of the show.

Gene:

Yeah. Like Robin

Ben:

been a Howard

Gene:

you know, that was always his co-host from the early

Ben:

ass right now.

Gene:

Oh, you haven't? Oh, okay, okay. No, I, I have, and in fact, I talked about it I think on my other show, but I think Howard Stern, when he took the deal to go to satellite radio, drastic, no, he, well, he, he became a multi multimillionaire, not just a single millionaire, but his show completely changed cuz it went from being the show that was your morning show that you woke up listening to in the morning, to being the show that you listened to while you're driving the car to work or, or back home. And those are two different types of shows. And yes, he had more freedom on satellite, but he also lost, I think, a huge audience. And he became the, his audience started aging not, not, he wasn't getting the college crowd anymore.

Ben:

yeah,

Gene:

But anyway, neither here nor there. He's very comfortable. He's made hundreds of millions from moving to satellite

Ben:

it was Rick Ds in the morning that I listened to all the time. And it's funny because I was actually getting ready for school, I remember this very vividly, and Rick Ds, I was listening to the radio, showering, getting ready for school. I was living on the west coast at the time. And he came on and said, you know, the second plane has hit the World Trade Center. And I was like, dude, this is a bad joke. This isn't fucking funny, you know? And get done. Go turn on the news and holy shit. You know? And I was shocked that classes weren't canceled. And I remember sitting in high school and English and this kid going, why do you care? Who do you know in New York? What difference does it make to us? And it's like new, huh?

Gene:

See, now you would agree with that guy, I said, now you would agree with the guy who gives a shit about

Ben:

still a massive event. It's whether you think of it as a false flag, whoever did it, whatever, it doesn't really matter. It's a literal history changing event.

Gene:

Yeah. That it is. It took out a couple of billings. That's true. I was watching it live on on tv. And I remember when the second plane hit they didn't know what to say. Like they, they thought, are we replaying the video? Or of the first, you know, like they didn't realize that it was a second plane hitting a second building. And then after a few minutes,

Ben:

Yeah. And then

Gene:

it appears like there's been another one. And of course when that happened, all hell goes, breaks loose because now people think every building in the

Ben:

believes the story about Let's roll in the flight in Pennsylvania. That song bitch got shot down. sorry.

Gene:

yeah. I mean, most likely that and the DC one.

Ben:

Defy the laws of physics yet again, which by the way, for a long time I was not a nine 11 or at all, but Jesus Christ, when you, what woke me up to nine 11 and really got my attention was reading the NIST report. And by this time I'm in college and, you know, anyway, yeah.

Gene:

Yeah. As the, it was to me the, the really suspicious thing was how the Saudi Arabian all flew out on a private

Ben:

all flights are grounded, but we are gonna let y'all go real quick. Chop, chop.

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. Cuz this might, might have a, a negative

Ben:

You know,

Gene:

this was before a single person was

Ben:

funny. Well, their passports were found

Gene:

was, it was

Ben:

I mean, of

Gene:

just like,

Ben:

So interestingly enough, the only time since nine 11 that all planes have been rounded, you know, a couple weeks ago, the no Tam system. They're sitting there and they're going back and forth on these stories. So first it was someone, you know, accidentally fat fingered something then comes out that oh, it's actually ransomware. And then, oh, no, no, it was a employee maliciously doing something. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. They got popped.

Gene:

So what do you think it was?

Ben:

I, I don't think I have knowledge. And they got popped. They, they, they had a intruder of origins that, you know, I don't believe in attribution, but at this point, the story's old enough. I can talk about it.

Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

They they, they were hacked and there were notices that were changed and they shut it down and they recovered from it. And it's interesting because not too long after I OTM system was popped, so we're the Canadians. And what's really just quite frankly, astonishing to me is the kinetic reaction of the US government. So they scrambled jets, they scrambled refuelers. The only jets that were over the United States during this period of time were military in nature. And you gotta ask yourself why

Gene:

Yeah. Well, they

Ben:

But why did they scramble, said jets. Why did they put military assets in the air?

Gene:

Oh, there's always jets flying over the us. Yeah. You just don't notice

Ben:

I, I think it was a little bit more of a reaction than that, but

Gene:

Yeah. So what I heard, it was definitely a malicious employee and, I don't know, man. That's what I heard. I'm just saying what I heard. And the other thing as far as Canada, so the Canadian system actually has API links directly back to the US system. So once the US system data was corrupted, the Canadian one would've been as well. So they, I don't think that there would've needed to be anything malicious for the Canadian one whatsoever. It's just that if, if their US data is in questioned, then they

Ben:

Yeah. So what I'll say is that I have knowledge of the situation and it was not a malicious employee

Gene:

Mm-hmm. Well, it's, you know, it's hard to say

Ben:

anyway, it's just significant that this is the only time that we've grounded flights like this. But yeah,

Gene:

but do you think there that was the right response though? I mean, if the Noam system does go down, I think then you should grounds, well, you don't think they should have

Ben:

the rationale that's being used that they didn't know what all was altered. And it propo, it posed a safety risk is smoke and bullshit. And we'll eventually know the truth.

Gene:

So you don't think there was a safety risk,

Ben:

Not really.

Gene:

don't think there was a safety risk?

Ben:

don't consider the no Tim system particularly vital.

Gene:

Hmm. All right.

Ben:

I mean, literally it, you know, there, there's some safety stuff in there that can be useful. But I mean, small aviation goes without no tams all the time.

Gene:

Well, they also have a much lower maximum height

Ben:

it, it's all about, anyway, it, I, I don't think it's a, an issue, but anyway, so what else is going on this week? Jacinda Jacinda resigned.

Gene:

Well, that's a good question. Yeah. Is that really all that interesting? It is satisfying. I'll agree with that. I don't understand who the fuck they have as politicians there. I mean, I don't understand how Justin Trudeau can stay in Canada as, as the the, the head dictator for as long as he has

Ben:

problem with the parliamentary system.

Gene:

But to me, again, who's gonna, who's gonna replace

Ben:

yeah. It'll

Gene:

Probably somebody just.

Ben:

and you know, it's sad what has happened to her over the years cuz she went from being, you know, not horrible to Jesus Christ. What happened to you. Yes.

Gene:

You mean the way

Ben:

then her politics is just garbage

Gene:

No, I've never seen photos of her young. She's looked, she's definitely got a resting bitch face these days.

Ben:

so it was funny when the news broke, I was actually sitting across from a kiwi expat who hasn't been allowed to go back to his country because of her lockdowns and everything. And he's like, oh, Jacinda is residing. I was like, well, good riddens. And he goes, oh, you know who she is? And I'm like, yes. And you know, oh, well, well what do you know about her? I said, I know her covid policy's absolute garbage. You know, so it was an, it was an interesting to get that reaction.

Gene:

I don't understand all these places. Yeah. Cuz you, you remember all the horror stories about Italy and it's like, oh my God, Italy's gonna be totally depopulated. There's idiots are opening up their gates. They're, they're allowing people back and forth. Have you heard anything about Italy's rate of well, I don't know. Let's say people having heart issues, for example. Yeah. Amazingly, Italians are healthy. Americans are not,

Ben:

anyway, so interestingly enough, apparently whatever member of the Chinese Communist Party that insisted on zero Covid has apparently died. And that's why they're opening up is at least the story.

Gene:

Right? Yes. Yes. He had an un unfortunate accident. Mm-hmm. I think that's a stupid, a stupid policy. I have always said that I think that

Ben:

not

Gene:

zero, anything. Zero. And we have plenty of'em here in the us There's a lot of stu, like the war drugs with a perfect example of this. Zero anything, zero tolerance for anything is stupid. And it shows a lack of IQ of the people associated with creating the

Ben:

agree. Prohibition does not work. And whether it's drugs or a disease that has a animal reservoir, I mean, you're just, it, it, it's going to become endemic and you're not gonna get rid of it. You know, and alcohol is a great example. You can make alcohol at home. It's gonna be endemic. You can't ban it. Don't try weed go grows literally like a weed anywhere.

Gene:

it does. Yeah. Yeah. I think if you wanna focus on making things go away, you have to do that in parallel with.

Ben:

Well, I mean, smoking is a great example. So smoking has not been banned. However, there's been a systemic campaign and way, way fewer to people today smoke within the next generation. It will go away. The youngest generation right now, the kids that are in high school are not big drinkers. They drink less. They have less sex, they don't smoke. I mean, they're basically, you know, beaver esque, you know, leave it to beaver esque type people.

Gene:

And that I wouldn't, I would definitely not say that they're almost all on prescription medication, which is much stronger than nicotine or alcohol. They're on mood altering prescription medication because none of them

Ben:

triggered thing is a big deal, which, by the way, have you watched Tulsa King at all? It's worth watching.

Gene:

No.

Ben:

It's a who, who played Rocky? God damn it. I'm blanking on his name. Yeah. Okay. So it's loan in his seventies playing this mobster that gets sent to Tulsa, which having spent a lot of time in Tulsa, it's neat to see the city for trading this way. But there, huh?

Gene:

Got a shit hole, isn't it?

Ben:

No, actually, I, I kinda like Tulsa as a city. Yeah. I mean, so first of all, it's much more like Arkansas than Oklahoma. So it's, it's, it's much prettier than like Oklahoma City is just, but yeah. Yeah.

Gene:

Yeah. Oklahoma City

Ben:

has plenty of problems, but no, I, I think Tulsa's definitely like a little upcoming neat city in a lot of ways. Every trip I've had to Tulsa has

Gene:

Okay.

Ben:

enjoyable.

Gene:

I've only driven through, I've never stopped there, so I

Ben:

fantastic restaurants, good breweries, stuff like that. Lots of shit to do. And, you know, it doesn't have a lot of modern architecture or anything from an architecture standpoint. Sure. The, the the cost of living is pretty damn low. There's lots of poor people in Tulsa. But, you know, it's

Gene:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben:

a pretty welcoming city and yeah. Anyway, I, I've had occasion over the last year to spend multiple weeks there and I mean, it's really a, a nice place to go. I don't know that I'd wanna live there, but Yeah. Yep.

Gene:

Got it.

Ben:

Wouldn't know. Never hired one.

Gene:

Oh, okay. Just, just checking. what else is

Ben:

I was just telling you about the show. There's a, there's this one girl in the show that's very triggered, esque, and is always just kind of shaking and nervous. Yeah. It made me th think of that.

Gene:

Yeah. I think it's fairly common for that

Ben:

they don't know how to deal with

Gene:

Oh, I know what I was gonna mention. So you made me sit. They, they don't, you made me sit through a show of

Ben:

I did not

Gene:

Pop Culture Crisis. Oh my God. You so made me watch that. So this is for people that have never heard of

Ben:

So how did I

Gene:

probably includes everybody listening. It's, it's a show cuz you, you talked about it and, and I don't remember, but you, you definitely made me watch it. So it was a, it's a show on the Tim Cast network for and by Zoomers. And so it's a four panel show of Ford talking head Zoomers discussing current, current cultural issues. And they happen to be sort of conservative ish or libertarian ish. And it's a show that Tim has said is losing money every, every week for him, their ish. And it has a ghost girl and it has a blind guy. And what, what are the other characters in Scooby? It's got a few of those. I mean, it is, it is so bad. I, I, I almost couldn't look away or hit the stop button when I was watching it. Because it's a combination of people that don't have enough life experience to really discuss anything combined with just way too many movie references. Well, it's, even if their opinions are correct, they're not correct based on any empirical data. They're just happen to be correct randomly. You know what I mean? So it, it's, it, well, no, we have, between the two of us, well over a hundred years of experience, which is substantial compared to the average American. Especially in, in, we have plenty of experience in areas where other people have literally zero. So now when we start talking about pop culture, then maybe that's a true statement. We don't have any real experience. We're not really a part of the mainstream pop culture. Like I couldn't tell you, you know who you know, who, who the current latest generation of the, the hot hip hop singer chick is? I don't know any of'em. I don't know what Disney cartoons are

Ben:

see that. I

Gene:

watch that shit.

Ben:

unfortunately.

Gene:

Well, you're, yeah. For your kid's sake.

Ben:

yeah.

Gene:

Honestly, the last time I, I watched any quote unquote television was probably a month ago.

Ben:

watch too much tv.

Gene:

Everybody keeps telling me movies to watch or TV shows to watch, and I'm like, yeah, it sounds cool, but I just don't turn on the tv. The only thing I

Ben:

So for me, when I'm traveling I have a little Roku that goes with me. And generally I'm not, Out and about too, too terribly much. You know, I, like, I went to a dinner with clients this trip and stuff like that, but by the time, I mean, you called me at like 11 o'clock and was shocked that I was, you know, like dozing off asleep. It's like, well

Gene:

Yeah. I think I called you at like

Ben:

no, it was like 11 in, on the east coast. It may have been 10 30 in Texas,

Gene:

No, it was like nine 30 my times. Yeah. It was nine 30

Ben:

Which normally when I'm at home I'm up till midnight or later, you know,

Gene:

Yeah. You're sitting on the porch sucking down the

Ben:

Uhhuh anyway, but when I'm in a hotel room and bored, I go to bed early. Shocker. So,

Gene:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Boy, there's nothing wrong with that. You'd get an early earlier morning.

Ben:

yeah, generally not, especially like when you're staying in downtown Newark and you get woken up six or seven times by sirens. So,

Gene:

oh, that smell too. I cannot stand the

Ben:

I, I stayed in Newark because the client I was meeting with their office was, you know, right there in on Edison Boulevard or whatever it is, and you know, with them walking distance and yeah. But next time I will at least go to like Jersey City or something and just accept the drive. Actually it has changed so much. It has built up and gentrified so much. Like, I was shocked the, the, like the dinner we went to, the restaurant we went to was in Jersey City and it is

Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

different than it was 10 years ago. Absolutely.

Gene:

hmm. Yeah. I haven't been there for many years, but that whole, that whole east coast part of the country is just a big shit hole. It's, it's amazing how

Ben:

Well, and just when you drive around New York and everything else, it's just dirty and crumbling and the infras.

Gene:

It is. And, and their speed limits are like 55.

Ben:

Like, so you, you go to Dallas or Austin or Houston,

Gene:

mm-hmm.

Ben:

in pretty good shape. It's not a nasty place in comparison. Yeah. Like, I'm not a huge fan, but the, the, the contrast is night and day.

Gene:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. No, that's, that's definitely the case. And Dallas's oh, by the way, I'm gonna be in, in Fort Worth

Ben:

Fort worthless,

Gene:

Just, I don't know, you're probably not gonna be there, but yeah, and I haven't been to Fort

Ben:

Fort Worth's a cool city in a lot of ways.

Gene:

and I, yeah, it's interesting. I, it's, it's really like the difference between Dallas and Fort Worth is physically, visibly different.

Ben:

Yuppy.

Gene:

Dallas is a city and a complete flat plateau, and as you head towards Fort Worth, you get a little more hilly.

Ben:

Well, Fort Worth's the gateway to the west, right?

Gene:

trees, yeah. Mm-hmm. but Dallas and the surrounding suburbs are just on the, it's, they're like literally nothing there. There's no trees, there's no, it's just flat prairie

Ben:

Well, and what I'd say about Dallas is that Dallas is all about show and you know, Fort Worth is not, they, they're dramatically different. And the three major cities in Texas, so Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston, all three have dramatically different personalities. Dallas is a big financial

Gene:

I think San Antonio is actually

Ben:

w is, the metroplex is huge. Yeah. So anyway in San Antonio, fine throw in San Antonio. The attitudes are so different. Dallas is all about show. If you're a married woman, you don't have a huge rock. You know, something's wrong with you, that sort of thing. It, it's a very showy money.

Gene:

Huge rock and,

Ben:

it's a very showy, money flashy sort of thing. Houston is very industrial, very blue collar in lots of ways. Fort Worth is very much still a cattle town, right? In many, many ways. With some minor industry, a lot, a lot of, a lot of companies are moving into Fort Worth for headquarters. And then San, I'm sorry,

Gene:

Really? I haven't heard that.

Ben:

caterpillar.

Gene:

I haven't heard that.

Ben:

Caterpillar's a great example

Gene:

are they moving

Ben:

Illinois, Indiana, one of those states. But yeah, anyway there's just a dramatic difference. Houston is very much a boom bus town with the oil industry. Dallas and Fort Worth are more consistent. But yeah, anyway, just my experience.

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I, I mean, I like Fort Worth. There's a cool park in Fort Worth. I remember going to years ago

Ben:

There's several

Gene:

arboretum kind of thing

Ben:

I had this really cool old skyline

Gene:

by the Trinity River there.

Ben:

that my wife made me get rid of. That we won't talk about why, but it was literally in the 19 hundreds and it was to commemorate the first skyscraper built in Texas. And it was, it was a neat photo. You could see Boulder Durham room on there, west Texas and all sorts, the ads, Turkish baths all sorts of interesting things that you would've never thought of.

Gene:

Hmm.

Ben:

Yep,

Gene:

Interesting. Yeah. But even, even the crappy Texas city is still better than the East Coast. Yep,

Ben:

Yeah.

Gene:

for sure. Did you watch any of the, the videos I sent you of that farmer dude, did I watch?

Ben:

That guy is annoying.

Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

Oh, he is so annoying.

Gene:

he's not that annoying. Don't be a racist. Don't be

Ben:

know he was Jewish. Funny. He doesn't

Gene:

Well, now you do it. Now you know he kind of does

Ben:

That that was a Mel

Gene:

now. He was an accountant for many years.

Ben:

baseball's reference.

Gene:

Yeah. Was that where it's from? Space Balls. Okay.

Ben:

Yeah.

Gene:

Right. That's right. Yes. Yeah, he was funny. Mels was funny.

Ben:

W w What's your favorite Mel Brooks movie?

Gene:

Well, it's, it's kind of a toss up. I mean, I really like Blazing Saddles, obviously, which was hilarious. But also I liked the the one that he did with his wife. What the hell is it called? Within Bancroft, where they were, it takes place in Germany right before World War ii. And so he was, he, you know, he was playing a

Ben:

I don't know that I've seen that one.

Gene:

I'm trying to remember what it was. But he, he's basically like an actor in, in Germany, pre-World War ii. And through a variety of events, he ends up having to pretend to be this. High ranking Nazi dude, and of course

Ben:

My favorite is definitely Space Balls, you know?

Gene:

I, it's

Ben:

in there. I mean, just so much funny.

Gene:

No, you have good actors, but it's just like, it's the kind of movie that as somebody who doesn't get high, I would have to say, you have

Ben:

I watched it as a kid, stone Cold Sober, and have been a fan ever since. Oh

Gene:

When you say a kid, how old of a kid?

Ben:

preteen.

Gene:

Okay. Well that's probably why you liked it then. That's what I mean. Like if you're an adult, you have to be high as a kid. You can enjoy things that are goofy, but to me it was just a little too goofy.

Ben:

He goes through the Teleporter, ends up with his head backwards and his ass, why didn't someone tell me if my ass is so big hilarious. They're running outta air. So he has to, you know, per air. I mean, come on. Funny.

Gene:

Yeah. It's just, it's it's gag humor.

Ben:

I mean, next thing you're gonna tell me is you didn't like the Three Stooges

Gene:

I mean, like when I was five years old maybe, but not as I got to be older. It just, it's that sort of physical goofy humor is really appealing to children and.

Ben:

Okay, gene.

Gene:

that are smoking pot.

Ben:

Now this is really gonna tell me something about you because I think that you've let your inner child die, but please tell me farts are still funny to you.

Gene:

only if done well. Like it has to be inappropriately. It, it can't just be nonstop parting. It has to be something that is actually

Ben:

I, I say this in

Gene:

No, I mean that's, there can certainly be plenty of humor around farts, but, but just simply somebody farting

Ben:

seen

Gene:

is not funny in and of itself.

Ben:

And the, the movie, the big movie that won all the awards that year was ass. It was an hour and a half of just someone's ass

Gene:

Right, right. And and the most popular TV show is a guy getting hit in the balls all the time. Yeah, exactly. Which is,

Ben:

Oh dude, we

Gene:

I mean, we're, we're pretty much right

Ben:

Anyway, it, it's funny though because you know, as kids get older and as they age, they do find different things funny. And my daughter is just at that age where she, she finds her own farts funny So it's, it's hilarious to watch her man.

Gene:

But your, your daughter farts. Oh my god. Women never fart. What are you

Ben:

And she's got this goofy, goofy, beautiful smile that's just, she knows she's cute and can get away with anything.

Gene:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben:

It's terrible. You know, me having a daughter that, you know is just, she's just gorgeous and it's just, it's karma's a bitch. I, I wish I had had all sons in some ways, but Yeah. Cuz I know it's gonna bite me in the ass.

Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

Oh,

Gene:

gave me one of those dads with a shotgun.

Ben:

Absolutely.

Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

And this generation might actually be really scared. It was funny because I, so I had a dad pull that on me once I dated this girl in high school whose dad was a Indian cop and I showed up to pick her up and he had his guns out and he was cleaning it and he had his eight 70 police model that he had out and he was cleaning it. I went, oh, I've got one of those. And started talking to him about guns. He ended up liking me more than she did.

Gene:

Mm-hmm. Oh, I, yeah, I totally believe that. In fact, him liking you probably made her like

Ben:

with that one.

Gene:

Uhhuh. Yep. You're focusing on the wrong person

Ben:

funny cuz he was totally trying to intimidate me. It's like, oh no. You know?

Gene:

I, I know what else I was gonna mention. So I've been playing like, you know, this I've been playing replaying, I should say Far Cry five, which is a game I've been trying to get you to do because it has the best music of any video game as far as I'm concerned. It's a music that I literally will just play because it's good. And it's all about the end of the world. And it is, I think, their Best Far Cry game. Like they've had some really good ones, but this one in particular, it's better than the next one, than Far Cry six. Absolutely 100% guaranteed. And Fire Cry four was very interesting, but it was a little more sort of, you know, it, it was, it took place in the Himalayas in a more mythical, magical kind of setting. This one takes place literally

Ben:

you know the last

Gene:

in Montana.

Ben:

Yep.

Gene:

One, two, yeah. Yeah, the original one. Okay. But this one is, I think, well worth replaying for people that own it. And if it pops up on one of those steam sales where they have a huge, massive discount, I would certainly encourage you along with everybody else. To pick it up if you've never played it. Because at this point the one thing they did, which is really cool actually, was they kept updating it, even though this game is now five years old, maybe. But they, they have an HD texture pack for it that you also get now. So all, everything is in the higher res than it was when it was first released. And they added eye control to the game. So it actually talks to my Toby and, you know, moving my head around makes a camera a difference in the game as well now, which is very

Ben:

now why,

Gene:

Fire Cry six doesn't even do that.

Ben:

What's a Toby?

Gene:

Oh, through Toby. Oh, I thought we talked about this. So Toby is a eye tracker, head tracker device for games. It's it, it tracks your eye movement and head movement.

Ben:

Interesting that they called it a Toby

Gene:

Yeah. It's the, the same.

Ben:

Because the original connotation of that word,

Gene:

why is that interesting? Yeah. T O B I A.

Ben:

so a Toby was a is a term regarding slavery. So on No, I'm not 100%.

Gene:

Huh?

Ben:

Be a good Toby. The connotation is you know, the, the, the suck up slave. Yeah, yeah,

Gene:

okay. Like an one called Tom Tape. Interesting. Now I've never heard that. But I'm sure it's spelled differently, but but yeah, the Toby they originally made devices for the US military for eye control, for missile launchers and aircraft, shit like that. And then they got into the making devices for handicapped people business to where you can move your eyeballs and move your cursor around. And then finally they got into the real market with money, the gaming market. And so this Toby five that I have is in a good chunk, although not all games. It's compatible to disconnect your mouse movement and your walking movement from your looking, so you can swivel your head there, look up and down left right, whatever. As you're doing other things in the game. Makes it a lot more immersive and it means you don't have to use your mouse to look around. So, so the fact that they added that to a game that's already five years old is pretty impressive.

Ben:

75

Gene:

But yeah, the, the music, the setting, the guns, how much? 75. Yeah. Well, it's high, high rest textures. That's why.

Ben:

I mean, cyberpunk was 113, so.

Gene:

like, I think Right. Exactly. And Cyber Park also has incredibly good textures. It's, it's a very realistic

Ben:

right. It's downloading

Gene:

Good, good. I was hoping that would happen, but this one I think you should be able to play. No problem. Cyberpunk does require a little more horsepower to play. Far Cry five is less than that. So I think you ought be able, you, even with

Ben:

I played cyberpunk just fine. Thank you.

Gene:

And by justifying you mean how many

Ben:

I'd have to go back and look over 30.

Gene:

Over 30. Okay. All right. And well, your, is it your laptop 4K or not?

Ben:

yeah. But so the laptop I was using for this, and the laptop I'm on right now is my old Dell xps has a discrete graphics card, has a core I nine in, it has 32 gigs of ram. So, you know, it's no slouch.

Gene:

Yeah.

Ben:

It's a few years old,

Gene:

Well, yeah, I mean,

Ben:

know, was about a four grand computer when I bought it a few years ago.

Gene:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's, there's some decent so, oh, I had lunch with a buddy of mine that works at Dell and I was shocked that he didn't have a, a high end alien wear system, cuz he could obviously get a discount on. So hopefully I guilted him into buying one.

Ben:

Okay. Why would you want to guilt

Gene:

But well, for Don having one well, he, and he, he is a gamer, like, he plays games. He's also got four kids, but he does play

Ben:

so did I, did I tell you about the,

Gene:

But

Ben:

retro pie that I built? So, retro Pie is a pretty cool little build that if anyone's wanting to do something like this, it's worth doing. It's fun. So on a raspberry pie that I have on the TV in my office actually, I've got a retro pie built that has all the n ees games, all the super Nintendo games, all the Sega, Sega Genesis, all the way up through PS one on it. I've got thousands of games loaded on this.

Gene:

So why would you want that?

Ben:

What'd you say?

Gene:

Would you want

Ben:

I like playing old video games.

Gene:

Hmm. Yeah. I never understood that. I, I just think that

Ben:

Gene playing video games for the graphics is like watching porn for the story.

Gene:

Yeah. And good porn has great stories.

Ben:

you're joking, right?

Gene:

You're not wrong. No, no. I mean, they're a great classic porn that, like, they don't make'em these days. They, these days porn sucks. If you look at some of the really good productions that you said, you know, they, they were multi-million dollar productions that had porn in them. It's like watching a regular movie that happens to have no cut scene when people get in bed.

Ben:

Debbie does. Dallas was just such high production quality.

Gene:

Yeah. Debbie does. Dallas is better production quality than most stuff right now is shot in 35 millimeter.

Ben:

Retro pie. Lots of fun. You, I'm sorry.

Gene:

Have you seen Debbie? That's Dallas. Have you

Ben:

Yeah. I mean, as a kid, you know, I went back and I mean, that, that's a whole genre at this point is, you know,

Gene:

See now you'd impressed me if you had like a porn pie

Ben:

Yeah. Oh,

Gene:

It has all the old classic porn on a

Ben:

Why do you need that? I mean, you can totally just Google.

Gene:

Well, you don't, it's just, it'd be funny. And there are definitely porn websites that specialize in, in past glory days of porn content.

Ben:

I'll give you an I IP Torrance invite if you want. Oh my God. You don't know. Darren would love IP Torrance. Yeah. So IP Torrance has been around for a long time and it's very much reputation based and invite only, so,

Gene:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I used to be on the few of those that you couldn't get on anymore. Like as soon as they started doing crackdowns on Pirate Bay, a lot of torn sites went private and there's no point to it. I mean, you could just buy any of this

Ben:

you know, I'll I don't, I, for the record, I don't actually use it for anything but discovery and mechanism. If I like something, then I go pay for it, because I believe in supporting the creators.

Gene:

Yeah.

Ben:

Absolutely.

Gene:

like

Ben:

But you can totally,

Gene:

and torrent sites are notorious for

Ben:

So there are porn sites, but you still go to those Uhhuh,

Gene:

Not the ones I go to.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Gene:

virus is guaranteed.

Ben:

yeah, I, I don't want to know what crazy Russian sites you're using.

Gene:

Hey man, only fans is clean. Yeah. Crush your crazy Russian porn.com Exactly. Well, that's devolved very quickly.

Ben:

Well, anything else, Jean, or, we're at our two hour mark, so

Gene:

I'm sure there's stuff we're missing, but we're, we're probably done, unless you can think of something. We still have to do a test of our audio equipment at

Ben:

it was a rough week. I do definitely have my travel gear that I lugged around, and we didn't do anything with it, so,

Gene:

Yeah, because after we do our test, and if it sounds great, I want to make sure that we link to a a buy page on Amazon for people that are interested in replicating, cuz it's both cheaper and it's,

Ben:

and it's really pretty

Gene:

more portable than the

Ben:

the little bit of testing I've done with it. So, definitely doesn't have the richness of the, you know, electro voice and the motu, but, and it's not as tweakable. But you know, it's definitely an eighth, the price.

Gene:

Mm-hmm. I still don't really like the stand that it comes with.

Ben:

Yeah. But I

Gene:

that's a minor

Ben:

also comes with an adapter that I could put it on the same arm I have my electro voice on. So,

Gene:

Yes.

Ben:

you know, the fact that the, it comes with a stand at all. And for me, traveling is great.

Gene:

Mm-hmm. I remember Adam used to use a, a not a toilet paper, but like a kitchen towel, paper roll as a stand

Ben:

Okay.

Gene:

when he traveled. Or maybe it was toilet paper roll, but it, it, it was definitely something that had to be soft and impromptu.

Ben:

So what do you mean.

Gene:

Well, I mean, when he used to lug his whole setup around before he had like a case and stuff he would, he wouldn't carry a stand for the mic with him. He would just put the mic

Ben:

Oh, I got you. I got you. Like,

Gene:

paper towel roll or a toilet paper roll or something. Because you, you want something that can cushion

Ben:

you know, the case that I got for this little thing is a hard Shell case, which I know you said. But I like it.

Gene:

Right. I just, the hard shell cas take up too much room and the mic is solid enough anyway that I wouldn't be worried about it in my

Ben:

Yeah. Well, I, and I also don't check bags, so there's that,

Gene:

Yeah, I usually don't either,

Ben:

which by the way pro

Gene:

bunch of crap.

Ben:

For travel. So for instance, I have priority access through United and Pittsburgh for example, doesn't have a true priority access lane, but they have priority access slash TSA pre, well, you know what, if you just go through the line, they skip you to the head of the line anyway, so just, yeah.

Gene:

Nice. And that, did they have the the machines there? Did like the, you

Ben:

no, no. Pittsburgh

Gene:

Newark has machines that you can't get out. Pisco is old school.

Ben:

oh God, that the pit Pittsburgh is a crappy city. That's another crappy, crappy city

Gene:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. That whole, like, it's amazing that they won the war, you know what I mean? Like all these really

Ben:

and you know, the, the, I I will say this, Pennsylvania is actually a wonderful state minus Philadelphia, minus Pittsburgh.

Gene:

Mm-hmm.

Ben:

You take away those two cities. It is a wonderful state.

Gene:

Yeah. I mean towards the Kentucky side.

Ben:

Kentucky's a real thing, dude. It really is. I mean, even all the way up to like Williamsport and so on, you don't have to go that far west or south before you really start getting into a very, very different culture.

Gene:

yeah, yeah. No, it's true. Did you watch the video? This will be the last one. Then we're gonna wrap up. I just remembered I sent you a video of different southern states food.

Ben:

that?

Gene:

It was, it was hilarious. I don't know, yesterday day before. But it was hilarious. It was a guy that he's, he does, all he does is southern humor. He's a comedian, but he did, he does like eating the, the food, like the food that each state is the most proud of kind of video in a very, very, very funny way. Alabama had some kinda,

Ben:

It should have been

Gene:

I don't remember off the top of my head, but it was something,

Ben:

Boiled peanuts.

Gene:

peanuts. Oh, boiled peanuts. I don't think it was that, but, but check out the video. It's, it's funny. And I'll, I'll stick a I think I already posted an no on social,

Ben:

ever had boiled

Gene:

stick a link in the episode as well.

Ben:

They're delicious. I'm gonna have to go to the store and get some peanuts and

Gene:

at state fair, I think.

Ben:

It's kept me craving it.

Gene:

Or just go to state Fair. Yeah.

Ben:

In Texas.

Gene:

Have you gone to the state fair?

Ben:

That's a long time ago. It's been a long

Gene:

The,

Ben:

Why?

Gene:

yeah,

Ben:

I don't know. Maybe.

Gene:

you wanna go this year? We can make a, a meetup out of it.

Ben:

We could also do the Houston rodeo too.

Gene:

It, it's just a state, a state fair is just one of those goofy things that is perfect

Ben:

Rodeo would be a good one too.

Gene:

Yeah. I mean we can do forth worth rodeo, Houston Rodeo, but St. Fair, it just happens once a year, so

Ben:

All right, gene.

Gene:

All right, man. We'll see everybody in about a week. And then yeah, I can't think of what else I was gonna

Ben:

well, we'll have a, we'll have a good weekend. We'll talk to you in then.