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From the art of the deal to keeping it real. Live from the Simply Vegas studios, it's The Power Move with Jon Gafford. What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another epic episode of The Power Move. Here with me, as always, is going to be my main man, the man that says nothing wrong ever.
Colt D'Amadon. What's up, Colt? Cocktail hour. Here we go. And flying over in the shotgun seat over to the far left, the ever-present Chris Connell. Chris Connell, how are you, everybody? Good, man. Good. Oh, there it is, the power move. I need to get more. I'm going to have to put it on the board, but honestly, if I did that, it's just like one more thing that I got to kind of keep up with as we go along and as we do this, which I already got enough to keep up with as we do this, but...
My man. So what do you give for the guy that's got everything? What gift do you give the guy that has everything? And I'm going to talk about a cool gift that I got today. And I want to talk about the coolest gift you've gotten somebody. So,
One of my mentors, one of my good friends, Steve Sims, he's called the real life Wizard of Oz. This is a cat that we've talked about in the past. It can literally make anything happen and has for people. He's amazing what he did. Cool guy. And so his birthday came up and I was like, you know, man, I want to get, you know, man, Steve's done a lot for me. He's hooked me up. I've gotten speaking gigs. I've gotten different things because of Steve. And I want to say thank you to him. So,
You know, you start looking at a lot of stuff. He's a motorcycle guy. So I started going down that path where what I wanted to find was I wanted to find like some Raleigh free memorabilia. I don't know if you know Raleigh free is there's a very famous picture of him breaking the world speed record on the land on the Bonneville salt flats and a bathing suit from the fifties. I'm like, dude, if I could get that sign, that'd be epic. So we do those motorcycles. That'd be great.
No, there's one light collection of Raleigh free photographs. It's $20,000. I mean, they're, they're, they're so expensive. So I'm thinking I got to tie to tie it in. Cause there's, it's always gotta be a tie in. It's like a coordination of gifts and everything else. And I'm like, what am I going to do? So I came up with it. Flamethrower. Flamethrower. Who doesn't want a flame? You literally, there's not a, if you're a man in America and you don't want a flamethrower for something's wrong with you, something's wrong with you. So at first, so here's, here's the, here's the progression of this gift.
Now, Steve doesn't have this yet because it just showed up in my house. I'm getting ready to ship it to him now. And the reason he doesn't have it is I want to put a card in it. And I'll talk about that in a second. But so the progression was, okay, the first thing is I'll go down the boring company. I went down that route, right? Yeah.
Yeah. People are like two Jizzles for this bad boy. And I'm like, this is a nice gift, but you know, he ain't my kid. We ain't sleeping together. So it's like, I ain't going too grand and I'm not going down that route. So then I go on eBay and you know, and you know, eBay this close to getting chili'd and you're this close to being Chili's and I'm going to talk about eBay real quick. So going dark. Yeah. Dude, being Chili's is a dark place to be. So I go down and I am looking at,
And I find one and it's like replica of boring flamethrower, 500 bucks or whatever it was. I'm like, I'm in cool. Pay it done. Like instantly buy it, pay it good. A week goes by, you know? And the problem with eBay is, you know, now apparently they just no longer employ any human beings whatsoever. None. It's all computerized and it's all this.
So I'm like, this guy doesn't, I'm sending emails. Hey man, where's the tracking? What's going on? After a week, this guy who I tracked down as a student at Clemson university, cause I'm pretty slick this way. I tracked him. I got everything. I just really, my address. I got the whole nine yards. You can't hide behind your eBay suit number for me. So you just can't do it. About a week later, he sends me a thing. Hey man, before I send this, uh, it's homemade. Do you still want it?
I'm like, no, I don't want your homemade flamethrower, sir, for $500. It's one of those Benson. It's going to be a can of camping fuel and like one of those long, like real lighters. Just what I wanted to say. I just wanted to send my friend an atom bomb. That's exactly what I want to send to his house. No. So I'm like, no, I don't want, I don't want this anymore. I'm done. The kid goes totally dark on me.
Right? It goes dark. So I start going down the black hole of eBay trying to help me. And it comes up with, I'm like, you know, I'm just checking every box I can. I can't talk to a human. There's no phone number. Every phone number you call says we don't use this phone number anymore. Finally, I get them and they get back. They say, great, congratulations. eBay has sided with you on the dispute. We're siding with you. All you have to do is return the item back to the seller and we'll give you your money back. I'm like, how can I return something I never got? Right?
So I eventually had to go now to PayPal, charge it back. It was a whole thing. But in the meantime, I did find a store in Florida called the Super Villain Store where they had a pretty legit flamethrower that I picked up for $550. Now, the only problem I have with this gift before I send it to them is... It wasn't bedazzled. No. Okay. Let me ask you a question. What say you, sir?
I have a flamethrower sitting in front of my house in a box right now. Do you know how much control it's going to take to not go home and play with it?
I don't know why you don't have two flamethrowers sitting in your house right now. Like you and Steve aren't close enough friends. You want to be like flamethrower buddies? Yeah, no. I think that would be too flaming for me is how we put it. I don't know how you order one flamethrower. It's terrible. Don't say that. You order zero or two flamethrowers, John. No, but I ordered the one flamethrower, but it's done. And I'm going to send it to him in a box with a note that just says –
What do you get for somebody that has helped so many others, including myself, catch fire? And I just thought that was such a cool, nice way to give it to them. So, you know, what's the coolest gift you've ever given somebody?
Given or gotten? I thought it was gotten. Both, either way. Gotten was my wife for Christmas like five years ago. What was that? I gave you your wife. John gave me my wife. You paused for a bit. I was waiting. I'm like, whoa. There was only 13 goats in my dowry. I mean, I get it.
Steve, thanks for giving me my wife. No, so it was, I had been looking, like John has been over to my house, seen my weird collection of stuff. It's like Ripley's Blue. Yeah, I pride myself on trying to find really crazy stuff. I have vampire, I just have everything. What I didn't have was like a 17th, 18th, 19th century antique vampire hunting kit.
And I wanted one very, very badly because I thought it was a thing. I thought they used to sell these. And so I was going down the black hole of, you know, trying to find one. And they had some and they were like $5,000. I'm like, man, I don't need anything that authentic. Just kind of a cool, I just want the story because I think it's a neat story that the hubris and the fear of vampires in, you know, 19th century Romania or whatever was enough that people were buying kits with garlic and all this stuff. So I kept telling my wife I wanted one. I wanted one.
And she, I didn't think much of it until Christmas Day comes. She presents me with this box that she hand-built, handmade this whole thing. Had like, you know, old school decorative things on the side. And you pop it open, it's got a hook. And it's a...
It's like a crab hammer that's painted like a steak hammer and hand-fashioned steaks. She made this, right? Well, yeah. I lost the Dremel out of the deal because she kept using bits on it and just mangled the shit out of it. But it was so worth it. So it's one of my favorite things ever. And it was a gift because it was a labor of love. But she leather strapped in the vials for garlic and holy water. She's like, what you want doesn't really exist. What I want doesn't. But I'm still going to make it. Then I find out this wasn't actually a thing.
Which was almost kind of cooler in a way that I actually have one now. Right. Of this thing that there is no authentic version of it. So some hucksters started making some mountebanks. Oh, man. Scrabble word for the day called mountebanks. People haven't realized how smart Chris is. Can you use that? Those guys are mountebanks. The mountebanks, they started making fake ones and selling them as antique vampire hunting kits.
Really? So they don't actually exist. There wasn't this craze of people. So people are spending $30,000 on something. Sure, whatever. I don't even know how much they are. I could forget. So have we just officially verified vampires do not exist? Have we just officially verified that? I've met a few time vampires. I've met a few energy vampires in my day. Yeah, so she made it for me. So it's just one of those neat things now. Giving gifts, I try to be thoughtful. I try to figure it out. But I'm not sure what I've done other than, you know, obviously engagement ring.
- Gage-bearing, that's it. - That's kinda like, I don't, I would like to be better at it because there's a lot of people in my life that I am very thankful for and I don't maybe express it as much as I think all of us should. So you doing that makes me think, yeah, maybe I should kind of think about-- - No, dude, I'm telling you, there's a buddy of my mastermind who owns a company called Giftology.
And he is, they are experts at giving gifts for high-level corporate people. And that's what they do. Not for birthdays or whatever, but just randomly give people gifts. And they will do research on these people and select gifts that are very appropriate for it. It's not a cheap service. And John is probably the best guy in the world at it. But watching him, listening to him, I started thinking maybe I need to do this with more intent than, hey, here's a Chili's gift card. Because, you know, ain't nobody getting a Chili's gift card anymore.
Dead to me, Chili's. Wendy's is on the chopping block. Wendy's, you're close. Chili's, you're dead to me. I pray this podcast takes off for no other reason than somebody at Corporate Chili's can be like, we got to know something about this podcast. Every single week, they just boss us every week. We'll take a sponsorship. Let's take a sponsorship. Brought to you by Hublot. By Chili's.
Yeah. I mean, yo Applebee's, I'm just saying looking real good for a sponsorship. You want to take the edge? You want to take the edge? Oh man. But it's funny because I think a lot of us represent a lot of clients that have everything right. Um,
My go-to was, for a lot of these guys, they would like cigars, but they didn't really know much about them. And you got them a nice Cuban cigar that, because it was a lot harder 10 years ago than it is now, that that always was something because it's like, well, where'd you get it? So, Colt, you're admitting you've broken the law on the opinions of Colt Comedon and the inability to adhere to global embargoes. Why do you think we have you, Chris, here? Dude.
He's kidding, everybody. He's kidding. Cuban seed planted in Nicaragua. It's okay. It's a guy out of the neighbor's house throwing them. But I think stuff like that. And I think people just go to what's expensive, right? And people buy people expensive bottles of whatever, cognac or whatever. I was at a buddy's house that we were maybe drinking a little much and we're playing some drinking games. And he just kept pulling out Louis Trey's, Louis Trey's.
and drinking games with louis trey's and you're like bottles of louis trey like these are five thousand dollar bottles that you're you're playing drinking games with he goes this is what everybody gives me right like this is they're not thoughtful it's not a thoughtful gift even though it's five grand it's not thoughtful i'll take it well in my house i have stacks of really expensive liquor at my house i couldn't tell you any of it was from i have no idea
It's not memorable. You know what he always gets? You know what John loves everybody? John loves a nice bottle of scotch. No. Okay, if you're listening to this, everybody loves to buy me scotch. If you want to know where the scotch goes, literally right if you hand it to me, right there. I don't drink scotch. I'm a bourbon guy. That's what I drink. I drink the bourbon. I was an attorney at a firm here in town. I'm not going to mention names because they don't need my advertising for them. But...
This gentleman worked there and he got linked up. It was kind of a multi-level marketing thing, but he had this great card service. So one day I didn't even think about it. I get something in the mail and he goes, hey, I saw something on Facebook, blah, blah, blah. And this card had a bunch of pictures printed out about it. Ah.
You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, where it's actually they take pictures off your Facebook and make it a green card? But it's like a really personalized message. And I still have it. It's one of the... I don't know. It's great. I still have that one, though. But I got that, and it creeped me out a little bit. I loved it. I don't know about you, but yeah, it felt really authentic. It felt like you took time to... Well, there's... And that's a new thing. If you're looking at a great piece of marketing that I'm actually looking at for using for my sphere, not really my sphere, but like my neighborhood. Like, I don't sell, per se, a lot of real estate anymore, but just the...
seeing another for sale sign or seeing another house listed in my neighborhood drives me bananas. Right. Just cause it just like the prideful of it. And I, and my team, exactly. So, you know, we've always sent out, which now everybody sends it out, which is like, here's the neighborhood and our update and ours are great. Cause we have our own digital printer. So it's this four page deal with all it's beautifully done, but everybody's doing it now. So I found this company called authentic.co.
I'll just give it to you for free. Again, no endorsement, but authentic.co and they have these, they have handwriting machines, which I've looked into before. They're very expensive and they break a lot apparently.
But for like, I think it's a thousand bucks a month for a six month commitment. They will send 400 handwritten notes on stationary branded to you that you can design however you want. It goes out every month. And when I say handwritten, it's not that crappy just font that looks like it. It's actual machines that hold a pen and then actually write the notes so that you can tell they're handwritten and they send them out. You just type in the message, whatever you want to say. But I figured if I could just send everybody in my neighborhood, a handwritten note every month, at the very least,
People will be like, oh, that's the guy that sends the notes. You know who I get handwritten messages from? Religious people. Jehovah's Witnesses. Yeah, Jehovah's Witnesses. They send me handwritten pages. It's always in Spanish. I think they just look at me and go, you know, I mean, honestly, we're not even going to bother. I mean, you'd think that would be me too. I would think so. I would think so. Yeah. But I'm going to tell you, you know what the best gift I've ever given? And I just gave it actually.
And if you're married, listen up, because I'm telling you, this is good. This is a great gift to give your wife. And it's actually a gift for you.
Hmm. Everybody's listening now, right? So what is it? Earplugs? The thoughts and opinions of Chris Connells do not represent the power move. No, no. No. What it is, is this. So for our anniversary this year, my wife was like, what do you want? And I said, I want a boudoir book.
That's what I want. George Costanza. I want more of those books with you. I want a book of you in racy photos.
And I could tell at first she was, you know, my wife is, for those of you who've never seen her, my wife's beautiful. She's 50 years old. And I think the age in her mind, she was like, I'm too old for this, blah, blah, blah. And I could tell there was some apprehension in her doing it, but she wanted to make me happy. So she did it anyway. Right? Now, this is why people are like, okay, how is that a gift for her? And I'll tell you how. My wife called me today because she saw the first Proust comeback from the photo shoot. Right. And she was like,
Oh my God. These photographs are unbelievable. She looked. Lucky motherfucker. No, no, no, but I'm saying she looked because, I mean, obviously a great photographer that does this all full time. Right. Made her, I mean, she's already beautiful, but the photographs were done beautifully. There's a, there's, it's easy to be a beautiful person and take a bad photograph, but it's easy to be an ugly person and take a great photograph and a good photographer can do whatever. And this lady especially was really great at it.
I could instantaneously hear her confidence and hear how proud of herself she was because of this. So it was a gift for me, but it was really a great, and I didn't even intend it that way. I was just being like, I kind of want a book with hot pictures of my wife and whatever that's what I want. But what I got out of it was so much greater because I could just feel the confidence just oozing through the phone about these photographs. She loved it. She thought it was great.
That's awesome. That's a great idea. It's a good gift. I would do that with the George Costanzas. Oh, when he's laying on the couch? Yeah. No, I mean, it really was just an amazingly great gift. You know, it's funny because they're sexy pictures, and we were talking about this earlier, which was...
When your kids get to be that certain age and you got to have the talk. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You know, I'm just curious because this is different because, you know, I have my son and I have my daughter and I also have my wife. Not that I had to have the sex talk with her. She had already kind of figured that out. Even though I like to have this fantasy that, you know, whatever. It's my fantasy. Don't mess with it.
But I know you talked to your daughter about it. I did. I recently had, I mean, recently, I recently had the talk with my daughter. Here's the unintended consequence of it that was amazing. Okay. She now comes to me about everything. Everything.
Everything. And I mean no punches held back. None. So I always had this opinion. We talked about liberal arts education. I took a class in university. I had a class to fill between physics, biology, and whatever. And I took a cupcake class called human sexuality. Human sexual behavior. And it was phenomenal. Because the shit I don't know about it to this day, the shit I didn't know about it then could fill up a fucking Olympic swimming pool. But what it did...
Kind of make me understand is how puritanical even my views on sex and sexuality were. We are in a culture. So our culture is very, very repressed. People don't realize how repressive we are as a culture. Now think about what happened when Janet Jackson's nipple fell out. This country ground with fucking Holt. You know what? I'm still in counseling over a nipple, right? People in France have a pasty on.
No, that was Justin Timberlake. Yeah, Justin Timberlake had the pasty. He was pasty. Oh, no, there was a pasty on the nipple. No, he ripped off a pasty and a nipple popped out and it was pierced. People lost their goddamn minds, right? So I always say, I'm like, you know what the greatest disservice you can do to your kids is? Is pass along generational trauma about how we deal with things. Number one, kids that get pregnant are parents that don't, who kids don't understand how sex even works.
Yeah. That just works. What is actually happening here? A man meets a woman and they like hang out together and all of a sudden they have babies. Like you go, no, no, no, no. I can see you with a straight up whiteboard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. So I did. So I basically did. And we said something like, I'm like, she's at the age. She asked me some question. It was tangential. And I'm just go,
Okay, you know what? I'm sorry, what was that last word? It wasn't. It was a tertiary thing. Tertiary. But it was just off. It's not just you, folks. I appreciate that. Because I sit here and it's like, choo-choo. It was just sort of one of those things where I'm like, there's something deeper to this question. And then I just basically got with it. I'm like, has your mom ever talked to you about sex? She's like, no. You know, like, no, absolutely not. I said, here's the thing. I'm not going to be this dad that thinks I own your sexuality. You are a human being.
Human beings, right, are sexual in nature. So I don't own your sexuality. I'm not going to sit on a porch with a shotgun and my daughter needs whatever. I want you to make your own sexual decisions in life. But just here's promise me one thing. Just don't date a fucking loser. Whatever you do, right, don't feel guilty about stuff. I don't care what happens. Just no loser. Make decisions today that your future self will thank you for, and that includes being safe and all this stuff. And here's how it works.
She's like, well, what's this? I'm like, this is this. And when I mean this is this, I mean like a male has testicles, and inside his testicles, he has sperm. Sperm are the genetic information that, you know, go through a vas deferens out your urethra into a woman, inserts his penis into a vagina. Step by step. Hold on, let me write these down. I'll give you a private later. But she didn't understand how a uterus worked.
No, no. She's like a 12 year old girl at this time. She just turned 13, but she was like maybe 12 turning 13. And nobody had ever had the sense and myself included to let her know how her own body worked. She's on it. She has her period. Okay. But okay. Now here's my question. Here's my question.
Did you think first, you're just like, I'm just going to handle this because I'm a fixer? Or did you think to call the mom and be like, yo. No, no, no. Because I feel like she listens to me as a sense of authority. And it's not the same thing because her mom would never have that conversation. Her mom would cupcake it. So I didn't want her mom to cupcake it. I want to be like, here is information. What you do with that is now up to you to think about. But here is real information. I think you're an intelligent kid. I think you're not too young to handle how your own body works.
She didn't understand why she was having a period. She just knew she had one. And I'm like, well, wait a minute. This is what's happening. You're over to release an egg that gets, you know, whatever. That's what's happening. Why is information or science important?
Like why on earth would that, nobody texts, how does your heart work? It pumps blood through your vessels. We're talking about some real basic stuff here that I think you should probably know by seven. And my goal is. I'm sorry, by how old? I mean seven. You start taking your first health classes. She was seven? No, I'm saying you should. No, but how old was she when you were having these conversations? She's turning, she's like a few months ago. Okay, so a few months. And I'm like, but you're, I mean, like I said, I'm not trying to spill her tea, but you know, you have your period and you don't know why.
I mean, that's kind of a weird thing. We've kind of failed you a little bit. So here's both barrels. This is what it's like. Here it comes. Here's what an STD is. Here's what condoms do. Here's what it all does. And she just kind of sat there, and then I let her kind of sit. I just dropped the information bomb, and I mean heavy. A week later, I go, so, you know, talked about it. Do you have any questions? She's like, no.
I don't know. It just kind of seemed more gross than anything to me. I'm like, yeah, okay. That's fine. You don't have to understand it because you're, you know. You know, then a week after that, she's like, you know, I actually do have a question. How does this work? You know, how does this? How does this? I'm like, this is how. Here you go. I have a pact with her now.
You have a question I will answer. Don't ever think for a second that anything is off topic. You want to talk about marijuana. You want to talk about whatever. I will tell you the facts about it. I'm not going to bullshit you. Well, see, when I last had the talk, you know, I was speaking as much as I could in generalities and trying to lay things out.
And I would knew there would be questions. And I said, look, just come to me with the questions as well. And Colt started texting me like fucking every five minutes. Like, well, how does this work? How does that work? I'm like, genuinely, come to him with your questions. I thought he meant it. No, I'm like, I'll tell you how this goes. But you know, you kind of got to fend for your grown man. Colt, you got two kids. You got to fend for yourself. That's why me and Giovanni were at the strip club Sunday. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Did you happen to catch that, by the way? I did. That was great. I actually really enjoyed that. Colt, if you don't follow Colt on IG, Colt Post. Now, okay. In Vegas, there's a place called Sapphire, which is a gentleman's club. It's the world's biggest gentleman. Don't play down. I don't know how many gentlemen hang out in there, but attached to this world's largest gentleman or gentleman's club.
a Mexican restaurant. It's actually a really good Mexican restaurant. Really good. It's really good. And Colt posted a picture of his son out front who is just turned three. Just turned three. Just turned three in front of the World's Largest Gentleman's Club and with the sign going to the back. And then the next scene was him passed out at a booth. And the best part about that was Colt
For half a second, I forgot about the Mexican restaurant. And I'm like, I thought you had like a commercial meeting or something. It's like, I'll be fine. Just Sunday morning. Do you know how many people in parking lot were looking at me weird walking with my three-year-old to strip club? But it's funny. I got so many. They're like, buddy, if you're going to turn them on, don't show them the day shift. So many people actually thought I took them. No, I didn't.
No, I'm being dead serious. People are like, don't you have to be 21? Like, is there a daycare? And I'm like, oh, my God. He's got a teddy bear in his hand, too. He did. He's got a Vegas steel, guys. Giovanni. Reminds me of that Abraham Lincoln quote about the internet. Yeah. So what you're talking about in generalities, you're just like, hey, buddy, wear a condom. I mean, like, how does that work?
No, no, no, no. That was really a joke for Colt. No, but like, do you find it weird when you have to? Because we are a repressed culture. Well, I'm not going to lie. Me growing up in that repressed culture, when we had this talk, it was like a Saturday. We had been out during the day. We had to go to some party and-
we came home and I had, I had had a couple of drinks and the kids are like, let's get in the hot tub. And I'm like, all right, cool. So we fired up. It's at night. And I wound up just sitting there with Hayden. And I was like, you know what?
Just feels like the right time to have this chat. You're going to start drinking a lot. I'm here. I'm a little lubricated. I'm good. Let's have the chat. It is kind of went with what do you know? And then how do you feed into what you know? And let's correct what's wrong. And let's, let's, let's go from there. It's kind of not get somebody pregnant. Let's start with that one. Yes. And I don't think people realize kids 12, 13 can get pregnant. You can't, you gotta have this. You've got to have this conversation young, which most people don't, but as a society, especially Americans, we,
Sex is so taboo. Brutal. Like, just a nipple, right? Like, just a boob is... You can go to the hotel pool and see a guy with a C-cup walking around. Big, fat titties, just giant. But all of a sudden, a girl walked out on him. And it's so funny because to me, it's like whatever, especially in Vegas. We see some wild stuff in Vegas. Yeah. You know, we see...
people walking around. The trucks going by. Yeah. Yeah. But that's still tame for a lot of other places. No, it is. Oh, absolutely. It's wild in America. This is why we have Las Vegas. This is why we exist. We were in, we were, we were in Amsterdam many, many moons ago. And, uh, uh,
We're there for my buddy's 40th birthday party. And, you know, my buddy is there. He's gay. He has his husband. And there was a bunch of other of his friends. And we were all there. It came from all over the globe. They were living in London at the time. And we'd gone to Amsterdam for his birthday party. And nobody had ever been to the red light district. So we're like, let's all go. So we go on a big mob. And here's my wife and Andrew, arm in arm, hammered, right? Going window to window, like critiquing the women in the windows. It's like, oh, my God.
God, like if I had cellulite that I would never put that on to fly and come up. I'm like, they can hear you. That's not human. It's a human. We're not the zoo of humans. That's not a chucky dog. This is not the zoo. It doesn't come to life when you say some magic words. It's just brutal. But yeah, no, it is a very weird, strange culture. And like I said, that's the reason why Las Vegas exists. Now, have you seen Zumanity?
I have seen Zumanity. So I thought Zumanity was an utter piece of dog shit. I thought it was the worst Cirque
Oh, for sure. Second, then, is Mysterio, because Mysterio is kind of like the older one. You know, it's standard. It's just kind of like the jump off. But Zumanity was a piece of shit, and here's why. It was everything wrong about American repression put into a show meant to be titillating. Yeah, let's run around with dildos. Oh, look at us. We have dildos. We're crazy. Oh, it's a gay guy, and he kissed a guy. Oh, no. It's just sort of like, I guess if you're in the middle, I don't want to be...
geographically insensitive to people's sort of cultures. But, you know, if you're in Arkansas and you're a couple and you come to Vegas and holy shit, look at how open sexually these people are. They're swinging fake dildos. I found it so inauthentic and so just pedestrian. It was pandering. Pedestrian pandering. And people come, oh my God, what a romp. What a great show. And I just think to myself, wow.
Think of the scale where you think that is something that is risque, right? My grandma wanted to go to that with me. That would have been fun.
with you yeah she's like can we go see this i heard it's fun my girlfriend like she did i'm like no grandma let's go to a car or something you're like yeah fuck you i'm going through 10 years like yeah you're a big yeah call it your little bitch my grandma i can totally see your grandmother calling you a little bitch i can totally see my family uh they like the party i like your grandma yeah i know but you know what i'm saying like we live in a very repressed culture this is why this is
This is why you go to France and these kids, holy shit, there's naked beaches or there's nipples. And they're just, they couldn't imagine you being hung up on this. We must look like HUD rights to them. Oh, and I think it's, I don't know, you see it, like you said, from Arkansas, the Midwest, like when you go to win, I go to win a lot and have drinks, and they have a topless pool. You know, just the guy's gawking at a girl, and I'm just like. She's looking around the corner. Yeah. Okay. All right, but let's talk about that, though. All right, let's talk about that. Yeah.
The topless, this is in America. If you go to the topless pool at the wind, or not the wind, but you get topless pool at Bear, like Bear Pool at Mirage or Boré Beach Club here. If you're topless at that and here, you're thirsty. You know what I mean?
You're just trying to get attention. The wind's different, though. It's not because it's your culture, you're accustomed to it, whatever. You're thirsty for attention. I agree. But the wind's not. The wind is those Europeans that are used to that. The wind is different. I totally agree with that, with Bear and all the other ones that are out there. But I find it hilarious. I mean, I don't know. I just don't comprehend it.
A boob's a boob to me, right? Like, I don't know, man. I never understood that. See, I'm going to disagree with that because a boob is not a boob. The counter argument is that. Somebody's never been to Day Shift Strip Club in Biloxi, Mississippi. And my friend, I will argue that because I got to tell you, it's so funny. Everybody, when you talk about strip clubs, all right?
If I'm going to a strip club, if I'm going to a strip club, if I'm going to go to a strip club, and I've always been this way, always, for whatever reason. I've never been to a strip club, John. I'm not going to flirt with girls or even look at the back. Like, I want experience. Like, when I go on a trip, I'll get in a cab with friends and say, take me to the seediest, worst strip club in this city. The Glitter Gulch of your town. Yes, in every great, and I have so many great stories from those bars that are just absolute nightmares to go to that I love. Some of my good friends and I have this running joke
Because we were driving in Quebec. I don't know if you know where that is, but we were at Saint-Sauveur. It's in the Canada, right? In the Canada. In the Canada. Saint-Sauveur. For whatever reason, we were driving from Saint-Sauveur to Montreal. See, Hooters University paying off again. No, you're basically bilingual. That means something different than you think, Colton. Yeah.
So we're driving. Ask your grandmother. She'll tell you all about it. At a strip club on the side of a road on a highway between Saint-Sauveur and Montreal. I love it. And we get there, and it's obviously a biker bar, a Hells Angels bar, because it's a big presence, Hells Angels, in Quebec.
And there was like one girl working. It was, bonjour, mon nom est Stephanie. Tu besoilles la danse sextile. So it became a joke. Like, who can get Stephanie to stop talking to them? It was literally the only bar on the way to. And Reverend is just like, holy shit. You're talking about, you know, there was...
12 teeth in there somewhere i don't remember what order it was brutal and it was still one of the best and it's not just like i'm sure she had tragedy in her life or whatever but it was that five of us still to this day it's the story about how bad it was that was fun oh my god well when we come back we're gonna take a quick break when we come back i will tell you the best strip club story i have it's it's awesome all right guys stay with us we'll be right back
Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com where we'll share any links that we've things we talked about on the show, as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here. Give me a shout. KXJ Los Angeles. Portions of the day's programming are reproduced by means of electrical transcriptions or tape recordings. We're back.
Welcome back to the Power Move. I am John Gafford. With me, as always, is Chris Connell and Colt Armadon. Before the break, we were talking about strip clubs because, you know, I had this whole array of topics that we need to talk about, right? Like I have all these things that we need to discuss. And what do we wind up talking about?
strip clubs so anyway the best story i got about strip clubs is this we're in uh new orleans uh many many many many moons ago and your phones were many many moons ago we're in new orleans and we're there with a bunch of guys it was during mardi gras this is a long time ago and we're walking around and one of the guys we're with was named dk and dk had more money than sense he owned a couple harley davidson dealerships across the southeast and he just had no sense so anyway we're walking down bourbon street middle of the day
And we walk by the hustler club and DK says to the guy out front of the hustler, he goes, Hey, how much for VIP, which is the second floor of the hustler club. And they have a balcony. The guy goes, well, it'll be like $20 a piece to get up there, blah, blah, blah, two drink minimum, this and that. And there's five of us in this group. And DK goes, no man, how much for the whole floor? Like I want the whole floor.
And the guy goes, huh? He goes, well, we can't really do that. And Mardi Gras, he goes, pulls out about, you know, about a thousand bucks, whatever, shoves it in the guy's shirt pocket and says, take that to your boss. Tell him I want the whole floor. Tell him to tell me how much more it's going to take. So the guy comes back out, they cut some sort of a deal. They kick everybody out that's up there. And then it's me and my five friends upstairs at the hustler club. And of course now, even, you know, during Mardi, even Mardi Gras, Bourbon street day shift girls are okay. It's not your standard day shift employees. They're okay. Yeah.
But they've heard there's some guys with money up there. So, of course, we have every girl up there. And it's there. Now, they have a balcony out front that you go through these windows. And you're out front over Bourbon Street. And they're giving us beads to throw to the crowd below. There's a pretty big crowd because, like I said, it's during Mardi Gras. All of a sudden, I look around and I've got me. I've got my other buddies. And I'm missing a buddy. I'm like, where the hell is Dallas? Like, where did Dallas go? And I'm like, where did he go? I peek my head back in.
There are four strippers seated around the stage. A buddy Dallas, who is not a looker in any shape or form, has his shirt off and is crawling like a cat down the stage while they're throwing his own money back at him. Now keep in mind,
Keep in mind, at no point did he say, hey, guys, watch this. Hey, guys, come check this out. He was in his own little world, saw his own little opportunity to live out his little thing, and he was doing it. He was absolutely there. Who's a fancy girl? Dallas is a fancy girl. It's stuff like that. That's why I love if I'm going to go – like I don't want to go to the world's largest gentleman's club.
I want to go to the one under the overpass in Dallas. That's where I want to go. I believe that term is called schadenfreude. Schadenfreude. Yeah, because it is going to happen. It is going to happen. But, you know, let's talk about something else that I think is kind of cool and something kind of interesting. I don't know if you guys saw this. This was bizarre. There was a TikToker that got like 25 million views on this. So he walked up and said he had a homeless guy that was drawing a schematic to a time machine on the side of a building. You haven't seen it. It's crazy.
Now, it's this dude that's literally... And it's like over the windows. It's like super long. And it's a very detailed schematic of this time machine. The guy got 25 million views. Now, the reason I want to talk about it, if you haven't seen the video, watch it. It's cool. But this guy then...
kind of then it becomes like this mystery. Oh, I'm going to try to look. I'm going to try to find this thing. I'm going to try to find this. I'm going to try to find that. And what I thought about it was, A, it probably was all bullshit. This is like Good Will Hunting, but... Kind of, with a time machine. Time machine. And it ends with a portal. And I'm thinking, you know, the only thing I'm going to say about it is it was really good social media because it was something... It was kind of like, when I'm watching this, and not because it had some kind of science...
sci-fi feel to it. It's because it reminded me of Blair Witch when you saw that. Like, you'd never seen anybody do anything like that before. I think this was the first really high-quality storytelling I've ever seen in little clips on social media. Oh, interesting. And I thought it was so interesting and so well done. And I'm sure it's going to wind up being, and this is why you should use Tide Pods, is what's going to wind up being. Yeah, no, it's some...
some guerrilla marketing gurus got some, some kid from marketing school. I got an idea. What we can do is we can tug on the heartstrings of people and you know, that'll get whatever. So we can sell more dishwasher detergent. So, I mean, you know what I got, what, what, what got me thinking was, uh,
What are the best marketing things you've ever seen? Because obviously it's going to wind up being a marketing ploy, whatever was there. It's like, what are some things you've seen that are just unbelievable marketing tools? Well, you know what's funny is that that does remind me of all this stuff. I saw a flash mob video the other day.
And I was thinking, oh, you remember when that was a thing? Yeah. And then all these marketing videos. And then I was like, yeah, what else was like that? I was thinking the ALS, the ice bucket challenge. Yeah. It's just whatever happens, things hit. And then all of a sudden people try to dig their claws into it. Right. So something that could be really cool and organic and authentic is going to get usurped into some, you know, sort of secondhand faux guerrilla marketing campaign for some guy who's trying to impress his boss. What's like, who makes up the TikTok trends? Like,
Like who does it? I got, I sound like I'm a hundred years old right now, but is there like one guy in his house? Like, and then I could do this, do some of this rain looking thing, like bop, bop, do the hand job. Like, and then he puts it out and like three people watch it. He's like, damn it. Back. And he starts again to the lab. I mean, is that how this works? I don't get it. So one of the ones I saw was the bus it challenge. Remember that? I actually looked that up. I'm like, well, how did I sit? Busset. I can't believe you don't know. It's where you kind of like look all average. And then the,
this drop comes in and you're all like super done. Oh yeah. Okay, sure. So some, somebody asked me something and I get curious. I'm just a curious human being. So I'm like, I wonder how this started. I had the same thoughts as you. I'm like, who thought this was a thing? And what was the first instance of it? Who did that first? Are they copying somebody? Is it a thing that I don't get? Is it an inside joke? Did TikTok put it out? No, individuals will put a post. They'll have some IG posts or whatever. TikTok picks up a lot of like IG trends or whatever.
So it just gets absorbed into all the platforms. And then Facebook's old ass tries to come around the corner. I'm cool too, kids. I can do cameras and stories. So this one was just, oh, this girl was going. I think it'd be cool if someone did a glow up on this drop, like a girl empowerment thing. I went, okay, that was the end of a rainbow that was kind of anticlimactic. But I found out where it came from. Hang on a second.
Colt, when he says on the drop, it means like on the downbeat of a song when it comes. I am the youngest one in this room. I am probably the oldest person when it comes to social media. I'm just saying that like I absolutely hate when I see these 40-year-old real estate people dancing around.
Well, that's why you don't go to day shift. I respect the day shift person better than the TikTok. There's such a cynical part of me that wants to hate that guy that's fucking dancing and trying to do a viral trend. But half this shit makes me smile. Like it does. It doesn't make me smile. I'm so entertained by people that are actually just trying to have fun. I can be so crusty. It's a choice, right? It's baffling. Some of the Photoshop skill sets these people have on After Effects. It's like, dude, this is like...
You're actually really good at this stuff. The internet amazes me as far as how funny people are. How undefeated it is, yeah. Yeah, how undefeated it is. Like the Photoshop's, I mean, just our stupid little group. We're pretty good little Photoshoppers and we have some fun on it. But that, oh, I can go down a hole on those stupid memes and stuff are hilarious. But the TikTok dancing and the shit like that, I'm like, dude, you're 40 years old. Well, think of that dancing weatherman. What was his name?
Nick something. He looks like a buddy of mine. Oh, yeah, yeah. That guy, that Midwest white guy? Yeah, the dancing weatherman, right? He did these couple viral clips. He's not made enough. He quit his job doing weather. Oh, yeah, he's done. And he's, whatever. I'm like, good for you, bro. Good for you. You are a really good dancer. I respect that. Makes me want to dance. I don't know. It's just kind of, I like seeing people that are doing stuff and good at it. I like watching real talent.
You know, I'll get on those reels and it'll be sports. Dude, it's crazy. And I just, I could sit there for hours. Yeah, it's a black hole. It's a black hole. Well, it's all designed by people that are designed to trap you and keep your attention for as long as they can. Did you watch that documentary? Yeah, I did see that. That's not good.
I got to tell you, I had to actually hire somebody. Like, obviously, I've stepped it up a lot on social media. We've hired a firm that's helping us with what we're doing, but the content creation and posting was something that was still, I mean, obviously, sitting at the door now is content creation.
And the editing is all outsourced, but the actual posting of it was something I was still handling. And I've now outsourced that. And the reason I outsourced it was not because it was taking too much time, but I was just sucked into my phone all day because you post this and you research and you look at it and you're like, oh, what's that? Oh, what's this? What's that? What's this? And it was just...
It was brutal. And I was like, I got to get out of this. Otherwise, it's going to be a problem. I was at the, you know, just I had to get out of it. I couldn't do it. Have you read those stats about how much content is created per like hour compared to it's like X amount of megabytes of gigabytes, terabytes of information were produced in the first hundred years of our existence with computer versus like last hour?
Yeah, it's... Like in an hour, we create more content than we created in the first 100 years. Yeah. It's a straight hockey stick. See, an analogy he understands. The Canadian, the hockey stick up. The hockey stick. So the volume of content, we're not supposed to have this much access to information or others. So...
This is why I banned my kid from having an iPad and a phone for a while because I could just see it becoming a real problem. And I don't blame her because it's very enticing and it's designed and programmed to be a certain way. I don't know about you guys, but I find times when...
I literally am flipping through my phone and I feel myself doing it compulsively. Totally. And I'm like, man, I need a dopamine like break. Yeah. Yeah. That's when my phone dies and I plug it in and I realize, man, I just burned through a battery on a phone. Then I look at my screen time. Yeah. And I can't tell a lot of it because some of it's work, some of it's this, some of it's that. But most of it's not a lot of fat. Most of it's not. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff.
And it's just compulsive. Yeah. And the days fly by and you're just kind of, so that's why I have to go do things. Yeah. I mean, now, you know, it's a point when we go, we go to dinner, I hand my wife all the phones, I go in the bag and we don't even look at them anymore. Smart. We can't. It's really good. We can't do that. I got to tell you guys about something. I did something so incredibly stupid this weekend. Even for me. I really want to hear it. Even for me, this is epic. This is epically stupid for me. And in here is a great networking tip too. So I'll give you a great networking tip as we go along. But.
So I get invited to go down to the
My buddy, Cody Spieber, I'm sorry. My buddy, Cody, Cody, Kobe, Kobe, Kobe Bryant. No. Yeah. Cody Spurber. Good Lord. Cody Spurber's having his birthday party down at the Wynn. I know. Just that one suburban. I'm done. Cody Spurber's birthday party is at the Wynn and we're headed down there to, uh, to hang out. I got invited to go down there. And there was a bunch of people there that I did know a bunch of people I wasn't going to know. So it's like, all right, there's a networking opportunity. We need to go down and do that. So, uh,
Whenever you're thrust into a situation like that where you've met some of these people, but not for a long time. And then there's people that you don't know. That's a very dangerous room to wait. It is. It's a very dangerous room to kind of walk into because here's what happens.
So you have to walk this fine line when people talk to you of, I have met you before and I remember you, or I'm just meeting you for the first time. And it's a razor thin line. This is a Hollywood problem. Yes, it is. It is a, it is a razor thin problem. Mm-hmm.
because when you go, so, so I'm going, and this is my, this is my networking tip and why you always want to have a wingman, particularly your wife or spouse. When you go networking, this is Epic. This is what we do. This is what we do. So it's not, it's not just the, it's not just the, Oh, this is my wife, Gidget. And then I reach for the drink. Cause I don't have to know their name cause I'm drinking. And then they introduce themselves or that's not what we do. That's, that's, that's, that's kindergarten. That's first level. All right. Still works. What we do is everybody we meet, she literally will text me their names and something about them.
So as I introduce her, they continue talking to me. She grabs her phone, and she's texting me their name with something about them. So later I can review the notes of what it was. What a wingman. Dude, it's the best. I'm real. Gidget. My wife just goes and gets hammered up. No, no, no. That's the best. It's the best move ever in why you can remember people. So anyway, I'm thrust in the situation where I'm playing the do I know you, do I remember you, just nice to meet you. And you're saying...
Good to see you. Good to see you. Always good to see you. Always good to see you. That's one of those things where you say, hey, good to see you. Oh, hey, good to see you. You may be seeing him on social media or you met him. It's good. Always good to see you. It was great. So anyway, it's fast and furious. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. We only had like an hour there because we're going to go to the Raiders game. It was fast and furious. Bang, bang, bang. And I'm meeting people as fast as I can. And at one point, keep in mind, we're at the pool. So everybody's got sunglasses, hats on. This guy comes up behind me.
And he says, hey, man, I saw you from over there. I want to come say, and I'm like, hey, man, how are you? Great to see you. Same thing. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Hang on one second. I'm going to finish talking to this guy, David, who I was talking about AP watches. And I said, let me hang on a minute. So I turned around. I got back engrossed in this conversation with this guy, David, and I forgot the guy was standing there. And then the guy eventually left. Right. And my wife says he left. I finished my conversation and.
And my wife's like, that guy left. I'm like, oh, God, okay. I feel terrible. But I kept going, bang, bang, bang, meet these people, get through it. Well, anyways, I'm leaving Encore Beach Club. It's unrelated to that part of the story. But I'm leaving Encore Beach Club. I'm looking, and one of my guys that works for me on my team was there. And I was like, oh, my God. Dude, we were just there. Like, I was just there. Like, I text him on his DM. I was just there.
And he goes, yeah, okay, cool. And he didn't really respond. And we get back. And later that night after the Raiders game, my wife goes, I felt so bad for that guy with the beard that you just ignored. And I said, wait a second, what? What are you talking about? She goes, when you were talking to the guy with the watches, a guy walked up that knew you, that said I saw you from across the place, walked up to talk to you and talk to you. And I said, it instantaneously hit me. And I was like, oh, my God. And I pulled up his picture. I said, was it this? Tell me it wasn't this guy.
And she goes, it totally was. And the problem was I was going so, Hey, I'm a jerk. There's no question. But I was going so, but I was going so fast and furious about it.
that it was out of context for him to be standing there in a swimsuit with sunglasses and a hat on and not in a suit. And that's what threw me. Yeah, I don't think that one, that's not a bad one. Oh, God. When somebody that works for you walks up to you at a social event and you don't remember them? How many people work for you? How many contexts do you have? No, no, no. That's two-way emphasis. No, no, no. You gotta understand, there's degrees of working with me. There's degrees. This guy's like, wow.
He's like nine feet away from me every day.
And it's a guy that works directly with me. And it just, I was like, and I talked to him and I was just like, what must you have thought when I was like, oh, I was just there. He was like, well, I thought you meant you were down at one of the cabanas. So yeah, major faux pas. See, that's one of those things. You can't be expected to always, like you said, you have that. So when you talk to them after, I assume he was totally fine. Oh yeah, he's fine. He's fine. But I mean, like that, that's kind of one of those things. If I'm talking to you and someone comes up, Hey, I saw you over there. It's like, yeah, yeah. Like, sorry. Like I'm,
Doing something here. A little busy. I'm not like standing there and you come up and I. No, but I sent him the text like, oh my God, I was just there. We should have got together. But it means you're obviously like you have positive feelings about him if you text him after.
Yeah. So it's not like you knew it was him. Oh, that's a good way to spin it. It's like, see, if I didn't like you, I wouldn't even touch you. If I didn't like you, I wouldn't have given a shit. Yeah, I can't pick you out of a lineup of two people, apparently. Your sunglasses on, your shorts, your hat. I didn't know it was you. I thought it was some random person I never met. And social media has made that where you don't –
They're such a fine line. Do I know these people? Do I really know them or do I not know them? I was having drinks at the country club and some girl was like, and I'm like, okay. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, who the hell was that? She's like, give the rights, remain silent. But no, she sat there and after she came up, it was like, kids, gorgeous, everything. I'm like,
I don't know who this is. And then like maybe, maybe a minute and a half into it, she goes, I'm so embarrassed. I don't know you actually. I just know you through social media, but that's, you know, and so that's reality, you know? Well, I think, but that's the, I think, I think that's the power of social media if you do it right. Because if you do it right, like when people come in to talk to us to join the company, they're like,
Oh my God, I feel like I already know you. Because I don't, I'm not faking it. This is who I am, good, bad, and ugly. When you see my social media stuff, it's not showtime for me when I put that on. That's just who I am. Totally agree. But like I said, I'm also one of those people that empathize. Other people have lives. We were at, after the Raiders game, my wife and I walked
to a place to get something to eat real quick down the street. Did that exist? Yeah. No, it's called the Tailgater Bar. I've never been there. It's right on Russell, right down from the stadium. And we live just up the street. Yeah. So, you know, P.T.'s was closed because it was after 10 for some reason. P.T.'s, you better watch out for this Chili's. Chili's. You're getting on the list. Not done with you Chili's. You thought you were going to get away from a segment. I saw a guy in the bar that I knew, and I'm like, do I know him from social media only or have I actually met him? I feel like I met him, but I don't know.
So I walked by him just, so I just walked by, he was talking to a girl. I'm like, Hey, good to see you. Just walked by and just kind of got the nod or the wink. I don't know if he knows me now. Looking back on it, I kind of went through that same thing because this is a guy I know I have positive feelings about him. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't walk to the side of the street when he was coming. But I'm so Canadian that everybody's a friend until they're your enemy. Right. I think social media does that. Cause there's, I was just at an event and I,
I do not go to these types of events. Neither does John. And I was approached by a lot of people. You know what? I'm going to talk about that event. I am going to talk about that event a little bit because here's the deal. I felt terrible about that.
Because here's the truth of it. I always talk about, I don't go to a lot of realtor events because no realtors are ever going to do business with us, buy houses from us. So I don't understand why people would love to do that. But this weekend, three of our people got awards for top 40 under 40. Out of the 19,700 realtors or whatever it was, three of our people were recognized. And that's amazing. And I didn't know. It's not like I knew it was coming. I just wanted you to know. It's not like I knew that was happening and blew it off. I know you didn't.
I had no clue. Like, I think I texted you and I was like, bro, I totally would have gone to support you. And I know you would have, but I think we have that same mentality. I think John and I, and I think Chris, you're probably the same, right? Like, if we're going to go out, we're going out with friends. Do you want to go hang out with a bunch of attorneys? Is that your dream? I do it because here's the weird thing. I don't mind meeting strangers. Like, Caitlin hates it. I'll be sitting at the bar. I'll talk to this person because I genuinely am curious to see –
Now, a room full of realtors that are trying to get my business or think that they're networking. No, no, no. But is there such thing as networking with a bunch of attorneys? Maybe because you guys refer cases possibly. There is. We refer each other stuff. And here's the thing. If I don't know the area of law and you're cool with me, I'll send you business. Yeah. So that doesn't really happen with realtors. Realtors don't send other realtors business. Now, I'll send realtors business because there's stuff that I'm conflicted or Caitlin's conflicted out of. Right.
Or you or whatever, right? I need someone in a probate case who's neutral that they'll agree to or whatever, right? I think, you know, one of them works for you. So, yeah. At the end of the day, I'm good to know people because a lot of times the shoe doesn't always fit for the same people, right? I agree with that. My greatest – oh, I'm sorry. Oh, no. I was going to say I totally agree with that, but you are that –
Chris is that person that you do. I mean, you love going and meeting people. You are somebody that loves to absorb as much information, as much meeting people as everything. I don't know if there's anybody I've met that absorbs like you do. I'm the opposite. To me, I'm either hanging out with my really close friends or there needs to be a chance of making money off of you. And that applies for me. No, no, no. I will say this, though. If you open your network, you open, you know, the more hands you shake, the more money you make, as my buddy Bradley always says.
But I'll say this, man. You did something in the networking event that I took you to that night that proved my point. When I go out to eat with, especially if it's just me and Gidget, I try to eat at the bar as much as I can. Wow.
Because you just never know who you're going to wind up sitting next to. You never know who you're going to meet. Never know. If you sit at a table across from your wife, I get it if it's an anniversary or if it's a special event, you want to really focus in on each other. That's great too. But me and my wife talk to each other all day, every day. You know what I mean? So if we're just going out, especially if we're just like, oh, let's just eat at this steakhouse. Let's just grab a bite. Let's do something. And it's not like an event. Try to sit at the bar.
Because when you sit at the bar, you never know who you're going to meet. I mean, just sitting at the bar. We went to Virgin the other night. We went to the steakhouse. And we sat at the bar because John O'Donnell is a friend of ours, and he was waiting on us. And sitting there, I met the CEO and president of the Smith Center. And I met the head of Henderson Planning Commission.
So for my business, pretty good guy to know over here. And just in general, pretty good guy to know over here. Both of them super lovely people. And we had a great time. And we never would have been exposed to them or met them had we not sat at the bar. You didn't call their office and cold call them and go, you met them authentically. I bumped into the bar. Organic and authentic meetings with people at random places are the best.
are the best. Because if I meet someone at a bar and they're cool, and you talk about your kids, you talk about things that, oh, what do you do? Oh, I'm this. Oh, shit. I'd probably talk to you one day about something else. But now there's that actual connection. That's very important to me. The guy from the Smith Center and the best line ever. He goes, we're talking about baseball because some people from St. Louis came in and I used to live in St. Louis, I'm from the Cardinals, talking about this and that. And this guy goes, oh, yeah, I actually played a season for the St. Louis Cardinals. I'm like, what?
I'm thinking that's such an outlandish thing to say that like nobody would make that up, especially a middle-aged man that is successful as the CEO and president of the Smith Center. And Myron goes just like this. He goes, yeah, I played a season for the St. Louis Cardinals. Yeah, I played there. And I'm like, wow, what did you play? He goes, Oregon.
I was like, dude, best story ever. And it was true. He's like, yeah, I played. He was not. I was him. He did that for us per season. I thought that was such a great story. It's cool. Especially in Vegas. He did play for us. But I think Vegas is great that way. I think you can meet some very, very unique individuals here that, you know, I was sitting there having scar one day and some old guy kept wanting to talk.
Finally, I started talking with him. And that guy, he wanted to create this business, and no one would invest in him. So we started flying coke for the Colombian cartel. I'm like, what the? I'm like, this is such a bullshit story. Probably not a great career move. Trade school. Guys worth everything.
Five, six, seven hundred million. I call somebody and I go... Wait, is he worth that much from flying coke for the cartel? No, no. This is not a good endorsement for kids listening to this. So the guy came up... He's got books on it, so I'm not afraid to say his name. I don't know his name, but... The views of Colt Amidon do not reflect...
I'm not afraid to say his name because I don't know his name. I don't know. But, no, he created like the first workout machine. Guy's worth a ton. He's written books about it. And, yeah, I mean, just the uniqueness. If I'm in the middle of Idaho or Utah, I'm not meeting a guy like that. And that's why I love Vegas because you do meet genuine weirdness. But the problem is how many people are so collapsed in on their own little circle that they have?
that they don't put themselves out to meet anybody new. Yeah, I think that's why my wife begrudgingly likes hanging out with me sometimes. Because, for example, we went to Spain, ran with the Bulls. Yeah. Back a couple years ago. And I go to a bar in Madrid. We're not talking about in Spain. Start talking to these guys. Oh, start making some bullshit up. Try my hacky Spanish, talk in English, whatever.
They're so cool. They're like, hey, why don't you guys come with us to this next bar? Sure. We go and meet some of their friends and then we're drinking and then the next bar and the next go to one of the coolest bars ever. At this point, these are like my best friends all of a sudden. Yeah. You know, these Spanish people, I don't know shit about them. At three in the morning, that bar closes down. It goes, let's go back to my bar. I'm going to reopen it.
He reopens his bar. It's 4 or 5 in the morning. We're partying. You're like Bert Kirshner. You're the machine. Yeah, we're like the machine at this point. Caitlyn is having the best night of her life. She is just thrilled because the guys we're with love her. Yeah. And they're like these cool guys. And so this guy opens up the kitchen and starts making tapas for Caitlyn, like literally food for just us over here. All these other people partying. It was the best night ever. And then the guy goes, hey, you guys are going to Morocco tomorrow. Here's the guy. Let me call my buddy.
whose parents own some facilities in Morocco. They own three mega resorts in Morocco. We go there, this guy hooks us up, gets us camel rides on the property, we go hang out. It made the trip so much more, first off, less scary for Caitlin who hasn't traveled to Africa. And then, and also just enjoyable hanging out with some cool guy and meeting him and he teaches us how to, you know, manage the souks of Morocco. Everything in here is 20 bucks. If they want to charge you a dollar more, they're full of shit. But,
But having that insider scoop, right? And that's all from just going and hanging out at a bar, sitting there and chatting with one bartender at this tiny little club, this tiny little place in Madrid. Dude, I love the straw market. I don't care what country around the globe. Take me to the straw market. Take me to that. It's essentially the flea market of different parts of the world. From the time my kids were like five years old, we would go to cruises and we'd be at Jamaica and there's the dude there making the carved knife with your name in it, the weird knife that's there. Yeah.
And I'm straight telling my son, I'm like, look, you go over there and say what you want for it. No matter what he says to say, all I have is $5. I mean, teach them. That's the best place to teach business to kids on the planet is. And if you're like, well, I'm not going to Jamaica. Just go to the flea market.
It's the same thing. Teach your kids how to buy things at the flea market. I do. And it's the best thing you can do. It's such a great thing. I tell them all the time, go negotiate. Don't you dare. Yeah, here's seven bucks, but you better come back with two and whatever you're supposed to buy. I got a friend one time. We did that in Canal Street in New York City. My buddy had never been to New York, and he's just the nicest Canadian guy. All I want is a fake Gucci belt. Even better. Even better.
The guy goes over, he sees this Batman belt for 15 bucks. Batman, just a silly, like cheap belt. He wants his Batman symbol. So he goes and he's like, oh, I want it. I'm like, offer him 10. He'll take it. Just don't be a stooge. Don't be a goof and take their price. You can get it for 10. He's like, I'll give you 10. He's like, guys, no, no, won't take it for 10. Won't take it for 10.
Guy would go eat. Literally, I swear to God, this is the only person on earth this could happen to. We'd go eat lunch. He goes, you know what? I just really want that bell.
Just go get the belt then, stupid. Go get the belt. He's pining over about the Batman belt? Pining over the Batman belt. He really wants it. He goes back and comes back. Who pines over the Batman belt? Colt would pine over the belt. No, no, no. We were in our early 20s. I think you probably would. He goes, so what did you get him down to? He goes, well, he said now it's 20. That's it. 20 dollars for it? Because now you want it. Now you want it. He's got you. Now he's got him. Oh, man. That's gross.
To this day, I just go like, oh, God. Talk about the worst negotiation of all time. The walk-away slash take-away close only works if you're really willing to walk away. It doesn't work other than that. Coming back. If they don't chase you down the street. See you 15, I'll pay you 17. I'll take 20. That's the greatest response to take-away close. Like, no, that's too much. You leave. How much was it? Oh, 17? That was yesterday's price. Now it's 20. Now it's 20. And he went back and bought it. He's going to go, well, I'm going to take it.
I'm just like, it's not about $5. It's about your dignity as a man. Negotiating. Again, invest in skills. Learn to negotiate. These are basic life skills. People think I need to be able to negotiate to settle a court case or buy a house. Dude, you use it every day. Batman Belt. Had he read Chris Foss' book? Maybe. Maybe. He would have gotten it for $11. Maybe he gets it for $11. I'd get it for $11. You got it for $20. Maybe.
It's really hard to say which way that goes. But at this point, I don't know. So, guys, again, I hope you liked what we do. If you do, make sure you subscribe to it wherever it may be. And, yeah, if you like it, tell somebody. If you don't like it, tell three people because it doesn't matter if they're talking. It's when they're good or bad. It's when they stop talking that it matters. It's like Cat Williams says. That's it. If you ain't got nobody to hate on, you can hate on me. I'm doing life wrong. That's it. See you next time, guys.
Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com where we'll share any links that we have things we talked about on the show, as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here. Give me a shout.
