Episode 112: Disappointment

0:09 Welcome back to another episode of Record My Father's Day. We're going to be talking about disappointment. When was the last time I was disappointed? I think I got a parking ticket when I oh, it's 2:00 AM and I went to this part of stopping back. I forgot where I was about two years ago, and I parked in front of a hydrant at 2:00 AM for about 30 minutes. And then I went home, and in that 30 minutes, I got a $200 ticket for parking in front of a fire hydrant at 2:00 AM, which is crazy. Think about that. All right? That was the last time I was disappointed. Is that disappointed? I don't know. Yeah, I guess that's is that is upset the same thing as? Well, I mean, you think about what is disappointment. You know, we should, if we should do a little, come on, we do a little more research, We'll do a little. Definition.

0:55 Yeah. I think when I get back from Mongolia, we're going to be doing a little more research on these maybe. Sad or displeased because someone or something has failed to fulfill one's hopes or expectations. So I would say that's upset. It's not the same that's saying one or something and it's like I am, I am that way. And I'm the, I was kind of the reason that we talked about that we picked disappointment is because recently, four weeks ago, one of the things that I, I'd written a strategic plan and one of the things that I want to do in retirement or is not be in retirement. And that was to look forward to. Like what was the next thing I was going to do? My whole life I've been very much interested in search and text search and all this kind of stuff like that. I've watched in one specific field in legal tech and I wanted to artificial intelligence is now everywhere and you hear about it all over the place, and I wanted to know more about it. I know about perplexity.

1:54 I know about AII mean, I know about chat GB TI don't know about the Microsoft, the Google. I know about all a lot of the different little robots and the little things they do. I know about the ghosting. I know about large language models. I know a surface mount. I wanted to actually go to the people and authority and I thought the authority would be Stanford. So I applied to Stanford Executive Business Program, which is really just, it's a hokey little program. It's a week, it's a week to 10 days long, but it's not really hokey because to me it's in the center of the universe of is where this is starting. This is where it's all happening. All of those companies or housed or local in that area. And so, and they're all surrounded around Stanford because Stanford's the leading school to where they get people to apply for them.

2:47 So I thought, wow, if I went there to learn and that they talked about they have guest speakers and all this kind of stuff like that, that that would be like, if you're going to go learn something, learn from the best if, if, if you can't, it's, it's incredibly expensive. It's stupid. I went through the process, I filled it out. I didn't really put a lot into the application. I didn't go into like deep history of why it's so important to me and things like that. Can you talk about what the application was like because I'm just curious because you were talking it was. Just an on thing. I mean, there was, there was, there was an on thing. I mean, I had spoke to a number of people about applying for, you know, for these programs and you're paying, you know, ten, $20,000 to go to these programs, right?

3:31 And they're executive programs. So you go in and you get immersed in some new thing. Usually your your company does it for you and they just throw you in. This was individual and I was individually applying and it asked me to write my history and some of the reasons I was unaware that there were criteria that you had to jump through before you could you there were qualities that they would what do you call it minimal things that they expected you to have before you went in, which I don't have I I'm not I'm not a senior executive at a company right now I'm in I'm retired for the third time so I'm gonna hold it 123 yeah, third time and one yeah. Third time and I'm thinking I wanted was going to go and work again and be retired a fourth time, but it but and that usually when my retirement is when I find the the next thing that I want to do and I haven't found it and it seemed like a great direction to go in, but I didn't I didn't go into they had a a section for a what do you call it submitting your your what do you you got to write a thing about who you are and what.

4:48 You're cover letter or something? It's more than a cover letter because it's and I and I, I haphazardly jumped through it and I linked my and I LinkedIn, my LinkedIn profile and I was like, OK, this tells me who I was and what I did right, Because I figured they'd say, Oh well, he started three companies. Two of them have been successful exits. He's he's, he's seen search, he's done. You gave them the benefit of the doubt. I did. I really got to do. That yeah, they they don't do that. It was the essay and I think that's, you know, it's really funny when you think about disappointments. I rollback the clock to the first college I ever applied to was Mary Washington College when I got out of high school and I had like a lot and a 1.2 GPA or something like that.

5:34 I was AD plus, you know, and I applied and and they said where the essay was. And this is back when you hand wrote them and you had to mail them a letter to request it. You could call them and they'll say if you want an application, you got to either come and get it, which is in Fredericksburg and I lived in Woodbridge, or you can write and submit. Well, I wrote and submit and they sent it back to me. But but before I jump into that story, let me finish the one for Stanford. I got a rejection day before yesterday and it just humbled me, you know, because hey, I know everything and I'm the smartest guy in the world. So it really shocked me that they wouldn't take me as an entrepreneur. So my next step is to I'm going to go back to them because that class happens multiple more times. I'm going to write a letter.

6:18 I'm going to be a lot more, I'm going to pay a lot more attention to what I say and how I say it. And I'm going to do a lot. I'm going to go into full on sale mode, which is a, which is not Phil Phil is Phil is fun Phil, but fun Phil when fun Phil needs to sell speed. I, I'm a little bit different. So I'm going to do that. And, and it's, and it's, it's funny, but that, that was a disappointment 'cause I didn't take it seriously. And then I look back to my college application at Mary Washington and it was like, essay was optional. I was like, well, fuck it, I don't need it. And I didn't do it. And I failed there too. And I didn't get accepted. Yeah, you need to do those essays. Those are not well, I don't know why they ever say that they are optional in the 1st place.

7:01 I guess it's to weed out people, you know? Well, I would have had to handwrite it 'cause I could not type. I could not type for the life is that. Bad. I guess it would be. Bad. Every third word my my whole application was handwritten. OK, was it? Bad to handwrite it, Do you think so or do you think? It 79. I don't know, I think if you typed it, you would have got you would have been like a Golden Boy. Oh wow. They know how much money you'll have 'cause you have money for typewriting, right? Yeah. Yeah, You had a. Typewriter. I mean, we had a typewriter, but I never put it together to actually type in answers on a separate piece of paper and submit it that way and say see see item one, item 2, item 3. These are the answers that would have been, that would have been a really smart thing to do and if I had a counselor that was worth a shit in school that ever even talked to me once in my 4 years at high school that said hey, this is how you do it. I would have probably known that. But I didn't know that because it wasn't like there was an Internet and you could search for an answer to something. You had to figure it out on your own. Well, if you had a counselor, you might have ended up at University of Vermont.

8:06 You know, because in my school she was getting kickbacks for sending kids to University of Vermont. I think 75 to 85% of my class went to University of Vermont and I I'm pretty damn sure she was getting a kickback. Why else are? You disappointed that you didn't get into University of Vermont? I didn't even apply because I was like, I it's going to be cold, man. It's going to be cold. Even though I went to Denver. So I mean, if you think about. It Denver is the. Vermont of the the West. I mean, that's kind of the same thing. That was a good school. I mean, it's 75% acceptance rate, so it's not that great, but Condoleezza Rice went there. I mean, that's cool. Did she actually attend or did she just go there? That's a good question is. 'Cause see, that's what I tell everybody about Harvard. I'm like, yeah, I went to Harvard. Well, Spike.

8:51 Jones hammered in the yard. But I, I. Spike Jones went to my high school, but I. Didn't attend it. You know, Spike Jones went to my high school, but he went there for one year. Mean Spike Lee. No, Spike Jones. Who's that film maker, Really. Yeah, yeah. Spike Glee's a film maker. Do you know the movie Her with Joaquin Phoenix where he's talking to the robot and the robot? Scarlett Johansson came out in 2012 and won an Oscar. That was Spike Jones. Really. Yeah, he, he made that. And he attended your school? Yeah, yeah. Wow, smarty pants. So he's a High School graduate? Smart. Smarty, smarty pants.

9:33 But the last time that I was disappointed as well. I mean, that was kind of a serious one, but I can't really think of recently being too disappointed. I don't know. It's because at this point in my life, I look at my issues and my mistakes and I'm like, well, all right, and that happened. That kind of sucks. But it's not really coming from a genuine place of disappointment. It's more of an acceptance. I don't know. I don't know. That's kind of what it is. You well, well, you know, with the if, if, if you have a couple of different outcomes and you expect 1 outcome and you get another that's disappointment. It is to me. I mean, I, I look at the third company I was involved with was conflicts authority and I Moi through what you would, what many people would be considered reasonably good due diligence, researched the marketplace and believed that the, the space that we were going into was 350 million. And I found out after a 14 months in it that it was really only about 35 million.

10:50 And there were all sorts of reasons that led me to believe it was much larger than it was until we had a term sheet from a venture capitalist that said pivot. And then I didn't and I wouldn't pivot because I know things about customers and product and things like that. And I know about business and I know that if you are selling something, you want to be better than everybody. You don't want to compete on a price thing. I'm I'm not that kind of a person. And, and I would have had to pivot to a business that was going to compete on price and it was going to compete in an industry where the where the leader was well loved.

11:31 I like to compete in an industry where everybody hates the leader, They're not innovative and they charge too much. And it's a pretty. Good way to start a business and market. Exactly. It's not. It's not rocket science dude. It's just like go to where people shit on the floor and give them a bucket. I think that's also why I kind of made a production company, because you look at the the studios right now and they make $325 million flops. And it's like if you look back at that 82 when Zoetrope was going on and George Lucas was under, what's his face, Francis Ford Copoy, he's the assistant. And then Zoetrope was getting kickbacks from Paramount to make movies because Paramount forgot how to make movies. And so that's kind of what happened. And I think that that's what's going to be happening in the future, yeah.

12:16 You think it's going to splinter and people are going to, everybody's going to be a production company and they're going to, and it's going to come down to the quality of your work. I mean, that's what we that's what we were. We were like, I was, I did not want to compete on price and anything. I've never wanted to compete on price. I want to compete on, hey, ours is much better. And then people would try to get it to pricing. We don't use everything that you have. Well then you shouldn't fucking buy it. Yeah, no, exactly. That's kind. Of the point we want the cheaper version, the cheaper version is nothing. It's somebody else's product. Go there. But you don't have to say it that way. I mean, but that was always the way I felt. And you know, it's like, I don't I don't want to do that because then the people that have paid me to build this great thing and they're willing to pay a premium to get this great thing. They're subsidizing you because you're too cheap to pay. And it's like, no, I don't do that. And it's like, and it and it's and it's, and it's been a very, very good strategy through life.

13:17 But the reason I was talking about this is because when I found out that that it was that market, I ended, I ended the business. It was me, we, we, it was my fault. It crashed. I was very disappointed. I remember going to that office too. I remember going up there and that was over on Elm Street. Yeah. And I think I was scared of Freddy Krueger at this time in my life. Yeah, but that's what I was worried about was Freddy Krueger over there. But no, that was. I remember going to the. I actually remember the office quite well, even though I only went there like twice, I think. Yeah. Which is weird, isn't it? It was a foolish idea to get an office. We didn't need one.

13:59 Yeah, I think it. Was a waste. It was a waste of $40,000. I mean I, I and and I mean I can look back and see what. Was the rental prices? That's my? What was the rental prices back in? Was this 20/10/2012? No, no. This would have been O seven O 8 this. They were there. It was like, I think it was for the office space, probably 12115 hundred a month. Oh, that's not bad. Yeah, but we we had it for 18 months. So what is that? And then, but then you got phones, you got hookups, you got Office, WI.

14:39 Fi. You got chair. I mean, we had some dust and chairs there, but we had to buy more stuff. And so it makes it a, an impressionable place that you have to spend time on that and not on a product. And it allows you to dodge true responsibility. And you know, when we, when you, when you, when you, when you start a business, you shouldn't be thinking about what the freaking logo looks like. You should be thinking about what you're going to make that somebody needs or wants and is willing to pay something. For a vision, yeah. You know, and that. And that though, because Steve Jobs, you think about him and all he ever did was he focused on the way things looked, he focused on ergonomics. It was his idea to put all music into a little square thing, right?

15:25 Yeah, yeah. That is Fairpoint. But what is that? That's ergonomics. Nobody else had that A mobile, a mobile video, audio app when everybody listens to records or now. Well, the that's not true. No, that's never going to happen. We're not going to. Competing product called the Zune. The Google Zune, which failed tremendously because of the way it looked. Well, there was a way it advertised Walkman it. Wasn't the only the Walkman was actually ACD? Well, it's because of the ergonomics of the way that the iPod looked is why it did so well. This was the same thing when he got kicked out of Apple for the first time and developed Cube, which was just a perfect cube, right? A perfectly measured cube, he. Did the computer name was next?

16:09 Oh, is that what it was? It was called Next and it was it. The next computer cost 2 1/2 times what the nearest computer had and it had no more computing power. So it it looked it was cool, but it was it wasn't Next. It was then. But then he sold it for $230 million to Apple. He, he, he. Well. And then he negotiated it on the. Board I know, but he negotiated it when Apple was failing and they needed somebody to pull in that was supposed to be a visionary can do things. This guy seems like he can. So part he didn't get compensated much.

16:51 I think he got a bunch of stock and he got a whole bunch of stock for that company, but it's the stock was it like I think he had he got tons of options for that. It was a very, it was a very weird transaction. Because he got. Next was worth nothing. Next was worth nothing other than he would argue that they took the technology and stuff and they and they put that into the Mac, the little Macky bot or whatever the hell it was. But the argument afterward from real technology people said that's just a load of shit. Well, they didn't know that the microprocessor was so poor. It was a. Failure it was. It was an abject failure. The technology was a failure. The interface was a failure. Well, that was on purpose, though.

17:32 That was totally on purpose because he was trying to get back into the company. And so he said if it appears that I actually have something that's golden and it's not, then they're still going to let me back in. And that's what it was. It was a pump fake. That's what he did. You think he spent $1.2 billion on a pump? Fake. I don't spent it purely I think. Was it 1.2? I think he figured out the. Excuse he. Figured out the excuse afterward. I don't know because. I didn't. I didn't wreck my car. I you know, I have had insurance on my car for 20 years and I've never had Ding. So I've paid them thousands and thousands of dollars.

18:12 So I decided that I was going to get back some money. Well, that's the thing though is in the movies is he spent so much time perfectly engineering how it was a cube, right? And how it was this perfectly symmetrical cube and that it he didn't spend any time on the the microprocessing units or anything like that because he didn't want to, because he knew that if he had something aesthetically pleasing that it would sell was. The cube successful. No, because he was trying to get back into Apple. That's. What? No, but the cube. The cube was his last product that he did at Apple. I think you're a little off there. I think the cube was the the cube was the reason he got fired. Next was the actual system was called the Next.

18:54 Yeah, yeah, the actual system was that, but it was a. Perfect. It was not a cube. Cube thing. It was a perfect cube. Then what was the perfect cube? The. Cube was the cube was the reason he got fired. No, I don't remember that. I just watched that movie too. I watched what was it, Michael Fassbender as Jobs, Steve Jobs. And it was Tell me what the Cube was. I want to know what? The cube was cube. I am known to confuse things though fit. Into Jobs go generating discussing the cube in relation to Steve Jobs. It's important to recognize that there were two distinct cube shaped computers that played a role. There we go.

19:37 You're right, the next computer the best. This is the. First product of Next, the company Steve Jobs founded in 1985 after leaving Apple, The Next Computer aimed at a higher education and business market, boosting innovative features like powerful processor, advanced operating system, Next step Building up on a net and high quality sound, The Next Computer face challenges due to its high price and limited software availability. Resulting in low sales despite its commercial limitation, the next Computer's next step operating system proved to be incredibly influential, becoming the foundation The foundation for the development of the World Wide Web, no.

20:20 That sounds a little crazy. I I wouldn't go that far. No, that's what this is what they're saying. See, cuz he really rewrote all all all all the the history of itself because it was a failure. They had nobody else to go to that would come in and pick up Apple because Apple was now trading at like 4 bucks a share. It was just shit. And they're like what are we going to do? Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy when they bought him in. They did not spend a bunch of money. It was on the brink of bankruptcy. It was crashing because there was there was fucking nothing new. And he's over here building next, which is just a shit product. And, and then they said, well, they use some of the technology and it's like, I don't believe that I, I, I mean, I know enough about engineering that no one used you might. Well, I think they looked at the ergonomics and they said, well, at least we can sell something that looks good. I think that that's what it was.

21:11 I think that they sell, they said that we could sell something that looks good and that might get us out of this hole. He just wanted to be King Kumade of his his business again because he got kicked out of his own company, which was because he was being not a nice guy. The G4 Cube struggled commercially due to its high price. This. He took that cube design and he put it into the Mac. He made it the Mac G4 Cube. Compact, powerful computer house and a clear acrylic embodying Jobs vision for miniaturized yet high performance machine. However, the G4 Cubes struggled commercially due to its high price. I remember it being a piece of shit.

21:51 In essence, the Cube represented both a commercial misstep and a significant technology legacy in his career. The next Jet Cube showcase jazz pursuit of technology excellence. The power of G Force reflected job's focus on the elegant design. So. But both were failures. Abject failures. Huge, you know, multibillion dollar failures in the 80s. But then he still got to be king of his company once again though. I think that was really the point of it though. The phone, but the phone. Came out like 10 years. Later, the music. The music was the number one thing he did. I touch and I, I squirt or whatever the hell it is. What was the little the iPod, iPod. The iPod was what it was.

22:36 And it's like, and it's so funny that I don't know where the idea came from because he's always the one. But when you listen to Bill Burr talk about it, you know what he says? He said, I don't think that he actually did it. I think that a bunch of engineers did it. I think. I think I think that he had a great idea and said, hey, I want you to take all my music in the world and I want you to put it in a little square thing that I can hold my hand. And then they went and did it. And he said, and he said, and everybody's like, yeah, well, it's always engineers. And I said, well, most people, when you show like the product, they would thank all the engineers and it would be a big crowd, right? Jobs has never done that. Jobs is always the one because he's the designer and he's the one that said this is cool, this is cool, this is cool.

23:18 So he's the end speaker and ultimately responsible for it. But he certainly took all the fucking credit, didn't he? Oh yeah, all the credit. He took every last bit of it. He just, I mean, you gotta admit, the lead engineer was probably the one that said it needs headphones. The lead engineer is probably the one that said we need to structure the songs in this way so you can read them down and you could click from one to the other. You have to press the button like this to make it move. He might have had some say in the interface, but other. Than that or input input. I mean, how do you? How do you? But he's a salesman before anything. He was always a salesman and he was never really an engineer. And that was.

24:00 So he has a surface knowledge product. Yeah. And his surface knowledge that though it's like what it when you look at it, it's like, I know what's good when I see it, but I and I know what's bad when I see it. So when I see bad shit, I can tell you right away. And he was and he was outspoken enough and smart enough to say this isn't what I want. It's got to be better. It's got to be better. It's got to be better. And pushing that is a huge not, not not to take away from his all the great things that he did, but he he those things that people try to rewrite in history. They were failures in the I was there. I remember them saying. I don't think you were there. I think you're. They wrote, they wrote articles in the Wall Street Journal about what a piece of shit he was and how crashed it was and how it'll never come back. And Apple was $8 a share and you know, everybody, Scully was driving it into the ground.

24:52 It was total crap show. I think it was Scully at the time, but it but it was like and so so now when I see it and they're oh, it was a great thing. No, it was not next was like it it continued to be. It continued to be big announcement, whole lot of wolf. No fucking substance. Do you think every was? Disappointed in the failure at Next probably, right? I would, I would. Think really because he became CEO of Apple again after. That no, he was, he was. Well, The thing is, is if it was a narcissist, he would say it wasn't a failure. But but I would say from the outside it was an abject failure. He would have never claimed it to be a failure. And people would try to rewrite it and say it's it wasn't, but it was. I mean, Next was not a public company. It was, it was if it was bought for that amount of money that it was negotiated for that.

25:39 And I, and I remember being a really strange transaction because Apple, the only way Apple could get him back as ACEO is if they agreed to buy Next and Next had a value of it had like a 1.6 billion put into it and they sold it for a couple 100 million. So the rule was that was fire sale. OK, That was a fire sale. When you're buying something for $0.10 on the dollar, it's not a success, OK. And if you're buying it on the, and if you're paying a whole lot of money for something that's that, that's more than its value because it was probably only worth 5 million. They're getting that other guy for a whole lot less. They're not paying him a big enough salary. They're not doing they're, you know, they're not doing the, they're not giving him 100 million options. See, he was, I think he was making like $100,000 when he came back.

26:31 He didn't, he didn't make hardly anything. He probably got a ton of options at the time. You can look it up online. I think you're right, it was the options because that's how he became. Same thing as same thing as much. It's not about the cash, it's about the options. But but the next thing was like, you know, that was swinging a miss and it was a hard miss. And when I hear people talk about it later, I'm like, no, that's not true. That that's none of those. Wall Street Journal hammered them. Investors Business Daily hammered them. Barons hammered them. Every single, every single major financial publication of the day said that it was a huge, it was a what do you call it when you, when you, when you do something for your own, for your own ego?

27:16 They said it was an ego boosting flop. You know, he did it because he did it his way and he's going to do it his way whether you think it's right or not. And it failed. Well, he no longer had was either when he did next and I think that was very evident that it was not very engineering, engineering Seb. And that kind of interesting when you when you take away that the other side of the engineering coin that well, it makes me wonder what kind of what kind of what kind of input did Wass have into the iPod? Exactly a lot I think. But if? He did then then I would say. Wait, was he even there anymore after? I don't know. I.

27:56 Have no idea. Well, when did Wass leave Apple? I think it was early, earlier than the iPhone. I'm sure because if you got, if someone gave you $20 million back then when that was. Funny. You know who played Wass in the Michael Fassbender 1? It was Seth Rogen. Seth Rogen played once, which I thought was so funny. Yeah. Wow. He, I mean, he could do it. I could see. It well, Seth Rogen's just Seth Rogen anything like it's not believable. February of 85 S right around that time. 85 he left. Is that what he's doing? Yeah.

28:37 OK, gotcha, gotcha. Was was at Apple when Jobs came. This went from back. That's the question, general. There are two prominent individuals named Oh God. I love reading on the podcast. This isn't fun to just Google. Yeah, just recording here. Yeah, it's very strange. We should not do that, that we were talking about disappointment. What do you think about other disappointments? I mean, I can think about like relationships, you know, you go through the different relationships that I'm. Disciplined like friendships or something? But I'm like, yeah, friendships, friendship is probably better than relationships because relationships, you know, you're still in love with someone and your heart's broken and but she didn't give a shit about you.

29:32 And I'm and I've been on as weird as this might say on both sides of that. There was a quote I saw the other day that says my biggest conspiracy is that she believes what she did was wrong. I think that that's funny. That's a funny thing. But as you were saying. Yeah. And then but I think about like disappointments. I would say probably one of my big my my My biggest disappointment in cars was the 68 Buick Special I bought for $400. Oh yeah, I remember you telling me. About that I, I must have put, I must have put 2 grand into that and, and it just, it just, it just was sucking the life out of me. That was money forever.

30:18 I had and you would just, and, and every week it would just be, you know, every couple weeks it'd be something else. That's like everybody I know that's started doing like a Miata build. I remember that was really popular about five years ago, where people were buying these used Miatas and they were redesigned or not redesigning, but they were just putting like parts in them or something to make them go again. And everybody I knew that owned a Miata at that time, it would just break down on the side of the road. And I'm like, man, yeah, yeah, that's. I had, I mean my cars. I the runabout Pento a 68 Buick special was my first car runabout was my second. I brought that for bought that from a brother for like a couple 100 bucks that was another 15102 thousand or 3000 in expenses to keep it going.

31:11 My next car was a 86 Hyundai XL brand new first time it broke down I had 35,000 miles and it was the gear shift. What is a clutch? And I mean after that most of my cars, like I had a road, I had that car until when the clutch. Breaks. It's really bad, right? It's really expensive. Yeah, well, I mean, I knew it was slipping and I didn't. I I was just sort of like putting it off. And then I think I was doing 80 or 90 miles an hour and coming home one night because I worked at a bar in downtown at Georgetown and, and, and, and we would be crazy till 4 and then go home.

31:55 And then, and then at that time, and then there's no cops out. So you can just, the roads are just heaven. You know, it's empty and so you can fly. And at least that's what I thought until I got arrested once. But that's another story. Anyway, that was Were you disappointed? Yeah. Yeah, I was disappointed on that one too. When you were thinking, thinking about big disappointments, what were the big disappointments? I got, you know, oh, high school, I remember when I was 16, I saw this van. It was a Coca-Cola van and it was in a the Parade magazine, which is like a Sunday edition that was always in. It's really big.

32:35 And people from my era would understand what the parade was. It was a, it was Coca-Cola. It was a contest and you could win. It was a step van, right? And it had captain's chairs, 22 captain's chairs in the front. It was like, you know, like a regular big old giant Ford Econoline fan, but it was tricked out with pain and all this kind of stuff on the side. It was beautiful. Had the big giant tires with the everything. And I saw that and I, I wished for it and I sent in. I must have sent in. You could, you could cut and paste of things. I went and I got AI, went to AI, forgot where the hell I went Kinko's or something like that and made copies because there wouldn't be FedEx on every corner. None of that shit was around then and I had to I made a ton of copies of the thing and I submitted them all separately. I think I submitted 100 times, which was crazy for me thinking I was going to win because I wanted to win that van. And it was like a $20,000 van in 1976, which is nuts, you know? And I wanted it so bad.

33:42 I had a great sound system and have a skyroof it in the back. It flipped out to a bed. Oh man, I can hook up all the chicks, you know, And it was just like that. That was my mindset. And when I saw that somebody else won it, I was just heartbroken. It just, it just it it really for some stupid reason, I remember that very specifically as big setbacks. Damn. Damn. I think I was almost counting on it as something that would happen. You know how that is when you when you look to the future and you count on something that you're kind of being unrealistic about?

34:22 Well, that was like in elementary school. I remember they had the fun fair, which was incredible. Oh, an incredible time. It was a fair that was used to raise money every classroom. It used to be like a carnival style game or something. There was wax hands. They had a whole, what was it like, outdoor moon bounce. They put it inside. It was like one of the obstacle course ones, which I still want to own one day. And I remember when I got to 3rd, 4th grade, 3rd or 4th grade, they cancelled it and instead of doing the fun fair, they planted 3 trees and I said I hate trees. I don't like them for the rest of my life. That's kind of where I've been at with trees since that day. But at the same time, there was a carnival game where you would guess how much candy was in a ping pong ball container, and then I got it wrong and then I stole it, and then they never found out. So yeah, I don't know.

35:14 That's not a disappointment if you got the candy. Well, I lost it because when we were doing the obstacle course in the gym, I lost because you get a brown bag. Every kid gets a brown bag with his name on it. And then I had the thing in the the ping pong container full of candy in there in one of the brown bags. And then I go back and there's about 50 to 100 brown bags and I forgot where to put it. It was so sad. That's so visceral to that memory. So somebody else got it. So. You made somebody else's life, they picked it up, open it up, and then they probably got kicked out of school for stealing it. We can only hope. We can really only hope. So the disappointment kind of goes away at that point, doesn't it? Yeah, but I still don't understand when you're trying to make people happy, canceling the one thing that makes them happy and planting 3 trees is the most insane thing I think I could ever think. You remember you, you know, that that whole thing was done by the parents.

36:11 I mean, we were, we were around the clock and the teachers, the teachers put a lot of time into that. The fun fair and they didn't get. Paid for it that both the the the fun fair. Well, they were working. I guess you're right because that was on a they're. Working around the clock and they're also working, you know, and they would have it on a day during the day. But The thing is, is that you had to line up 20 parents and we live in a neighborhood where people hire people to stand in line for them. OK, so this is not something that people would but. That's not completely true because the PTA in that community is so overactive because you have a lot of people that worked at, I don't know, E&Y or another white shoe law firm. And then they became retired.

36:53 They retired or not. It didn't retire. They became. A pop out of kit. Yeah, exactly. And then they realized that they their overbearing willingness at work was no longer permitted in the house, So they needed to be overbearing on other people outside of their home. And that's when the PTA was kind of really big. And those people were so overbearing and cruel in so many ways because they took what they learned at work and then they applied it to their their school lives, which is just so improper. So, so improper. I remember you doing a business plan in 3rd grade and I just thought that was nuts. Yeah. What was that those? People are like you. You. You invented a restaurant. I thought of Zach. Burger Zach Burger you had a design of the restaurant. You had you had to have menu, you had menu items and you had you couldn't just list the price for two.

37:37 You had to have a discount if you got over a certain amount. And it just and it was like, and it taught you how to do what is it? What is the Adobe PowerPoint taught you how to do a PowerPoint in 3rd grade which which I was just like I could not that was. Insane. I could and and because you could, you could literally see the parents living through their kids because, you know, they had been powerful lawyers and powerful, you know, partners at large accounting firms and things. And now they had a kid. And so they took it to the school and they pushed the school to do the different things that they would get to be there. And I, I remember I was asking like some of your friends what they wanted to be when they grew up in and one kid in 3rd grade told me he wanted to be a partner. It's Skadden Arps.

38:35 And I was just like. Yeah, I remember. That that was, I mean, not a fireman, not, not, not, not an assassin, like an assassin would be cool, you know, or that was. Ender's brother too, who I don't remember his name. I remember it was just weird. Very, very strange. Very hyper Hyper. What is it? Competitive as well. But but so many kids were there were like that because the people upstairs that were controlling them were were really, it's like I, you know, as competitive as I am, I don't know how competitive I made you to some to a certain degree, but I think that the the thing that I was really looking for is that you want to be competitive, but you don't want to be freaking nuts you.

39:22 Want to be competitive internally, not externally. Right, you need to if you're. Externally, you're going to be very disappointed in your life because something's always going to be better than you. You need to learn what you want to do on your own. I can't tell you, I can't tell you. And I would say that being an actor and being a producer and a director and doing a form a, a, a film, a documentary and do an animation, it is so far from anything that I ever thought you would do. Yeah, I really didn't know what I mean. I think it's wonderful that you found it. I look at it and it would be the most challenging thing in the world to keep all those pieces together.

40:03 But you do it and I think that's nuts. I think it's absolutely crazy. It would drive me crazy. I would probably have to take more amphetamines than I do now. I don't take any, but I would. It's really bad, yeah. The the amount of, I don't know, I don't know, the amount of pitching, the amount of networking, I feel like it's 5 to 8 times more in this industry than any other industry. I don't know. Yeah. No, because, well, you meet a bunch of people that are liars. And that's the problem. I feel like there's more liars in the entertainment industry than there are in any others besides politicians, because every politician is a liar. So I mean, that's kind of what I have to say about that, yeah. Degrees of lies. Yeah, it's true.

40:43 Yeah. Is there any politician that actually tells the truth? Well, I I mean they, I think that. I don't think there is. I don't think there's one of them. I don't think it really matters what they say, it really matters what they've done. You know when you start to look at your history? And it's like when I start to look at my legacy. Because what they say is lies. Is that what you're saying? Is that one? Yeah. Right. No, no, but but but if they've, if I have cheated a charity and if I have cheated people and I have been horrible to if I've been racist or whatever in the past over time, if I have said things over, if I lie every time, if I cheap contractors, if I do all these different things, why would you expect me to do be different if I became your representative, I mean.

41:31 No, I completely agree. I mean, if you got a whole, if you got a history, and that's what that's why you like some people that are young because they don't have a whole lot of history. The only thing you can get them for is wearing blackface in high school, you know? And it's like, yeah, it's like. Yeah, well, that's what the the liberals really messed up is when they started talking about Brett Kavanaugh in college. And I was like, you guys, you're making and I'm I, I would consider myself a Democratic centrist. And I was watching that. I'm like, you're making me hate you. I'm like you're you're going back to when he was 18 years old and you're talking about a stupid calendar that he wrote. And I'm like, yeah, what? What is the. I don't know. I understand. The I think, I think I think the idea is that if you rape somebody once, you do it over and over and over again.

42:13 A. 100% people don't. And that was sort of the whole idea and the problem, the problem with that theory and that conjecture and that whole process isn't that it's they had, they had two or three others that, but they didn't have anybody later in life. And it's like I I'm. You can't establish a through line. If it's in the beginning, well, then it's kind of imparting upon the viewer that, oh, if he was a sexual assaulter of people at this age, then he's going to impart the same kind of branch of knowledge when he's in a Supreme Court judge, which is not a terrible kind of thing, But that also requires critical thinking from the viewer, which 50.

42:57 Six. Well, he wasn't, he wasn't, he wasn't, he wasn't divorced three times. He didn't cheat on his wives. He didn't, he didn't, he didn't do all the things that you would think that somebody that was a rapist would do. He didn't. He didn't have all those ticks. He didn't have all those tricks. He never, he wasn't there. There weren't 20 women that lined up to say he did this to me. They, they didn't have them. So they had some, but they had so few and they were from long ago. And it's like bull. I don't, you know. Yeah, it, it made no sense watching that. I was like you guys completely. Thomas Thomas.

43:37 Clarence Thompson, Thomas. They had many more lined up than Anita Hill. Biden wouldn't let him listen to him. So oh wow. Hold it. She's there saying, hey, this guy said he used to talk to me in derogatory tones and he would say, hey, you got a, it looks like you got a pube on the coke there. You need another one, you know, And he would say shit like that. Clarence Thomas would. That's who you're talking. About and he said that to Anita Hill, who was his what he clerk and he but he did this to a lot of different people. And The thing is, I would tell you that my wife worked in the late 80s and early 90s in law firms and when they went to the Hill, the the Congress people were absolute shit. They would literally grab your boob while they're talking to you.

44:27 This doesn't shock me at all. And they would, I mean, think about that today. I mean. Like, yeah, wait, we're supposed to respect these people as well? We're supposed to Yeah, but you're like and, and and I had one that said Strom Thurmond was a grouper and he would run after you around. And that's why women, when they went and talked to him, they would always go when a group and they would always be in a room, a conference room, because then you could go around the table to get away from him while you're talking to him. And you're trying to, and this guy has a lot of power and you're trying to get him to do something and he's over there. I want to grab your ass, you know, and you're like. Jesus. You know, women just and, and what are they going to do? OK, I'm, I'm making 20 grand a year.

45:07 I'm working as a paralegal. I'm being, I'm being assaulted by a guy who's a senior member of the Senate. Guess what's going to happen? I'm going to lose my job. I'm going to disappear from life and he's going to. Nothing's going to. Change exactly. So you you don't. You don't. When you have no power and you try to attack power, generally you get sacrificed. The cool thing is, is that if enough people get sacrificed, ultimately they drop down. But you don't want to be the first one to be. It's martyrdom. It's martyrdom is what you're talking about. That's what it is. Martyrdom. At least you get to be known well. In the. Beginning the way they cut these people to pieces is just just.

45:47 Horrible. It's always the first three women that come out. That are always the woman, the woman that testified against Kavanaugh has moved. She does not. She does not have any presence that you can find anywhere. I think she's moved multiple times too. She's moved multiple times. She's three different times since that people. She still gets death threats occasionally if she's seen. And you think like, and I, I believe her story is true. I'm not, I, I don't know that. I mean, somebody would come out of the woodwork like that. She didn't want to testify and she knew the consequences. And she's a college professor. So she's like, I don't need this shit. And you look at that and you see what happens to those people and you wonder why people won't come forward.

46:32 And now you got people like wiping out the whistleblowers and it's like, OK, Oh, yeah, you're, you're better off waiting till your boss turns his turns his back and, and sticking some, you know, made-up shit in his drawer, you know, and letting somebody else find it. Blackmail does seem to work rather well, but. That's sad, sad, very sad. But that's not a disappointment, is it? Is that a disappointment? I'm disappointed in our system. I. Mean I'm disappointed in our system right now. I think I'm more disappointed than I've ever been disappointed before. I've been disappointed pretty much since I was born in the system. I would say I think the through and through I've been disappointed. I think there I, I, there, there are certain high points.

47:14 I thought it was really good that more and more people had access to health. And I don't know if health insurance is right, You know, I mean, so many more were covered. I don't know if that if that increased the longevity of life or not. I'm I'm very curious. Yeah, it doesn't really seem so. I don't know. Yeah, when you say seeing, it's like we don't know. We, we, I I could well, I don't want to speculate. There's things, there's a, there's a site US something or other that U.S. data or something like that that puts out all the information in the world and you can grab it there. And it's I'm going to go look at it after this podcast and maybe we'll bring it up again in the future, you know, and do that and do that. Oh yeah, that's right.

47:57 Oh yeah. You know what we should do? What I was talking about earlier in this episode is. Not be disappointed. No, no. I've been looking at other people's shows online and there's this guy named Tim Dillon and he's a comedian and you can see like he wears sunglasses and he has like this table, but he has like 3 or 4 different teleprompters with all of this stuff that he's written. And I think maybe we should try a little preparedness when I get back from Mongolia, OK, after I shoot this feature because I think that that would be really interesting to what Like what would it be like if me and you looked at a topic and actually researched it for, I don't know, like 3 days or something like that? Well, let's let's. Put some. This is what is the. This is episode 112.

48:41 No, this episode is on. I forgot. This is on disappointment. I'm going to do right as soon as we're done here, I'm going to do I'm going to do my perplexity, I'm going to do disappointment and I'm going to say write me 30 minutes on a 30 minute podcast on disappointment and then I'm going to give it and then I'm going to send it to you and we'll see are. You talking about ChatGPT? Is that what you're? Talking about no perplexity is 1 I have. I like ChatGPT. Is you can't use. That's so lazy, no? No, I I understand it's lazy, but what I want to do is I want to see that once we get to a structure where we can actually grow, then we then we will be less disappointed.

49:22 Yeah, I want to grow faster. I mean, and that's what I think after shooting this feature, that's what she said. Really going to unlock for us is. That I want it to grow faster. You're a funny guy. You're a funny guy. You know what your. Does anybody talk to their kid like this? This is just absolutely we. Often have that conversation. It's not fair. Is there any father, son relationship out there that is this raunchy, this, yeah, this out of pocket. And I don't think I've ever seen one. Yeah, but I don't know, you know? Well, you as long as you know that all your problems are my fault. And they are all your fault and I blame you for everything. Well, my problems are because I'm really disappointed in everything you do. That's really funny.

50:05 That's really funny. Well, I'm really smart. I went to a really good school. Yeah, I'm really stupid. I went to a shitty school. That's why we balance each other out, don't you think? Exactly. Exactly. That's why I'm a renowned intellectual. Some say that I'm the most, the highest level of intellectual in America. The people look to me. I. Was going to say as a. Leader of the youth, as a leader of the youth, That's what they say, Noam. Chomsky, but I am. Who I am. I am shocked by the amount that you read and impresses me and I'm actually a little jealous that you have that ability to focus on it. And I think that's like, that's a really cool quality. It really increases your. Level. I'm disappointed in myself that I can't keep up with that. And it's always like I keep looking at it. I've grabbed your books.

50:50 I read the first 10 pages. I said I'm on a desk. I never look at them again. If I have another, boring as hell, I swear. To know I'm I I grab your UVA reading list. I can do that. I can do that. No, I can't. I couldn't. The only reason I read the books at UVA those specific ones is because I was forced to. I would never read those for fun. My God. Especially since you have a teacher teaching you those books. It's a lot easier than just reading. I don't know, primary sources from 1890 to 1985 about China. Like you could read through all those primary sources, but what the fuck would that even give you if you had no idea what the time lapses were between the Great Leap Forward and then the what was it not the Velvet Revolution?

51:35 Those checklist. The Boxer Rebellion. There we go. Yeah. The Great Leap Forward. And then how the Boxer Rebellion directly affiliated towards the Great Leap Forward. Charleston Heston was in that great movie. We should watch that. Oh yeah. 55 days of PK. I want to watch. It is an amazing and cinematography everything. It's one of the early color films it and it is about, you know, America, the US military being on the ground in a Fort in Peking with I think, I don't know if the Boxers were in China. They were protecting them. Typing rebellion was something different. And they starved to death.

52:17 There were a lot of them dead. So it was really, it was just really. Well, the whole thing that happened after the Boxer Rebellion too is that China owed between, what was it Germany, France, America and England. They owed them like $10 billion across four different countries, which they in $10 billion in like 1910 was a little or 1930s yeah, was a little dirty 30. Something. Yeah, the boxwood value, we said. What was that? That was 19-O2. Wasn't. 19 yeah, it took nineteen O 4 was something like that. Let's Google it because we love the makeup. The 30's, the 30s was Germany owned a lot of money to the rest of the world after the first. Oh yeah, it was at the turn of the century, what do you know? What was the Taiping Rebellion? The Who?

53:00 The Taiping Rebellion that was between the nationalists. That that might have been probably 39 I would think. Maybe I'm confusing the two 1850. Oh wow. Same thing I said 39 I meant. Yeah, we're really, we're really good at dudes. Well, I'm sorry that I don't really remember a class that I took five years ago. You know what? Sorry that I didn't. Really, I think you should say you're. Disappointed the Qing dynasty in the Taiping. Yeah, the Heavenly Kingdom was the the not elitist, but they were, it was kind of a a cult at that time that was trying to take over the Qing dynasty because the Qing dynasty was weakened. And that's what it was. Now I remember.

53:40 And then there the guy was crazy. If I remember, he was having these visions and he was trying to become a like a overseer or something in the government. And he failed the test so many times. He's like, well, I saw Jesus and Jesus told me that I need to start this movement. And then he started the Taiping, basically the people, the, the cult, as it were. And then that led to the Taiping rebellion. Yeah. Wow, so when you think about we're back to being disappointed are there when you think about the major disappointments in your life other than me losing me, my God, every time my car broke down on the side of the road and how come it never happened going to work, my car never broke down going to work. It only broke broke down going to home. That's so funny.

54:30 I, I just like and I can six or seven times I was on the side of the road and I, that's when I vowed last time that I'm buying new cars and people, you should buy used cars better value. I'm like, no, I, I, I've spent a third of my life on the side of the road. And I mean, my car breaks down in DC and I have to walk to King Street, which is not a short. Have you walked that far? I walked, I walked from 14th St. to the 14th St. Bridge. So I walked from where we were and that's probably a mile, not that far. And then I got a taxi to the exit for King Street and he dropped me off there.

55:14 And then I walked from there to Larchmont Village Apartments when I, I, I used to walk to back and forth from the Woodbridge campus and what the hell was it? Normandy Community College. And I would walk to my house on 14 two O 8 Randall Drive, which is over by Maroska Plaza. And that was 5 1/2 miles. And I would I would do that quite. That's pretty far uphill both ways, right? Uphill both ways and it was always a snowstorm while it was raining and lightning. Yes. And I didn't let you wear clothes at that time. Yeah. No, because it was. Caveman Times. Yes, and and I used to have a small weenie.

55:57 Man, I wonder, I really wonder, really, really something I really wonder about is the demographic of this podcast and like, 'cause we need to do a podcast on it when I get back about like the demographic of what we're trying to reach and then what are consolidated niche is. And Nici, I really don't know. I really don't know who the the niche or the demographic is for this, you know? Well, I mean, we, we, I mean, it's more, well, that's a good question. When we think about relationships, it's, it's really relationship wise and you can listen to it and we have points on relationships and how to communicate with between an older person and a younger person, a family member. Hopefully it gives people insight into how to communicate. Hopefully it gives people insight into it's, it's, it's really good to take the first step when you're dealing with a son or daughter or uncle or cousin or whatever to be, to open yourself up.

57:04 And I mean, you're going to, you get a little pain because, well, the demographic, most of the time they tell you to piss off. And anybody I. Think it's a really big thing. The demographic of anybody willing to kind of want to repair their relationship or make their relationship deeper with their parents is a hard demographic to reach because that's an unknowing demographic. That's a demographic that doesn't know what they want yet. Right? Right. And it's like, how do you reach a demographic that doesn't know what they want yet? Like, I don't know. That's an interesting question. Well, it's and usually they're not even going to start looking at this or working on this until their kids, 12 or 13, they accidentally hear. This is really how or they hear it from somebody else is really how that spreads.

57:47 But then we, I mean, we talk about so many diverse things and it's our opinions on them, right? Yeah, I mean we. Talked about, we talked about the banking crisis, the Silicon Valley Bank that crashed and how horrible it was and how that the CEO was the, he was the head of the San Francisco Fed. And of all the people in the world that should know how to run a friggin bank, it's the person that's ahead of the Fed. The San Francisco Fed should have known about this. Yeah, last episode. And yeah. And so here I go, back again, harping off on this because it's a disappointment. When we talk about things that grind our gears, I guess that's this episode specifically, but we love bass pro Oh, I had to donate a bunch of my clothes recently because I'm an adult now. It's funny, I look at the last three years photos of my. Face.

58:35 Oh my God, you're cut. You're. There's not crap all over your room. I just noticed. Yeah, yeah. It's clean. You like that? You're like, yeah. What the hell? It's really not. You're dating somebody back in the chair. Well, I've been dating her, so yeah, I don't know. But I just. Came over one time and said are you kidding me? Cuz you're, you're a mess and you're, you're Oscar the Grouch. You live in a trash can. That's what she said. And then she flicked to my forehead and then she left. But as I was saying, you ever look at the photos in the past three years of your face and you're like, wow, like I, I look completely different. I think I look different on a yearly basis. It's crazy. Like my face changes year to year and I don't know why. It's crazy. Mine is.

59:16 That's a good point because I don't look at my face closely. I look more at my stature and I see that like 3 years ago I was fatter. You were fatter 3 years ago, that's true. Well, that was the pandemic, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, I was drunker. We I was certainly drunker 3 years ago. Oh my gosh. Drunker. I think I was drinking like a lot. Like, way too much. Yeah, No, I'm glad, I said. The pandemic's not still going on, and we're just getting hammered in the. I'm not going to lie, there's part of. Me. That misses that I'm not this. Is the way life should be. Like, imagine if I got my paper degree and then I spent the next five years of my life until I was 30 getting drunk in the garage. I wouldn't be married.

1:00:03 Well, what would the jobs? I would not be married. Let's let's speculate. I would not be married. You would not be married, This is true. And then and then we'd be smoking cigars in the house. But what was I gonna say? We had a. Notary reader out there. So we had, we had the big, we had the cigar. Not during the cigar. Was it during the pandemic? Yeah, it was. Oh. Yeah, you're right. It was on the whole time but it kept remember going. I remember I had it removed. Well, I remember when we took it off the ceiling and it fell on me and that hurt like a lot. That's. That's when I was wondering if you did go to a really good school and you were really smart. Well, I put my head underneath it to hold it, like press it to the ceiling and then with my arms on the side. But I when you take the bolts out, you really don't know how heavy that thing is.

1:00:53 And there's really no guessing of how heavy it was. Yeah. And then I just threw it on the ground and it was hit my shoulder or something. I don't know. Yeah, it did. It fell on you. Yeah, it fell on my shoulder. Yeah, but I digest. I digest. So other, other when you think about disappointments, we should close, we should close this with the if I was to pick my biggest disappointment, it's my most recent one. It's the Stanford thing. I'm going to try, I'm going to write something to try to change that or mitigate that I've in, in, in, in my disappointments over time. I feel like when I'm disappointed that I have to design a plan of action to if I come to cross a situation again, I want to, I want to react to it differently.

1:01:38 I don't I, I, I, I want to say, OK, if I go and I apply to MIT and I tried and I get failed there, it's not because going to be because I didn't take the application process seriously. I'm going to do it a lot differently. And I think that I've done this with everything like, you know, and I try not to. And I think it comes down to I'll make the same mistake twice, but I won't make it 3 times. I'm not, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm resilient enough to be able to change what I do and how I do it to do that. I think that that's, that's, that's one of my great qualities is the ability to deal with disappointment because I look at, I mean my life, you know, growing up in the 60s and where we were in the house.

1:02:23 I'm not, I think. That kind of stuff. Wearing your brother's clothes until you're 19. That kind of transferred on to me and that I don't get disappointed at my failures. I learn how to overcome them and I think that resiliency is something that is incredibly important. That took me a long time as a kid to understand, but I think now I understand it somewhat. But I remember. Time What is the the age-old joke? It's like shame me once or fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you. But then there's another one. It's like, fool me three times, shame on you. You're taking advantage of me. You already do have to take advantage of me or something like that. It's it's funny, Yeah. I think my advice is just remember if you get in an argument, punch him in the face, don't push.

1:03:09 Follow that rule. Just to tell you now, I think it's you. Stop that. Yeah, I stopped punching people in the face when I was. I see. I love that. I thought that was the greatest advice in the world at the time. I think it was terrible advice. But then it was me and then it and then it came back to really bite me in the ass. And it's like, who told you that? Yeah, no, that was not great advice. Oh, wait, what do? What do we have for time here? Are we, are we good? Oh. Yeah, we're over an hour. We talk a lot. This is really easy. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll talk to you next. Week. Yeah, we're definitely very easy breezy worms. Yeah, I've been lazy on the YouTube I got to get. I got to teach you how to do that so I don't have to do it anymore. I'm disappointed that it didn't last any longer than it has so far, yeah.

1:03:51 That's fair. Yeah, that's all right. We'll see you later. Bye bye.