#226 - Steven Creech Anderson

0:01 Hello and thanks for coming today to Geezers of Gear Episode #226. Today's podcast is brought to you by Main Light. Main Light is a national dry hire rental provider specializing in supplying the latest lighting and stage equipment technology. Their extensive rental inventory includes moving lights, trust solutions, control consoles, LE DS and an array of weather resistant IP65 rated fixtures. Perfect for outdoor venues. Whether for theater productions, outdoor stadium events or TV and film broadcast, Main Light is the partner you trust with the gear you want committed to quality and reliability.

0:41 Main Light also provides A robust selection of used options to their clients. Each item is meticulously maintained, owned by Main Light and comes with a 60 day warranty providing you with confidence in your purchase. Strategically located across the US, their four locations include tri-state in Teterboro East in Wilmington, DE South in Nashville and West in Las Vegas. They combine the vast resources of a national company with the attentive personal service of a local provider. Discover how Main Light can equip your next event by visiting Main light.com today and get a direct quote through their comprehensive online ordering platform. 2 Days podcast is also brought to you by Elation. Professional Elation is excited to offer the new Proteus Hybrid Max, the highly anticipated successor to the company's pioneering Proteus Hybrid, the moving head that arguably started the revolution in IP rated lighting faster, brighter and with a tougher IP66 rating.

1:52 The Proteus Hybrid Max has already been featured on some premier events like the New Year's Eve Light Show on Seattle's Space Needle and Enchanted Forest of Light at oh Boy. Eric just told me how to pronounce this yesterday. The Sanso Gardens in Southern California. Sorry. Please check out the Proteus Hybrid Max today at elationlighting.com. The.

2:52 So I always like to come on here and do an intro that's all kinds of ingenious, brilliant things to say, which usually I don't say anything very ingenious or brilliant, but I got nothing today. I have no ideas of stuff to talk about. So I'm just going to go ahead and read the bio for today's guest who is a person on who I like a whole lot and probably all of you know know of have heard of read his posts on Facebook and so Steven Creech Anderson has been in the industry for over 40 years. Steven started as a stagehand in Dallas and his first gig was with Mötley Crüe in 1985. His career kept on getting better and better, working with incredible artists such as Metallica, Scorpions, Rush, Elton John, Bob Seger and Aerosmith to name just a few with premier global production company. For 21 years now Steven has applied a hands on approach to each lighting project he has been involved with. Customer service is the most important aspect of our industry and with his passion he has been able to succeed when he's not under the lights and visiting clients. Creech can be found in the ocean following his other passions, scuba diving and also photography, photographing sharks and other marine life in particular. I've had the pleasure to have Steven on the show back in October of 2019, so I am absolutely looking forward to today's chat.

4:20 Yeah, I've got two now. 2 grandkids. Yeah, by the by, you know, So when I got remarried, I married a woman who had four kids already and one of them was all, not all. The oldest one has two, two kids, so. And they're just two and four, so they call me Grandpa Creech. I've been calling you that for years, by the way. We're recording now. That's cool. We're recording. It's a party. Even Sarah's on. Jeez, Sarah's never on the recording. I I got to tell you, Marcel, I lucked out when I when I got remarried, I met the right woman.

5:08 Uh oh, Nurse did that? Yeah. And then three. Hang on a SEC. We got an Internet problem. Kick ass kids and. OK, Now we're really recording. We had a test. We had a test recording actually it, you know, this happens like this is, this is the challenge of having a remote podcast. So yesterday or actually this morning, I think it launched. But Eric Wade, I had Eric Wade on and we did 1/2 hour of talking and I look at the screen and it says paused.

5:50 It's flashing in red. Paused. And I'm 30 minutes in and I'm like no. And I have no idea how it happened because it started and then it paused itself somehow. Maybe I hit a space bar or something by accident. I have no idea. But so I mean we finished it and and I told him and and I'm like it's a little shorter than I thought it was going to be and we have that, remember that. Great talk we had, it's. Gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's happened a few times. The the Eric Loader one is the classic one when he recorded on his 50th birthday and it was the morning of his 50th birthday and he was getting ready to go play golf and we recorded a podcast cuz he said you're not a geezer till you're 50. And so we record this amazing like 90 minute talk or whatever maybe even 2 hours.

6:41 And I go, Eric, I got a problem and he goes, what? And I said I forgot to hit record. So it was it was a 2 hour discussion that just went to. So you know how nice Eric is. Eric goes, Oh well let me go take a leak and grab another coffee and we'll just do it again. I'm like, are you kidding me? On your 50th birthday holding up your tea time and you're just going to record it again. And he goes, Yeah, why not? So that's that's how he is. Yeah, he's a nice guy. He's he's probably the the opposite of me. He never gets riled up. He never gets excited. He doesn't get anxious like me and you. I guess you're you're probably me time 7 so. As I've gotten older, I've just, you know, I I I just slowed down. My dad used to say the hurrier I get, the more behind I fall. He was fucking right.

7:31 Yeah, that's true. That's true. My wife gets mad at me in the air airport when I get on the escalator thing. She's like speed walking down on the right on the left hand side. I'm leaning on the goddamn rail. He's going. She gets to the very end. She's like, she's got hands around. I'm like I'm I'm not moving fast. I'm with. I'm with her. Honestly, I can't slow myself down yet. Maybe I just need to get a little older still and and I'll slow it down I'll I'll just. Kind of make sure my layovers have plenty. That's hilarious. Yeah. No, I'm. I'm always in a hurry and I think I've started changing a little bit, You know, I think I've, I've taken a little more time and you know, breathe a little more and stuff.

8:13 But you know, it's just hard. I mean I'm a type. I'm go, go, go, go, go. You know, I'm always saying yes. Everyone says, hey, does anybody have time to take care of this one thing we need to get done? Yeah, I'll do it. I'll no problem, I'll do it, you know. And my girlfriend just looks at me, cuz I was actually, it was Sarah, our producer. I was talking to her about something. We need to record a whole bunch of these short YouTube videos. And I said no problem, I'll just take a couple hours and do it on the weekend. And she's looking at me like you're an idiot. You know, you just keep stacking up. Your days, whether it's Sunday or Tuesday don't matter. You're just stacking it, stacking it up, stacking it up. So you know, I got the background from your Pantera show that I didn't see the show because my my buddy Creech didn't tell me it was coming. But I guess I kind of need to actually pay attention to what's coming.

9:03 But now you open down here in Fort Lauderdale, that's. A good one. We just picked that up this year and they changed management. So now it's with Q Prime and we to a lot of lot of the Q prime acts. Yeah, yeah. They were always with, Weren't they Always with, with Terry Kane and Gemini. Yeah, which is you know, I mean I know Jason, I've known Terry for years. I've known Jason for years and I felt kind of it was a weird feeling for me. But then again business is business. Yeah. And you have to, you have to be able to, as in everything else in in this business, you have to find, you get to a point where you can separate your personal life. Yeah, from work.

9:52 So. It's hard to do. It's hard to do, you know, like I was always in the moving light business and and I had really good friends that worked at at competitors and even if you were spotted having a beer at a bar at at LDI or something, people freaked out, you know. And so yeah, it's hard to have friends who are competitors. I mean, you know, we all do, but it's it's not easy. To maintain a. Resolution. It's great until you take one of their shows or they take one of yours. You know he. Probably won't talk to me ever again, but yeah, Brian Hartley and Sonny Sutter Field did a great job with it. Chris Adamson, a friend of mine from way back, is a production manager. Yeah, and wow, it's a it's AI.

10:42 Guess I'm old. The music. They sound fucking kick ass. Yeah, the band does. The show looks great. Lamb of God is just loud. Yeah, they really are. They did a show called like Gargantuan or something a few years back, and Dream Theater was on it. And I like Dream Theater. So I went to see Dream Theater and I saw Lamb of God, and I was like, what the hell is this? There's a lot of energy there. Yeah. Yeah. Bless. Bless their hearts. Yeah. Well, you know, and OK, so you, you got the show from Gemini. But The thing is they probably never would have changed lighting companies if they didn't change management and you're doing Q Prime, a lot of Q Prime stuff. So they called you up and said, hey Creech, we need you to take care of this.

11:31 What are you going to do, say no, I like the guys at Gemini, you can't do that. Yeah, you. Can't do that. No, no. So it it came our way and we their big thing with these these floor towers across the back of the amp line and we ended up know Jim and I had some stuff custom made for that. Well we kind of did the same thing, kind of duplicated but not so much a little different. So actually ours now, which will now go into our rental inventory when this tour is over, crank 24 feet high. Oh, wow. And there's only went like 8 feet or sorry, 13 feet high.

12:12 So we've added the whole another piece of equipment, which isn't it pretty cool? Well, God knows as as the way this industry's been going, Pantera could be doing stadiums next year and you could use them again. I mean, everybody does stadiums now. Stadiums are the new theater. Yeah, that's right. It's, it's the new shed. Stadiums are the new shed. Yeah, it's crazy. But we we're, we're, we got a lot going on here, you know, I mean, we just shut Stapleton out and oh. That's a good one. Disturbed. We got disturbed out. They're actually here in town this weekend and then what else we get fixing to have, you know, Lynyrd Skynyrd's going out, Luke Combs sticks and and Foreigner Foreigner on their own.

12:58 We we're getting ready to ship out next week. And this is supposedly their final tour now, right? Yeah, they. Well, that's what they all say. Right, everyone, you got to say, suppose, I mean foreigners already a cover band. So for foreigners already a cover band. Like there's no original members in it. So who says they're going to retire? Somebody else will scrape off the name, dust it off and kick out a new band. Yeah. I have stain go. They're going out as well in April. So yeah, we've got some good, some killer stuff going on, right? But. You know Alec is getting ready to crank up Chili Peppers or Chili Peppers I think rolled out the other day. So yeah, some days I I work from I I spend a lot of time at home.

13:42 Good for. You It's easy to get stuff done, so it's coming up on that time, Marcel, for me to head down to Fort Lauderdale for the Sharks, but. There you go. I want to talk about that maybe. Sometime in April. Going over, that's cool. We'll have to. I want to talk about that because that's that's all really interesting, that stuff you do. But going back to that, so am I wrong? Or as the touring season moved earlier, because like I remember when not much happened in January, February and spring stuff started going out in March or April, but now all of a sudden, like everything's going out in January or February.

14:23 Well, it's weird. I know that the Pantera thing was there are makeup shows that were booked. OK. By the old management. So they had to go out and do those, yeah, Disturbed. I'm not sure, I'm not really sure, but I know the Pantera from here goes down to Australia. So and then they start back up with Metallica. So yeah, maybe. I mean, country stuff always does usually start kicking in around January, February. Like we have Lee Brice out and Riley Green, those, those those guys usually start about now. Yeah, right.

15:06 But the other stuff, yeah, it's. Yeah. I think everybody saw they made a lot of money. A lot of people made a lot of money last year. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's still the heat is on. And it, yeah, it seems to keep growing. And and, you know, I keep referencing, I don't know if you've seen it or not, but Rapinoe from from Live Nation put out an article about the fact that that he said artists, a lot of these artists now have 10 or 15 or 20 million followers on social media. And he said, he said everyone's wondering if there's still growth in our industry. He said my job is easy. All I have to do is sell tickets to like 5% of their followers. Yeah, you know, which is true.

15:54 I mean, 'cause there's so damn many of them. So if if you only have to sell tickets to 5% of their rabid followers on social media. Pretty good and easy work, yeah? So I never looked at it like that, but. Jelly Roll. Yeah. He has got a huge following on YouTube and all over social media for that matter and along with his wife, his wife has her own meet and greet. Get out of here. I swear it is. I mean, it is it. They're a great camp. Yeah, that's just and that's that's so. Wild out there. That's wild. Well, wasn't.

16:35 Wasn't Morgan Wallen like that too? Like didn't Wasn't he an online Got famous online 1st and then. There's a few of them that have been, you know, that are that same way. So I don't know. I mean, I always say that this telephone, this cell phone right here is the root of all evil. All of our problems came on. Yeah. When they came up with this crazy thing. But not have it. I know a lot of ex husbands who wish that there was no such thing as a cell phone. You know, how many people do you know who got caught? You know, either on Facebook or on something on their texting or something? You know, the damned before cell phones, it was like just make sure you had no notes in your pockets.

17:18 You know, when you walk back in the house. Like, no phone numbers. It sketched on a napkin or something, right? But yeah, exactly. Cell phones, cell phones. Changed it all. We were doomed right from the beginning with cell phones, that's for sure. Yeah, but I was. Talking with some guys the other day and we were talking about how in the old days, you know, you you get back on the bus at night or get on the bus in the morning and and you talk about all the chicks you banged and all that stuff, you know, and all crazy shit. Yeah. Now we get on. Now they get on the bus and they talk about, yeah, I got to go get a knee replacement.

17:58 Yeah, I got a bad hip or which guy? You remember that guy? Oh yeah, he died. Yeah, which which vitamins you're taking with your warm milk at night, you know? That's Bus pod mode. Yeah, I know. It's funny, isn't it? 2024. Things have changed a wee bit. Well, you know The funny thing? Like I was talking to someone about this the other day on one of our podcasts that, you know, honestly, people like you and Wiseman and Robert Roth and, you know, Kerbishly and like the, you know, Nick Jackson, the real originals of of sort of the account execs in this industry and stuff, they don't make you guys anymore.

18:41 So where's that gonna come from? You know, like where? Where are all the cool people going to come from, 'cause I don't see a lot of them coming up. Mentoring. Yeah, you know, yeah. I I see a lot of the news. It's crazy. But I see a lot of these new, the new kids coming up. Yeah. You know instead of instead of talking to us and and hearing what we have and what we've done and where we've been and where we think we're going, they're telling us how, how to do it. And and that's what I don't know if they've been taught that at Belmont or wherever they're going music schools, but you don't.

19:23 You ain't got it until you've done it all, you know. And unfortunately that's not the way that we're rolling. I've got a mentoring for a while and they're, they're really good guys and and hopefully those guys are going to be some of those that move into the slots. We're not, you know? Yeah. Let's hope so. I'm not going anywhere for a while, I'll tell you that, right? Now Well, and Roth just restarted his career, now with four Wall, I was like. Dude, 12 lives. Yeah, you're turning 70 this year. What the hell are you doing? Starting out again. And he goes, oh man, I ain't stopping. No, you're still having a good time, you know. Exactly why stop?

20:05 We we figured out a way to you know I still have a good time and there's nothing better than working on a project from from the get go and to you get to the see the end product right there. You know the final product. You know it's like I I was we had Bette Midler back in I think it was 2006 and I was out at rehearsals and I'm seeing this woman walking back and forth. You know she's got a big bag she's carrying. She looked like, she looked like she was homeless and everybody's got Bette. Bette Midler. I go what? No way. All right. So she could. I I tried to stay away from the rehearsal stay out of the way.

20:45 Right. Wouldn't really paying attention. So I ended up going to the opening night and and and Chicago. It's the what What's the name of the fucking the United Center I guess is where. Yeah. And they had. She can't. It's so her shows kick ass. Peter Morris fucking smoked it. I mean, great job. She comes around the outside of a curtain, proscenium curtain on a a carousel horse. I mean, all dolled up with a fucking sailor hat on. It was, it was awesome. And I was like, holy fuck, that's the bag lady. That's hilarious.

21:27 That is hilarious. That's the bag lady. Oh my God. That's so funny. That's so funny. That's like I was on AI mean. This is not at all related, but I'll tell you anyways. I was on a flight with with my son when he was, I don't know, five years old or something. Right, Right. We got upgraded to 1st class. We were probably going up to the house in Canada or something. And so we're sitting in what he called the big seats. Dad, are we in the big seats today? And so the plane is loading and this large African American woman is walking on the plane, if that's correct, way to say it. Sorry, but she's she's walking on the plane.

22:09 And and Jeremy, Jeremy, my son starts going, dad, dad, Dad. And I'm like, oh God, what's he going to say? Dad, Dad, Dad. And I go, what? Jeremy? And he goes, that's the lady from the pancake syrup and the whole first class. And the lady just cracked up. They lost it. Right. So yeah, that could have gone a bad direction. Sorry. You're going to have to leave the plane with your with your bigot, son. You're going to have to leave the plane. Yeah, but no. Everyone, everyone took it for the for the funny moment that it was. Well you know, like 5 year old kids. All they know is whatever the truth is, right? Like they don't know why yet.

22:54 Thank God. Maybe that's when we should elect them to. Like sponges, right? We should elect 5 year olds to run the country. They couldn't do much. Work. I think we might have that. Yeah, yeah. Is he already up to five? Yeah, yeah, we'll get there. We'll get into some politics here today. Yeah. Me, me and Creech are going to venture into some politics. We'll have some fun. I. Love it. Yeah. So the year is looking huge for you I guess, right? Yeah, yeah, we're we're looking really good. We had a stellar year last year and and I think it we're on track to have the same thing, if not better this year. That's incredible. Good for you. Man, yeah, good for you. Yeah, we're happy. We're happy.

23:35 We added on to part of our building so we got more room now and and we have a rehearsal room here, got lots of power and you know we've done quite a quite a few touring, rehearsals and programming here so. How big can you how how big can you go in rehearsals? Well, we've had, let's see, we had sticks do their whole thing here. We had Skinner do their whole show here. Oh wow. Those. Are. Decent sized shows. Yeah, 3 Doors Down. And of course, during COVID. Yeah. During the locked, every shutdown we had, we turned our rehearsal room into a sound stage and that helped pull one. It did a couple things.

24:19 It gave a few guys a job so that they had work, you know, and they had money coming in, then had families and and it kept it just kept the wheels rolling, kept us all in tune, but we turned it into a sound station like we had the iheart Music festival. Yeah. So they came in and filmed, we put ATV truck on the dock, had an in house lighting big lighting system, you know we had the all the inventory was in. Right. Yeah, nothing out. And then we we joined up with a video company and we joined up with a with sound image. I think it's who it was in in here and it was awesome, you know, we did quite a quite a bit there, so yeah.

25:02 Good, that's cool. I mean I one of the things about our industry is is you know we're we're an innovative industry and it was cool to see some of the, you know, the so-called pivots that companies did or basically just ways to stay alive during you know, during that Friggin disaster. Of COVID. It's crazy. Yeah, I hope that never happens again. I hate to even talk about it, 'cause I'm so entirely a sick of it. I hated it while it was happening. You and I obviously are relatively politically aligned, so we didn't like the way a lot of it went down. So yeah. When that was going on, Troy said to To some of us that, I mean, I'm, I'm working on Year 24 here, yeah, he said.

25:50 Just stay in touch with everybody. I got us covered for the year. Don't worry. Just keep rolling. Keep your contacts. Stay in touch with everybody. I mean I talked to God bless him, Steve Adoris. I probably talked to Steve Adoris from Lynyrd Skynyrd every day. And we we talked about everything from politics you know politics to just shooting the shit and and and a little bit of business in there. But that's what what what we did. I mean that's the only way we. So when we came back, we we came back in, we were somewhat on fire. You know, we had to, we had a lot of ground to make up and a lot of money to retrieve. Yeah, and. I mean, that was tough.

26:32 We have 11 tours come back at the same time. Jesus. Man, not small tours either. Big. Ones well and plus Troy also had, you know the what's it called. Country. Thunder or whatever. Oh yeah, so. You know that gone, you know like. Our, our Barricade Division, it's the one that really, I mean they were you know wherever there was a riot going on, what you know, we had the we had the White House surrounded, we had the the Capitol building, I mean Kenosha, Seattle or Portland, we had barricade up there all, all across here. Oh, that's that's interesting. That's an. Interesting table. Another one a lot of people don't know a lot about and I don't try to. I try not to go into too much of it, but that's helped. That helped us out during that.

27:19 Time. Well, I mean upstaging made freaking plastic face Shields, you know what I mean? Like they brought, they sent them here. I think they came in with the iheart thing. Yeah, that, you know, another pivot that I loved was I think it's a Nashville company. Froggy's Fog. Yes. Yeah, so. So they just some genius. Columbia. OK. Some genius there just said, hey, you know 90% of the ingredients in that sanitizing stuff to wash your hands is in fog fluid. So all we got to do is kind of add a couple ingredients and we now have hand sanitizer. So they didn't need fog fluid.

28:02 So they just went and converted their their manufacturing to hand sanitizer and just we're kicking it out by the gallons. I think I still have 9/10 of a gallon, 'cause I panicked at the beginning when everybody said you, you can't get hand sanitizer. And I went, Oh yes I can. So I bought like 2 gallons of that shit and I think I still have, you know, 1.95 gallons. Yeah. I never used it. I don't like it. I don't. I've never, really. Not a weird smell to it. No, but just in general hand sanitizers. I just, I just don't use it. Soap and water? Yeah, exactly. And you know, so here's another funny story. So recently I was flying back from England, from one of my son's races and I was at the airport and I'm going through security and I get buzzed and taken a side and they run my bag through again and they're doing all this stuff.

28:58 And a guy comes over to me and he says I I need to notify you that you're you've set off the explosives and you know, you know when they dust your bag for and I'm like, what? And so they get into this weird little side pocket on my backpack and there's a thing of this froggies, fogs, hand sanitizer that has been in there since the beginning of COVID and I've never even used it, never even opened it. It's been sitting in there for since the beginning and that was what somehow set it off. And so then they took it out of the bag and ran it through the other machine and it was fine. It was absolutely. But it was so bizarre cuz I'm like, you can have it. I'd throw it away.

29:38 Like I've never even used it, so I didn't even realize it was in my bag to be honest. But yeah, so now, are you still struggling most for gear or people? It took more on. That's a good question. We're good on. I think we're pretty good right now. On Crew, we could. We're always looking for new guys. Yeah, gear. We bought a lot of gear last year. Yeah, yeah. As you know. Yeah, yeah. Fortunately some of it came from me. Yeah, exactly. And then some of them went back out through me too, so. And so not really on gear, I think we're we're pretty set right now there.

30:33 There's those few things, I mean, I'm looking for some an odd thing now, but not having a lot of luck and we'll talk about. Yeah, shoot me a text or something, yeah? You got it, yeah. Yeah, we got some odd stuff. Yeah. Oh yeah. We Getti and I were looking at at Gear Source the other day, so. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, what's crazy right now is video stuff. Like we used to struggle to get laser video projectors and and screens, good screens. We have so many LED screens now and so many amazing projectors. It's crazy. Wow. Like and I have no idea. Like, these are coming in organically, listings that people are just going, I need to sell my projectors, Boom, they're putting them online and we're like. Is this because the technology in the video world? Is I have no idea dancing.

31:24 So quickly. I don't think so. But you know, I'm talking like, you know, 2-3 year old projectors, not ten year old projectors. So yeah, you know, it's weird. Like it's it's really weird. We're it's just a trend we're seeing, right? Now there is no pride in ownership. No. It's totally true. It comes along with it. Totally, totally true. Yeah. So, you know, but I most companies that I talk to are really still struggling for people. And you know, I, I that's gonna keep happening until everyone can figure out how to, you know, sort of open up the floodgates and bring a lot more people into our industry. And unfortunately, you're doing that by overpaying people for the most part, so.

32:07 Well, that's just it. That's another that's a this is something that we talk about often is after COVID, a lot of these Rd. guys, they figured out, hey man, this isn't such a security. It's already not secure. OK, now it proved to them that it's really not secure. So their wages have gone up. Yeah, you know, crude juice aren't just making 30, two, $3500 a week. Now they're making 44,000 forty $200 a week. Yeah, plus per diem. Yeah, you know what? On one hand, they're. Really worth their grain?

32:48 Worth their salt? You know what? I mean, I I mean good, good for them, you know? It just like it takes though, an industry I think that already had some really difficult accounting, difficult finance problems, and it makes it tougher. And it all comes down to who's paying that tab, right? And if it's if it's you know, the artist you know, so be it. If it's. But it usually ends up trickling down to the end consumer who's paying for the ticket, and he's now paying $80.00 for a 60. Dollar ticket that's going to be a that's a whole another one. I mean, not well, how much discretionary money is going to be available for people to out there to buy tickets for these shows?

33:38 Preach, I've been saying. That which one of you years, Which ticket are you going to? Buy I've been saying that for three years and it just keeps going up and they keep selling. You know, I don't, I don't get it. You know, it's just like go try buying a brand new Porsche. Not that I do that but you know Porsche. No but the the GT3 RSI mean it's already like a $400,000 car or whatever they're selling for two 5250 over sticker and one of my buddies is a is a sales manager at a Porsche dealership and he's like and I can I could sell 20 of them tomorrow if I could get them. You know he's like every allocation we get 250 over sticker.

34:20 He said used ones are going for 180 over sticker right now. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, man. I'll tell you what. It's an insane market right now. There's so much liquid cash floating around, you know. There's Where is it coming from? I got it. I mean I got money in the I I'm sitting good. Yeah. Where is I mean. You and I need to run for. We need to run for Senate so we can go in and pick up $175,000 job and make make make 150 million, make 150 million. No, it's the it's the knowledge that they get for stocks. It's the insider trading stuff that and it's this isn't a a left versus right thing because they both do it.

35:04 Republicans both do. It and Democrats are both doing it. They go, you know, somebody says, hey, you know, there's a problem with this mineral or whatever. There's going to be a shortage, and we need to go fight a war in Yemen or something to get more of it. And so somebody goes, oh, there's a shortage on this mineral. I'm gonna go invest in that mineral, right? Yep. It's that blatant. It's that blatant. Oh yeah. Right in front of us, we are totally everyday getting ripped off by the United States government. Yeah, it's it's, I mean, it's gotten to a point where, you know, like I have friends in and from Ukraine. I have coders that work for me that are in the Ukraine. Doesn't mean I want to support the government.

35:47 You guys have a voting problem. You've got a corrupt guy running your country. That's your problem. That ain't my problem. I'm sorry. But God created the weatherman to make the politicians A colonist so. Yeah, yeah. They they can change their mind occasionally, right. Yeah. No, it's I mean now that we've sort of touched on it a little bit, I guess we'll venture in, we'll we'll dive into the water the, the deep end. But I mean, we're in for a crazy year, you know, and. I I think so. And it's. Fun Put your seat belt on. Fun. Yes and no. Like you and I remember really well how ugly it got, you know, especially on social media.

36:28 And you know, there was a point in the last election where I literally shut off Facebook for a couple of months, 'cause I just, I couldn't take. I remember that. I mean it was just, it was talks and I just couldn't take it like people were. People who are friends of mine were saying if you vote for this person, defriend me. Now, I never want to speak to you again. I'm like, holy shit, like, when did this happen? I couldn't give a shit who you vote for. Like, do I think you're dumb sometimes for the decisions you're making? Sure, but I don't care. I'll still go have drinks with you. I'm not going to defriend anyone because of who they vote for.

37:09 Couldn't care less. No, I don't think that sometimes these people are thinking straight. I just they don't realize listen the media has done a really good job and curving people the different a different direction from what the real what's really going on. They're they they hide a lot of stuff and I don't think that everybody not that I don't Fox is not the answer either. No, because they're they're they're all full of shit. I hate to say it, but I get most of my news from Twitter now. I really do. Because I don't trust anything.

37:52 I don't trust anything. At least on Twitter, I can create a like an algorithm for myself that's got a mix of left and right and truth, and I know which people are lying. It's pretty easy to tell and I get rid of the bots as fast as I can. And, you know, generally I get my news headlines in 1/2 hour of Twitter first thing in the morning, and that covers me for the day. You know, I'm good. I rarely watch this. Anymore. I like just the news. That's that. That guy's pretty square. He's a good reporter. He's no bullshit. But yeah, they're all of them. You know, I don't think that everybody's getting a straight answer. And listen, you think letting 16 million people into our country that are illegal, you have no idea where they're coming.

38:40 You think that that's OK? Yeah. What are you thinking? Well, you know what? You you listen to Rogan. I think you told me so. You know, I've always liked Rogan, especially through COVID and all that stuff. Not because he was common sense, but because he wasn't hard left and he wasn't hard right. He's actually more left than than anything, right? He's. That's kind of me like like we talked about I. Mean. Yeah. Well, yeah. You and I are similar. I mean, you know, we don't. We want systems in place and government in place to take care of, you know, roads and and some things like that. But do I think, you know Google or or you know Tesla or somebody could do a better job with healthcare than the government is probably probably, you know, probably some big tech company stay out of that. Yeah.

39:33 But we have too much government. Yeah. So I like Rogan because he's generally pretty neutral. And I just listened this morning to him and Brett Weinstein. He's a pretty smart guy. And you know, they're both left liberal, lifetime Democrat voters, right? And Brett Weinstein was saying that to my friends who are Democrats, you cannot vote for the Democratic Party this year. And he said, I really, I hope that there's an opportunity for RFK because he thinks that RFK is a great answer, which I do too. You know, I'm, I'm a Republican technically, but I would vote for RFKI.

40:13 Think the guy's brilliant? Sure. Yeah. And but The thing is, he said, you, no matter who you vote for, you cannot vote for the Democratic Party this year, which which basically is, is a vote for Trump at that point, right. And and it's just because of all of this stuff that they're doing in in daylight, you know, like they're they're just doing some really, really corrupt, crazy stuff, the border. Right in front of. Us the border included. You know the border. This is really bad. This border thing, it's really, really bad. Like this has gone beyond the humanitarian side of things, where it's like these people, they're just trying to escape these terrible places. That ain't the agenda. That ain't going on right. Now that ain't the agenda.

40:55 No, I mean, really bad people are coming in. I'm sure some good ones are sort of strewn in there too. But some really. Bad people do another thing that nobody is thinking about right now, but you bring all those people into these separate or all the different counties, all the different cities, all the different states. It changes the amount of delegates. It changes the amount of representatives you're going to have run in the government. Yeah, it changes that whole playing field. Yeah, nobody thinks about that kind of stuff. Well, the Democrats do. The Democrats are really smart. They're really smart.

41:36 They know exactly what they're doing. They know exactly what they're doing. It's just, you know, like that's one thing that's infuriating when you follow Twitter or whatever. You get these guys on the Republican Party who I respect. I mean, there's some guys that I really, you know, Ted Cruz is great and Jim Jordan I really like. And yeah, I mean, there's some really good guys on on that side, but they're always talking tough and they never do anything. You know, it's like, it's like we. Have this guy red handed for impeachment, but then they never do anything. You know, it's the Democrats have nothing and they impeach you, you know, like they got nothing, they got no proof, they got no smoking gun, they got no crime and they put you in jail.

42:20 Exactly. It's they just do what they. Want we talked about too, you know, And back in the old days, the Republicans and the Democrats, they all wanted the same thing if they argued and bickered about how to get to that central neutral position and. And that's not happening anymore. It's not. So extreme. Now what they're doing is they're making. Huh. It's all so extreme now. It's so extreme. So totally that's exactly it. And and they're making enemies. A lot of our friends become enemies because of what they're doing. And that's that's fucking wrong. Yeah. Anyway. That's the part that I really disliked during the whole COVID thing was friends, people who I really respected in our industry.

43:08 I I just, I couldn't follow them anymore because I couldn't believe the things that they were saying at times, You know, they were just so hateful and miserable and nasty. And it was like, what? Because I choose to live my life this way. Like you're saying, I need to basically accept everything, but you don't accept even who I vote for or or whether or not I want to wear a mask on an airplane or something. You know, like. So. Choices work one way, but choices don't work the other way sometimes, and that's that's challenging. Reality for me is I truly don't care who who anyone votes for, who they, who they pray to, who they sleep with. I could not care less. I really don't care. True story.

43:49 You're a good person or a bad person. That's it. That's right. That's right. We all wanna be good people. So, I mean, everybody's just gotta figure it out. I mean, maybe, maybe if Trump gets in there, he'll tone it down and he'll, you know. No. He's got too big of an ego, but all of them have an. Ego. Well, he's also got a he's got an agenda to to clean some shit up now, too. Like he he got screwed pretty good. Like imagine what this guy went through, what he goes through on a daily. Basis He was painted to be this super, super bad guy and he and now everything that they've thrown at him just seems to. Well here's the thing Creech.

44:33 I was just thinking about this. So I wonder, like as bad as the election has been the previous two times with Trump, this time might be different because they've tried everything and they haven't exposed any of the corruption that they all just automatically said and believed. And this guy, he's a Russian, you know, spy, he's a planet from Russia he's doing business with. And so they tried like crazy to to get that. And now the news is basically that that was all completely a set up. Like he said, you know, it was like he said yeah, when. He said, I remember him. I remember I said to my wife, did you just hear what Trump said about when he talked about being wiretapped or or recorded? Yeah, he goes, he's full of shit. I go, OK, you do.

45:21 You think so? Sure enough. Yeah, he was knowing everything that got so. So I think that that this year, the election cycle might be a little more peaceful for all of us because, you know, Trump is not what they made him out to be. Is he a, a, a Dick head and nasty and a horrible man? Sometimes, yes, absolutely. You know I don't love the. Guy. Absolutely not. But, but, you know, the other thing is the, the Democrats, it's so blatant, the bad things that they've done at this point that I don't think anyone can fully support that and say, you know, but Biden's great. We need to vote for greatness.

46:02 You can't say that. Yeah, you just can't say that. I'm sorry. You can't say that. Yeah. Yeah. You're just making yourself look dumb if you say that. That's just like me saying. But Trump is a really good guy. So you should vote for him. No, no, that's not why you would vote for him either. So yeah, I just, I hope we all get along this year. I know, you know, this is the most politics I've spoken publicly in our industry, probably since all of this began. You know, I just don't do it. I I avoid it like crazy. Well, to all my friends that are watching this and listening to this, you know you can't tell me that when your wife, I mean, in my household, I do the grocery shopping because my wife's on her feet all day long, like someday she has.

46:50 She sees 5050 patients in a span of four hours. OK, so I try to. I try to do what I can. I do all the cooking. I do all the grocery shopping. Wow. And. Come move in with me. I'll take you, Creech. You're not as good looking as my wife. It's it's 2024. It's 2024. We can get married. It's Florida. You know, you do all the cooking and grocery shopping, and you make a good living. Jesus Christ, I could finally retire. But, but I feel it when I go to the grocery store. So at first I thought, you know, OK, this is this is the inflation and hitness.

47:37 Now I think the they got the they got us fucking paying the high dollar and now the grocery stores are jumping in on the on the bandwagon. Everybody. Yeah, that's so true. You guys ought to wear, I told the girl the other day. You ought to wear a mask, she said. Why should I be wearing a mask? Because you're fucking robbing me. You know, so Tucker Tucker put out like a one minute video, I think yesterday or this morning or something. I saw it this morning. But he is in a grocery store in Moscow and he was there with his staff and they were buying the groceries for for the week that they were going to be there. Right? Right. And he said, you know, in our heads we thought, OK, it's going to be about 450 bucks or 400 bucks or something and they get to the cashier and and they pay. And they did the conversion and it was like $120.00. And he said it was right then that I realized how badly we're being fleeced.

48:36 You know, we are being fleeced in America. And he said, I He said I became radicalized when when I was standing there at the cashier in this Russian supermarket buying the exact same products that I would buy at home for four times as much money. And here I am in this place that's supposedly corrupt and terrible and horrible and violent and and then he takes a video also in the in the subway, and it's beautiful. There's art and there's all this beautiful old architecture, and it's as clean as can be. It's out. Oh, the The Putin interview that came out last week. Yeah, yeah.

49:18 I don't. Yeah. I try not to. Pick. It's got like 200 million views. Wow, it's. I'll shoot you the link. It's the reason I take lisinopril in the morning. Yeah, it's got 200 million views. But. But no, this one of the video of the subway, I was like wow, like I've seen this picture and but I mean people are all nice and happy and well dressed and they're, you know, nobody's fighting. No, there's no people, homeless people laying down in the gutters or anything. You know, I mean it's it's really quite alarming. And you know, I don't know, like I I I'm in LA next week and I'm kind of dreading it because I haven't been there in a while since before there were tents and and you know people shitting on sidewalks and stuff be. Nice.

50:06 I'm I'm not looking forward to seeing all that stuff. I used to love LA. I've avoided it. I've managed to. I mean, my time's coming. I feel it. But yeah, yeah, I have. No. I'm there for a board meeting next week. I have no choice. I got to be there. So just for a couple days, you know, and I'll, I'll go out and see some friends or something too but right. Yeah, I used to really love going to LA and and honestly I was yesterday. I was trying to think when was the last time I was there and it's been years it it's been probably four or five years, I don't know, before COVID. The last time I was in on the West Coast, I got COVID, Yeah, that. I went to the Nam show and. I oh, really?

50:48 Yeah. And I was like, no, I'm never going back to that Nam show again. I don't care. I don't care if fucking the whatever Parnelli's were there or not, I could give a rat's ass cuz that's a bunch of bullshit too. Whatever his name is, I can't remember the guy's name. Terry love, Terry love, yeah. It's all about who buys advertisement and. I don't. I I can't comment. I can't, I can't confirm nor deny. No, I'm I've historically, I've not been a Terry Lowe fan him and I do not get along. I will say that publicly. We've not gotten along in a long time, and but I wouldn't personally go as far as saying, you know, that he's basing awards on ads, 'cause I don't know that to be true. So, well, I can.

51:41 I also don't know it to be false. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that it's false either. Yeah. No, I don't. Know there's a short list of a few people in this business. When I've retired, I'm gonna go fuck you. Yeah, so there's a short list. Yeah, I know you. You know, it's funny because you were on this on this podcast in 2019 and I remember you saying the exact same thing. Then you you said you said there's, you know, I try to behave, but there's a short list that I keep and you know, one day I'm going to retire and I'm going to call everyone on that list and tell them what I think.

52:29 Well, Troy, I didn't retire anytime soon because Troy told me he said he's a Creech Creechy. He calls me Creechy. Yeah, he says you ain't going anywhere until either I die or you die. So yeah, and I. It's a race I'm. Taking WellCare of. Yeah, you're in a race. Yeah. Now you should be taking one. You know you're you're you're one of that handful of guys that I was talking about earlier. You know, there, there are not so many of you guys and you know, I'm sure somebody will come up to replace all of you at some point because the industry will go on of course, and it has to, but yeah, I mean, you know.

53:11 Just bring big shoes and big feet, you know, that's what it's going to take. Well, it's like, you know, Wiseman when when we were talking at dinner on Friday about the the the party he was going to at Trump's, I said, you know, you're going to have a blast. And he goes, Yep. And I'm going to walk out of there with the RNC convention. And I said, I said I don't think Trump is going to want to sit down and talk business with you. And he said no, but somebody will, you know, nobody will. Wiseman's a sales guy I love. John Wiseman, Yeah, you know, he could sell you. He could sell you a car without wheels and an engine and he'd get top dollar.

53:52 For it, yes, he is. He is the the greatest sales guy. He's always been really good and he's. Always been too. He's always been a tough competitor though, like cuz. him and I have always been really good friends. But when we were both at high end Systems together and I left and I took a tour, that was was ours, you know, at high end. But it was my person. It was my my deal, my designer, my everything, right? And so I I took it with me and and and Wiseman called me up and says I know what you did. And I said, I said nothing different than you would do and he goes lose my fucking number. And so so I said OK, you know, you want to be like that, John. OK.

54:41 And I don't know, probably a couple months later he called me and he was like, hey, what are you up to? You know, like nothing ever happened. You know, I'm, I'm a wimp when it comes to that stuff because I remember it forever. But he just like, you know, that was that was just part of the, you know, I was in a battle, you know, I said what I had to say. It's funny. Well I remember when he was an account manager at at show Co very light right when I worked there and I was there was a show I don't know what show it was at the at Reunion arena and he pulled he's kind of guy drives right down he's drive that he had a bad ass BMW yeah and he he came down the ramp and I was walking up and he goes Creech jump in and of course that was back in the day right when he even in the side I remember.

55:30 Jumping into. Yeah, right. On the console he did a couple gaggers and the downtown Dallas and then he comes back and drops me off and he goes about his own thing. Next morning I'm on my way to to to work down 35 you know heading to governor's row or regal row and and there is Wiseman off on the side of the road wrecked BMW. Go away. Oh my God. That's crazy. God. He had a brand new one right away. That is insane. I'm. Sure, he talked his way right into the new one. Oh my God, that guy, man.

56:16 He's got some stories. Good times. He's got some stories. He's definitely got some stories. Oh yeah. Yeah, I I remember he was, he was doing a show in in Miami with. I don't remember what it was, but I don't remember what the whole event was. But there it was like Shania Twain and the Backstreet Boys and Elton John. It was a it was kind of a weird mix of artists. But he called me and said, you know, I'm doing this show, you got to come down and hang out. And I said, yeah, sure. And it was at Bayfront Park in Miami and there's a dock right there. And he goes, why don't you bring your boat down and dock it? And I I said, yeah, I'll do that.

56:56 And I said maybe we can go do some diving. And he goes, yeah, I can't do that. And I said why not? And he said because when I was still doing blow and stuff, I I I loaned out my, I got really high and loaned out my dive equipment and I can't remember who I lent it to. Oh my God, so never would I do something like that. No, no. Yeah, it's it's funny. Yeah. Yeah, we we talked about it a whole bunch at dinner and stuff because I don't think even his wife had heard some of these stories and she was having a blast. She was loving it. She was like, oh boy, I bet she knew that. She was.

57:38 Her mouth was open the whole time. Well, and and my girlfriend, she's she's British and was very properly raised and stuff and she doesn't curse. She doesn't drink, she doesn't. She's never touched drugs or tobacco or anything, right? How? Long you been with her? Six years I think. And no it's weird. We're we're like definitely, you know, the Beauty and the Beast in more ways than one, I think. And yeah, it it works, you know, I mean it works. I don't know that it would always work, like sometimes you gotta have like people but and every once in a while she'll try and have a glass of wine and she'll drink about 1/4 of a glass of wine and she'll be like, oh, I think I'm drunk.

58:21 So she just doesn't even really try to drink. But she was hearing some of these Wiseman stories and she was just like, I mean. She will have them. Oh my God. You did. How much? You know, Because I mean, I think at the height of it, he was doing like 1/2 an ounce of blow a day or more. Oh. My God. Every day. Oh yeah. I used to like we used to have a smoke in the break room at at at very light and he'd come in there and sit down and hang out with us, right? And you just look at him, He's like, yeah, he'd been partying the night before. Yeah, yeah, you're looking right through him. Go, go, go. Yeah. It's amazing though, how he could perform at such a high level for the most part, right?

59:02 Until it got real bad, like when he was when he was at LSDI think. I think it was over at that point. Like something needed to give, you know? Like, I remember Nick Jackson telling me one time that that you know it like there was a big meeting or something. It was on Wednesday and they were meeting with a big client or a manager or somebody and Wiseman didn't show up. And so Nick kept calling him and calling him and calling him and calling him. It's like noon or something, right? He's calling him and calling him and calling him And finally Wiseman answers and he goes, Nick, what? Why are you waking me up? And he says because you got to come to work. And he goes, why it's Sunday. And he goes, John, it's fucking Wednesday.

59:45 Oh, I'll be right there. Yeah, that's hailed out. Yeah, that's hilarious. True definition of being hailed out. No kidding, right? Yeah, he was he was a mess. But thank God the guy the guy got got it right, you know, got it right. And he's had a whole nother life since then, so good for him. Yeah, he's having a good time. He was telling me he just, he just got another BBMWI. Think he said he got an Alpena. Oh my God, that's that's a nice one. That's a really nice one. Yeah, that's a nice car. Yeah, he likes the cars. Yeah, So I. Mean I I have a portion of Mercedes, but my son's big on the BMW, of course. He works.

1:00:30 My youngest youngest, Connor, he's he works for Kennedy Performance here in Nashville and they do strictly nothing but BMW. Oh really? And high performance BMW and they have a racing team, so he gets to go out. He's into taking pictures just like me. And he takes them of cars, does nice cars, I mean like sports, sports car, you know? Yeah, between everything from Mazda, those cool looking Mazdas on up to, you know Porsche. He worked at Porsche for a while too, which is he had a blast there. What's? Where he learned what he's doing now he's a service rider, so. Oh cool. Yeah, we've got another one. Got another one in the Marines.

1:01:12 He's a Marine. He's in North Carolina. And then of course, Nate is in. I was telling you earlier, I tried to tell him, you know, maybe you guys got to go into the Coast Guard. I have a friend, Edwanabeau, he was in the, you know, with Kenny Chesney. He was in the Coast Guard and they stationed him over in Maui. And he said all I did was painted buoys and watch for drug smugglers whole time I was in the Coast Guard. And and so I told and their course, no, we want to shoot the bad guy. We want to shoot guns. They don't have big guns. I go, Coast Guard's got big guns. They got real big guns. They're part of the Navy. And so now they went about and did their own thing. You know, the one went into the to the Marines and the other one went into the Army.

1:01:56 So he was down at Fort Benning. It was getting transferred. And he calls me and goes, Hey, pops, you'll never guess where I'm where I'm getting transferred to. And I went, No, I won't. He goes, Hawaii, I went. I guess you didn't need Hawaii after all. Wow. Over. There, man. He's loving it over. There. Nice. Good for him. To get shipped off, he's getting shipped off to the Philippines. So let me ask you, like I've always wondered, you know, because my son's just a goofball race car driver. He he he would never have the balls to join the military. But as a parent of kids in the military, does it make you feel even more angry towards some of the decisions that get made in government?

1:02:41 You know to go and fight in places that you couldn't care less about, for example. Well, number one, you're proud. You're always, regardless of what they're doing, even if they're fuck ups, you got to be proud of your kids. They're part of you. Yeah. I I would hope that the United States government would fund the military to provide all of them, not just our kids, but all of them, the proper equipment, the technology and all of that. Provide enough money for the for the military to provide our kids with that safety. That's a safety net right there.

1:03:26 Yeah, it's good. You know, like call probably when he gets out of the Marines, which is going to be soon enough. I don't think he'll stay in there. He'll take take, go and do the GI Bill. So there's those those cool things for that, but yeah, and then of course you worry about them, you know, I can tell you that in the Marines. So Connor was home one day and so and Call was home on on Liberty I think it was during Thanksgiving. So I said call tell Connor about your day. You know that they get up at 4:30 in the morning and they run to breakfast and and he eats like this to protecting his his food because they can come and take it away from it at any time and they can come. They'll come.

1:04:16 And sometimes while you're eating go go outside in the pit right outside the door and fight so and so just fight them so then he's gets so after he's done eating breakfast he runs back to the barracks. He's got about 30-40 minutes to himself. Then they pack up the rucks stacks with he's a he's a mortar guy So he's in the infantry so they so he pack his his rucksack with mortars. And the kid rocks 10 miles, 10 miles. And they dig a hole, set up their mortars, shoot them off, cover the hole back up and rock back. By that time it's almost one dinner time.

1:04:57 It's like there's your fucking day. So I said to Connor. I said Connor, next time you think you're having a bad day, think about him think about what he's doing. That's crazy. But then you got Nate on the other side. He's stationed around Hawaii and every picture I see. I'll take that back. A lot of the pictures I see were of him enjoying the waterfalls. As he should. But he went through some. He went through some bullshit too. He went through going through Ranger School is not something easy. It's not for just that's what sets them all apart man. You know Rangers lead the way and but they're all good kids, you know, all of them. So when I when I remarried, I got, I got those boys and then I got two other two other daughters as well. So I have Caitlin who's here.

1:05:46 She's worked at Vanderbilt. She's involved in at the at the main campus of hospital. She's got her master's in public health. You talk to her. She's going to tell you she wants to run a hospital, but she will one day, I promise you. And then Brooke is Brooke is a teacher in Virginia. And then Faith, the youngest is in. She's in North Carolina at Belmont Abbey, and she plays lacrosse or she's on lacrosse scholarship. Oh cool. And the the the big plan that we've been talking about, as soon as she's done, Tony and I are going to come back down to Florida and I'll still be doing the PGP thing. But because she works at Vanderbilt, my wife, they help pay what the scholarship stuff doesn't pay, which is pretty convenient. Pretty helpful.

1:06:37 Very helpful. Yeah, that's very cool. So she's got two more years, so you know, we'll see you in two years down there. Yeah. Maybe we can race boats, yeah. That'll be fun. I'm trying to get the hell out of here. You know, I, I spend half a year up in Canada now at my place in the mountains, and I really like it there. Like, it's just, you know, I guess it's age, 'cause it's a slower pace. Not in the winter, not in the winter. In the winter. I like Florida a whole lot. But, you know, it's a people thing. Like it's you know the people in Florida are more and more from New York now because like since COVID it's been really just New Yorkers are coming in as fast as they can get here and which is nothing wrong.

1:07:25 I love New Yorkers but it it's just a a faster pace of life. You've you've got to be a little more on guard. You've got to pay a lot more attention. Like up in Canada you could leave your door unlocked for days and never anything going to happen. Like my friends. My friends got a beautiful Mercedes and he leaves his keys in it in the driveway, Never takes his keys. And everyone in town knows that his keys are in the car. Yeah, and he's never had a problem. So it's just it's a small town, small town attitude. Sometimes it's frustrating cuz like you're in line at the grocery store and the lady in front of you is like, Betsy, how are you doing? How are the kids? What about the grandkids?

1:08:07 And I've got like 3 items and I'm just like come on lady I. Just wanna pay get the. Hell out of here. Betsy's fine. Go. Yeah, well, I mean, it's even funny. Like when I'm driving up there, I have to force myself to not be a Dick, you know, because like here, here, if you're going to change lanes, you just change lanes. You don't signal. If you signal, they close the gap instantly. You know you're never going to get in if you signal. So you just got to shoot into an opening when you get a shot, right? So in Canada, if you signal, everyone just backs up and makes an opening for you. It's just entirely the opposite, Entirely opposite, right? And like my girlfriend, every time I go to walk across the street in Canada, she grabs me and and she's like, wait, you know, 'cause she's from England and England is even worse than here, where as far as, like in England, pedestrians don't have any right away, you know, cars.

1:09:05 Will run over you. Cars will run over you. Absolutely. Wait till the guy's legs open up. Yeah, and but like in Canada, you know, if you even are getting near a corner, everyone stops to get ready in in preparation of you wanting to cross. The street is your place in Canada. Up like a ski. Ski you? Know Banff? Banff. Yeah, yeah, that's where you are. Yeah, it's. Beautiful. There it is nice. Yes, really nice. It's really nice. I mean, I bought it. I bought it. I bought it 20 years ago. You know, I built it 20 years ago. So I probably couldn't afford to buy it today. You know, it's it's gone up so much like you know. It has found where you are too.

1:09:48 I mean, it's insane, my. Parents are probably rolling in their grave over what what the property in the house that we had in South Miami and was when they sold it to now. Yeah, South Miami. Miami in general is just going nuts right now because the tech business in Miami is is just booming, you know, So you've got. All these is that where the dough is, that where a lot of the dough's coming from is a tech business. In Miami, in in up where I am. I'm in Wellington in Palm Beach and it's more just regular people moving in from New York. They sell a condo in New York for like 2 1/2 million like a a 1400 foot condo for two and a half $3,000,000 and they come down here and they buy a a 4000 square foot place on a on the Intercoastal you know and still have money leftover and they're like. They have money leftover, that's right. Yeah.

1:10:40 And they don't pay and they don't pay sales tax, you know, or I'm sorry, income tax. Here in Nashville, these people from California are moving here and and they're like, wow, we got a lot of extra money. And yeah, you know, but and the home prices are, you know, I mean I mean I've seen I've got quite a bit of equity now on in our home, but yeah. It gets tempting though, right? Like when you know just using. Where you going to? Go. Well, that's the problem. You know, like somebody comes and says I'll pay you three times what you paid for your house. Great. Then what do I do? You know, like then I'm in the market now for a house that I can't afford.

1:11:23 Right? So it's crazy. Yeah. It's nuts. So you know, my I, I went through divorce around the same time my girlfriend did and she had a small rental house in in South Florida. And because we were going to start spending half the year up in Canada, you know, we just, we had a conversation. We were like, hey, we could go try and buy something bigger right now and and you know, move in together. I was renting a place at the time and she said no, I got this place. It's paid for. It's right there in Wellington. It's small, but we're only going to spend 6 months of the year there. What do you think? And I was like, you know what? And both both our kids are are like they should be out of the house by now, but they're not.

1:12:06 And so they're on their way out. But you know, you give them very small space and eventually they'll just be like, dad, I got no room for anything good. Move out, move out. You know so. I'm going to try that. So I mean we keep talking about it, but it's like why would we even bother? You know we've got enough here. It's big enough, it's good, it's fine. And you know then we go up to the place in Canada and in Canada we got loads of room and and it's it's just like the views are unbelievable out both ends of the house it's. Yeah, it's. Crazy nice. It's I'm just not a snow. I'm not into the snow. I'm not a fan of being cold. Yeah, it's. If I'm sitting by the fireplace, it's great to look at.

1:12:48 Yeah, but eventually you got to get outside and go to the grocery store or whatever, right? Yeah, right. And and then it's like. Holy shit. Now I would rather be sweating and having to go to the grocery store. Yeah, I'm with you. I I get it. I I completely understand. You know, for me, again, it's people and lifestyle and stuff like that that I'm more attracted to. Plus, my family's up there, so whenever we're in Canada, I'm constantly doing things with friends that I haven't really been that connected to in 2530 years and with my family. So I don't know, it's nostalgic, it's fun, I like it. So the. My family down in Florida swims, swims around the water and they got teeth and they got tails. I was going to say, so I want to talk about this because, you know, I've always been a fan of your photography and you know some of those pictures where you can like you can count the cavities in their teeth and stuff, right? Like you can you can see what they had for lunch based on the stuff that's in their teeth.

1:13:48 And you're getting really close to these sharks and taking some unbelievable pictures and stuff and have. A lot of fun doing it. What got you into that though? Like where? Where'd that passion come from? Was it accidental or? Well, I started scuba diving in 1975. My dad said. Hey, when soon as you turn. When soon as you turn, I think it was 13 or whatever, we're going, we're going to go and we're going to get certified, all right. So we went to the classes and all, and I went through them and I finally got certified. Over the years I upped my certifications. I'm at rescue divers with water diver, underwater photographer, advanced open water.

1:14:32 But so I did all that stuff and I was on a trip over in the Bahamas. And just so the Bahamas is, if you want to see sharks, that's the place to go. Yeah, they're protected in the Bahamas, so and I think they know that, but. They're protected how? By the government or they're protected by the government or because of all the. By the government? Yeah, you cannot fish for sharks in the Bahamas. Oh, I did not know that. And the reefs there are in really good shape. And what makes a really makes a reef in really good shape is shark population, because sharks eat the dead, the dying and the disease.

1:15:16 They're the cleaners of the ocean, right? But we were, I was on this sitting in the back of the boat and we were getting ready to go down on a shark time. I'm looking over the side and they're swimming at the surface. I'm like, fuck man, how we getting in the water? Right, That's hilarious. The guy looks at me because it was just me and another person, right. I remember the guy's name is Fred. So Fred says don't worry about anything. These sharks have been on every Discovery Channel show, every, you know, natural, all the all the animal shows, Animal Planet just fine. And I'm thinking myself, yeah, OK, And you're going to go down there with a bucket of food?

1:16:03 That's hilarious. So you get down on the bottom and there's these rocks. So you get down on the bottom with your knees, Put the rock between your knees and it kind of helps. You're overweighted a bit and he comes swimming down with this little bucket. It was like a like a thing you get at the bank. It's just a bit larger, right? You know, you put your deposit in fills filled with food, sets it out in the middle of this arena. These sharks just come flying in and they were amazing. Every time time that back tail moved, they moved six feet. They were more. They were just majestic. And I was like, fuck, I'm this is cool, right? And I'm taking it.

1:16:45 I had a little Instamatic kind of camera and housing and I'm taking some pictures. They were crap, but it was cool so and so now move forward a bit. I'm still diving and diving, so I went for my birthday. It was 2009, went over to the went out with Jim Abernathy, who is based out of West Palm Beach. He's world renowned. He's called him the Shark whisperer. He taught me how to take pictures, how to, how to get close, what to do, what to look for. Amazing guy. Lots of energy is very wildlife cons. It's all about Wildlife Conservation. But I went on this trip and there was a there was a shark out there named Emma.

1:17:37 And Emma is 16 feet. I got a picture of her right here. Oh, yeah, if you can see it. Yeah. But that's actually me on that trip. That's the first first time, so I went for my birthday. That's a big ass shark for your first time. Yeah. Oh yeah. Were you like shitting? Yourself during that picture. Because I was over that fear. I was completely over that fear from that one dive. I was more I was just interested in them and they're she's big. So anyway, he he's we've got the bait down there. And the one thing he told me, he says, you need a couple things you're going to always pay attention to what's going on your heads on a spindle, always those big tiger sharks.

1:18:28 There's not just one of them in the water, There's five or six of them at the same time. The one you're focusing on, just the one in front of you who might be off of ways. There might be another one coming from behind you. So for a long time I put a bicycle mirror on my on my camera, on my camera gear because now I get shooting the big huge thing, you know, it's like, yeah, so I put a mirror on her so I can see behind me what was going on because they did come in, they're very sneaky. So I did that. That was the first trip that I did and and that was when I was, that was the first time I was around these big tiger sharks. And he said also you want to get an award-winning picture.

1:19:10 The key to that is get as close as you can. I'm thinking, OK, all right, they come right up. They, I mean, they. I got a picture of one right on my mask. Yeah. But so that's what got me that that was the final bit. So now I got, I've been to Tiger Beach now probably I guess 16 times. In fact I was there last June and we had five at one time and they were all big, big sharks and you know they're they're just cool. And then there's all the other shit that's going on around behind you got lemon sharks swimming around, you got reef sharks swimming around. You got an occasional bull shark. Right now it's hammerhead season over in the Bahamas they come in to ensure, so there's hammerheads. You got all that going on?

1:19:59 So, you know, it's my very first night dive that I did ever was in Key West. And you know, I wasn't into it as much as you're into it. Like I I had my own boats and I would, I would anchor to a buoy out off the off Fort Lauderdale beach or something, right. And just go down to a a reef and every once in a while I'd find a wreck, go out to a wreck or something. But I didn't do it a lot. I did it. I don't know, I I did quite a quite a bit of diving, but I never got to where I was like, oh, I got to go to, you know, the Galapagos or something. Like I I never got like that, right. I just never really got the bug. But anyways, I was in Key West and I don't remember who I was with one of my friends or something and he wanted to do a night dive.

1:20:46 I was like, OK, cool, I'll do it. And so we we, we book a night dive with an operator, I think. Or did we do it on our own? I can't remember. Anyways, it was just him and I though, so it had to be just on our own or maybe it was a chartered boat that we did. Anyways, we go out and the moon is so bright that night. So you could see it's almost like daylight under the water, right? And we're probably in 18 or 20 feet of water and it's just a sand bottom. And all of a sudden I'm, look, I'm, we're swimming along, you know, looking for something, a reef, anything, right. We're swimming along and all of a sudden it goes really dark.

1:21:27 And I was like, that's weird. And then, you know, I'm kind of nudging him and I'm like, what's going on? And he's like, I don't know and, you know, didn't think nothing of it. But then you're starting to see it's dark, but it's kind of moving and I'm like, what the hell? So I just rolled over and looked up and there were like, I don't know how many 5060 hammer heads I. Mean. It was just an insane number of hammerhead sharks above us, right? And I was. I like, I think I probably held my breath for a minute. I was just like, what the hell? Like nothing you can do at that point except just, you know, lay there with my arms crossed, trying not to move too much and just watching them right?

1:22:07 And they wanted nothing to do with us. They were just, you know, looking around for whatever they were looking for. But. Oh, yeah, that's that's what they do, that's what. I was always when I was on reefs and stuff like in Fort Lauderdale occasionally a reef shark or or something would not or a you know occasionally a tiger shark but usually it was reef sharks and they were usually pretty small 6 or 8 feet and but I was always more concerned with the barracudas, you know those ones, they're a little more unpredictable and a little more aggressive at. Yeah, they're yeah, they're kind of weird. They're just because they're just sitting there looking at you the whole time, right? And their mouth is open, their mouth is open too. They sit with their mouth open, you know, and and it's just like intimidating. That's that's a good word for it, yeah. Intimidating because they're not going to be. As soon as you swim towards them, they're gone. Right.

1:22:57 Yeah, yeah. Well, unless you got something in your hand, you know, like if you're if you're if you're grabbing lobster or like spearfishing, you know, if you're spearfishing and and you've got a fish on a spear, they will come after that fish and and if they accidentally hit your hand instead, you know they'll take off a couple fingers or something. They're nasty, Those. Freaking. I was trying to get a picture one time of a lionfish and the the guy was with one of the guys that was with me was he had a gig with him and he was going to get this lionfish and I go stop, stop, stop, stop. I want to get a picture of him so I'm snapped. You know, I'm like I rapid fire when I when I shoot, right? Yeah, yeah, 'cause every time they they're always moving some.

1:23:41 Yeah, Sharks. Well, the shot might be the 112th one you take. That's the shot, right. So yeah, rapid fire my. Hard drive. So I've got so many. I've got thousands and thousands. Oh, I can only imagine, yeah. Over 100,000 but and I do a lot of wedding out but as soon as I got the picture he gigged that fucking lionfish and then the next thing you know there's. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I do that again. No. Have you ever had a moment like where it was a? Couple times where I was out doing a night dive and I was taking a picture of the same thing I was talking about.

1:24:25 I was taking a picture of a of a shark over here and the next thing I knew I had a tiger shark and it's had buried into into my crotch. Mouth not open, just buried into my crotch. Of course you shove it away. I quickly moved my camera. That camera is so big. They it's a it's like a barrier that. So there's no problem there. But I had another one. You know what My when I'm holding on to my camera I'm shooting like this And one I had one nip on the top of my hand. Didn't break the skin. No nothing. Didn't even tear my glove. But yeah, they know.

1:25:06 And that's what happens when they bite something, When they bite a human, they're not like picking them out to this is I'm going to go out to this guy. They they bite something, they figure out that it's not what they're supposed. It's not part of their diet, it. Ain't food and they. Spit it out. Unfortunately, the people that die or lose a limb, they've struck an artery and they've either they've they've probably bled to death or done so much damage from the bite it's irreparable. So. You get bitten by one of these big tiger sharks. Yeah, yeah. Ain't going to go well, yeah. You ain't going to? Yeah, No. But you know, you're often doing this at Tiger Beach, right? And so I think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's a bit different when you're in open water and you're all by yourself diving down on a reef or something and you run into a hungry tiger shark and maybe, maybe, you know, there's four or five foot waves above you.

1:26:06 So it's kicked up a little bit, It's a little murky, a little dirty the water. And that's when I get nervous, that's when I get a bit nervous and I don't, I don't get scared. I just. I keep my eye on them real. Close the The one thing that we do at Tiger Beach is you can always see the boat you're in 20 if anything, 22 feet of water. If you bought them times forever, it's easy to get back to the boat. Most of those sharks, the tigers, all have been given names. So there's so many people that go there and the sharks stay in that area. They know. It's like the fact when our boat pulls up, the sharks come.

1:26:49 The rest of them are, you know, they're travelers. They travel from all over. You know, they might be, you know, they they migrate just like a lot of the other animals in in the Kingdom do, but. Yeah. What do you say to the argument though, that that what you're doing is wrong and it's just making the sharks not afraid of humans and like shark feeding? I know in South Florida there's a lot of that chatter that goes on. You know that. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I I I have a couple friends. I have another friend, Ryan, right at Ryan Walton. Right. Shark tours Florida he he they go out and snorkel just outside the limit that the barrier that the government you know the government waters US waters you have to be outside the territory waters to to be able to feed sharks any kind of animals against the law to feed feed.

1:27:42 Yeah, I forgot what it might be. Three years is it? It's 3 1/2 I think. 3 1/2 I think it is so, but I there's sharks are worth more alive than they are dead. And there's a lot of people feeding them, a lot of people. What it does do is it opens people's eyes. It's changing the perspective that you can dive with these things and they're not. They're not, man. Eaters. Yeah, they're they're really not. I agree with that part of the story. But the the part, I guess that that people latch on to is the fact that by feeding them, you're making both their lives and the lives of of the humans who are going to be encountering them are are worse, more dangerous. And, you know, just like feeding bears, you know, people used to argue about this, you know, in Canada, because I remember growing up, we'd stop the station wagon and we'd all jump out and throw food to the bear that we'd see on the side of the road.

1:28:47 Right. But then what was happening is eventually bears go, hey, I'm going to get fed close to the highway. That's where the good food is, peanut butter sandwiches and stuff, right? Get those next to the highway and bears are getting run over because you know they're going to the highway to get fed more and more and more of them, right? And then or you go and you're trying to take pictures and you don't have any food and they get pissed off and they're like, fuck you, you ain't feeding me. I'm going to bite you, Dick head. Yeah. Exactly. Well, that's not why people are getting bitten that go to the beach or whatever. The reason they're getting they're getting bitten is because they're in the water splashing around #1.

1:29:28 They're simulating what a dead fish or a dying fish would seal or seal. So that's number one. They're they're, they're and they're doing it. They're in the water where they're down the street or down the beach. There's ten people fishing or there's a fishing pier right there. So they're automatic. They're offering food because, but they're not out just, you know, I always if as a rule for me, I won't go in the water if I can't see my feet. Yeah, that's the other yeah, that's The thing is when when the water is really dirty and murky and you you don't have 10 feet of visibility, the shark can't see you either.

1:30:10 So they just think your food something's moving. Sharks work on sharks have a lateral line that runs from the front of their body to the back and and they feel that vibration, they feel, they feel, they even feel the drop in pressure, right. So when you're splashing around you're feeling that and they're going to go to wherever that noise is because they they don't know that it's not prey or it's not something dead or dying. So so to those sharks are not biting because they're getting used to being around people and feeding they're they're doing their normal thing you know that and when and when they come in and they've they're most sharks live birth So that shallow water also helps them gives them kind of say not so much a grip but it's easy they because they turn over and upside down they spin around when they're having their pups yeah so yeah. So do you ever, do you ever dream of like someday retiring from our industry and and actually earning, you know retirement pay by being a an ocean photographer or? Something, well, you know, it's it'd be a really tough transition financially.

1:31:28 Well, of course, right, of course. I do sell a few photos. I just, I just put together a book I'm going to do now. I'm it's called Submerged. I'm going to do another one now. Where should people get that book? Once I once I figure out how I want to do it, it'll probably be an Amazon thing. Oh, so it's not. It's not available yet? Not yet. I've already I got the, I got a first copy of it, so it's going to and it looks really good. I got some stuff to clean up but I'm also going to do on nothing but sharks and you know sharks are my friends, so. Yeah. Let's see, I I could if I wasn't doing this, then all my energy that I have that I put forth in the in what we do here at Premiere Global, I could probably make a pretty good go of it.

1:32:21 I don't try very hard. I post them on social media mainly so that my friends can, that may not ever. They can live. They can live through my photos and and and and see what really is below. You know, they all take cruises and stuff and they go out on boats and they fish, yeah, but then they go down and really look what's there. As your buddy, here's what I'd tell you is just get some young person that you know who's got some time and won't charge you a fortune. Get them to set up a really quick Shopify shop for you and and just put all of your photos on this Shopify shop and obviously you got to put them in, you know, low res so that people aren't just grabbing them and they got to be watermarked and all that stuff but them all on a Shopify store.

1:33:10 And then when you post them to social media, instead of posting the picture, post the Shopify link so that when somebody clicks on the picture, it immediately allows them to buy that picture in a few different formats like a low res format, a high res format, a you know, whatever you can. Do that. I do have a website you can go to and you can pick out what however you I have several you know Pictorium and then I'm on also on on SmugMug. OK so and there's those are sites where you can go in and hey I like that picture. I want to buy it. You can buy it. You can buy it on a coffee cup. You can buy it a mural. Even one of them does they. Do I'm going to have to go look at that because I love those.

1:33:53 Things the links. Every, every time you post a shark picture, I I stop and open it and look at it and I'm blown away. Every time. Like, you've definitely done a really good job with that. And I can tell you're getting better too, as time goes on, you know, and braver. Carter has a better camera than I do and he goes, Dad, you got to get, you can need one of these. I'm like now because if I change cameras and I got to change housings and I got to change gears and I got to change ports and I it's like, no, I've mastered this camera. I'm going to stick with it because I'm not doing, I still use AD 7000. I've been using it for 10 years. But once you figure out how to use something, yeah, it's like they always say it's not all it's you know it's. Well, it's kind of like all these guys. Kind of kind of like all these guys that suddenly had to Start learning how to build their shows on MA threes, you know? Yeah, yeah, I mean the syntax and the button presses and just the stuff that is second nature to you. Suddenly you got to stop everything and go, OK, wait, which button do I press?

1:35:03 And so everything was just a little bit different. Different enough to slow them down, so completely different, so. Give me you know what we have in our front office in the lobby there is a QM AVO Lights QM500 from the old days. Whoa, you don't wanna you don't wanna drug test that keyboard tray? Wow, yeah, I told the other day about sniffing cocaine. Out of the drawer, Yeah, yeah, well, that's a fun I can't. So when I first moved to the US from Canada one of the first shows I went to and I won't tell you which show it was or the LD who it was. But one of the first shows I was invited to to go watch from front of house I'm I'm there and he's got AQM 500 and and while he was doing the show the LDS pulling out this drawer and and the first couple times he did it I was like hang on is that really what he's doing.

1:36:02 And and then I'm I'm really watching closely for him to do it again and probably, I don't know, throughout the show 6-7 times he was doing bumps off the off the keyboard. Drawer that wasn't. Mötley Crüe wasn't. I will never tell. Yeah, I will never tell. But it might have been Ted Nugent, and I won't tell you. And I won't tell you who the LD was, but, but yeah, it was, it was pretty wild. I, you know, again, I was just some dumb, naive Canadian. And I'm seeing this going, what is going on? He's doing drugs right in front of freaking 20,000 people. Yeah, that's crazy. So I'm good times. I'm going to let you get going here shortly. But I want to ask you one thing.

1:36:44 Give me a wild 2024 prediction. For just. Whatever the hell you want. The industry, politics, the freaking world. I don't care. Well, one Trump beats out all the bullshit that's up against him, he will be the president. I don't know that that's that wild. Scott will be his guy. Do you really? I think so. We might have to make a small wager, I don't know. About that. And then as far as our industry is concerned, I think everybody's going to do really, really, really well this year. Yeah. Everybody, I don't think you're wrong.

1:37:25 All the manufacturers. Some manufacturers have been crying to me a little bit because it started with a thud. You know, January was way below expectations. Answer their fucking phone. Craig Burroughs. Yeah, well, you're not going to be. I don't care. To fucking throw anybody out there. You're you're not going to change whether Craig answers his phone or not overnight, you know, because, I mean, that's been a 25 year problem, You know, he didn't answer his phone 30 years ago when he was at high end. We can do it now. Yeah. So love the guy to death, but try getting him on the phone. Yeah, that's funny. Honestly, I think that that's what's going to happen.

1:38:06 I think everybody's going to do really well this. Year. Yeah. Good. I hope that's. I hope that's the truth. Thanks, and I hope that I hope from doing this today I haven't pissed anybody off, but then if I did, who fucking cares? Well, you never have. I've never known you to be somebody who gave a shit. No, no, I mean, we we stayed out of the controversy, I think. And and you know, reality is what reality is. And there's some weird shit going on in the world right now. And I don't agree with all of it, that's for sure. I know you don't either. So yeah, I appreciate you taking some time today, Creech and let me know when you're coming down to Fort Lauderdale or Riviera or wherever you.

1:38:47 Go out of. I see it in my real near future, to be honest with you. Yeah, let me know. Let me know. We can grab dinner, a drink, lunch, whatever you got time for. And I'll and I'll get you into the show this time. I don't care. I don't bug people for. I don't bug people for shows anymore. The next one might be Lynyrd Skynyrd, to be honest with you. Yeah, because I've never seen them. Yeah, it's still, it's there's. I'd be coming to hang out with you. I'd be coming to hang out with. You they are, but they are still the best southern rock band. Out, of course, no, They put on. And playing all the hits.

1:39:27 And they're the the band. Johnny Van Zandt's Sweet as a Peach. Great guy Tosser is out there now. Tosser's Now Steven Doris has took his spot. God bless Steve Viduras. Yeah, and you know, this year it's it's again, Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top. So cool. Another one out there. Another icon. Let me know when you're down here. I'd love to come see. You I will do, I will do. All right. Cool. Thank you. We'll talk to you later. All right. Thanks guys. Bye. Yeah.