#215 - George Masek on 40 years in lighting, 35 years in automated lights

0:06 Thank you for joining me today on Geases of Gear Episode #215. Today's podcast is brought to you by Stratum Productions. Stratum understands that successful events hinge on flawless execution. With years of experience in the audio visual industry, Stratum Production specializes in providing event planners with cutting edge solutions that seamlessly blend technology and creativity. From intimate boardroom meetings to sprawling conventions, they're committed to delivering experiences that resonate and leave a lasting impact on audiences of all sizes. Stratum Productions truly do stand out above the rest when it comes to event production. To learn more about what Stratum does and who they are as a company, please visit stratumpro.com and today's podcast is also brought to you by Live Event Productions. Amplify every experience with Live Events an end to end event production company offering off the charts solutions for your sound, light, video rigging, FX and equipment rental needs. Live Events Full Service Event Production Team is an assembly of companies including Active Production and Design, Delicate Productions, Gemini Sound Light and Video, Pyrotechnico, Pyrotechnico Effects, and finally Zenith Lighting. From intimate gatherings to stadium sized spectacles, their brands include the perfect mix

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2:25 Well, hey there, how are you? And I appreciate you joining me again today on Geese of Gear episode #215. And yeah, I mean these things are flying along now with this producer thing. I'm kind of getting used to this. I dig it. Sarah is booking guests, great guests. The one today is another one, the one last week. So by the time you're hearing this, hopefully you will have already heard the John Wiseman episode, which I believe is 213. John never disappoints. Some great stories, some great life discussions, Love talking to the guy. One of my favorite people. And so yeah, if you haven't already heard it, please go back and listen to John Wiseman episode 213 I believe. And it's a fun one.

3:14 It's great. Also, of course, I really appreciate all our sponsors, so it was really cool that we got to do. I believe. Again, I'm making up these numbers, but I think they're right. Episode 214 was one for and with our sponsors, and that was a lot of fun to do that. First of all, most of them have been friends of mine for a long time. But beyond that just hearing sort of their views on the business and and where the business was in 2013, where it's going in 2014, some ideas, some some sort of big bold predictions. And so yeah, that was that was interesting and fun and I can't wait to do that again next year with hopefully some new sponsors added in. And by the way, if you are a company, rental company, manufacturer, brand supplier, support company, I don't care what you are, if you're listening to this and you'd like to sponsor Geese's of gear, it's probably less money than you would expect.

4:13 And we have a couple of spots still open for 2024 and we are punting one of our sponsors from 2023. So you will notice one missing in the future, but besides that, you know we're very appreciative of sponsors. We love all of you. We appreciate you very much and we look forward to continuing to do this podcast for a long, long time and for that we need sponsorship. So we appreciate it. Thank you. And listen to 2:14 if you haven't heard it yet. And so today, I'm really excited about this one because although we both exist in the same industry for a very long time and we would know who each other is at a trade show, we've never really had a relationship. I think it's partially because he always came from a competitor or a different part of the industry than me. In some cases.

5:10 I'm not a touring professional. I'm not a touring lighting guy, never have been. And so he's always been heavily involved in the touring side of things. Worked most of his career at Verilite. I think over 20 years at Verilite and from a technician to an account exec to a VP to all kinds of different roles at Verilite, which he'll talk about today. But and then moved on to first ACT, ACT lighting at the time where he was responsible for automated lighting and specifically Clay Paki. And then when Clay Paki decided to open their own office in in North America and split off from ACT, he followed along with Clay Paki.

5:52 And so of course I am talking about George Masek. And so yeah, I'm looking forward to this should be fun, should be interesting, won't be boring. I promise you that. And so here you go, George. Hi. How back are you? I'm well, thank you. Well, as we roll into 2024. Yes, we do, actually. We sort of flopped into 2024 with my audio problems on my side. And then you're you had a problem too, didn't you? You couldn't hear me and you sounded like a robot on my side. So a little bit of rebooting computers and we're all back up and running. Through the magic. Of the hard reset.

6:34 It's got me this far, not IT. That's my excuse. Anyways. So yeah, 2024. Jesus, you know that just means the math is getting way easier for me to do because I was born in a four year and and it's a big fat round Number this year. So not that exciting. It's not really that exciting 2024, but. I'm chasing chasing you there. Yeah, I like even numbered years, cuz I was born in an even numbered years. So I I prefer even number years for absolutely no reason at all.

7:16 Yeah, I've never really thought of it that way. I just prefer smaller numbers, that's all. I don't care if they're even or odd, I just want them down a little bit. You know, they're a bit, they're climbing up pretty quickly here. And you know, sadly for I think, I think you're probably a bit younger than me, but not much. You know, based on just looking at your bio and stuff, you either started when you were 12 or or you're near my age. But probably both, actually. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, you know, geezers of gear. Like, it was easy when everybody was older than me that I had on the podcast. But now, more often than not, they're younger than me and I'm like, what the hell? We've shifted back to where I'm the geezer of gear, not them, but.

8:02 It's the band names and artists is where I start to see it. Yeah, I'll be speaking when I started touring. And they just look at you like who? OK. Yeah, right. Oh so you know I was, I went to I have a place up in Western Canada near the ski areas and a friend came up with me one time to go do some skiing or snowboarding. He was snowboarding and I know maybe he was skiing, he was skiing. So we went to the local rental shop to get him some skis and boots, cuz he didn't fit into any of my extra stuff. And we go in there and you know it's a young girl, she's probably 2122 years old or something cute young. I don't remember if she was Canadian or Australian or what. She was probably Canadian and and she asked his name and he said yeah, Eddie Van Halen and she goes, OK Eddie Van and he goes.

9:00 Did you get that? Did you get that? And she goes, yeah, Eddie Van Halen. And he goes, you don't know me. And she goes, It's just what you said. You said your name is Eddie Van. Halen he goes. You've never heard of me. And she goes, no, no, just now and he looks at me and he goes see how old we are. And he's right. Yeah, yeah. And I'm fine with it in a lot of ways. I mean, honestly, I was joking with my wife. It's easier for me to get into a lot of the shows that I like to see. Some of my favorite artists don't sell as many tickets anymore, so it's a whole lot easier to get into those shows and that's less competition, so. Yeah, fortunately you're not in a big rush to go out to Taylor Swift or something, right?

9:43 So. Well, I always am, just because of the phenomena that it is, you know, I mean I think that's worth right. I mean that's, you know, I think that's that kind of sort of Beatlesque moment in our industry is always interesting to me because it's, you know, it it's this generation's Beatlemania. And so that interests me for sure. Probably cheaper and easier though to go to a a Chiefs game than it is to go to a Taylor Swift concert and you can still see her. Just as much I somehow I I was afraid that was going to sneak and I was trying to avoid going there. No. But like you know Brian Setzer. I'm a massive rockabilly fan. Brian Setzer coming to Dallas you know got awesome seat no trouble at all. And I thought, you know back in 1982 when these guys were playing the Dallas Convention Center was a little bit tougher while waiting in line and all that sort of stuff we used to do back in the day.

10:35 Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's funny. I was talking to somebody about this the other day. And again, these kids these days, they wouldn't understand. But you know, I remember like when Supertramp was coming to Calgary and I was probably 13 or 14 years old and went and stood in line. It was at the time it was, I think it was called Bass Tickets in Canada anyways and they were in Sears stores. So you had to go to Sears stand in line at like 8:00 in the morning or whatever. And there was maybe eight people in front of you in line, but the if there was only eight people in front of you in line, chances are you were going to be in the first five rows or something, right? Absolutely.

11:18 So it was exciting. And then as the axe got a little bit bigger and bigger and bigger, you know that eight, first five or eight rows became like 15 rows, 20 rows, because people were literally starting to camp overnight outside the Sears store and fight you if you tried to take their spot or whatever. But you know, as as miserable as that was, that whole tactile thing was just kind of cool, right? It was cool that you you went and stood in line and you knew how many people were going to be in front of you at the show based on how many people were in front of you in line, right. And maybe you timed that by 8 Sears stores in town, you know, so that's there's 8 Sears stores, 10 people in line in front of me.

11:59 In each one, that's 11 * 8. OK, cool. You know, I'm in the 1st 100 people that's going to get tickets to this thing you didn't know about, you know, holds and you know all of those types of things promoter holds. And. Record company holds and all of that kind of stuff, but. Yeah, I I remember it well. And and honestly, I think it was part of the impetus. I I remember going through that same process and you know, it was in at our Seekers. It was like next to the tool department, right. So, you know, you'd be standing there next to some guy that was just trying to buy a handful of Craftsman screwdrivers, Like, what do you kids doing? But you're right, it was a communal thing, wasn't it? You know, you'd like. I remember going with some of my friends and we were waiting for Texas Jam tickets.

12:41 That was the big thing. And you know, we got up at like 6:00 in the morning, did the whole thing. And at some point in the middle of that, I'm like, this is ridiculous. I I I like bands. I like. I like music. This is stupid. This is a really dumb way to get into shows. Yeah, there's got to be a better way than. So Ticketmaster's your fault, is what you're saying. You were the one who complained loud enough and Ticketmaster became. And then suddenly. Suddenly those $9 tickets to see whatever you just said, Monster Jam or whatever, are now like $900 or something, you know? Yeah, because of what do they call. It well, it's it's funny 'cause you, I'm sure we're both of that.

13:22 No, I was just gonna say. Dynamic pricing, both part of that certain. Name because it because of dynamic pricing. I was just gonna say yeah, yeah, dynamic. Yeah, we're both part of that age. You know I saw I don't know it had to be 10 or 15 years ago now. But I saw Jon Bon Jovi one time on Howard Stern talking about this kind of stuff and and Howard said, you know, with Spotify and all these things that are happening now, downloading and and streaming and stuff, it's got to be better. And he goes, well, you know, let's take away the revenue side of it be, which is completely screwed up. But if you look at again that tactile thing like where he used to go into Tower Records or whatever and spend an entire Saturday there thumbing through albums and opening them and looking at the inside sleeve if you could, if they allowed you to do that.

14:15 And then as time went on, they had headphone listening stations and you could actually hear some of the other songs on the record. Whereas when you and I were young, you couldn't. I mean, you just bought the record based on the one song you'd heard on the radio and you hope that there was at least a couple other good songs on it, right? But yeah, but you know, he he was just talking about how, like my kids will never experience that where they're in the record stores all day, you know, trying to figure out which album to spend their, you know, this week's allowance on. I I think it's just different. You know, I was having a conversation with a colleague and YouTube is so appealing to me because I can go back and see that the drop of a hat shows that I was involved with or that I want to check up on or that somebody else did.

15:04 And there's this massive encyclopedia of images and sounds that are available to us. And I'm sure you remember this, especially as a kid growing up in Cleveland, man, WMS Radio in Cleveland, which is, you know, I think widely regarded as one of the best stations in the US time. That was the lifeline to everything. There was no MTV, there was no nothing and MMS and the DJs on MMS, they were our gateway to the music and and you know, good and bad. But I mean they controlled the pipeline that we had or it was that or Saturday Night Live or you know, Fridays of the show in the States.

15:46 That was it, man. The downside of that, though, is sort of like the media today. Those radio stations and especially programmers, program directors, whatever they were called, and promotions people from the record companies, they were controlling what actually made it to your ears. And they were controlling it with exactly what you'd think they were money. And so my, my ex-wife spent her entire career in the in the record business and she explained how this all worked to me. And I was like, you've got to be shitting me. It's that straightforward. Like, basically a promoter goes into a record station or a radio station.

16:28 Sorry. And goes to the program director and says, you know, I'd like, you know, whatever Taylor Swift to be on heavy rotation this week. Heavy rotation. Yeah. And. And they would say, well, you know, so and so wants, I don't know, name other pop artist B, right. Wants so and so to be in heavy rotation and they want them to be #1 this week. And they're giving me, you know, flights and tickets in the first five rows to a show in LA. You know, and plus leather tour jackets. Oh well, I'll give you $1000 cash plus leather tour jackets, plus, you know, four seats at a show in LA or whatever. And I mean they they literally just bid their way into the top positions and.

17:21 This. Yeah, Yeah, there was some of that. But I think Cleveland was different. Maybe I could be wrong, but I feel like Cleveland was different in that MMS had so many they had coffee break concerts that they did. They they ran some amazing Bruce Springsteen shows that they had from the Cleveland Agora. There was a lot of live and I think that's what initially got me inspired. There was so much live on the radio. Sure, we had stations that did the, you know, the heavy rotation. You got your top 20 and that's what you got. But because MMS kind of skewed so hard in One Direction, I mean, when you hear about the quintessential crazy radio DJs, they had like six of them.

18:01 And it saved us because, you know, we got Bowie, we got the Ramones, we got bang. And that, you know, weren't in heavy rotation. And it forced the other stations in town to to join in because people were calling up, saying, man, I want to hear the Ramones, I want to hear the Sex Pistols, you know, And they're like, oh God, what do we do now? Yeah, yeah, no, I get it. I, you know, again, it it just like the part that kind of shocked me. Yeah, the part that shocked me was just how blatant it was. You know, again between these programmer programming directors and and and the promotions people or whatever on the record company side, you know, just buying their way up the charts and and then there was this thing called Sound Scan and that was an interesting one as well because that was all fake, you know. So Sound Scan was supposed to tell you actual sales information on record sales nationwide. But I mean, it was so easy to manipulate and was heavily manipulated, like to 3040% sometimes manipulation. And so, yeah, I mean, again, it wasn't down to just the artist and there's so many great stories of when a little DJ in, you know, Waco, TX or something

19:31 loved a certain band and started playing them and next thing you know they were the biggest band in the country or whatever. It's like, you know, the Triumph story where I believe it was actually a place in Texas that broke Triumph in the US. It was just some DJ and some DJ in Texas just went, hey, here's this crazy band out of Canada, listen to this. And it took off and then it kind of spread like a disease throughout the US. And next thing you know this this band out of Canada that was only successful in Canada was suddenly big in the US. April Wine probably another good example. April Wine was a band that you know the triumph April wine, Cleveland.

20:12 I mean, if if you look back in the history, Cleveland Rush had a Rush had a tremendous relationship with MMS. And you know, that's what I liked about it because it's like these guys aren't just dorks, you know, playing songs. I mean they were interviewing the bands they'd come to town and they would do these interviews with the bands and it was fascinating, you know and and unlike today where you know by the time the artists get to your town, you've seen every promotion, you've seen every video, you've seen all this stuff. It's almost like an overload. That was it. Your your pipeline to the artists was through your FM radio and you know especially in a place like Cleveland that was about it.

20:54 You, they weren't wasn't going to be any meet and greets or anything like that. If the the Times Square or down in, you know Tower records in LA, we didn't have any of that. Yeah. No, you're you're exactly right. And I mean it's it's it's so different now obviously I don't even know how things work anymore. You know it's it's like I I don't even know. You know I had Doc McGee on on the podcast one time and I was asking Doc these questions you know and and oh funny story. So one of the things that that I I just created a hypothetical I said you know Doc like the industry has obviously changed a lot in the years you've been in it and this was relatively recent. This was probably might have been during COVID, it might have been in 2020 and I said let's say my son is a 17/16/18 year old musician today and it's he's super passionate about it. It's all he wants to do in life.

21:53 He wants to quit school and just dedicate his entire life to music. What do I tell him? And he goes, wow, let me ask you, I said what he goes, is he any good? And I said, well, yeah, let's let's assume he's really good and and very, very passionate. And he goes, well, I had to ask and I said why and he said because everybody's a bull rider until somebody opens the gate. And I love that line. That's such a cool line. And he's right. Like everybody thinks they can do it until it involves some really hard work, you know, and you got to sleep on friends couches and share a tiny little one room apartment with four stinky males, you know, who who are drunk every day and stoned on all kinds of crazy drugs and stuff. And I mean, it all sounds very romantic, but it isn't. You know, I've slept in school buses on top of our equipment. You know, when I was in bands in Canada, you know, I mean we had we'd buy these yellow school buses and kind of cut them in half where you had seats in the front for the band and the crew, which was generally one guy.

23:01 And then and then gears in the back because we were carrying our our full PA and all of our back line gear and stuff. And so, you know, you couldn't sleep on these seats. It was impossible. So I'd go lay on top of like JBLW bins in the back of the the bus or whatever, as dangerous as that was. But you know that that's where I would sleep. I'd roll up a jacket for a pillow and sleep on JBLW bins. Ugly. And I think, I think one of the things that's interesting about now, and I don't want to be that guy saying, you know, it's all different for the kids these days because it, you know, it's awesome for them, right? They don't have any of our history. We don't have any of their experiences. What they're going through is awesome. And you know, however they're doing it is it's great for them. But you know, one of the things that I think most of us from my era did is we came up through the clubs and we came up through local clubs and and local gigs.

23:57 And you know, we made stupid mistakes and awesome decisions and learned a lot, fell down a lot. And there was, there was that on ramp to success either as a musician or as a technician. There was an on ramp that didn't involve you just dropping off the side of a building into Madison Square Garden having to be awesome. You know and you can see bands where you just watching me like these guys have never they've never played club dates. They've never been through that. You know pain and suffering and success and angst and Christ, the Chili Peppers used to come to Dallas like out four times a year and play you know a dumpy club down in deep element Fleetwood to be out there with you know wearing nothing but a sock during the encore.

24:43 And I mean that's where that's where the, you know that's the Crucible that the band as you know that's the Crucible where the band is formed and and that's where you learn the gags and the stuff that works and the timing and all those things that when you get on Arena Stage like Doc said, man, you know that's the gates open big there, man. You think you got like a Bon Jovi, man. I mean all the dates that Bon Jovi was playing. You hear the stories from those guys. I mean, they were on this. They opened for 38 Special when when they were the opening act for 38 Special when slippery when went broke.

25:23 That's. Crazy. And and it was, it was awful for 38, like, I mean like kids were leaving after Bon Jovi finished. They're out selling 38 like 2 to one in merchandise. It was just like they could not get them off that tour quick enough, right. But you know, they had opened for rat. They had opened for everybody and you know that's where they became Bon Jovi. And and I assume that's where their crew people became Bon Jovi crew people you know and and learned all the things that we all need to know. And sure, when you're going through it, you're like, man, I can't wait to get out of these clubs, but you're also learning a lot. Yeah, well, you know, I guess if you, if you look at the Crew side of things, the same could be said today where you have a lot of younger people that are just jumping straight into stadium tours.

26:15 You know, I mean, they're literally like their first gig is at a stadium or or their first gig is with the Red Hot Chili Peppers or whatever, you know? And I can't imagine what it's like being either a crew chief or or an LD or a production manager or, you know, whatever, and being in a situation where you have a lot of people like that and yet the industry needs them badly. And when something like COVID happens, the problem is that all got speed up really quickly to where, you know, you didn't go from the back of the shop to the front of the shop to, you know, to prepping a tour, to actually going out and being, you know, the 5th or 6th lighting guy on the lighting crew on a tour to the 5th to the 4th to the 3rd to eventually making your way up to crew chief. They had to speed that whole thing up a whole bunch because there there was such a a crew shortage, right? Absolutely.

27:15 And I, you know, my first tour, I was 24 and I was the youngest guy on that crew by probably 10 years. And, you know, I was definitely the pup on the tour. But the cool thing was I was surrounded by, you know, people that were just awesomely helpful legends in the industry, you know, all took me into their wing couple, pulled me aside a couple times. So look, I'm not going to say this in front of anybody else, but, you know, here's something you should do or you know, maybe try doing it this way or. And you know, I I got to kind of open that gate to the Bullring slowly rather than just having it swing wide open, you know, with an audience of 20,000. But I've been a stagehand for so long. You know, one of the things I tell students, man, I it was 5 days from when I got hired to by Vera Light. It was 5 days of training before my first tour. It was supposed to be a 10 day class. You know, everything you need to know about Vera lights in 10 days and it was supposed to be a 10 day class. And after five days that said, you know what, we think you got it.

28:19 We're sending you down to a gig and if they like you, you get to stay. That's going to be your audition. Oh, OK And I was terrified. You know, I was still trying to figure out which one was the VL Two and which one was the VL Four. And I walked up to my operator and I said, look, man, I said I I fixing all this stuff, it's going to be a challenge for me. I've, I've had five days of training. But I said I've watched your loadout. I can pull 45 minutes off your loadout tomorrow night. I said I I promise you I can cut 45 minutes off. You're out tomorrow. And he just looked at me and he said let's do this. And you know that that, you know, 10 years of being a stage hand that really saved me because it it gave me all those skills to fall back on while I needed to, you know, buck up my my technical skills, my my my automated lighting skills, which was new to all of us, you know, at that time. Yeah.

29:10 So I mean we're we're talking about all these old days and stuff and and I know you got started pretty early you know thank you. You sent me a lot of information on on your background and bio and stuff and you know I've I will admit that you and I never really had a relationship which is bizarre like you know I I think you know everyone in the industry. I know everyone in the industry but we don't really we haven't really done anything together and so but you know I didn't know much about you and you know I I've known of your career since at least since ACT and maybe a little bit of Vera light before that and have always known of you. But I I've just never really known you, but looking at your bio, so I didn't know this, but you actually had a small rental company that you started in in the early 80s, right? Yeah, I, yeah, you know, grew up in Cleveland, you know, fell in love with rock'n'roll in Cleveland and had some really awesome connections there, which were super important. And just to, you know, things that you know when you're a kid in the Midwest and you you can probably relate to being in Canada, maybe growing up in Canada, if that was your past as a kid in the Midwest, you're just trying to figure out how you're going to get to do anything right? Especially if you grew up in Cleveland in the 70s. You know, our river caught fire twice. I mean, let's be honest, but you know, nonetheless, you're just looking for an in and you know, here I am, I think I was in fifth grade.

30:40 KISS was the biggest band in the world at that time. And my buddy was this kid in in my class named Robert Glickman. And we were talking about bands. And somebody was talking about KISS and they said, well, you want to meet him? And I said we meet KISS. Oh, I don't, I don't really like KISS, but he's like, oh, my dad's their manager, excuse me. And Carl Glickman was Kiss's manager. This was a kid I was in fifth grade with. And what was interesting to me about it was it gave me that that hope of a local connection of someone that I knew that was connected, like, so I that was my first, like, stair step of like, OK, wow, some dude from Cleveland, his dad can, you know, be kiss his manager. OK, that's something.

31:29 Even though I wasn't into him, I didn't. And here's what's funny. I had no interest. I had no interest. The thing that Robert had or his dad had that I was interested in was his dad had a Rolls Royce and we would go to the movies in his dad's Rolls Royce. And that was, I was far more interesting to me than the kids. The kids in my class had seen them without their makeup. You know, they would come to the house without their makeup. I remember a story I think of Gene having like, you know, those big 70s stomping shoes and had kid goldfish in them. And one of the kids came back and said it wasn't the makeup as much as was. Gene had these shoes with goldfish in them. It was the 70s but that and and that and then the MMS connection.

32:14 Jules Belkin lived on my street. Jules was a a big time Cleveland promoter and if you if you remember from that era, the promoter was a huge the local promoter was a big deal. There wasn't this Live Nation, there wasn't this, it was it was the local promoters and. I remember in Calgary, the guy's name was Bear. He had a company called Brimstone Productions and his name was Bear. Big guy, big burly looking bear looking guy. And I worked security for him for a little while, which was really funny because I was like, you know, 120 lbs, weakling, long hair, you know, like I I couldn't have secured anything, you know, nothing. Like I I I wasn't providing any layer of security at that point. I did that gig as well.

33:03 You know, Jules lived on my street. I think it's over 80 now. Through some mutual context. We stayed in touch and and you know, just meeting the actual Jules Belkin. And I told him, I said, man, you got to remember I said I saw your name. Everybody in Cleveland saw your name on top of The Who, on top of Rush, on top of Van Halen. It was always Jules Belkin. Belkin Productions presents. I said you were as big a rock star to me as as those guys. I mean, your your name was above theirs on the bill. And he kind of laughed and like the most humble and awesome guy. But again, you know, getting to meet these people, it gave me a sense of hope.

33:47 And so, you know, I rock off to Dallas and I I, you know, it's a Union City. I'm 15. So that's going to be a bit of a challenge. How do you get gigs? Well, you build your own lights and you start working for bands. You know, it's like you just did it and it, you know, honestly it it paid my way through college really. I mean it was it was a great. That's that's super cool. So your your company though they did. So you moved to Dallas? Yeah, I moved to Dallas. My dad was talk about no connections. My dad was general counsel for a chemical company, oil company, and they moved the operations to Dallas because everybody was trying to escape Cleveland in 1980. And they did.

34:31 And so he said we're moving to Dallas and and I was bummed at 1st. And then, you know, I'm sure like you remember we used to read the line liner notes for albums. That was your connection to the artist. You'd sit there and listen to the record and you would read the album back to front. And the weird dynamic of that was you became aware of all these peripheral people, sound engineers, lighting engineers, production companies. And Jackson Browne thanked Shoko on his liner notes for running on empty. And so when I was told we were moving to Dallas, at first I was like, really the place of the TV show. OK, JRI, guess. All right.

35:12 And then I remembered this company show Co was in Dallas. And I thought, huh, this Dallas thing might be OK. And so next thing you know, I'm in Dallas, I'm at my high school, probably second or third day of the high school, kid walks by me in a Genesis Tour Jacket. He's like, he's a I'm a sophomore, he's a freshman. He did a Genesis Tour Jacket from the Mama to and introduced myself named Colin Clark. I said, hey man, it's a really nice jacket. I said that's like a like a band Tour jacket. He's like, oh, yeah, well, my dad's one of the owners of Shoko. Jesus, really. He. Went to the I guess. Man.

35:53 And yeah, on and on. But so again, the the, the, the theme was thank the God sent to me was there were people that I could interact with that helped me realize there could maybe be a stair step to what I want to do. You see what I'm saying? You know, I wasn't there were, there were people that showed me that, that people in my orb could do this. And it was interesting because Colin had zero interest in live production and Jim Clark was his dad, one of the owners original show Co Vera Light. And Colin had zero interest. He loved, you know, seeing the shows, but I don't think he had any interest in production.

36:36 But I got to meet his dad, you know, And again, it's those stair steps that we all have that give you the shot to, to do what you want to do. Yeah, yeah. So we still haven't got to your lighting company? Well, you know, like I said, the interesting thing was I I realized that there was going to be two ways to get gigs. I was going to start. You know I was really too young to to to get professional work because at that point I'm 161516. But I figured if I started building likes I could start working for local bands and at at that time Dallas and still does has a pretty big high society circuit with debutante balls and things like that.

37:25 And because I was in the private boys school in Dallas, St. Mark's, I was kind of in that circuit. And so here I was this kid and I had these lights and you know these moms would hire me to do debutante balls and and like I had this whole sub industry that I was working in and the only way I could be there is if I had my own gear. So I, you know I built a lot of my own stuff. It was not UL listed then you know, started buying stuff as I could afford it, but it was my entree into getting jobs, you know, It had the theory I I just, I just felt drawn to it.

38:08 I absolutely felt drawn to it right from the start and I think for me it was a way I was too stage shy to be on stage, but it was a way for me to touch the stage without being on the stage. I could be back in the dark and and things that I was doing could still radiate onto the stage and it was a great way to do that. And I had my best buddy at the school. He was the sound guy. So he's like well I'll start getting sound gear And we kind of had our little team that we put together. He by the way went on to mix front of house for Tom Petty. So it worked out. Here we are, these two 15 year old kids in Dallas. Very cool. And man, we got a lot of work.

38:50 We got a lot of work because as you know, even if you don't know what you're doing, if you have gear you you'll probably get a job on that local scene. Yeah, yeah. So you did that while you were still in school too, I think, right? Yeah, I did that all the way through college, actually. And you know, as as time went on, I would get more and more gear, obviously. You know, I started switching out to professional gear. So I was actually using things that were you all listed and not made out of wood, which was a good idea. I mean, I had a homemade fog with the fact that I nobody got hurt during my era coming up is awesome.

39:31 We all did. Yeah. Yeah, right. I mean, you know, homemade pyro, you name it, we it was crazy. But thankfully we got lucky and survived it. But yeah, man, I worked all the way through college. And what I did during that time, and again, I'm sure this is a fairly common story, I and I tell this to students. I took every possible gig that had anything to do with live entertainment. I was a dresser. I would take Christmas lights down at Christmas, whatever, you know, whatever gig I could take. I said yes to everything. And it it gave me so much exposure to so many people that the story I tell people is I got my. Job my my professional job at Verilite, which is really my first professional gig full time by taking an 4 hour sound call for a local sound company.

40:26 I was mixing setting, miking a piano with a guy and I was telling him what I want to do and interest I had in the lighting. And he's a guy named Blake Dewberry and he's like, Oh, well that's coolest. You know, I know some people at Choco and Verilite. Blake had been the monitor engineer for Van Halen for 220. Jesus. And so that you know, and I tell students I'm like folks, it was a $32, four hour call mixing or miking a piano. And I said, honestly, that's what gave me my career, was meeting Blake, because Blake is the one who made the phone call to get me past the, you know, 500 people a month that we're sending applications to.

41:09 Verily. He made one phone call and that got me my interview and that got me the gig. You know what I it's it's a tough lesson and and I want to get into your your the stuff you do with with education and students and stuff. But it's a tough lesson. Do you have kids? No. So I have a 19 year old and you know, trying to teach 19 year olds that there's more to life than your phone and that like occasionally if you're at a restaurant or wherever you are, a football game, a restaurant, a bar, a party. I don't care where you are. If you're just looking down at your phone the entire time and like doing this and talking to someone who's not there, you're missing so many networking opportunities. You know, because you're talking to people you already know on your phone.

42:04 When all these people in front of you are new contacts and you never know. Like this guy could be a billionaire who happens to love racing and wants to sponsor, you know, a six foot 4 driver from, you know, Florida and this guy over here could own a racing team and this guy over here could whatever, I don't know. But you never know until you talk to people. And so I've always believed what you believe, which is, you know, what, like take every gig, do everything. Get out there, you know, put your put your face in front of other people and talk to everyone. Talk to everyone around you all the time. And not to a point of being a pain in the ass. Like, I'm not saying ask them for things. Usually it's give them things instead. Like, hey, can I give you a hand with that? Hey, you know, is there anything I can do for you over here? And my son really has learned a bit of that. But still, like, I'll see him sitting in a room full of billionaires and he's in the corner texting on his phone and I'm like, what are you doing?

43:04 You know, just go meet some people, will you? And yeah, yeah, you're right. And he's very personable. When you. Yeah. And I think I'm guilty of that now. I think I'm guilty of that now. Yeah, I think we all are. I think we're, you know, I have to remind myself to go back to being that person. Yeah, yeah, it's true. You know, it's I have to remind myself, I have to remind everyone, people around me, my girlfriend, occasionally, you know, like, I mean it's just, it's it's not even got to do with manners or anything. It's just about, you know, gaining something from that new experience or from that new meeting or networking or introduction that that is happening versus sitting talking with my buddies on my phone, texting to them while I'm at this event.

43:54 Like it makes no sense. But yeah, I I get it. I it reminds me of a story. I, you know, one of my earliest. This is insane. I can't. I think about this now. I thought about the other day when I was trying to get ready for this and I'd forgotten that I used to do this. I would just go down to the arena in Dallas and and so like 83 police were the biggest band in the world and they were coming to Dallas for three nights. I just rocked out of the arena at like 7:00 AM on Logan, walked straight in the back of the dock, and at 17, I looked like I was about 12. And I walked straight in the back dock, asked somebody where the production office was and they pointed me.

44:34 I walked straight in the production office. I'm 17, and Keith Bradley was the production manager for the police at the time. And here's this kid that looks like he's probably lost. You know, like like Keith should be calling the police to send this kid home. Can I help you? And all these people are staying around. I said, man, I am super into lighting. I love automated lighting. Can I just watch your load in? Do you mind if I just watch your load in? But Keith just looked at me. He's like, like, I don't think he knew what to say. And he allowed me to do it. He allowed me to do it, let me stay the whole day and just said, look, you can't, you can't be down on the floor. You know, you got to stay up in the seats. But you can do take pictures, do whatever you want to do. Hang out, Let me stay.

45:15 And honestly, one of my proudest moments. Keith was a production manager on tour. I did for VL and I walked into the production office the first day. They're taking ID pictures. I said it's good to see you again. And he kind of looked at me the same way he looked at me before. I said you don't Remember Me, but I said you were very nice to me when I was 17 and it's an honor to finally be on one of your tours with an actual laminate. This part of the crew, yeah, it was just a really proud moment for me to be able to work with Keith after, you know, that journey. But that's the kind of stuff I did. You know what, George? I mean, you know I'm not going to blow any smoke up your skirt or anything, but I compliment you on. Now, you've said this twice, basically.

45:56 So you said the first guy that you were miking up a piano with and you knew his name. You knew his full name. I forget everyone's name and and you said it it's because of him that I got my job at Verilite. It it wasn't because of me and now you're giving this guy credit for helping fuel your passion towards the industry and he could have way more easily said no get out of here kid. Before I call the police or before I get security to drag you out of here and but the fact that you're giving credit to these people tells me a lot about your character and and your longevity in this industry. Because you recognize that it takes a lot of help and and you're you know you're you're giving gratitude and all of that kind of stuff And and that's so, so important and so few people do it. You know, like I can name 20 people that have very good careers in this industry that I brought into the industry or took them out of a miserable job and put them in a good job or introduce them to the person that ended up being, you know, their their massive future in the industry or whatever. And only a couple of them have remembered that. And like, we've been at an LDI with a drink in our hands or something and somebody would come up to me and go, you know, Marcel, I want to let you know that you were instrumental in my long career in this industry and where I'm at in my life right now.

47:19 And I appreciate you very much. And I'll tell you what, being an old timer now, hearing that stuff, it makes a world of difference. Like, it just says, you know what, as as much as I've screwed up, I actually did a couple good things in my life. And and you know, that was one of them, right? So yeah. Well, it makes you want to pay it forward, makes you want to pay for it. The other thing that I think is key and and I have a host of names and and and I feel this way about all of them. I am so blessed that I was placed with talented people at the whole time. But early on, man, I was so blessed to be placed with talented people that were helpful and supportive and covered in my butt. And you know, I held up my end.

48:05 I mean, you know, I, I, I I gave where I could and tried to cover up for the weaknesses I had while I learned. But a lot of awesome, patient people. And I'll tell you the other thing that and this I have to keep saying to my current self, man, I never heard no. I never heard no. I only heard this person doesn't really have the answer that I was hoping for. And I would just go around that person and on to the next potential. Yes, man. You're never gonna get hired by a big lighting company. You know you're never gonna do. You're never gonna all these people would and I just. I just shut it out. It's like, all right well, I'll try something else.

48:47 You know and. No, I I say it all the time. It's the front door. Front door's locked. Climb in a window, you know, go in through the chimney like Santa Claus. I don't care. Like, you know, there's always a yes in there somewhere. It's just you, you've got to get to the right person with the right thing that you're saying. You have to represent the right amount of value to them at that moment. And so there's a timing aspect to it too. But no, I mean it's a it's a great I'm the same way I, you know, people would call us stubborn or stupid or whatever because we don't hear the no. I think would be another one. Well, I'll. Tell you a funny story you'll you'll get this one. Did you know Rich Fowler?

49:30 Hollywood lights, Yes. Rings a bell. I know of him. Yeah, I mean although you were with a manufacturer, you were with a a rental company manufacturer at the Times Vera Light. So, sure, this was when I first started for Martin in 1991 or maybe 92. And I'm Canadian. I don't know my way around this country very well. I've never been to most of the cities. I've been to LA, I've been to Vegas, I've been to New York, but Chicago. But other than that, I haven't really been to a lot of cities, right. And so I go on my first road trip and when I'm doing it, I'm, I'm pretty organized when it comes to sales. So I've got this notepad out and I'm like, OK, I'm going to go here, then I'm going to go here, then I'm going to go here.

50:14 I'll rent a car here. I'll drop it off here. I'll fly to here and. And so one of the towns that I was going to was Portland and I was literally, this was grassroots selling and prospecting, right? So I looked in our system to see what customers were in our system in the Portland area and Seattle and wherever else I was going, San Francisco. And so in Portland, I see this company, Hollywood Lights and I see they used to buy from us, but they haven't bought anything from us in over a year. And at the time, Trachem and Martin's distributor in the US was small. They were less than $2,000,000 in revenue and but nobody was really big at that time.

50:54 You know you had verolite and maybe high end was starting to get bigger but they weren't even big yet And and then the Italian companies, which were all pretty small over in the US anyways. And so so I call up Rich Fowler and I go, hey Rich, this is Marcel. I'm the new guy here at Trackman and I'd love to come in and see. I'm gonna be in town in a week and he goes, do you know anything about my history with your company? And I said as a matter of fact, not really. I've looked at some sales reports, not a lot of notes in the system and he goes, Marcel, the last sales guy that worked there. I told him if you ever show up in my office again, I'll kick your ass. You know, don't come in.

51:36 I never want to talk to anyone from your company again. And I said, well, I said, well, I'm much nicer than him, so I'm sure you'll see me. And he goes, Marcel, listen to me. You know, I bought smoke machines from your company. They caught fire. I couldn't get a refund back. I I had nothing but problems. You know, the Russian sales guy and the French owner and blah, blah, blah. And I don't ever want to do business. I will never do business with your company again. And I said, OK, so is Wednesday good? And he's like, Marcel, you're not hearing me, man. And I said, Rich, I just want to make it right, you know? So I'm too dumb to know that we screwed up. But what I can tell you is I'm going to do anything I can to make it right.

52:17 And he said, look, you know, I really don't want to. So anyways, I went there and I didn't have an appointment. I went in, I was talking to his sales manager. I got more history on what happened. I showed him the couple of samples that I had with me, including the new, you know, non exploding smoke machine and Rich Fowler comes out and he goes who are you? And I said I'm Marcel from Trackman. Nice to meet you Mr. Fowler. And he goes, I thought I told you not to show up, I thought. I told him we will never do business again. And I said, but Rich, I want to make it right. I just want to make it right. And I feel like we have a better product. Now. I'll make it right on your old product. I don't know how yet, but I'll make it right and just give me a chance.

53:01 And so, Long story short, I ended up selling them a dozen moving lights and some fog machines and some other stuff, and they became one of our largest dealers on the West Coast over the next few years, took them to Denmark to the factory. We had an amazing relationship and we laughed about that initial meeting multiple times since then. That's that's some nasty. I I mean I I I've, I've unfortunately been in those. We I like to refer to them as Kevlar underwear. Situations where you, you know, you have to make sure you have the Kevlar underwear. On because it's going to be that. Kind of day, Yeah. Jeez. No, We were having to put the night out. Talk.

53:43 Yeah, yeah. Oh, anywho, yeah, that was that was certainly my friends interrupted out and I weathered that one together. Yeah, man, you know, I talked to Bob Gordon. About that one. That is some tenacity, you know? I don't know that I had that level of there were times when I just, you know, didn't embrace those situations. It happened a lot in touring. This is about the longest my hair has ever been. So you know, I wasn't. I mean, I don't Aerosmith. You know, my hair was not in line with the rest of the crew and you know how some of that stuff can be. They can give you a hard time and it's like, OK, you know, the way you get past this is you do an awesome job and you try to be a cool cat and hopefully, you know, somebody will respond.

54:31 But man, it's tough, you know, and I I think what saved me is I just wanted to be there so bad. I just wanted to be on tour and working with those bands so bad. I don't think anything. And you know, the experience, it sounds like you're very similar. I don't think anything could have kept me away. And and to be fair, like I said, the vast majority of people I encountered at that level, especially during that period, you know, you got to that level cuz we're pretty good and you did a good job and you weren't an idiot, You know, I mean, that was those crews were the eighteens. You know, the people that got stuck in the clubs, the people that never were able to make it out of the clubs, those were the ones that were a little bit more challenging to work with.

55:18 But if you were out doing Vera Lights on a tour in that period, you were probably pretty OK. So the the friend, the guy who got you the introduction into Vera Light. Yeah. So how did that go like? Because I know I believe it ended up in like more than 20 year career, right? Yeah, it's been crazy. It's been nonstop since that was 1990. I went in to see Blake and he was at the sound company and said, Blake, I'm thinking about, you know, I'm thinking about making a bleep here and buying a bunch of trucks, maybe get some motors. And he just looked at me and said, don't you want to work for Verily? And I said, yeah, Blake, but I mean, it turned me down like 3 times. They don't return my letters, you know their texts that I've met have started to file, you know, charges against me to keep me away from them.

56:05 I would meet text as I I would attach myself to the verilite tech as a stagehand and I'd be like I'm your guy today. I you pick me for your load in load out and they would go do it. They're like this this kids crazy. But all right. What was? It about verilite though. Was it because they had automation and nobody else at the time did? Well, yeah, it was I I was obsessed with Shoko because of the Jackson Browne thing. I was huge Jackson Browne fan. I was obsessed with Shoko. Show. Vera Light was part of Shoko. They were in Dallas. So I was like this is perfect. I mean he's got this is a hometown company. They were my they were up the street and from what I can tell, you know and obviously this is my opinion is slanted.

56:49 They were the best going at the time. There was really just them high end really had entered in the picture really at that period. It was really, it was really just Verilite Morpheus, you know Morpheus had really made some inroads, but Verilite had had all that publicity from Genesis and and the early tours that they did with the VO1. So there really was really no question. And like I said, it was just kismet. I mean, I was in Dallas, they were in Dallas, yeah. Blake made the phone call to Larry Sizemore, famous verolite guy that did ZZ Top forever. And Larry was doing labor time and they were dying for people. And Blake called.

57:33 So he said, he said, look, you want to work for Verolite, right? And I said they won't call me back. And he literally picked up the phone right in front of me, dialed it and talked to Larry for like 10 seconds, set the phone down, said you have an interview on Tuesday. Don't screw it up. And that was. That. Yeah. And my face looked exactly like that. I'm like, excuse me. And he's like, he said don't screw it up. He's like, you can do this. Go and press Larry, get yourself a gig. And that was it. And I went install Larry and tried not to screw up and they took me, but it was it was crazy, man. But I'll tell you what I remember walking in there, one of the first things I ever remember.

58:17 You would go into the front office and there was a there was a Warhol of Mick Jagger mounted and framed right in the front entrance way, and you would see that sign, Andy Warhol, the print. But nonetheless, it was a signed Warhol print and it was huge. And I thought, this place is something else. These people aren't fool around. This isn't some lighting company with like cardboard boxes and duct tape in the corner. And I have to tell you that it's strangest feeling I had felt out of place. I had worked with lighting companies where I really didn't feel like I was sorry damn near about there.

58:57 I didn't feel like I was really fit in. And I looked around and I thought, this place is like the NASA of lighting companies, Like it was engineers and people that looked like me and people that like seemed like I could get along with. And honestly, I never forget. I thought, I hope I get this job because I feel like I'm home. I feel like this is my place. And you know, Jim Bornhorst walking by and and Tom Walsh and all these famous verilite inventors and engineers, John Covington, Ricky, Ricky Hutton, like my heroes, you know, I I embarrassed the hell out of Tom Littrell when I first met him. I said, you realize I bought a Genesis program so I could get a picture of you.

59:41 And he was like, that's OK And Tom was the kind of guy that hated that kind of recognition, but that was the truth, man. And there he was like standing in front of me and then like then he now he's now he's my Co worker, you know. So I was pretty happy to be there, Needless to say. And that's how it worked out. What was your starting role there attack? Panic boy. So they like I said, they had a two week class, it had a two week class, 5 days each, and they went over the fixtures. Basic repair. I had zero electronics experience. None.

1:00:21 But at that time I got a. VL one, VL ones, twos and fours. Twos, threes and fours. OK, the four was brand new, four was brand new, light. And at that time they had up to then they really had only taken technicians with DeVry experience. So the way you got hired at Verilight was you went to school to DeVry and they they would recruit out at DeVry. But the majority of their people were were really heavy, heavy electronics experts. I knew nothing. I I, I knew less than nothing. I knew basic high voltage. You know, I could power up the system cams and you know all that sort of stuff, fix, you know, conventionals. But they had at that point, they had kind of started a shift where they said we really want some people that have more show experience.

1:01:16 We really want techs that know more about putting shows in and out, a little bit more about lighting design. They were kind of consciously trying to to balance out I think their crews, because I think the sense was I shouldn't speak for, you know, my forefathers there. But I think the sense was we've got some people that are amazing electronics texts, but they're not show people yet. And that's a that's a tough, you know, you can be a genius with a scope, but you know, if you can't survive load insurance and loadouts, that's going to make for a tough day. Yeah. And in, in a way, that's a bigger part of it, all right? Like, because I can't imagine if, God forbid you had to stay out with the show for a couple weeks and travel on a bus and stuff. Like, I can't imagine some kid out of Defra doing that, you know, without any experience and. And, and I mean, they're perfect examples, I'll tell you a famous one.

1:02:14 At one time it became my boss, Lindsay Glover, at VL. He was 19. I think when they hired him, they sent him out on the Synchronicity tour. He was 19. He hadn't left Texas and and he was on the Synchronicity tour and Synchronicity those guys are they like played you know Cairo and he said, George, I can tell you trying to order tech support from Cairo is a challenge, like those are the kind of stories. But he was an electronics tech, trained electronics tech and that's what they were they. And with the VO1 to be fair, you had to, you really had to know that stuff. I mean you were going to change capacitors and resistors and you were probably going to be doing some soldering. Mercifully, it it was more swapping by the time I got on tour where you swap assemblies and and send things back. But there was an old scope in my rack for sure and you know I had to use it.

1:03:09 But yeah, it was. It was a baptism by fire for sure. So I mean you were there doing quick math 22 years and really ran all the way through their entire company. Like like if I look at your resume basically it was two years doing this then two years doing this then two years doing this and and you ended up by I think like heading up moving lights or something like you were you went right through the. Business. I was the product manager. Yeah. I became the product manager. Yeah. And, you know, it's funny because all that first day that I walked in as an employee, I remember it was this buzz of activity. And then I'm telling you, it felt like NASA, you know, It just felt like it was like, wow, this is really, you know, they were extremely successful.

1:03:56 Shoko was in the building as well. So, I mean, if we weren't doing a tour on the sound side, we were doing it on the audit lighting side, like it was, you know, a great time. And I thought man these people are they've all beaten me to the game. They've everyone here is ahead of me. I'm last in line. Like I'm never going to be able to make a name here. You know when you hang on for 22 years and and and you you get to you get to become part of the team. It it was some of the smartest people I've ever worked with. And I have to say I'm thankful that I got to go through it twice in the sense that I essentially got to have the same experience with Clay Paki.

1:04:39 And I remember walking into Clay Paki and thinking, wow, this is, this is the Verolite of Italy. You know, this is, I laugh about it. I've told the Clay Paki guys, I'm like, you realize you've got a counterpart in Dallas. Like there's somebody exactly like you working at Verolite. I've met. You know, I like I had there are personality types and I'm sure you've experienced this in our industry. You know there's the there's that crazy engineer that's a genius. But you kind of have to you know sort of you know rope them in And then there's there's the grumpy guy that's that has these kernels of wisdom. But you got to he's going to be, he's going to be grumpy too. Yeah. Exactly. Like you know, he's like he's like the, he's like the bridge troll, right.

1:05:19 And he's a genius and, you know, and you love him because he's kind of crazy and crotchety and grumpy like, Oh my God, the same personalities. It was like walking into an Italian version of Vera Light. And I told him that I I said, you know, I I have tremendous respect for both companies. But it's just funny how you, Dallas and and Bergamo were kind of doing the same things in parallel in a lot of. Ways. Well, yeah, I mean we can talk about that because you know the Italians I'm quite familiar with as well. But so I I just want to get the timeline put together here. So you were at Vera Light till 2012, then you left and and ended up at ACT as the moving light guy basically at ACT right am I?

1:06:05 Yeah, yeah. They gave me a title of, they gave me a title of VP of Automated lighting and Bob and Bob and Ben were were incredibly kind and supportive and you know, essentially ushered in the second part of my career. And of course this little light called the Sharpie was doing quite well and and you know we had some some great years there. That's of course where I met Brian. So that was about, yeah, this May of 2012 and I I stayed there until 2018. But yeah, it was, you know, it was a great time, ups and downs just like all these companies. But you know I had had that with Verilite as well. I mean you know, we had a time when we could do no wrong and and and you've experienced this, you've alluded to racing.

1:06:52 I'm a huge race fan, so. You have time. You have times and you can't lose and you have times and you can't win and you're still driving the car the same way. But you know, for whatever reason, you know, I mean, Lewis Hamilton hasn't won a race in two years. I don't think he's I've forgotten how to drive. No, no. It takes a lot of components coming together. Hey, as a as a side note, I will tell you that our lovely producer Sarah spent many years with Formula One. She used to work with Formula One. Yeah. So in a really. Cool. I'll be. I'll be chasing her for a gig. There you go. We all are. We're all chasing her for gigs, yeah.

1:07:35 Yeah, she's laughing at both. Of us right now. I can see her in the green room, laughing at us. My wife has informed me that if I get a a job in Formula One, the next thing I can do is try to find a lawyer that'll sort me through our divorce because she she's familiar with schedule. Yeah. Yeah. It's the only thing worse than our business, probably. Well, you're not kidding, man. I mean, you know you, we can talk about four months, six months, eight months tours, man. You look at the Formula One schedule, they're not fooling around. I mean, that circuit blows my mind because unlike any other racing circuit that I've seen and they're all pretty tough as you know there is boy that movement around the earth is, is massive.

1:08:18 Yeah. Well, I mean, and just the amount of stuff they're moving around from there, like hospitality, you know, trailers or whatever you call them, buildings, and not to mention all the cars and engines and people and tools and equipment and blah, blah, blah. It's such an enormous operation moving that stuff around. I can't even imagine what that cost is. Logistics are tremendous. I I have a bunch of friends in US racing and I always give them a hard time. I'm like, you know you you guys only have one or two trucks to load each night. We typically do from 20 to 40, you know. So yeah they they get a laugh out of that cause literally you know most of the US series you're loading one or two semis total and and for the most part everything's on wheels including the car, so.

1:09:07 So back back to so you're at act you you. I mean, The funny thing is like something like the Sharpie, when something happens like that and you have a product, Oh. Yeah. We had a bit of a Internet freak out there and it punted George off the podcast, so he's back. I think it's because we were talking about racing, so God was punishing us. That or my wife. That or your wife. Yeah, it could be your wife. You might have pushed the red button if she's maybe. She did? Oh, I'll show you. I'm going to download puppy porn or something, you know.

1:09:48 My poor bride has heard more, more than enough about cars and racing. Well, I want to spend the entire second-half of our podcast talking about cars and racing then because I could. I don't know if you know this about me, but you know, it's sort of been my life for the last 11 or 12 years. It's funny. Because I'm familiar. Watching Donnie Ladiko now with his son Luca, who started racing karts I think about two years ago now. And I've helped guide him a little bit along the way, cuz we did 10 years of karting at a very, very high level, international level. And so we've been guiding him a little bit on some of the stuff.

1:10:29 And I can just watch the layers of addiction. You know, you're on level one now. You're on level 1.5, now you're level 2, you know, and he's getting to the point, like he told me last week in a Facebook post that they're doing, I think he said two days a week plus this plus that at the track, right, 'cause I said, are you doing any SIM work yet? And he's like, no, we're doing two days a week at the track and this and that. And, you know, my son grew up where he was seven years old and his nanny was taking him to the track on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I'd take him all day on Saturday. And we were spending three days a week at the track. You know it's. Just crazy. Yeah. I'm familiar. I my, my racing, my initial racing benefactor has three children that at one point in time we're trying to make it into the sport. Three children, not one, three.

1:11:22 They were trying to make it sort of into the NASCAR, starting on dirt tracks. And and he just told me it's like George, he's like even with sponsorship, he's like trying to keep three kids racing is really a challenge. You know it is. Yeah, and it and and it and it, You know, even in a racing family, it it's tough. And he has some sponsorship and you know they've they've worked through it. But he's like, I'm just trying to convince my kids to like baseball. Yeah, well, my kids 6 foot 4 and he races in an open wheel formula car. He's not, he's not supposed to. Like I'm like we. Tried I, I. Hired a a retired NBA player to teach him basketball.

1:12:04 You know, the guy took my money for a few months and finally said Marcel, Look, you know, I know you're trying because he's. 12:00 and 8:00 again here. I think I lost it. We. Can still hear you. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. I get it. We were trying to teach him with basketball. The guy just said, look, Marcel, you're wasting your money on this. The kid doesn't have any passion towards it. We tried football, we tried hockey because I'm Canadian. We've tried everything and it just we lost him again. We had another glitch. We had another Internet crash and lost George again. George is really good with lights but not so good with connections. I'm just kidding, George. Ones and zeros I don't know.

1:12:46 It's all supposed to line. You know, it all seemed to be fine until we got on to racing. So we need to get off to racing conversation. So we were, we were, we were at ACT with clay packing. And one of the things I was talking about is, you know it's not often that companies get these runaway hits in our industry in the lighting business specifically. And you know Martin had it with the Mac 2000 high end initially had it with the Intelli Beam and then sort of with the Cyber Light again the Mac 2000 and then the Sharpie just went bam, it took off like a rocket. And the problem with that, especially when you've got a smallish company like Clay Packie that all of a sudden is growing on the sales of one light and certainly it dragged some other ones along with it. I'm sure you can tell us more about that. But but really I'd have to guess that Sharpie was 50 or 60% of the sales that you were doing.

1:13:44 And because people were buying them by the thousands, you know, because every tour, every show had sharpies on it, lots of them. And it really single handedly kind of changed the look of shows. You know it went from from Gobos to these bam, these really tight sharp beams, you know and So what was that experience like having a just a rock star of a light like that that just. Yeah, honestly, I felt like it. I felt like I was used to that, honestly. I mean, when I started we had the two and the four and as much as people swore at the VL Four, they did love what it looked like.

1:14:30 It had a beautiful look. Then we went to the VL 5 and you know, then we, you know, there were some stumbles in there for sure. But pretty quickly we came up with the VL 3000. I work with some of the engineers and some of the designers that we have that we've been working with. The time came up with the VL 3500 Wash which was really popular and and so then I I moved to Clay Paki and they've got the Sharpie that was already going, you know, before I came there. But Bob recognized the potential of that as Bob is very, very good at doing. You know, he has a Midas touch for recognizing. Yeah, absolutely. That little MA thing worked out pretty well for him.

1:15:12 And the whole thing before that. Yeah, right, right. So it felt pretty normal and you know as I'm sure you can appreciate from your history the the the hangover or the rush or the, the drug effect of that is you do get a little spoiled by it. You know in the back of your mind you're thinking we need to you know keep going and come up with other lights. But you know sales are shipping out in wheelbarrows, money is coming in wheelbarrows, everybody's happy. But you know there's that that that you know international worldwide historical rule that a company cannot base all of their sales on a single product or you know a very small. So you you're constantly trying to expand but your customer base doesn't really want to hear it.

1:16:01 They're like just keep giving us more Sharpies, you know we just want more Sharpies. So I think there's always, there's always a a reset period that happens. I mean, I'm so, I'm so happy for Paki Pascali Quadri, the owner that he was able to experience that, you know, because it was really worldwide recognition. And I'm so happy because he was this genius inventor that you know was doing Italian club lighting and built this whole company. And I tell people when I go to the factory, I'm like this factory was built by Sharpie. Sharpie paid for this factory. And again, I'm so thankful that he had that that success in his career because he deserved it. You know, he, he, he brought his, his city, his family, his country to the international forefront with with his inventions and absolutely and well, I mean in. Round numbers and and you won't say it but I will you know I'm, I'm guessing that the Sharpie alone probably took Clay Paki from being like a 5 to $7,000,000 US brand to about a $30 million US brand.

1:17:12 I think at the at the top of Sharpie there and and you know really put Klaypaki on the map in a big way. Cuz prior to that Claypaki to me was always sort of the the Lamborghini of lighting. Comar was the Ferrari. It was broken all the time but had a lot of horsepower and and really you know good performance but it was always broken. You had to have a tool kit in your pocket every time you you turned one on clay Paki was much more refined. They had perfect optics and perfect this and perfect that and it was just a much more refined product line.

1:17:55 And you know, of course those two companies have a lot of history together or against each other as competitors. But the founders were friends. Like, I went out to dinner one time with Bruno Dedoro and and Piscali Paki, and they're friends. You know, they're they're better competitors, but they're friends. So. Well, it felt like there was more honor among thieves at that time. You know, like anything else, it's a different from business now And and I think, you know, these backroom and adventures. I mean the joke with with Shoko was, you know, they started with two speakers in a garage and one of the speakers didn't even work, you know, and it it, it probably wasn't that far from the truth. But they're also incredibly driven and and brilliant people. And again, I saw so many parallels in Rusty Boucher and and his team of owners and engineers and has small like Quadri and the people in Italy and and his team. I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe it. I know all you guys in Texas, it's just now you speak Italian. But it was literally that kind of there were a lot of those companies and what's interesting and you said, you know, you and I hadn't crossed paths.

1:19:06 Brian Dowd and I joke about this like we're both coming up and doing club shows and trying to make our way and all this. We never crossed paths. And so I started working for ACT. He had a whole career in the industry, but it was all with these East Coast lighting companies that I had never come across, you know, and and I knew all these, you know, sort of Texas Legends, ML Pro Size and Tom Littrell and all these guys that were famous in my world. And everybody you know, then you had upstage and doing their thing like, you know, up in Canada you had these great companies. What's interesting about it to me is we were all sort of going through the same growth spurts and successes and failures and learning curves together, but independently. Yeah.

1:19:56 And when we started cross pollinating, you know, guy like you, you, you and I'll sit down, we have so many similar stories because we were basically doing the same thing but in different worlds. Yeah, No, of course. Well, and and you started at it from the show side where as I started from the sales side, I was a sales guy and I had no history and lighting, you know, my my history and lighting was selling packages to nightclubs and that was about it, right. And and so I got a sales gig at Martin, you know, as a regional sales manager and that was really my indoctrination into the lighting business. And at the time it was club lighting and it was actually me who pushed really hard to get them to look at and eventually you know, move into or move towards and it wasn't an easy transition, believe me.

1:20:45 I was there for, for the hard parts of it. That's why, like you, you kind of said at one point like you probably had the same situation where I had multiple successes under my belt, like what you had at Verilite and and then oh, Mac. 2K, man. I never did. I never once did. I always started at a company when their product line was garbage. I helped get it to a point and then I jumped off right before it got super successful. So I mean I left Martin a couple years before the Mac 2000I. I went to high end for a short period of time when the X spot came out and you know, so that was not you had the studio beam in the X spot. Like that was not a good moment for high end, but the cyber light was still really hot and studio colors and studio spots were still pretty hot. So, you know, I was there for I think the biggest year that high end ever had.

1:21:36 But you know, my timing was always really bad when it came to those runaway successes. I had to work really hard to sell robo scans against cyber lights and wasn't easy. I had to rely on sales skills not not you know not really great products combined with you know good customer service or whatever it was usually sales skills. So, but, so then at one point I think what happened and you can correct me because I'm probably wrong, but I think what happened is Clay Pack, he just kind of went to to Bob Gordon and said hey, you're doing a great job. But we we need to have our own presence in the United States and we really need to have an office here and have our own brand here.

1:22:18 And I think part of what was driving that was probably that Roby had made that jump and Martin had made that jump buying their distribution. And so now the big competitors were Martin and and Roby and High End and they all had their own physical presence in the United States and if we want to compete with them, we've got to be here. Is that kind of how that went down? Well, you know, my father always used to say the decisions I made were always right at the time that I made them. And and you know one of the things that I think it's really easy for us to forget and because we've been doing it our whole lives. But our industry is brand new.

1:23:00 I mean wet behind the ears new this, this automated lighting really it it you know what 1980 basically 81 you know so. So I think the growth changes the the growth spurts the changes the challenges are are unique. You know I I compared a lot of times to the automotive industry in its in its infancy where you know you had like the Tucker which was this car that had these amazing features and you know they went out of business. And it's a famous story about this guy that had these genius ideas and you know, nobody even knows what Tucker is anymore. And it was a it was my car was miles ahead of its time. So there were going to be companies that were going to fall by the wayside.

1:23:47 I think there still are. And they're all these changes in terms of distribution and sales and features and and you know, even platforms, I mean you know the Verilite protocol was cutting edge back in the day. Rusty embraced DMX far after everyone else did because we had this bi directional digital coms. That was awesome. And you know, you can argue whether they're right or wrong to license it or not. I mean, again, they were smart people and they made decisions based on what they knew at the time and what they thought was going to happen. And this thing called DMX, which we all felt was vastly inferior for controlling lights, became the standard.

1:24:34 And so I remember when we had to shift to to DMX control of Vera lights, it was it was work. We had no experience with DMS. We had never. Touched it. I mean, just like what we're experiencing in politics in this country right now, democracy is hard, you know, I mean, so, so when you when you want everybody to be able to operate moving lights on the same rig, multiple manufacturers and and to be able to ship lights out to this company and then this company and then this company and they're not all owned by the mothership like they were in the original days, Yeah, I mean you have to choose a, A, a common language, obviously you have no choice. Sure, sure.

1:25:17 And I and so I think you have folks like Bob you know and the folks in Italy and these people are Bob and Ben and and Brian you know all people I consider really visionaries and and very smart people and the folks in Italy everybody's trying to make the best decisions they can. The landscape is changing and you know the thing that I that really was interesting to me is I I had some experience with this Vera light, but really even more so with Clay Paki. It's a worldwide company, it's a worldwide operation you know and Alberico is in in charge of sales there now and overseas. That and one of the things that that he made clear to me and I really you know, I hadn't really taken it for granted. Their business is different depending on where they are in the world and and the way they interact with distributors and dealers and customers is vastly different and they operate on the entire sphere, Alberico, overseas, all of that and and lights are purchased differently in Japan than they are in Australia than they are in South America. And when you start to think about the choices that are being made are being made based on this entire globe versus just my own little particular region which happens to be North America, it it starts to give you an appreciation for why certain ships move and things move the way they do and you know obviously the what your competitors do, that's a factor man.

1:26:50 I think we're going to be seeing, you know, you think we've seen change up to now just wait, you know, I mean it's it's going to come like a tsunami. You know, what you just said is so true. And you know, I think part of what you're saying is, is that to do big business in the US, you have to sort of adopt some of the the US culture, you know, the the culture of doing business in the US And it's one of the things that the European companies have always, always, always struggled with and it's what makes ACT so successful as a distributor. It's what made Bob Gordon so successful. You know, you can't just come here and do business the Italian way, you have to do it the American way. And so you know, it's not just clay packing, it's not just the Italians.

1:27:33 Robe had the same problem and it was really a couple of years of massive losses. They almost backed out of this country and then they managed to bring in Bob Shockrow. And you know, Bob is a smart guy. Bob helped build high end to be one of the biggest brands out there. And all Bob did was, you know, I don't want to downplay what Bob did, but really all he did was follow the recipe book. Like he just said, OK, I'm going to hire the same basic guys that, you know, we've done it somewhere else. And he hired some high end guys and some other, you know, quality people. Well, it's interesting. I'll interrupt you for a second. You have to stop in there because in the interest of dogs and cats sleeping together, Bob was my boss at Vera Light.

1:28:18 Keep in mind when he came back to the industry, he came into Vera Light and basically all of those people thought he brought that same team in, had tremendous success at VL. I mean, all those folks were, they were all, I think largely every, almost every one of them was X high end. Yeah. Craig, bro. Sean Hoey. Sean Billow. His pocket gang. His his pocket gang of people. Hey, follow me over here. Hey, come over here now. Yeah, it's funny. You're you're totally right. Band. If the band plays right together, you know, don't fire the bass player. I mean them all together. That's all he did. You know, again, I don't want to oversimplify how hard it was to turn Roby into the juggernaut that they are today, but really, that's all he did. He took a successful group of people that did it somewhere else twice by that time.

1:29:06 Yeah, I have to say though, this I think important for me to say because I I truly believe this it it all sounds like some Pollyanna line. But man, I have been so fortunate to be in the same room with such amazing people. And Bob's another one of Bob. Shocker. I mean, Bob Bait looked very effortless. He made it look very effortless. But there was a lot going on, that man. We would walk out of meetings and he would start telling me things, and he had just sat there and kind of listened. And then we would walk out of the meeting with a client or a customer and he would start telling me things that he had picked up on. And I thought, wow, this guy, he's getting it on many levels.

1:29:49 I learned a lot from that, you know, very different style than Bob Gordon, very different style from Rusty Boucher. But again, you know, I think again, go back to the student and take advantage of the monsters you get to walk into the room with, you know, be it the designers we work with, the artists, the salespeople. I mean, you know, and again, I I shouldn't calling out too many names. Brian Dow, Craig Burrows. I mean two completely different people. The the magic what they do in really magic at what they do. Completely different people, completely different styles. But I mean, I go to school every time I sit down with either one of those guys.

1:30:36 Yeah, yeah, I know they're both both very good at their jobs. Both have been very successful. And no, you're totally right. You're totally right. So you've mentioned a lot students and you know, so like tell me a little bit of your work that you've done as far as education and and why and how you think that's important to the industry and yeah, give me a bit of that. I, I, you know kid in Cleveland, No context hanging on to any possible thing that could get me a break and and educators were a big part of it.

1:31:20 People in the industry that I respected giving me the time of day was a huge part of it and I just kind of made that promise to myself. But I think we all do. I know Sooners very much into this. Nick Whitehouse is very much into it. We kind of made that promise to somehow try to give back, you know, in whatever way. And I don't nearly do enough of it. I mean, I don't have a master's degree, so I'm not going to teach anywhere. I don't believe I'm skilled enough to do that. But what I can do is to try to give students a sense of possibility, a sense of potential. You know, like I said, that there's a stairway out there if they're willing to look for it. So I try to involve myself in things where that's, you know, possible to do.

1:32:10 I find it incredibly beneficial and it's not altruistic. I get a lot from the students. I mean there's there's something about a 20 year old kid telling you how it is now that's extremely valuable. If you're willing, yeah, you should pay. You should pay attention to that, by the way, because they know some things, you know, and it's not necessarily they're not smarter than us. I think in some sense we're probably a heck of a lot smarter than they are. But we don't know. We don't know how things are done now, you know, it's like every once in a while I go to my son and you know, recently we've been playing with these YouTube, what are they called shorts?

1:32:50 And you know, I went to my son and asked him how you know, because he's 19 years old, he, he lives on YouTube and Instagram and he knows all about that stuff. And so I went to him and said what's the best way to do this? Why would I use this versus this and flat out told me you know so I. Mean. That's right. Yeah. Sometimes if you want to know what the audience wants, you have to ask them, right? And so most of the fans are 20 years old. You might want to ask some 20 year olds what they want to see, right? Yeah. And and I I think the thing I try to impart to them is a sense of availability. The most overriding positive memories I have are these people that were my heroes. And again I mention names because it's important that they're they're important people to not just me, but the industry.

1:33:42 Jim Bornhorst, great example. I don't know if you know Jim. You know the guy. I mean he's amazing. I mean in front of house engineer, on running on empty mix, the mix, the live sound on that, on that album, he considers himself a sound man, but he invented the barrel light with his team. He doesn't lay that on you when you're 22 years old or 24 years old and you meet him, he's just your colleague and you're sharing information. He never has ever given me that impression that he's like this luminary. See what I did there in the business, man, That kind of humility, but also accessibility just was so impressive to me. I was like, man, I just want to be accessible. If some kid, I give kids my card, I'm like, look, just call or text me if you have a question. There's no questions too stupid.

1:34:38 I want to help. I just want to be available to you. The thing that I find is so distressing is that young students don't feel like they have a voice with the manufacturers or that they even have access to a manufacturer. I want that kid. I want that kid in Cleveland or Milwaukee to know, man, if you've got a question about a light, text me, call me. And like, you know, I'm here, man, you know, I was. I handed the car and said, guess what? You now know somebody at the factory. Well, you know what, what you're saying is so super important. And so I had Rob Koenig on recently and we talked about this a little bit and there was, you know, a, a lady and her son came up and the lady was wearing a concessions shirt and I don't remember I it was either load in or soundcheck or something And and she was wearing a concession shirt and she came up to to Rob and said, hey, you know, my son is obsessed.

1:35:43 He wants to be, you know, on tours and he wants to be in the lighting business and he wants to do this and that And and you know, Rob, Long story short, basically took him and showed him around and you know gave him the Grand Tour and gave him an indoctrination an introduction into concert lighting. And you know to me that is priceless. Like that kind of stuff is priceless and so many people now are so they just live life in gratitude and they're so happy to share that with with especially younger generations but with anybody, you know, it's not just somebody coming up and going, hey, you got to set list, you know, or whatever.

1:36:24 It's it's more about, you know, actually really wanting a bit of an education. And the other point I wanted to make was, you know, I've probably mentioned this way too many times on the podcast, but I loved it sooner. Talked to me about, you know, her sort of outreach and and wanting to go out and speak in front of schools and speak in front of youth groups or whatever it is to basically market our industry, especially coming out of COVID when there were such shortages. And you know, she said one of the first things that I see people's eyes open up and go whoa is they don't realize that you can actually make a good living in this industry. Like, you can make 100 grand a year and be on tour with a rock band that you love being out with And, you know, be in that atmosphere and everything else and see the world for free, you know, with a per diem, you know, where you can eat in Greek restaurants in Greece and and Chinese restaurants in China, you know, or whatever, right.

1:37:26 And she said half of her battle is convincing people that it's not just a bunch of gypsies. You know, this isn't a Gypsy lifestyle. This is a real professional traveling live event show. It's not a circus and it's not gypsies. One of the things I I always, you know, felt proud of and it it just, I think it came to my My father was a corporate attorney. I had to do a lot of convincing to tell him that this was a legitimate thing. It was tough. He was like, this is a job. Like people do this, you know, We had to go through that whole thing and you know, thank goodness he was he was accepting and he gave me, gave me a chance to prove it. I always got paid, man.

1:38:09 I always got paid. I the whole starving artist thing. I never bought into it. I worked with kids in college like, Oh my God, I'm a lighting guy. I'm going to be poor forever. I'm like, I'm at and I'm making money right now and I'm a sophomore in college. I'm. I'm working all weekend. I can buy anything I want, man. And and I I just, I I didn't want to ever buy into that. I'm in entertainment. I'm going to suffer from my art. Sure. Obviously everybody goes through some of that. You know my wife went through it living in New York, you know, and she was coming into the into the business. You know, she suffered. I mean it was it was hard living in New York and and trying to make her way. But this whole, you know this whole I have to starve from my art thing.

1:38:53 You don't. You really don't. And you know the other thing I think that that you mentioned Rob and sooner I try to do exactly those things as much as I can. I think sooner both of them, you know, but more than I do. But the second thing, I don't know if they do this or not. I try to give them the little bit of the experience that they've asked for. You know, show me this or show me around, answer some questions. I try to then put the the opportunity into their hand meaning I hand them my card and what I try to do is I try the last interaction to be for me to say look this is I'm making myself available to you.

1:39:36 And my point is I I hope it feels like it empowers them to say OK I may this may be for me maybe it's not maybe I you know it's not as cool as I thought it was but if I do something this person will respond me. My point is I and make the the young person give them the position of power of being in command of hey man, I'm here's my information and I will pick up. You know, if they take the time to call, I'll answer. But here's the challenge. I would probably so few do. Yeah, that's true. But I think two things. One, I think on any level I I hope they appreciate it. I hope they appreciate it because it's not just the gesture.

1:40:22 And I tell you, the ones that do, man, they're the ones that I mean over the years, the ones that have gotten back to me. All of them are working in. The top levels, No, that's the thing. I mean, you know, there's some real good old fashioned life skills that if you can somehow transfer and I try to do it with my son and sometimes I've been successful, sometimes I haven't. But you know follow up doing what you said you were going to do, first one there, last one to leave. You know some of those things have really carried my kid pretty far in the racing game. You know, like typically he is there helping them take out the tools in the morning and stuff because he's the first driver there and he's always still there when all the other drivers have left and he's helping close up the the trailer at night or whatever, right? Like he he spends, he spends those extra hours with the team because they work harder for him then you know he knows that. Like he knows if I'm going to, if I'm going to help them, they're going to help me and and it makes a real difference and it shows character, so.

1:41:25 Character is the one thing. That's tougher to teach when you're talking especially about, you know, and again, I'm not picking on anybody, the young, younger folks today, that the younger generation have so many advantages and and so many benefits that we didn't have, you know, the ability to reach thousands of people just by putting a post on on social media, you know, just everything is so much more available than it was when we were kids, you know, And you had that literally mail letters into Verilite, you know what I mean? Like you didn't like that anymore. Yeah, it's interesting. I I I feel in my uneducated view of it that it probably evens out in the sense that I think there's a lot more opportunity. But kind of like when you and I first got cable television, there are a whole lot more channels, but you know, 87 of them are crap that we weren't interested in. And so there's a, you know, a friend of mine that's a front of house sound engineer.

1:42:25 You know, I asked him, I said these new PA's, what's the story? You know, it's like, is it really better than the stuff that we started with, the analog and everything? He looked at me, so, you know, he said I think it's a lot easier to be average. He said I think it's a lot easier to be an average sounder. And and I thought about that and I thought, you know, that kind of makes sense, he said. You still, it's hard to be exceptional still like it's always been, but it's a whole lot easier for kind of somebody to walk up and make something sound pretty OK. Well, you know, another thing that plays into that is, is the technology on the lighting side. And I talk about this a lot on the podcast, but you know, I'm not a tech, I'm not a techie person.

1:43:10 There's somebody listening to this podcast right now laughing, but you know, I've never fixed anything. I've broken a lot of lights and but I was. I was at Ayrton in Paris a couple years ago and had one of their engineers showing me the inside of of a light and I was blown away. I hadn't seen the inside of a light since probably, I don't know, the Mac 2000 or something, you know, like quite a while back. And I was blown away by what that thing looked like on the inside and by how good it was. And my point is that we're kind of spoiled now by how good everything is.

1:43:52 Like everything. Is that good, right? Yeah, yeah it is. And and I tell the artists that we work for, I'm thrilled for you because it's a challenge for us. But man, the technology, the width and breadth of technology that's available to the artists that we work with is amazing and it's awesome. And and I I love that, you know, because I mean at the time, being a lighting designer now, you know even if you're doing community theater, you have technology available to you that is just insane. Like, we couldn't even fathom, right. You know, like, I mean I'll go into like junior high school, then they'll have moving lights and their rigs, you know, because kids are like 11 and 12.

1:44:38 The one side of it that, you know, again playing the old guy card, I was telling some of the other day, I said yeah, you know, and that's how awesome. I said. But I'm still pretty happy that when I did my first club shows, I had like 12 lights and two of them worked half the time. And you know what that forced me to do? And you probably hear this from a lot of designers and artists having nothing forces you to create more with less. And that's a that's an awesome lesson to learn early on because, you know, like, again, anybody can do something with 250 lights, but it's really easy to make chocolate for half the songs if you just, you know. You're so right.

1:45:19 You're so and you know, I I I think it was like Jim Yakubusky or or some front of house guy that I was talking to about this one time and I said you know how much better does like do these line array systems sound than the old W bin systems that we used to use in clubs. And he said a good sound guy can make either one of them sound great. But an average same same way of saying what you just said, you know but an average or a lousy sound guy is going to you know, the the sweet spot is much larger basically. It's just like when when Callaway and Ping came out with these these drivers that the heads were this big and they kept getting bigger, right. The sweet spot just got bigger. So you could, you could wiggle a little bit or miss a little bit in your swing and you could still knock the ball 250 yards down the center ish of the fairway and still make people go oh and ah, and even though it was kind of a shitty swing and and you know, if you had an older technology club, it would have been in the trees somewhere 100 yards up, right.

1:46:18 So So yeah, but I mean it really is cool that everything's so good now because you can kind of check that box. You don't have to worry about half your rig, you know, goofing up during the show or dropping out lights during the show or whatever, because most of the stuff really works well. And now that it's all LED, you don't have the heat issues that you used to have with with, you know, like Sharpie got a little bit warm on the inside, that's for sure. Still does. Yeah, it's, you know, but I I do think it is a yin and Yang, a give and take kind of thing. And and you know what I mean by that is like you think about the kid that goes to the show now and, you know, is filming the show or that, you know, we see it.

1:47:03 Audience members that they're they're kind of filming the show. They're not really experiencing the show in person. And you can kind of look at that and say, well, that's, you know, that's kind of lame. They they should be present. OK. But that person now has a memory of that experience that they can relive over and over. It's it's not good or bad compared to what we had, man. When I went and saw, you know, a Prince, I saw Prince on the Purple Rain tour. That's how old I am. There was no nothing, man. I it was me at the show, right? It was us at the show and you got your 90 minutes of Prince. Two hours and that was it. And you weren't going to like you were going to go home and check it on YouTube, video cameras, video.

1:47:44 Video cameras were this big so you couldn't bring one into the show, tucked into your pants or something. You know that wasn't happening. Exactly. But. And the concert video didn't come out for like a year later and it didn't look that great because it was, you know, it was way too dim for like the whole thing, right. I remember being so bummed out and it wasn't the artist that were doing it. It was just like they can't capture what Roy was doing on that tour. It just wasn't possible. And they had to upload, you know, they had to bring in so much fill and all the rest of it that the all the moments were kind of compromised. But so it's different, you know, So I I don't do better or worse. I don't know. You know, I had to. I lock those memories that show into my head, cuz that was the camera, That was it.

1:48:28 And I can still see that show. I can still see that but. I still appreciate that it exists because there's a lot of these shows that I'm just not curious enough to go stand among a crowd and watch the show. But I'm super grateful that somebody took out their iPhone and recorded the song that I really wanted to hear. And I can watch it on YouTube, right? And And it sounds pretty good. It looks half decent, you know, I mean, that's one of the things that blows me away is how good these, these cell phone videos sound. You know, like it's like, whoa, you know, it almost sounds. Like, it got Very good. Yeah. Yeah. And I I remember I had a moment I was out on again a million years ago. I was out on Depeche Mode and they had these incredible this was the the Violator tour and had a bunch of deals out there. And the the film on that they used film projectors they did not use.

1:49:18 It was film projectors. And I think it was that in Corbin that had these just images that were just mesmerizing. And I remember standing in front of house like just trying in vain to, you know, mentally video record these stunning images I was seeing. And I remember thinking to myself, I'm never going to see this stuff again. Like in, you know, it's just this is never going to this, this view because the concert video will come out and it'll be different and it won't look at. And I just remember thinking, this is it. I'll never see these clips again. I found somebody posted on YouTube had like the B roll from the tour. I did like, I don't even know where they would have gotten it, but they had all that imagery and God knows where they got it. If it was stolen or if it was illegal, I don't know. But it's on YouTube, you know, you type in Depeche Mode, violator tour and boom, the stuff comes up. It was such a pleasant memory for me, Bill. I thought I'm, I was never going to see those clips again. The film work on that show was just amazingly beautiful. It was, well, they've.

1:50:20 Always been so creative, you know? Yeah, and like sort of out there wanting to push, push the envelope a little bit, push it a bit further. What do you think of this whole concept of designers who are designing for iPhones, basically? So, you know, they're they're designing not only color and and intensity and but like shapes and stuff that will fit onto phone screens. Because they know that while there are 20,000 people in the arena for the show, there's going to be 20 million people online, you know, waiting to see a good copy of it. And so it's going to get a lot more eyeballs on YouTube than it is in in that audience.

1:51:05 But I mean, do you have? You talked to anybody about that kind of stuff. Oh, sure, sure. I mean, it comes up all the time. I I have to say, I I embrace it. I think it's exciting. And I try to remember that, you know, our forefathers, our colleagues from the past, they had to make the leak from black and white to color television. They had to make the leak from, you know, traditional over the air broadcast to HD telecast. Like all these things happen that change the art that these people create, that change the products that I'm trying to build for the artists. You know, to me, it kind of keeps us honest and keeps us fresh. I mean, the reality is that I get it from the artist viewpoint. There's 20,000 in the building, like you said. But that thing's going to live forever on YouTube or on somebody's camera phone, you know? And then how many millions of people is that? I had a designer that that said to me, the artist came to them and said give me 6 different moments during the show that somebody can shoot, just give me 6 moments. And it wasn't that they weren't being creative or weren't interested, but that was their focus as an artist for what they wanted the audience to receive from the show. And I thought, wow, that's really interesting. And they said, you know, do what you need to do for the show, give me, you know, your Moody looks and all the artsy stuff. Just give me 6 different moments and somebody can come to this show and and present them because. That's what it's all about, is those moments, yeah. Moments matter.

1:52:35 And again, then push me. You know, I Look, the Vera light was created by people that got tired of using Parkins, and and I benefited mightily from that. You know, Paki got tired of seeing the same old disco spinners in Italy and was like, you know what? I can do something different. I can, you know, use them like it drives us to the next level. I mean, you know, I don't even know what we're going to be using in 10 years. God only knows. I mean, the way things are going. Yeah, I love that, man. It keeps me excited about what we do. The challenge is, and now I'm gonna sound again like a negative blah. But the challenge is Claypakke's an innovator.

1:53:18 Always has been. Claypakke's always really been on the cutting edge of innovation. But to innovate just like in the drug business and and you know the the pharma, big pharma business is so much larger. So very large companies can sue anybody they want and generally be pretty successful in our industry. The plagiarism is disgusting and it and it's so blatant and in your face and like you'll see Claypackie or another company. I'm not just saying Claypackie, but Claypackie's always been an innovator. They've always done things sort of on the cutting edge and they've been able to charge for it usually, right? Like Clay Paki has always historically and I'm not saying they are today, but historically they were a little more money than some of the other guys, but it was because their products were so innovative and and good, you know. But now, like I've seen recently where Clay Paki comes out with something crazy, just really cool. And I I won't even name names or or fixture types cuz then people will know who I'm talking about on the on the plagiarizers. But you know you'll come out with something really cool and like literally the very next trade show, there's four copies of it.

1:54:30 And you know, to me, when you take away the incentive, you know, you take away a lot of the innovation and example, if if drug companies have no incentive to create a cure for cancer or any other disease out there and they're not going to make those trillions of dollars, they won't bother. Like, why would you spend the $100 million to innovate if you're not going to get back, you know, 20-30, fifty X on that money, you know. So yeah, you got any thoughts on that or you just don't want to sound? Like a bastard. Oh yeah. Oh no, no. Here's the thing with my history at Verilight, I got that lesson pretty early on.

1:55:16 You know, there were some lawsuits that people are all aware of. There were some acrimonious things that happened. You know, there's some hurt feelings that. And and what I learned pretty quickly is that's going to happen. That is going to happen no matter what happens in racing. It happens in microwaves. It happens in everything. You have two choices. You can fight it tooth and nail and lawyer up and go to court and do all those things and wring your hands and complain to your friends in bars, or you can just try to come up with the next thing that everybody's going to copy. And from my experience, it makes a whole lot more sense to just keep running and don't look back. And this brings to my mind the L word, which is laser, which is the thing that's been most exciting to me about what Clay Pack he's been doing for the last three years. I've I've been up to my neck and lasers for for three years now and it's fascinating.

1:56:16 It's frustrating. It's probably the hardest thing that I've ever pushed through in terms of products. I've spent more time talking to government agencies and dealing with alphabet agencies in the US than I ever thought I would. And yet it's incredibly rewarding. And of course now they'll be they'll be copying and they'll be you know other companies are are doing exciting things as well where on their. Own account though George, like with the with the variants. Where we at with that? Cause I've heard multiple versions of the story. Well, it it for us, I can only speak for us because and it's not by on design on our side, our variants only applies to our fixtures. But basically it's all done and dusted. It's very simple.

1:57:00 There's a 90 minute online class that we offer that's free. We train folks. They then take a test at the end of that. They received their variance at the end of it. This is like say a rental company. The rental company receives the variance. Once they have the variance, they can purchase the lights or they can cross rent them from somebody else that has them and they can do their shows. And there are some requirements, but they're pretty simple. It's all free and that's it. It's straightforward. The FAA comes into it. Does Clay Packe? Does Clay Packe pay a a lobbyist or anything though? Like, do you guys, Are you taking a more proactive approach on just changing the damn law? No.

1:57:40 And here's why. I mean, you mentioned politics earlier. I mean, look, you know, we're in a country now that's so divided. I don't think we could, you know, argue which side of the, the, the doors the senators are going to walk in when they open the doors to the Capitol. I mean, you know, we can't agree on anything. The cost of that is so prohibitive. I'm sure you've heard, you've probably heard some of the things Michael Strickland's had to say about trying to lobby Congress just to, you know, he's very passionate about something that I think is awesome, which is trying to protect our industry, you know, from another COVID situation. I don't think anybody can argue that that's a, that's a tremendously noble cause and altruistic of Michael to be part of. And he's having a hard time getting that pushed through, you know, and he's trying to do good things for people. So I I don't feel like so we don't, it's not a big business for us.

1:58:33 You know if the laser started interestingly for us through awesome with the automotive products which you by the way can get in Europe, you know in ABW you can get laser source fixtures right, lights, that's where it kind of came from. Now, if you start talking about automotive light bulbs now, you know, maybe we can afford some lobbyists. But entertainment? Lighting I've You know what about video? Projection. What about video projection? Like we've got you know, Wii Gear Source sells 25K laser projectors all day long, and they don't need variances. It's the it's my understanding of it and I I have to be careful because the engineers spend a lot of time educating themselves on this.

1:59:15 And then I come in, you know, with my notepad and write down a few highlights. But my understanding of it is the difference is really centered on the fact that it's not an automated device that can suddenly and randomly spin into the crowd if DMX is lost or if there's a technical problem. Now we have protections in our fixtures and I believe you know the other, the other manufacturers that are doing this in a reputable fashion also have those things that the FDA requires. But that's that's the key. To the silly thing is though you know the the suggestion or assumption is video projectors don't scan into the crowd but you can. I mean, I could take 25K laser projectors and aim them right at the crowd and do whatever the.

2:00:03 Hell I want with them and just leave them. Yeah and I don't know how that you know I don't know at least from our side it's it's based on the the amount of of of power that that comes out of the fixture over this. Obviously the diameter of the beam the radiance is 150 thousand that of a three Watt laser right. So that's where you start to see why they're nobody's losing nobody's having you know eye injuries from these kinds of fixtures. You still have to be mindful and follow the rules, but it's 150 thousandth the power of the kind of lasers that you and I grew up with. But I'm sure there's guys on the Italian side who are like, but Georgia, you know, the problem to me is you know, like a sharpie could probably damage someone's eyeballs every bit as much as a as a you know. I don't look at any of them.

2:00:55 I mean I I really don't. I, you know, I I don't look at any of them. I I try to be even have been my my whole career. I try to be mindful of that because I again, I had designers back in the day. They're like look if you want to do this for a long time make sure you don't look into these lights. You know start wearing sunglasses during focus during the day and you know don't be stupid. And thankfully those people were there. But what's interesting to me, and this is the the thing that I find challenging when I'm trying to stay upbeat about it, is the fixtures aren't regulated in this way in in almost any other part of the world. You go to places like Germany or even the UK where as I'm sure you know, there's a sign for everything. You know, mind this, mind that, right. And and they don't have the same regulations. And that's what's frustrating, you know, if I had something that I felt was truly a risk to people in the sense that, you know, we would think of as a serious risk, I would understand it.

2:01:51 But it's it's hard when you say guys Yeah well and I get it you know there they're they're doing their best they can to you know there's somebody and I always say there's somebody at the FDA that doesn't want to get into trouble for hurting anybody. They they want to keep people safe. That's that's a noble, you know, that's a noble desire. It's once a law is in place, getting the law removed is so frigging difficult for whatever reason, that law was put into place, you know, 30 years ago or something getting it taken out. You've got to have a very compelling reason and like you said and and I'll use a Strickland line, you know, this isn't a battleship pulling up to Congress saying we want this law dropped. This is, you know, a few canoes.

2:02:38 You know, there's only a couple of companies selling laser light fixtures right now and you know, you don't have a lot of support on it. You don't have a big industry behind you that's going, you know, we need this changed right now. But it is comical. It's nonsense and and well. And I respect it, you know, and I'll use this example on the big aviation buff. And like everybody else, you know, when I've been on a plane and a crew is timed out because of weather delays and, you know, I get to miss my flight because the crew timed out, I will grumble about it. But you know what? Somebody at the FAA or the NTSB is trying to keep me alive by making sure that a pilot doesn't fly 17 hours to get me from A to B. And I respect, you know, I respect it. Let's err on the side of safety.

2:03:24 No, but it's a it's typical of of our government though you know it's it's a good thought but there's no common sense applied to it. So you know the original thought was authentic and good and and and well meaning and all of that stuff. But there's just no common sense applied and and you know that's what's usually lacking in government is common sense coming up around the back and going OK let me check some boxes here. You know, is there common sense here? Like, does this still make sense to to have lasers in a video projector that are more powerful than the lasers in this light fixture and the light fixture is not allowed to be used? But the So anyways, whatever we're. Yeah, no, I get it. I get it.

2:04:04 And I guess what I'm proud of is, and you mentioned the Italians, what I'm really proud of is they basically the engineers just sort of said, OK, what do we have to do here? Let's do this right. And I'm really proud of the fact that they didn't ever try to put me in a position. They said let's find out what the rules are, let's play by the rules and, you know, let's adhere to what the FDA and the FA are telling us. And we've done that. And the nice thing is, again, like the delayed flight, I can get frustrated with it, but at least I know we're doing the best we can to adhere what the rules are. And and you know that where we are. The other thing is everybody, all the manufacturers that are trying to do this in the US, they're going to be under the same rules we are. So to be fair, it is a level playing field. The FAA is not going to tell any of the other companies anything different than they've told us.

2:04:59 Yeah, yeah, What is your what's your title and and your basic role today? So are you like designer relations for the most part? Or Business Development Manager is the official Ari title. I I actually, I'm an Ari employee that works for Clay Packie because you know Ari purchased the and that became final last March which has been awesome. Yeah, I was going to ask you, did that change anything or? Not just lip service, they they really are a tremendous group of people. Yeah, it was inspirational. It didn't, it was, you know, Ostrum was great and I truly mean this Ostrum was awesome.

2:05:40 Ari is is even more amazing in the sense, very supportive. It's a smart company and it's very connected to it's it's very connected to exactly what we're doing. I'm sorry, my apologies, my phone was ringing in on my computer. It's very connected to what we're doing in the sense that there are you know lighting and camera company. So the the businesses are truly closely aligned. Austin was a huge company that had a lighting division, right. Ari is a lighting and and camera company. That's all they do and. I think there's some. Tremendous. Well, yes. And there's some tremendous areas. What's cool to me and it really isn't marketing lip service. They do stuff that's totally different than what we do, but it's just as cool and revolutionary and we're the same way in the other direction.

2:06:30 We can learn a lot from each other. The potential for what is able to come out of our buildings with this alignment is pretty cool, I mean. Oh, I would think so. Yeah. What what would an automated sky panel be like, You know, I mean those kind of things I think are are really interesting now that's so that's. Well, and and also mixing, you know, some camera technology and with automated lighting technology and stuff like that, that's. Common. When the when the television strike and and or the writers strike or whatever happened, did did they just put shit tons of pressure on you to try and make up those sales that they've lost or or.

2:07:13 Well, I think I the cool thing is I don't think anybody and in this we went through this with Ashram as well because Ashram was awesome to us during the pandemic. Ashram my understanding was Ashram was very successful during the pandemic. So the little tiny corner of Ashram that was us you know benefited from that success. You know there was a lot more DIY stuff going on and and LE DS being sold so people could redo their homes. So those things are going well. I I I have to say I think we felt like let's try to be a team man let's see if we can help these folks and and you know let's all work together very quickly it felt like a team thing and you know live concerts were back so let's try to do what we can to to help out our RE colleagues I think they they you know I we just we all started rowing together but if you know man you'd go out to LA it was weird. I mean, I, you know, I don't consider myself ATV or film experienced person, but I have a lot of friends in that business and you talk to those people and it was tough, you know. So that's one of the things I love about our industry is I'm sure any industry is like this, but there is that communal sense.

2:08:29 There is you know, and you can be a salesperson, you can be an engineer. I've experienced this for the engineers. That whole show must go on. Attitude that is ingrained in us in our business is one of the things I think I'm most proud about. Working for this industry is man, I can be the show today and if it started to rain and you know somebody's tarp came down, I'd be right up there probably with you and the catering person and you know we'd be trying to keep those sound amps from getting wet because that's what you do at a gig man. I love that I, I right like that's that is that is why I got into this. You know, and and I'm sure people in other industries have that, but I don't think I've ever felt and strongly as I do in the entertainment industry.

2:09:20 Yeah. And I don't know how much you can you can talk about this, but you know I'm, I'm very friendly with the guys from Inner Circle, you know, really good guys and stuff. As I understand it's sort of like a sales and marketing partnership. It's not really a distribution partnership like the inventory is still with Clay Paki, right, for the most. Part. No, no. My understanding is it's fully, it's fully fleshed out. I mean there's a lot of gear down in Davie, FL and I haven't spoken much about all that because it's a pretty new relationship that started in June of last year. But you know, it's funny that you mentioned that just after my previous comment, man, that's a show must go on kind of place.

2:10:04 I mean Gary Mask, you know I mean you spend 30 seconds talking to Gary in his office and the show must go on. That's what Gary came from and that whole team, Craig and Filippo, you know really a group of people that I've I didn't again you know any these guys really and it's been very cool. It's been eye opening and very cool. But you know my understanding is it's fully fledged. I mean they it is, yeah they are. I have distributors, America. I I haven't actually talked to them. I think I think we're doing a podcast with them in a couple weeks or something.

2:10:47 I haven't talked to them and but I I someone told me and I can't even remember who or or what context or anything but that it was more of a a sales agreement like where they were basically the US sales agent not not the US distributor like service and and stock was still handled by Ari or. Clay. Oh, no, they do all that. No they do all of that. They do all that. I I, I I feel like I'm sort of the lone man and I am the only person in North America that's a Ari Klepaki employee. No, it's full they they they have a service team that's growing. Yeah absolutely no service and support all that comes from them based the Davie FL.

2:11:30 What's been interesting to me about it and I I really hadn't even thought about this until it came up. They have some different people that they reach. You know, Estera is a great example, wildly successful product. You talked about the Sharpie, you know, my God, Estera, you know, that's been awesome for them. And what's cool for me is there are people that they reach through Estera that I would never get in front of. And if I go out with some of their sales guys, their sales team, I'm getting to meet people that I never met because they're committed to Estera and they're highly potential Clay Packy customers.

2:12:11 And there's been this kind of cross pollination that's happened because of inner. Circle that's been that's always the benefit of having a distributor like that who has multiple product lines. I've heard it explained the opposite way, which is no, they're just gonna be distracted because they have. But I've always been on that distributor side and that always works like that. Like there's always doorways open from over here for this product over here or from over here for this product over here or whatever. Like, there's always that sort of, you know, hey, well, have you thought about adding some of these? You know, would you like fries with that cheeseburger or whatever, Right. So no, there's there's always that kind of.

2:12:53 Stuff the tie to what you said earlier, Your advice to your son. I will say this to you. I've met more people that I didn't know in the last nine months than I have probably in the last five years because of Ari and Inner Circle, all these people in television and film that I could never encountered because you know, again, we're all busy doing concert tours or this or that. And the same way with Inner Circle through their sales team. And again, Gary Nolan, Filippo, that group of people, what's awesome to me, it's a little scary, but it's awesome. They know all these people that I've never met. And like you said to your son, man, that's opportunity at your front door. Hell yeah, for for all of us.

2:13:39 You. Know well this is a small industry and there's some major players in it. And I mean you have to constantly be looking to widen your market as much as you can. And you know the customer that might be your biggest customer today, tomorrow may cut a deal with Acme and become you know the largest Acme rental house in the United States next month or whatever. I mean it's it's a weird business. You know you you just have to take really great care of people and you have to keep your eyes open for opportunity all the time And you know if you do the right things chances are you're going to be pretty successful. So you know, and you've done a lot of that. I if you I don't know how this works I I don't know if you've done multiple heads in this groups of geezers but I'll tell you a group of geezers that might be really interesting would be the guys from ICD and boy believe me I I believe Craig Craig and and and and Gary have been friends you know forever so you know I.

2:14:39 Yeah, I know. Maybe that will group together. I've known those guys for since at the beginning of their entrance into the industry and I've worked with a couple of them at different times as well. And yes, the doors always been open for them to come on the podcast. You know, I think that's probably going to happen in the next couple of months, I'm not sure, but it'll probably happen in the next couple of months. And yeah, I'd love to do it. I mean they've been very successful. I'm proud of what they've built. They've they've, they've done the right things and worked really hard. And again, that usually pays off. It's paid off for you. It for most of my career it's paid off for me. It's certainly paid off for those guys. And that's a great thing.

2:15:25 I was actually going to ask you sort of my final question was going to be who would you like to see me get on gazes of gear, who we haven't yet. And you know, I love bringing on designers. I love bringing on front of house engineers, production managers. Any thoughts? Give me a name. Yeah, there's a million. I certainly I should correct. Null actually Null and Gary I believe have been friends since childhood and you know, if you've got like with that group, if you could get the ICD group and as many of the heads that would fit in, you know, Philippe, I mean, I think it'd be a really interesting I don't know, you might not get a word in edgewise, but I think it'd be really fascinating to get that it has been for. Me.

2:16:14 I can shut that. Yeah, you're in control of the content. Have you had Bob Barnhart on? Forgive me, I. Don't. Have you had Bob Barnhart? I think I've had him twice. Yeah, I think I've had. I have. Learned so much from Bob. That's amazing because he's just got a great. Personality. He's fun to talk to, you know? And I'm Dick. And I tell you, man, so those are kind of the, the core names of people that are are interesting. You know, Mark Brickman again is somebody who, I mean I've been at some dinners with Mark Rippon and there have been some very, very famous people at the table and Mark is still everybody at the table would agree that Mark is still the most interesting person. He's super interesting.

2:17:01 He is. And very knowledgeable and and very creative. And you know, I love that guy. I really, really like Mark Brickman a lot. You know, fortunately for me, like this is probably the the worst paying but coolest thing that I've ever done in my career. Because you're #215. I've had 214 other podcasts where I've gotten to talk to one or more people, most of whom I've invited on the podcast because I think they're really interesting and I think I'd really love to learn more about them and have a conversation with them, Not because they're paying me to be on the podcast or paying me to promote their business or or their career or whatever. So I love doing this.

2:17:43 Like, I love having these conversations and bringing stories out of people. It's super. Fun. I can see why. Yeah, to tie it up. I to tie it up. I mean, to put a period on it, I think it really goes back to, you know, the greatest thing about our industry. And it's not just the rock stars, It's certainly how it starts. You know, you think, oh, I'd, I'd love to be in the same room with, you know, the members of Fleetwood Mac. And that's all cool. But, and I think you'd agree with this, the opportunities to be in the same room, to be at the same table with some of the amazing people that you and I have met, especially the other 214 guests, you just have to pinch yourself.

2:18:24 You're like, I can't believe that I'm getting to hear, you know, from this designer or this artist or, you know, we're having a dinner or a drink and they're sharing part of their history. Man, I was a kid from Cleveland, you know, And just to be in the room with people like yourself, you know any of these folks, man, that was beyond a career. So you know the Doc McGee podcast that I did, I had, I had just seen the Dirt and the Mötley Crüe movie. And so I asked Doc McGee, I said what was the real reason that Mötley Crüe fired you? And and he told me and you know, it had nothing to do with what was on the movie.

2:19:12 Like he started basically telling me the parts of the movie that were bullshit and that were made-up and the parts that were really well done and we're really good. And you know, like, I don't know if you remember the Did you see that movie, The Dirt? Yeah, you know, I'm fascinated by that band. Some of that is pretty tough to watch. I don't think I've made it all the way through, yeah. It's actually a fun movie just from a standpoint of just, you know, the the crazy debauchery that that happened. And you know, there's one scene in it though, where Doc McGee, their manager, is standing there at a motel and he's standing at the railing on the balcony of this motel and he's looking down and it's complete debauchery.

2:20:02 Like somebody just took a dump in the pool and there's just bad things happening all over the place and. He looks at the camera and he goes, I've managed Bon Jovi and Skid Row and he's listing all these bands, but nothing, nothing prepared me for this, you know? And he's Yeah, he's right, yeah. It's it's. And you know it. Honestly, again, kind of like I was saying about Jules Belkin, you know, Doc McGee and Doug Thayerman, those guys were legends. I mean I knew those names early on, before I'd even done any big shows because he was like he said he was managing.

2:20:42 I think Scorpion Fair was doing Scorpion. I mean they had everybody in a window there. You know they were probably, you know they were probably responsible for half the tickets that were being sold in America on any given night. And what's fascinating, I need, I'll go back, I need to watch your your conversation with a lot of these folks. But I want to see that one because man, just keeping your hand on the tiller during all that, you know, somebody somebody had to carry the brain and and get everybody through it. And and you know, honestly I can't obviously speak to any of the details but the fact that those guys are all still here, that's unreal, you know, means not.

2:21:22 I mean, we've. Got a bunch. Of responsible for a lot of that. 20 year old, 22 year old rock stars who suddenly have a shit ton of money and a license to do whatever the hell they want, including throwing furniture out the windows, ordering cocaine from room service. You know, bringing as many girls into the room as they can fit in the room and you know, just crazy, crazy stuff. Whatever they can invent, they can have, right? And you know, trying to be the, the circus ringleader of that circus is I can't even imagine being in that position and babysitting, you know, rock stars like that. It's it's an incredible talent that I guess is reserved for the few not.

2:22:06 Me well, and I tell students, you know, and I'm sure you you've heard this before you a lot more of this job is about things that have nothing to do with lighting than you would think. You know, and I'm sure your designers will always tell you that it's it's it's, you know, working with the artist, it's placating the artist. It's it's helping the artist trust you, you know, all these things that they don't really teach you in theater, lighting, school and it's it's huge, you know? You know what, going back to our racing shared passion, so you know it's no different. Like drivers who think that all they have to do is drive the car and that's going to carry them through their career. It it's everything else that carries you, you know, certainly when you get to the Formula One level, if you drive well enough, you can blow off interviews, you can blow off some of the media things that you're supposed to do or the hospitality things or whatever.

2:23:01 Like if you're Max Verstappen you can get away with a lot. But getting there, it's all about like and and one last story. So my son actually it was probably 11 years ago this week or last week my son was in a race at Daytona CART race and it's it's international cart week they call it and it was his first mega mega win like he he basically swept the entire weekend qualified pole. Congratulations. Won all the races both days complete sweep and but that weekend one of the people he ran into was Allmendinger and so Allmendinger did a little Q&A session for some of these young drivers and one of the kids who was older than my son, my son was eight and one of the guys was like probably 14 or 15 he might have even been 17 because he was talking about college. He said you know look I'm I'm thinking about going to college and I want, you know, I I'm still going to continue my driving career.

2:24:08 What kind of courses should I take that will help me in my driving career And everybody was myself included, expecting you know engineering and and you know physics or or you know stuff like that. Right. But he said marketing and PR and and everyone went, huh. And he said, you know 20% of your time is going to be spent driving the car. The other 80% of your time is going to be spent either trying to find money for sponsorship trying to find a ride in one of the teams. You know, trying to impress someone so that you get an opportunity. Marketing and PR you're constantly selling. Yourself and AJ is a great example of that. I mean, he's somebody that's had to deal with both the good and the bad of that, in my opinion, he's risen mightily to the occasion.

2:25:00 And as you know, the other thing that helps AJ is he's one and everything he's ever gotten into. Yeah, I mean the guy was, he was a rock star in those CART cars. And man, those things were for real and different from the CART series. No, I'm not. I'm talking about. Yeah those were fire breathing vehicles. What's your when you talk racing for the next 10 hours I'm sure What's your series? You know what my response to that question is? Is 1. My wife will tell you I'd watch people race lawn mowers if they let me. But anybody that's willing to die for my entertainment, I I respect their series and I'll go watch it. I really truly enjoy all of them.

2:25:42 My heart is probably IndyCar. I I'm, I'm an Indy 500, you know, honorary Hoosier kind of guy. I love IndyCar. And I got to say right now, I think the racing there is probably the most interesting, a lot of passing. You know you can argue that the cars at the spec series and all that, OK, that's fine. I've been more interested by Indy races I've seen over the last. You know, year or so? When I have a lot of F1. And so we raced for two seasons in what's called the Road to Indy, which is basically the junior levels going up to Indy. And so we've got a bunch of friends in Indy and starting with Kyle Kirkwood, who who, you know is just up the street from us, and Kyle's dad, Cam, and I are very good friends. We grew up in karting.

2:26:30 The very first year that my son started karting, Kyle was I think about four or five years older than my son and we showed up at the Palm Beach cart track and I was talking to his dad just about the ropes. You know cuz Kyle was that much further ahead and and Kyle started doing a little coaching with my son and stuff and we've been friends with that family ever since. But also De Francesco who's Canadian family. I know the the whole family really well. My son raced with with Dylan's brother Lockland de Francesco for a long time. Latifi, the younger Latifi, my my son raced with for a long time, Kiffin Simpson, who's starting this year in IndyCar.

2:27:17 He did Indy Lights last year or NXT I guess it was called, but he's starting in IndyCar this year. So yeah, I mean, these are all friends of ours that we kind of grew up in the system with. So yeah, I I mean, I believe me, I could talk to you about it for hours. I the NASCAR Truck Series is interesting to me as well because it's it's all the best things I remember about old school NASCAR. You got the young kids trying to come up. You got the old, you know, cadre guys, mix of money, mix of teens, mix of you know, so it's it's a it's a crazy soup of wackiness. I don't. Like, but yeah, I don't like NASCAR. I'm not into the circle track stuff and I I don't like, I don't like the ovals in IndyCar, you know? And again.

2:27:58 It's interesting. I get it. Give. Yourself a 19 year old son. Give yourself a 19 year old son and tell me you'd be excited about watching him drive around in circles at 240 miles an hour or whatever. No, I get. It yeah, that scares the shit out of it. Yeah, I totally get it. And you know, there were, I mean there were a lot of drivers that you know, a lot of F1 guys that they've talked about coming to IndyCar and and you know, if you have made that jump and they're like, you know what, not going to do the ovals. And I I don't blame them. That place scares me. I got to tell you, Texas, probably even more so than Indy, man, Texas just makes me uncomfortable and it's my home track, you know, and you see Indy cars there. I mean, God, the cart guys at one time I think they were turning 234 they they canceled the car race there and I'm. Hoping it was the one that scared the shit out of me. Like, what's the Canadian driver? You know when he crashed there a few years back and was almost fully paralyzed and stuff?

2:28:55 Yeah. Terrible, terrible story. And you know, I mean, drivers have lost their lives there. No, Yeah, I I hate it. And and that's the thing. And I'm sure you, more than anybody with a family member, you know, man, I don't want to go see anybody get hurt, you know, And I know it's a dangerous sport and there's inherent risks, and I can handle that. But I don't want to go to a track where, like, Poconos, man, I didn't really even want to watch anymore, you know, because it seemed like every time they went there, you know, something awful happened. And they were gnarly. Justin Wilson got killed there. Justin. Justin Wilson was killed there. And Canadians are like God. I'm trying to remember the guy's name.

2:29:36 I know and I know the whole family because his brother owns a karting team that we've done business with forever and I can't even. Remember their name right now? But Welland, Welland is another one that that like I remember because we went to a Kart race at at Ocala and we just got home in time to watch that race in Vegas where Dan Weldon Weldon, Dan Weldon died. And you know, I mean terrible, but my son's really good friends with his son Sebastian. How's his son doing? Is is because his son has had some success, right? Yeah, I mean, again, the name certainly helps. You know, he's had a lot of help along the way, as he should. His dad was a superstar and but he's he's in, I think USF juniors next year or he's in sort of that program moving up the the ramp Right now he's going to end up in IndyCar like his dad.

2:30:32 I think he's sponsored either by Penske or one of the big ones. It's either Penske or Andretti, who he drives for. And you know, how did it help? That stuff's all beneficial, I'll tell you. I mean, the only reason my son's not in in IndyCar or F2 or whatever is because his dad's not a billionaire. You know, that's that's just all there is to it. It's it's so. So hard to make. It through that right now without money. That's the one thing that you know, unlike rock'n'roll or rock'n'roll lighting or any of these things, you can still, you know, you can still make it in our industry with no money and a lot of talent.

2:31:14 And I I that was a realization why I really started falling racing closely, man. I mean, there are very few Lewis Hamilton's out there and I don't know what Hamilton's backing was. I don't think McLaren, I don't think Lewis, no, no, you know, But at like 10 years old, he was able to, yeah, he was able to make that connection. And you know, you hear about the pay drivers and some of that stuff and man, I part of the field in IndyCar now. That's a large part of the field in IndyCar. Now, I mean there's, you know, I know several drivers and some have come out of it, you know, like malukas. We raced in carts for years. I know his dad, Henry, really well. Henry put up the money, created HMDH, yeah, HMD. And you know, the guy who runs HMD, Mike Marini, has been friends of mine for years and years. He's a Canadian guy.

2:32:06 But you know, he put up a lot of money for the first couple of years and and then David got signed by, I think it's Andretti this year that he's going to be racing for. And now he's a paid driver. So he escaped sort of that paying driver and got into paid driver mode and it took him two years. But two years is like $10 million. You know, it's it's not a little bit of money. We're talking 8 to $10 million to do 2 years in IndyCar. So you know. It's it's like IndyCar is considered a cheap series. I mean, it's relatively. Stroll paid 80 million for his first season and then I think another 80 million for his second season and then they bought the team.

2:32:50 Yeah. And I have to say, to be fair, I think he's held his own well enough considering those you hear the term pay driver. And it's like, yeah, but you know, there's some talent there as well. I mean, these aren't people that are just, you know, off. He did. Well, in F2, he did well in F2, you know. Do I think he's, he's the greatest driver on the track? No. But he did well in F2. He he deserved an opportunity. There's a lot of better drivers, including there's some IndyCar drivers that that Colton Herta could do really well. Kyle Kirkwood could do really well in in Formula One, you know. There are IndyCar drivers who, I think given the same sort of support that those guys get in F1, they do really well. But anyways, we gotta go.

2:33:38 Yeah, sorry, I'm sorry and and I don't know, it's. My fault, I got you going. If you will edit, if you will edit the at some point, man, I'd love to talk more to you about racing. I mean the thing absolutely we can do it offline. I'd be really interested in finding out kind of where your son is, cuz I I followed peripherally and I've seen you know some of the pictures and things. I'd be very interested to know kind of like what his pathway is. And I know people sometimes if they move on to manufacture testing and things like that or driving schools and like I just I would be interested to know a call kind of we'll set up a call. Outside this and I'll chat. I'll chat to you for ages about it. Yeah, I I really would be. It's it's one of my, it's a huge passion for me, so I'd love to know more.

2:34:22 Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed it. Hopefully you got 5 or 10 minutes worth of stuff you can use. No, it's going to be whatever it is, 2 hours or something. 2 1/2 hours, I think. Oh my gosh. Yeah. All right, my friend. Have a good one. Really enjoyed it. Thank you very much. Thanks to your producer as well. Appreciate it, Sarah. Yeah. All right. See. You. Cheers. Bye.