Bastu Boys
Welcome to Bastu Boys — where the takes are hot, and the sports talk is… wildly unqualified! Join your hosts, Tony and Tony as they sweat out their latest random thoughts, debate the dumbest plays, and drop opinions nobody asked for — but you’re getting them anyway. This is your weekly dose of steam, screams, and sports dreams. Let’s get into it!
Bastu Boys
Two dads juggle sports, community, and a fiery debate on media, money, and power—then pitch their dream movie cast
A 2–2 start, a sunrise kickoff in Dublin, and a depth chart patched together with grit—our Vikings chat gets honest about trenches, timing, and why getting JJ cooking early changes everything. From there, we look squarely at the Lynx semifinal exit and the line between physical play and player safety. Zero free throws for a star? Coaches defending their teams? Where’s the bar for consistency when a season hangs on a whistle? We don’t chase outrage; we track what helps the game.
Then the lens narrows to where we live: our high school programs. Basketball is hiring across the staff, volleyball just stacked a big result, and one rogue football nuked a sprinkler, flooding a hallway and canceling JV. It’s funny because it’s true—but it also reveals what wins in October: fundamentals, leadership, and team culture that holds in hard moments.
We also take on the thing most folks avoid. Social media’s rewards for certainty. Cable news slicing reality into clips. The difference between private choice and public obligation. Executive pay versus worker security. Stock buybacks and the erosion of retirement. We don’t land on slogans; we dig for middle‑ground levers—tying tax breaks to employer‑paid healthcare, protecting retirement for long‑tenured workers, and keeping Social Security honest by lifting outdated caps. On healthcare, we separate myth from lived timelines: urgent care must be fast; elective care needs a fair path that doesn’t bankrupt families.
To cool the temperature, we share business updates you can actually use: sauna nights launching twice a month at Jim’s in Chisholm with hot/cold contrast therapy, flexible financing through Hearth for custom builds, and a friendlier website experience coming soon. And because we’re nerds at heart, we end with a four‑actor movie challenge: an elder‑era Batman with Brad Pitt and Willem Dafoe, and The Last Cipher starring Morgan Freeman, Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves, and Jet Li.
If this mix of sports, small‑town life, real talk, and creative fun hits your lane, tap follow, share with a friend, and drop a rating. Tell us your four‑actor dream cast and what topic you want us to tackle next.
Welcome back to Boss Two Boys. Good morning. It's uh it's been a minute again for whatever reason. You know, life gets in the way and plans.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, we just gotta have a set recording schedule where it's like the same time every week, and then we can commit to it.
SPEAKER_04:And it's been hard to get us both in the same place on the same night at the same time with neither one of us having anything going on. It just Yeah, we're busy people. Well, and not to mention, you know, the Vikings played that one Monday night. We didn't ignore that, because that was that we that week. And then just volleyball and shit. And work and kids and life and stuff like that. You know, we both have been very adamant about still doing life and not making this rule everything and yeah. Which is good. I mean, uh neither one of us, it's not that we're not motivated, it's just that we we got stuff going on. That's just what it is. Yeah. Coming up in today's episode, we'll talk about some Viking stuff. I know it's gonna be week five coming up here next weekend, the game in London. Uh, we'll talk about the unfortunate exit of the Lynx in the semifinals. I'll do I'll talk about that quick. Talk about some news on the high school side for our high school girls, basketball-wise, and probably talk some volleyball. And I know you I don't know, did you go to Big Fork? Yeah, I didn't think so. We'll talk about some current events also, uh, what's going on in the world and how we feel about that. Sometimes it could get us in trouble, but we'll stop before it gets too too deep. You know what I mean? For that kind of current events stuff. But then Tony will go into business talk and touch on some things that he wants to talk about. We have a new something that I wanted to I thought was cool. I saw it on social media. I sent a picture to Tony and it's making his own film, and I sent him I don't know, twenty actors. Twenty, yep. Come up with a movie title, movie plot, who the four main actors will be, and kind of kind of go through that. Kind of something new and I don't know if it's gonna be exciting, but it'll definitely be definitely be a talking point between the two of us because we're both such I don't know, big movie goers. I love movies. He loves movies when we have time to watch them.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, absolutely. Uh there's I I actually saw shorts shorts today on YouTube when I was scrolling the YouTube shorts. There was a bunch for some for whatever reason, my algorithm popped up a bunch from the equalizer. Great movies, yeah. Great movies.
SPEAKER_04:And I I wanna I wanna watch that. Did you know there's a TV show, The Equalizer, with Queen Latifah? No, that sounds interesting. I've never watched it. I've heard it's good, it's been on for a few seasons, so so yeah, we'll touch on some sports here quick. I know, like I said, it's week it'll be week five for the Vikings. We haven't talked about it since week one. Obviously, McCarthy's out. Second week. Oh, what happened? Did we lose? Yeah, we lost to Atlanta or whatever. I really don't care. JJ got hurt. Oh, yeah. We were out some defensive players. Week three, we beat somebody. I don't remember who it was, honestly. And then just this last weekend. Oh, the Bengals. Yeah. We did the Bengals. Our defense showed up and scored a bunch of points. Isaiah Rogers had the game of his life against the Bengals. It was pretty impressive. And then Carson Wentz had a good game. I know he's a backup and whatnot. I think he played well. And then, you know, this last game against Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers over in Dublin, it just it never seemed like we could get in a rhythm. And it's early in the year. I just I'm not I'm not too concerned. Two-and-two going into week five, and we play again over overseas in London, another 8:30 a.m. game for us.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, that's not bad.
SPEAKER_04:No, and I I and you know, there's commentators and there's sports people out there that are saying that, you know, the Vikings are just patchworking an offensive line, which is true. I hope Brian O'Neill is not out for any kind of extended.
SPEAKER_05:Well, did you see what happened? He sprained his MCO.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it and you know, it'll take a couple weeks, you know, whatever. I'd rather see him come back healthy mid-season or late in the season, you're fine. Than to have him try and play on it and hurt it worse and be out even longer. Yeah. Because he's not young, but he's not old. Correct. So, I mean, I don't know. Like I said, I'm not too concerned. We play the Browns this week over in London. The Browns are no pushover, they're gonna be a tough game.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I think I think we'll do fine. Carson Wentz will do fine. The Browns defense is really fucking good, way better than the Steelers or the or Atlanta, the other two teams that we've lost to. But I think we'll be alright. Gotta get the ball to JJ again early in the first half and then keep hitting him in the second half.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:You can definitely tell Addison's been out for an extended period of time because he looked like he he looked like shit. He did to be honest. They need to get Hawkinson some somehow involved in the game. I mean, he's pretty much just not there. I know. He I mean he he had a few yards on Sunday morning, but nothing impressive, like nothing like he's like he normally does. And he's getting old too, and he's beat up, and I'm still really impressed with this Mason kid. Oh, me too, 100%. I love him at RB. It all starts off, it all starts at the line, you know, defensively and offensively. We just gotta see if we can get these guys to play together, and that that's really all I have. KOC will have him ready to play again. I mean, I'm sure they just packed their shit and went over to London. Yeah. I they probably didn't fly back to Minneapolis to fly back to London. So that's my tidbit on the Vikings. Packers in Dallas tied last night. Or in the Sunday night game. Whatever. Oh, yeah, that was it was a pretty good game. Yeah. It is what it is. I was sleeping. Yeah, I was I was in bed.
SPEAKER_05:I had a long day yesterday.
SPEAKER_04:We had fun. It was it was a blast. You know, and we can even talk about that. We had Sunday fun day for the first time in a long time, and I had a few drinks and it felt good, and I, you know, I didn't feel sick or nothing, so it was good. And I drank Crown Royal of all things.
SPEAKER_05:I was very intoxicated. I think everybody was. I fell asleep though, like at nine. Yeah, I didn't go to bed right away. I fell asleep at like nine, and then I woke up in the middle of the night and had a date with the toilet. Not not puking. Just other way. Just yeah, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Well, that's all that Snickers and Was it Snickers or Jims? Or gyms or whatever. But it was fun. It was a good time. Next week well, we play 830. I think we're gonna do 830, and then we're gonna do lunch or dinner, linner, whatever the hell you want to call it. Late lunch, early dinner for my wife's birthday.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So, yeah. And I'll just touch on the links quick. They they played the Mercury in the semifinals for the WMBA playoffs. Officiating was absolutely abysmal. I'm sure most of you that listen, or some of you that watch women's basketball or know anything about it. It was it was really bad in game three. The foul they didn't call on for Nafisa Collier where she possibly fractured her ankle. I'm pretty indifferent on it. The whole game was physical. It's kind of where the WNBA's leaning is to get it more physical, but that's just gonna get more of them hurt. It wasn't, in my opinion, a foul. But if it was happening all game, maybe the refs should have called something to to mitigate the injuries, to mitigate the chance of injured injuries, but she picked her pocket, they smacked legs, she fell awkwardly. Yeah. It's a part of the game. And I'm a map, I'm a huge Nafisa Collier fan, I'm a big Lynx fan. I probably wouldn't have called that a foul personally, but there was a couple other highlights from that game that definitely could have been could have been shooting fouls for us. I know there's the other coaches that are in that playoff are complaining a lot about the refs, and it is what it is. You know, they're they want to be like the NBA, they want to be able to play like men.
SPEAKER_05:I want to see it quick.
SPEAKER_04:You should l watch the post-conference, the post-game conference. It's it's awesome.
SPEAKER_05:I don't I'm not deaf yet. Oh yeah. I don't I I don't see a foul there.
SPEAKER_04:Well, and if if you watch if they replay it here, which they might she picks her pocket clean, but then the after the after of it when their legs hit. But Cheryl Reeves is going full.
SPEAKER_05:She lost her composure completely there. I mean, there's a line that that is drawn in the sand for coaches to interact with referees, and she definitely crossed it. And you and you can't storm the court. I'm sorry. You can be emotional and you can be fired up and you can yell at them, but she, I mean, she was she just like bull rushed the court.
SPEAKER_04:And then walking up the tunnel, she told two fans to go fuck themselves. Yeah, I heard uh she's suspended. Watch, watch, watch, watch. Right there. Like that maybe Thomas.
SPEAKER_06:No, maybe.
SPEAKER_05:Maybe I I think she was look, she she plants with her right foot. Like she's she's she's like transitioning between she's transitioning her weight from her left to her right foot.
SPEAKER_04:The only way you can call that is if you've been calling it all game.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I just can't see where she's intentionally leaving her leg. Like she's just proceeding forward towards the ball. Right. She like looked back there and extended her leg out. Right. Right.
SPEAKER_04:Like like I said, yeah, I probably wouldn't have called that unless they're calling it all game. Yeah, you can't call it in that situation. You just she picked her talking about gentle doing the second one down.
SPEAKER_05:Do you have audio? I don't have audio. No. Okay, I have it shut off. That's why I was just curious. I don't believe I do. I'm gonna keep it. Let's see if this works.
SPEAKER_07:Who was it that asked about officiating before the game? Is that you, Kendra? And we talked about how dangerous it can be. You're hearing it from the other series, you're hearing other coaches, you're hearing Becky talk about when you let the physicality happen, people get hurt. There's fights.
SPEAKER_04:She's not wrong.
SPEAKER_07:And this is the look that our league wants for some reason. We were trying to play through it. We're trying not to make excuses. One of the best players in the league shot zero free throws.
SPEAKER_04:That's the biggest thing right there.
SPEAKER_07:Zero free throws. And probably has a fracture. And so this is league, this is what our league wants. Okay. But I want to call for a change of the world.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, that looks just nasty.
SPEAKER_07:At the league level when it comes to officiating. It's bad for the game. The officiating crew that we had tonight, for the leadership to deem those three people semi-finals playoff worthy is malpractice.
SPEAKER_04:That's beautiful.
SPEAKER_07:No, I'm all for the best of them.
SPEAKER_04:I'm all for coaches sticking up for their players. I'm all for that.
SPEAKER_07:And there's no call. And all of them say, that wasn't my wasn't my call.
SPEAKER_04:See, and that's bullshit too. Yeah, that is.
SPEAKER_07:I didn't see it though. Fing awful.
SPEAKER_04:That's awesome. If a if a official, a ref sees something, even if it's not in their zone, they should call it. You have to call it. Yes. You have to. Because the guy on the the person shouldn't say guy, the official on the baseline might be obstructed by a player to see something. Like in football. Same thing. If a line judge if there's something in his way, a player in his way or her way, and the back judge sees it, they have to call it. Like you you can't say that's not my zone, that's not I wasn't looking, blah, blah, blah. Well, I mean, just you have to be accountable for that. Yes. And she's 100% right. And now, and I see this online and I've heard it on other podcasts and other things like that. This is what the Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark have been going through the last two years. Because they have been beating the shit out of Caitlin Clark. Yep. Because they, you know, the initiation to the league and blah blah blah. And you know, and she's right, like fights happen, people get hurt, all this other stuff. The Lynx lost last night. And, you know, the other thing with Cheryl Reeves, like, she's an amazing coach, obviously. She her her her record and her championships, you know, speak for themselves. But you also need to know how important you are to your team. Like if you need to get your team fired up in the second quarter or third quarter and you get a technical foul, like that should fire them up. And the the players that they have should have been able to be like, hey coach, we got you. We gotcha. Thank you. But to then do that, storm halfway across the court on a questionable, possible foul, yeah, to be then suspended for the next game, which is an elimination game, is very irresponsible.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. That's the word I would say. Yes.
SPEAKER_04:It's it's and sticking, like I said, sticking up for your players and you know the team, like that, I'm all for that. Like that's awesome. You don't see that a lot in today's sports, but you have to know when to kind of pull it back. And I and I like to see the emotion because you don't see that a lot in women's basketball.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But it's a bummer that they're done. Good luck to the Mercury. You know, they played their asses off and they beat us, you know. And I I'm hoping and the fever and the eight at Las Vegas Aces are in the other semifinal and they're going to a game five. It would be insane to see the Indiana Fever make it to the WNBA finals without Sophie Cunningham and Caitlin Clark. So it'll it'll be interesting for that. I I'm I'm gonna root for the fever. Hopefully, they can pull it off. Twins fired Rocco by Baldelli today. Did not see that. Unfortunately, it sucks. I liked Rocco. I thought he was a good manager, he had a good run, he just couldn't get those guys in, you know, he you you can't do much with the payroll that we have.
SPEAKER_05:No, and the twins uh we've been struggling forever for a long time since the nineties.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I mean since the early 2000s, but even then we couldn't get over the hump. Yeah, and we still don't have an owner or a GM that's willing to spend the money to get the the big name players here. Like we we just don't, and unfortunately, you know, Buxton never can stay healthy and Lewis can never stay healthy and yada yada, and we just we don't have it. Unfortunately, we're just a farm team for the Yankees and the and the Red Sox. And that sucks, but I mean I love baseball. Good luck to the Tigers and good luck to the to the uh Indians, you know, from the central division, you know. The Guardians, whatever. The Guardians.
SPEAKER_05:I don't care. I still think they should be the Cleveland Indians, but Tyreek Hill just got carted off the field. Really? Yeah. Uh-oh. Probably season-ending leg injury. Well, I was gonna say domestic abuse, but somebody abused him. Too soon.
SPEAKER_04:Somebody abused him. So that's pretty much my take on, you know, in a you know, big sports, professional sports. And local our high school news, our girls' basketball program is now without a coaching staff. Head coach, assistant coach, and myself all resigned on the last few weeks. I'm I'm kind of excited to see what happens and who gets the job, and you know, good luck to whoever does. Hopefully, I can step in or get a get hired as the the JV coach. I'd really I'd really love to do it. I'm not oh yeah I'm not gonna throw all my eggs in the basket. I'm not gonna get my hopes up about it. I just I would love the opportunity, and if I don't, I don't. If I do, I do. Volleyball, you guys had a tournament. Well, we, I guess you could say. Had a tournament in Big Fork this last week in our varsity girls took first. JV Girls in a varsity tournament took consolation or second place consolation. Which is not bad. Which is not bad for a JV team that you know normally plays seventh and eighth and ninth graders, playing against all more or less sophomores, juniors, seniors, varsity teams. So good for them. Tonight we had a game at the high school, and some some football player happened to hit a sprinkler head sprinkler head with a football bust in the glass and you know flooded one of the hallways next to the gym. So canceled the JV game. Varsity game just started a little bit ago. Good luck to them. Hopefully they can pull it off.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, Cook's a tough Cook's a tough school. Northwoods. I they're Northwoods. Yeah, yeah. Cook or Cook or Northwoods.
SPEAKER_04:Cook or uh they're a good team, they're number one in our subsection right now, right in front of us. They have a really good coach.
SPEAKER_05:I know their coach personally, they do, and that's where it all starts. She she spends a lot of time and effort kind of working on those girls and getting them up to be high caliber volleyball players.
SPEAKER_04:As you should. That's how the program all starts. Yes, working on the fundamentals and basics. I mean, and and they're good. I like and I like their coach. I think she's she's really nice, she's always been really nice. She is one of the nicest people on the planet. Yeah, so I mean, good luck for for them and for us, and hopefully. You know, and I don't know. I I have a hard time watching our varsity just with the attitudes on the team and the the the leadership that they have. It's just it's non-existent. It it's it's hard to watch sometimes. You know, we have we definitely have section champion potential. I just I don't think that we're gonna be able to do that. The talent is there, the talent is there.
SPEAKER_05:We have to it's a matter of we have to have good organization and team cohesion.
SPEAKER_04:And right now we just unfortunately we don't have it. Which is what it is.
SPEAKER_05:I mean it's still early in the season, too. Early-ish.
SPEAKER_04:There's only four games left. Okay. And a tournament. I lied.
SPEAKER_05:And then the section tournament. It's October already, I forget.
SPEAKER_04:It's middle of it's well, it's the start of October, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, no, it's October in two days. Yeah, so one day.
SPEAKER_04:Good luck to them. I you know, I I don't hope that they don't do well. I I hope they do well. It's just obviously I don't I don't see it, unfortunately. But maybe they'll surprise me with a little bit more. We'll see what happens, yeah. Yeah. You never know. So that's pretty much all I got for sports, or all we have for sports. We'll we'll end it with that. Kind of like current events to go go off of right now, you know. Is there any kind of current event that you would be interested in talking about going on right now?
SPEAKER_05:Well, I told I told my I'm not talking about the the I'm not talking. There's so many flies in here. I'm not talking about that one thing that happened about a month ago. That's not gonna happen. At the college? Yeah, not gonna have any conversation on that. It's been talked about by the media enough. And as with all media goes, you can find whatever narrative that you agree with and listen to 24 hours straight of news based on that narrative. So whether you're a Fox or a CNN person, just go there and watch those reels from their commentators and you can hear whatever the hell you want to hear about it. I'm not gonna talk about it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and it's it's sad that it's really sad right now that there's such a divide with an incident or a subject like that. That that's something that should not be tolerated by either side, by anybody.
SPEAKER_05:No, but all the news, all the news, all the politicians wants to do is point fingers and say it's your fault, no, it's your fault, no, it's your fault, no, it's your fault. And then these people watch these newscasts and these stories about the event that happened, and they're like, No, it's it out of context, and this is in context, and that was out of context, and this doesn't matter, but this matters, and everybody wants to fight with each other instead of caring about like the the bigger picture that's going on here where we have a hundred and a hundred and eighty-five million, I wanna say, taxpayers in this country, hundred and eighty-five million households in this country, and you got ninety ninety million people versus ninety million people, and that's why we can't get anything done here, because everybody always thinks they're right and their their values matter more than their neighbors, and that's and I and I just don't understand that.
SPEAKER_04:Like, I I don't understand it's by design. And where did that when did that start? Like can you can you pinpoint it when it started?
SPEAKER_05:There's not an exact point where it started, but I mean if we were doing fairly well as a country after the Great Depression, so like 50s, 60s, we were doing decent. Vietnam happened, that caused a lot of divide between even that people.
SPEAKER_04:And I know like the Vietnam thing was a big that it was a big deal, like you're right. But even then, you can look back and like there wasn't this much unrest. Like there really wasn't, but the the reason the the is it because it's in your hand and in your face.
SPEAKER_05:That's that's a big part, a big part of the emotional side of it. A big part of the emotional side of the polarization that's happening in this country is yes, 1000% there is one scapegoat for that, and that is social media. That is the ability for people to pick up a device and argue right, wrong, or otherwise, right? They are able to just puke their opinions all over other people, and then that obviously creates an emotional response from the people that disagree, and then they get to puke all of their opinions over, and then other people are reading this, and then they basically just give up and say we're so divided that there's nothing anybody can do anymore. So you and I don't agree on everything.
SPEAKER_04:No, we really and you know people might think we do, but we really don't. Okay. But you and I can sit here and disagree with each other and give each other our opinions.
SPEAKER_05:Well, and we can talk about it in a and and and in the past, prior pre-social media, it was more of a tough conversation to have with somebody. It was more of like what I'm saying is it was more avoided in in public because of the face-to-face. Yeah, because it's harder to talk to somebody face to face when you disagree with them. That's a hundred percent a human human thing. Confrontation. Confrontation is not natural, like people don't naturally confront each other on, especially on stuff like this. Correct. I mean, if somebody's doing something egregious, humans are there to confront them. But in the past, pre-social media, nobody was ever there to just shit on your your political values, nobody would nobody was there to, you know, and you didn't see it all the time, so you didn't get burned out from just reading this constant just regurgitation of of political talking points that people hear on these stupid fuck news programs, and it's just like, oh well, so-and-so did this, and the news said that it's because of this, so then now I'm gonna go argue with somebody that disagrees with me and just repeat what the news says and and take it as gospel that that's accurate, and it's not.
SPEAKER_04:There was a leader years ago that used propaganda to brainwash an entire race of people. Yeah. An entire race of people to make them think otherwise. Now we have multiple news stations, multiple media outlets that do the same thing. It's yeah, and the ironic thing is what and I want to name the the person that did that.
SPEAKER_05:What everybody wants to fight about is like why this is happening. They're like, and and and all of the there's a there's a large group of people that share something in common, and they want to they they tend to congregate around that subject, and they they put all of their all of their strength and emotion into arguing for that subject that this group of people all agree on because they believe that that's the most important thing. And then these news outlets repeat that to them, and they say, yes, this is under attack in the country, and you need to stand up for it. And the problem is the thing that they all agree on isn't agreed on universally by everybody, right? So they just think they're right because it's the most important thing in their lives, and it's not the most important thing in everybody's lives, and and and the other side wants to argue like, hey, you can't use that to control people's lives because not everybody agrees with you. And they say that it doesn't matter who agrees with us because we know we're right, and this is higher than us, and it's like, no, the higher power can't you can't you can't legislate based on that. You can do anything you want in this country based on those beliefs and values. You have the choice and freedom to behave exactly how you are instructed to behave based on your central values. Right. That means in all fairness, the next person down the road should be able to believe behave and believe how and believe in what and how they ever how however they want, free from government intervention in their lives. Businesses, 100%. You can deny service to anybody you want as a business. As a private business in this country, you can say, I'm not gonna serve this people, I'm not gonna serve this group of people, I'm not gonna serve anybody that does this. As a private business in this country, you have that right. And the government should not be able to tell private businesses who they can and can't let in. 100% on board with that. The second you start getting into the public sector, where public jobs are and public schools and public universities, you cannot legislate anything and mandate anything for those public schools to do that is based off of a belief that is only shared by a certain group of people in this country.
SPEAKER_04:So I was listening to the Joe Rogan podcast today. He was with Matthew McConaughey. I don't know if you've I haven't listened to that one yet. It's really good.
SPEAKER_05:It's in my queue.
SPEAKER_04:So I'll I'll just I'll ruin a little bit for you. They were talking about how they felt about putting the Ten Commandments in school.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And uh because you know, the the Ten Commandments are they are they should be, and I'm not a religious person, you know that. They should be something that kids are taught because they're good values, like they're good life values. I don't know, I don't think necessarily in the words that they're put in. I mean the the base ten commandments.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, they're uh yes, they're they're fairly moral teachings. Correct. That's and that's everybody could agree that that they have moral teaching, like they're they have morality in mind.
SPEAKER_04:And McConaughey was like, that's something that you should be taught at home before you even get to school. It doesn't need to be in public school. It has nothing to do with educ education in general, unless you're going to a private Catholic school, you know, religious institution. It has no place in public school. No, it doesn't. The constitution, another great document that this country wrote, our forefathers wrote, should be taught in school because that has morals and that has all the other things that helped build this country. And I I loved what they said about that. And they kind of went back and forth a little bit because McConaughey is kind of a he's he's he's kind of religious, like you could say.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But he's not someone that's gonna push those push those beliefs on you. He wants morality taught, and he wants you know how to be humble, how to be a good person. Like that's what that's for. That's what at home is for. You want your kids to learn how to be a good person, you teach them sh that shit at home. That's what it's that's what it's there for. And I just I don't understand where and I don't know where we veered from love thy neighbor, do not steal, you know, those kind of things.
SPEAKER_05:And here's my conspiracy theory hat on that. Here's my conspiracy theory. This isn't the page has nothing to do with that, but my my tinfoil hat theory on this is that the powerful in this country needed more power, more money, and they want to stay in power forever. I mean, that's that's what oppressive groups do when they get power, that's all they want. They want to maintain power, they want more power. And in this country, money is power and politics is power because we're a democracy, we're run off of uh an elected body of legislators. And so somebody somewhere at some time, maybe it was a group of people, maybe they have seminars for this in secret. I don't know what the deal is, but they say, you know what would be really great is if the world's number one freest country, the democracy of the world, could implement a structure, a class structure, where we hold down every single person and and we're able to just do whatever we want, and then they fight amongst themselves the whole time and don't pay attention to what exactly is happening here. And in order to do that, it's been a decades-long process of convincing middle-class Americans that they should be minimal topic voters, meaning they should vote from the heart and not from the head. And so this group of people that want to maintain power convinced a whole 50% of the country that their vote matters the most for their personal values and has nothing to do with what's actually happening with corporations, corporate governance, monopolies, stuff like that, because it like people say I'm radical when it comes to when it comes to like fiscal pol politics, fiscal political views, because I say that the and so before I get in too far into it, I understand the history of like communism and government-run businesses and stuff like that. I I I understand the history behind that, and I understand that there are evil people that could rise to power and take over and and and do a lot of damage. However, I think in our in our environment in America, we have committees, we have three bodies of government that are supposed to check on each other. And if you vote I mean, if you're not voting evil people into office, it will be well regulated. Now should be the question is what will be well regulated? This is my this is this is what I want to see. I want to see a cap put on business profits where an insurance company, which has no physical products, like the insurance company, they don't sell you something and then you have it on your shelf. This is just a subscription service to get your shit covered. That's it. So if that company is making fifty billion dollars a year in we'll say, we'll say in revenue, and then profit because they're not selling tangible assets, they're just selling a service, and maybe they maybe they walk away with 12 billion in profits. I don't have concrete numbers. I could pull up the United Healthcare's profit from last year and go off of that if I wanted, but I would like to see some kind of regulations put into place where this company that makes$12 billion a year in profit can only give a certain amount of that to the board of directors and their executive officers. They should only get a portion capped at a certain amount of that. Above and beyond that, the company has the freedom to invest any or all of that amount back into the business by hiring more employees, upgrading their facilities, purchasing new equipment, and anything beyond that is all taxable that goes back into social programs that helps the middle class and lower class people. Can I ask a question? After school programs, school mentor programs, sports for public schools that can't afford sports, all kinds of stuff could be paid for with that chunk of money. But again, everybody's so afraid that evil will make its way in there, and then the government's gonna say, Oh, look at all this money we're taking from the businesses, and we're gonna use it for for malice. And that's where it's like just explaining socialism. Yeah, a hundred percent. It's exactly what I'm explaining. So I s I I read this. What I'm saying, though, is the problem is wealth disparity in this country. The the top wants to stay the top, and they just hold their finger down on the bottom the whole time, and there's no movement on it because every time the government mention every time the government mentions anything resembling what I just said, everybody gets all up in arms about it. And that's the only way to fix things. And this it's a pendulum. Right now, the pendulum is swung all the way to the top of the top elites, and it's in their direction. And in order to get it back to equilibrium, you got to give it a good shove to get it unstuck from where they're holding it.
SPEAKER_04:I just I I I don't know if I'd I have a really hard time with socialism. I really, really do. A lot of people do, and here's my reasoning why, because you work hard, right? Yes, you work hard, you work as hard as you can to make as much money as you can, to have the best possible life that you can. Yes. Now, somebody comes in and is now getting paid just as much as you, and is doing ten times less work, not performing, not doing their job, but yet still getting the same benefits and still getting the same pay as you. I never a group of ten people, you get you have those top three people that are gonna that are gonna do it, and that's bottom three.
SPEAKER_05:They should be that's why I didn't mention universal wages. I mentioned just regulations on top tier. If you're you're talking like the Walmarts, I'm talking about the big corporations that make billions of dollars a year, and then their CEOs get to walk away with a$50 million bonus at the end of the year. And the the guy that's on the assembly lines getting$30,000 a year. Yeah, yeah, maybe. And he doesn't get the bonuses, right? He might get a profit sharing check what here and there, but minimal. It's minimal.
SPEAKER_04:And I and I and I understand, and I I don't disagree entirely with that.
SPEAKER_05:I don't think that there should be, I don't think there should be just flat rate wages where you're like, if this is what you're doing, this is what you get paid. That's too micromanage-y. You don't you can't micromanage that much. The business can be free to pay the people whatever they want to pay the people exceeding minimum wage, of course. And the business can be free to set their own wages, but at the top levels, board of directors, executive officer levels, that needs to be controlled a little bit. And business profits in general need to be controlled a little bit because all they do is buy back stocks with the extra money. You're right. And then where does that money go? The people that own a lot of those stocks are rich people. And the thing is, like, pensions are a thing of the past. No, like the pensions are only now available in like union shops across the country. Any anybody non-union has a 401k or a 403B, or whatever it might be, but but you can you can use those investments, but you think your whatever target date 2050 fund has well like in my company, I had 50% of my 401k invested in my own company's stock, and that only gave me about I don't know, 2,000, 2,000 shares of my company's stock. And the the board, the board and executive officers have that in their back pocket in any given day, right? 2,000 shares of of my company's stock was nothing to that. They were selling 200,000 shares. That's what our CEO exercised his his right to sell 180,000 shares or something shortly before shortly after the Nippon deal was announced. He sold a boatload of shares that equated to something in the realm of$30 million. And that's I'm not saying that's that that we should regulate that. I think anybody should be able to buy stock whenever. But the overhead needs regulations that can be put into place.
SPEAKER_04:Well, and you know what's sad is a lot of those people find the loophole. They find the loophole, they go overseas, they do.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, there's loopholes to be found, and then the other part of that argument where I said the regulation, then the government takes that money, is like people will say, Oh, the government we can't let the government do that. Well, guess what? Private fucking businesses are doing it to you right now, right? This is like having private businesses just be do whatever the fuck they want with their own money is the same thing as what if the government controlled all that money. The only problem is these private businesses have very like strict uh like guardrails put on, so they don't donate a whole bunch. Some businesses are more philanthropic than others, yep, and they will donate a lot of money to nonprofits. But a lot of the time the nonprofits are for niche issues, like St. Jude's Children's Hospital. Not saying it's a bad because it's fucking phenomenal. It's a children's hospital. Corporations donate to that. All the money gets used by that hospital, and it doesn't benefit the the greater masses of citizens of the United States. The way that my crazy radical, socialist, no good, commie bitch mind works, is that if the government had access to that money, we could fully fund retirement for anybody over the age of 65. Well, and taking that money from those businesses, or you as a government, you require the businesses to to take care of their people when they retire. Instead of instead, sorry, I'm keeping instead of the government owning the money and controlling the money, just put laws in place that say if you're a business, if you're a corporation and people retire from your company, you will take care of that person the rest of their life. Yeah. That's that should be in with the contract. I mean, yeah, if if you have somebody working for your business for 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, yeah, that person should be taken care of. They should never have to worry about medical. They shouldn't have to fucking and the other problem is all these people like retirees that hang around way too long that they fucking get the fuck out. It's what my favorite saying is for their biggest concern is always health care. Yep. Well, what the fuck is the solution to that? Maybe we should have a system in place that everybody gets covered for what they need to get covered for.
SPEAKER_04:I just, you know, and everybody says, you know, Canada has free health care and Canada this, and you know, you know how long it takes to get into a doctor in Canada? It takes a minute. Fucking forever.
SPEAKER_05:For non-engrigent issues, but I've talked to several Canadians that actively live in Canada, and it when you yeah, if you need like if you got a bum shoulder and it's not from an injury and your shoulders just sore, yeah, it could be a six-month ordeal getting through the pre-op. But I had the same thing. I went to the doctor the first time in June. I had an appointment with an orthopedist at the end of July, and then I I I couldn't get an MRI until September, and then I had my pre-op in October, and I didn't even have the fucking surgery until February, and that's in America. And that's I mean, I mean, that's that's normal for you to go through that. It's not like you have a gunshot wound and you're bleeding from your torso, and they're like, oh, we have a three-week waiting list on the OR, so you're gonna have to come back. Do you think that more taxes would be something that you'd be okay with? Not me. No, fucking don't take my money. I'm don't anybody that makes sense. Anybody that makes less than one million dollars is gonna be my imaginary line is one million dollars. If you make$999,999, you don't pay those taxes. You make one million and one dollar, you fucking pay those taxes.
SPEAKER_04:I just don't understand why Bezos and Musk need that much money. Correct.
SPEAKER_05:And here's another thing:$146,000 is the cap for Social Security coming out of your paycheck. Once you exceed$140,000, only$146,000, once you exceed that number, you don't pay into Social Security after that number. How fucking dumb is that? And then the government is like, oh, Social Security might not be around. We're running out of money. Well, maybe it's because the people that make over$146,000 don't fucking pay. Yeah. And it's not for it's it's not for the whole year. They pay up to$146,000. But then once you hit that, you look at your pay stub, there's no social security coming out of that paycheck.
SPEAKER_04:You know what's crazy is that it used to be a big deal to be a millionaire. Well, yeah, now it's not. It's not a big deal to be a millionaire anymore.
SPEAKER_05:No, it's not anymore. And that's because literally the the upper like the 10% of 1%, the 0.1% of people own like 40% of the wealth, and the top 10% own 50% of the wealth in the country. 90% of us have to split 50% of the money in the country.
SPEAKER_04:Isn't it what's the number for Musk? Like he he makes like a something around it's millions of dollars, and if he gave a billion dollars to everybody in this country, he'd still have like a hundred some billion dollars.
SPEAKER_05:That that math probably doesn't work because I've done math where it's like I actually did this equation not too long ago. I took the whole like I I had GPT estimate the total amount of profit of public sector companies in in the stock market. So their profits were some somewhere like I don't know if it was four trillion somewhere, maybe not that much, maybe it was 1.4 trillion. But then I had that do the I had it do the math, and I was like, all right, how many taxpayers are there in the United States? Well, there's roughly 180 million households, so 1.4 trillion into 100 or 180 million into 1.4 trillion, each household would uh would would equate to like 20 or maybe a 14,000, was it? Somewhere in there. It was less than$30,000, but but if all the profit that the businesses make, and only like the top-tier businesses, all of that profit could be equally divided amongst all the taxpayers of the country by$20,000 or so, we'll say. That's insane. I mean, that's that's a lot of money. Fuck yeah.$20,000 times$180 million. That's a lot. And then if you parse that out some more and say, all right, number of taxpayers that make less than$400,000 a year, then that number goes up even more. If you're paying out, if you're paying out some, you know, tax benefits or something to people, but I it's a math equation, you know, and I know humans tend to have more of an emotional side than just a pure logic side, but the math could work out if you knew all the variables and you said, hey, this many people are retired, this many people need money, like the math can work, but nobody wants to do that.
SPEAKER_04:And and they say, and I'm I'm I don't know if I'm one of those people, but you know, if I work my ass off to get to a point where I'm making say two million dollars a year, why why would somebody and not to say that I wouldn't, why would somebody then turn around to just give their money away to somebody that isn't doing it, like isn't giving that effort, isn't putting in the work. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_05:Like uh yeah, no, that that makes perfect sense. And that's why that's why I think uh a middle ground, if you will, solution would be to just legislate companies into taking care of their retirees at the very least. Or or force companies to pay the full premium for your health insurance. Force companies to pay the full premium so you're not getting fucking reamed every month paying your health insurance premiums. Union shops negotiate that into their into their contract a lot of the times. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of union employees that pay zero premium health health insurance. And it's a good, it's a low deductible, low out-of-pocket max plan. It's a good, good health plan that they're on. I just and that's that's an agreement between a union and a corporation, and the union says, we're not gonna work unless you do that. So why can't the fucking government say you're not gonna get your tax break unless you pay these? Yeah. I mean, that's a middle ground. I'm talking like, I agree with you, it's hard for people to swallow the fact that if they make two million dollars a year and they're so their second million dollars is being taxed at a higher rate than their first million dollars. I understand that that's a hard pill to swallow, but I'm not talking about like taxing these people at like eighty percent. Right. I mean, in FDR depression era, he taxed the like corporations were taxed at of profit, they were taxed at like 90% of profit.
SPEAKER_04:It's crazy because when our country was established, we were trying to get away from taxation without representation.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Because the king wasn't here and we were paying the taxes to the king of England, and none of the money was coming back over to the colonies. That's kind of that was like the main deal. That was one of the main But having the central government so outside of being labeled as like a super socialist here, there I think everybody can agree that we need some sort of leadership in the country. We have to have a centralized leadership. Because if you don't have centralized leadership, it's anarchy, it's anarchy. You have tribal, you have tribal warfare, basically. You'd have district district one through twelve against everybody. Yep. And and it's like you you would have the different geographic locations, and then you'd have demographic people get together in certain areas, and then they would run this part, and they would run that part. So you need central leadership, and so I think everybody in this country can agree that we need centralized leadership. I don't think that's out of the question. I think everybody in this country can agree that that central leadership needs to be able to enforce what laws they make. Yes. So and held accountable for things that they say that they're going to do. They do need to be held accountable, but they need to be able to enforce the laws that they make. And in order to force enforce the laws that they make, they need they need money, right?
SPEAKER_04:So the government can't just run without money. Well, we've been printing so much money these last ten years that I I don't know where the fuck it's coming from.
SPEAKER_05:It doesn't have to come from I think money's a complete construct of today's society. It means everything and nothing at the same time. Yep. But so and then another thing I think everybody could agree on is that it is that centralized leadership's responsibility to take care of its citizens. Oh, for sure. Yes. They have they have a responsibility to take care of the people that they govern. So in order to do all of that, you need money. You can't rely on private organizations to do any of that, because that's getting into whatever the most powerful private organization is, is gonna rule everything.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_05:And and I mean that's essentially that's where we are right now. If you look at like if you look at like Unilever and BlackRock and Nabisca, like all these big corporations, BlackRock owns uh everything. There's everything. BlackRock is is a holdings company, they they buy stocks, that's what they do, and they own 51% of a lot of companies. Oh shit. Yes. So you can do your own deep dive down the rabbit hole online, but BlackRock is like the biggest one, and they you can go down any aisle of any grocery store or Walmart or Target, and you can you can compare the brand names, and BlackRock owns 80% of everything on the shelves. Interesting. And so you you do have essentially one corporation that has most of the power consolidated into their holdings, and and they get to be a part of the board of other organizations, and they get to lobby the government for for leniency on on taxes or regulations, and they they get to do all this stuff because they have the power and the money and they own all these businesses.
SPEAKER_04:So if well, and the thing that regulated all that stuff way back when, you know, the JP Morgan's, the the Carnegie's, you know, all those big families, the Vanderbilts. Yep. What regulated them, what happened to them eventually was a Great Depression. Yeah. And as of right now, we're looking at a government shutdown here pretty soon.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Because we can't figure it out, because we can't all get along.
SPEAKER_05:And the b well, and the biggest problem with that is that doesn't hurt the rich. Right. I mean, that really doesn't hurt the rich that they don't give a shit. They don't care. No, it hurts you and I. Which is really sad. And it hurts our families. Like I said, 180 million taxpaying households or something in the country. That's insane. That's a lot of current event.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. That was a good ramble. Well, I mean, I could I tried not to get too deep into personal or say any kind of hotel.
SPEAKER_05:Like, well, I just I just wanted to stay away from the big incident that happened just because like I said, we don't, it's been rammed on a like I said at the top, you can find anything you want and go listen to that. Right. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna argue with you. I'm not gonna tell you what to think, I'm not gonna tell you what I think. I'm just gonna say you can find something that you agree with and go just consume that the whole time. Although I will challenge you. Find something that that find find an outlet, find a find a reel, find a TikTok that is talking about it in a way that you disagree with and watch that one for a little while, and then maybe maybe go down that road a little bit and and and think about things instead of just taking one source's word for anything that happened, take a look at a couple contradicting sources and then go and I'm gonna use the famous line, do your own research on it. Research does not include watching any of the mass media outlets. Do not do that.
SPEAKER_04:This is the one thing that I will say about that incident that kind of just It makes me feel really sad about the state of mind of a lot of people in this country. Nobody deserves that.
SPEAKER_05:No.
SPEAKER_04:I I think with our I think everybody would agree, hopefully, that we all are entitled to freedom of speech, regardless of regardless of where or what or how, you know, if you have something to say and you feel strong enough about saying it without repercussions and without being worried about getting judged or you know putting a bad name out for yourself and you feel the need to say something, because you do have that right. Everybody has that right, and you know, everybody's up in arms about their rights. I still think that nobody deserves to go out like that. That's just and I you know, maybe I'm on the minority on that, or maybe you're not in the minority for that. That's he's a he was a father, he was a husband, you know, all that stuff. And uh I'm I'm not gonna get into it. That's about as far as I'm gonna take that. Uh, the only like I said, the only thing that I am pretty firm on is everybody wants a voice and everybody deserves a voice, regardless. If you want to debate somebody, debate them. Don't attack them, debate them. Come with your source, come with your data, come with your argument and agree to disagree. That's what a lot of these platforms are used for. That's what political platforms used to be used for. They'd have the political debate before the presidential election. And it wasn't it wasn't always, well, you went and fucked this guy or girl, or you went and did this drugs, or your kid does this, or you know, your husband did that, or your wife did this, you did this 60 years ago, back when you were a teenager, and maybe you didn't know any better, even though it was wrong, and it's wrong today, you know. That that's my take on it. But also you have to be able to look at yourself and stand ten toes down on your argument. You know what I mean? I I I think that you gotta watch this. So that's that's what I have to say about that. I don't I'm not gonna say anything else on it.
SPEAKER_05:So getting yeah freedom of speech and politicians and what they talk about and debating and stuff. It a lot of it has to do with the mass media and how absolutely and how they paint things. Now you and they take snippets. But now now I want you to think of our current administration, not just the president, not just the the secretary of war, as he's so affectionately called now. Used to be secretary of defense, now it's secretary of war. And like even in the past, like Giuliani's behavior. Just think of think of the political climate and the behaviors that we witness currently. Currently or as like young adult, younger adults. I'm just talking people in office, how they behave. In general. Right? Yes. Right now, like like how certain people have talked and how they have portrayed the office of whatever office they hold. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And the latest presidential video project? Well, it's getting a lot of attention, but perhaps not in the way is this right now?
SPEAKER_04:No.
SPEAKER_01:This is joking around with a selfie stick. Selfie stick. Selfie stick. Selfie stick.
SPEAKER_06:President Obama appeared with a selfie stick. Critics called it undignified.
SPEAKER_05:A lot of conservatives. Undignified. Beneath the presidency to hold a selfie stick.
SPEAKER_01:A foolproof way to make yourself look like a self-absorbed ass clam.
SPEAKER_05:Ask clam.
SPEAKER_00:You know, it said that Ronald Reagan wouldn't even take his jacket off in the Oval Office, but now we have a commander-in-chief that's doing jump shots and actually uh what is a stick? Selfie? I mean, it it's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_06:Tonight's question of the day. What do you think of that selfie? Yeah, that's your president. He's got a selfie stick. One conservative tweeted, quote, remember when the office of the president had dignity how times have changed.
SPEAKER_05:The pearl clutching over a selfie stick. When the worst scandal in the White House was Obama holding a selfie stick, he didn't tell anybody to fuck off. He didn't make fun of handicapped people. He didn't applaud the beating of people that disagreed with him in his rally crowds. He doesn't call for violence. He holds a selfie stick and the mass media outlets tear him apart over holding a selfie stick.
SPEAKER_04:I would be so embarrassed to go on world news to talk about a guy with a selfie stick.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, that's the best you can come up with. I mean the point the point that I'm trying to make here is the pearl clutching happening at the selfie stick compared to the excuses made for today's administration. If Obama or Bush even Bush 2, if they would have changed the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Which I'm sure Cheney probably would have loved. Cheney would have fucking loved it. But the imagine the blowback back in that day if they changed it from the Department of Defense to the Department Department of War. Imagine the blowback. And now we have outlets that just say this, it used to be called this, and it's okay that we're calling this. And and and it's like there's just so much there's so much awful stuff happening right now.
SPEAKER_04:Well it it I just you know, they say the lion and the sheep and this you know, if if you believe half of the bullshit on either side, half of the bullshit that is said on TV, they pound it into your head so much that they make you believe it. No matter what side you're on, no matter who you believe in, no matter what what no matter what, it's pounded into your head, and that and they're pounding it into these kids' heads, and and it just it's so mind-numbing, and it it's so it's depressing. It is. It's it's really, really depressing.
SPEAKER_05:And I I don't know it's really not that depressing if you watch news that agrees with you the entire time, and that's the problem in this country, is everybody just watches what they want to watch.
SPEAKER_04:But then when you walk into a house that only watches that stuff and you have different views, you're you're a fucking terrible person. Like you're they call you stupid, they call you ignorant, they call you naive, they call you all these things. Well, what about my opinion? Like, that wasn't this country built on different appears.
SPEAKER_05:They don't care about your opinion when when they're so like the and it's on both sides. Oh, for sure. It's a hundred percent. I am not saying this, I am not saying this as I'm not saying that one side is any worse than the other. But the problem is they don't care about your opinion. They don't.
SPEAKER_04:But their opinion is all that matters.
SPEAKER_05:Correct, because in their mind that there's no other way. In in in their mind, there's no other way. This is the right way, and this is the only way, and there's no there's nothing that's gonna change your mind. So were they taught only one way to do a math problem?
SPEAKER_04:No, that I mean there might be 70,000 different ways to to get the right answer, and you're gonna you're gonna tell me your way's the only way?
SPEAKER_05:No. Well, like I said, people are emotional and fragile creatures, so when you when you when you challenge their beliefs on a fundamental level, they tend to get defensive and then they look for any anything that supports them, even if even if there's no shot that it's true, they'll still die on that hill. I I I just I don't understand.
SPEAKER_04:It is what it is though. I mean Yeah. Anyway, that was a good that was a good rant there. That was a debate. You got anything for business? Anything going on? Anything new? Any anything that you want to talk about?
SPEAKER_05:No, I'd rather actually just talk chill stuff. Like business wise, I got some new stuff. I'll put it out on social media. We did get with Jim's owner and Chisholm. Owner, and we're gonna do a a sauna night twice a month there starting in October, so we're excited about that. I think that starts next Wednesday. 14th. 14th. Two weeks. Yep. The 14th, and I think it's Tuesday. Tuesday the 14th. Okay. Okay. So a couple weeks, sauna will be parked at Jim's. I think she's gonna do like an event around it, like a wellness night. There's a Facebook event already scheduled, but yeah, our sauna's gonna be there. There will be an outdoor shower to cool off between your sauna sessions or after your sauna session just to rinse off the sweat and cool off a little bit. It's gonna be cold water because it's just right out of the spigot. So no, no warm water, but it's it's therapeutic to do the hot sauna and then take a cold shower. It really, really, really helps relax those muscles. Other than that, the Etsy store is coming along. I'm working on building that, and then I have to I'm I'm currently working on website edits that kind of make the website a little bit more viewer-friendly, viewer-friendly, easier to navigate, stuff like that. Those those updates will probably be in, we'll say, by mid mid-October. And then, yeah, we're we're partnered with Hearth that offers a monthly payment plan for our our saunas that if you want to buy a sauna from us, custom sauna, you can do monthly, monthly payments on it. You don't have to worry about the 50% down payment to get started and then 50% upon completion. You just sign up through Hearth and they they work with you, and you can basically structure the payments however fits your budget, and it's a it's a really good offering. So if you're interested in that, bostibarrel.com and then go to the custom saunas page and fill out the request for information, and we'll get a hold of you, and we can we can go over the designs and the pricing. Other than that, we we were at a concert on Saturday down in Duluth. Oh, that's right. Um Lindsay Sterling and Hailstorm and Apocalyptica opened. Oh, nice. So I didn't realize they were finish. They're they're cool. They're they're they're cool stuff. They were they played all Metallica because they re-released their Metallica cover album this year. So the the tour they're doing is is for their Metallica cover album that they did. Nice. And then Lindsay played some good Lindsay pay played some bangers. She is incredibly talented. I mean just dance around playing the violin, and she can sing. Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, she it was a good show. And then Hailstorm is wonderful. She's she can sing, man. She can scream. She can scream. Oh my god, can she sing? How was the ride home? Good. I overshot on the caffeine and sugar a little bit to stay awake, so I was I was annoying to my passengers, but I mean I I I didn't shut up the whole ride home. I just kept talking and making noises and doing it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, but it was only Duluth. I mean, Duluth. Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't like a cities trip, but that would have been I would have loved to have been in the car with you. Oh yeah. You and I would have had a blast.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, that was fun. But yeah, I mean, I think we should keep this one short tonight and get into the whatever we're gonna do. So I sent Tony a and I didn't have a whole lot of time to think about this because I uh I looked at it briefly.
SPEAKER_04:So I sent him a picture that I found on social media. It says you're making a film, choose four actors to star in your movie. No more, no less, good luck. Now, the list of actors, like I said, he can only pick four, he's gotta pick a movie, and he has to. I told him to make a title, a plot, things like that. So the actors, I'll go over them here quick. Gary Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman, Samuel Jackson, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Willis, Will Smith, Tom Hanks, Jackie Chan, Robert De Niro, Jason Statham, Johnny Depp, Leo DiCaprio, Willem Dafoe, Keanu Reeves, Danny Glover, Jet Lee, Denzel Washington, Brad Pitt, and Al Pacino. Now he can only pick four for the movie. And he has to come up with some sort of title, some sort of plot. I myself I didn't really get too much into it, but if I had to pick my four actors, it would probably be I'd have to throw Anthony Hopkins in there myself. I would do probably Willem Defoe, Robert De Niro, and Brad Pitt. It would be a Batman movie. It's an older Batman with villains in their older age. So I would actually, believe it or not, have Brad Pitt be the older Batman. Willem Defoe would be Joker, of course. De Niro would be Two Face. And Anthony Hopkins would be playing Razal Ghoul. I like it. It would just it it would basically be him as an ol as an older man. Brad Pitt's not that old. I think he might be in his 50s. But being the older guy, you know, Willem Dafoe is probably the dream joker for anybody right now. Yeah. I think he'd be fan fucking tastic. De Niro could play anything. I think Two Face is almost a perfect one, or even a Harvey Dent that didn't get hit with acid.
SPEAKER_05:That'd be interesting.
SPEAKER_04:I think he would be really, really good. And Hopkins is Razal Ghoul who trained Brad Pitt as to be Batman. Yeah. I mean, and I could come up with something else. Even I love Gary Oldman. I do I could do Gary Oldman, Johnny Depp, Leo DiCaprio, and Keanu Reeves would be a it'd be a gangster movie. Oh yeah, that'd be awesome too.
SPEAKER_05:So so it I'm living up to my ADHD history and I didn't do my homework. But luckily it's 2025 and I have Chat GPT. And this actually this actually is pretty fucking awesome. So my actors that I chose were Morgan Freeman, Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves, and Jet Lee. Oh. Yes. Just because I know that he would throw in kind of an element.
SPEAKER_04:I love Jet Lee.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, me too. And huge Keanu fan. And then Johnny Depp and Morgan Freeman are just legends by name. I agree. So what my homework assignment came to be, I totally did this myself. The title is called The Last Cipher. Oh. And the plot overview is in a near future world where governments have been destabilized by shadow organizations, a centuries-old encrypted manuscript believed to contain the blueprint for all self-sustaining for a self-sustaining energy source resurfaces. Four unlikely men, each with a fractured past, are pulled into a race against time to decode it before it falls into the wrong hands. Morgan Freeman plays Professor Elias Cross, a retired linguist and cryptographer, once the world's foremost expert in lost languages, haunted by the death of his family and a bombing tied to his research, he has vowed to never touch codes again until he discovers the manuscript is linked to his past. Johnny Depp plays Vincent Marlowe, a morally ambiguous art thief and forger, charismatic but unpredictable. He originally seeks the manuscript for profit, but finds himself conflicted when he realizes realizes the catastrophic potential of selling it to the highest bidder. Keanu Reeves plays Daniel Cade, a stoic exCIA operative living in self-imposed exile. Cade lost faith in the system after being betrayed by his own agency. Reluctantly, he's drawn back into action when the manuscript proves connected to his last failed mission. And Jet Li plays Wei Zhang, a disciplined monk turned martial artist who guards the ancient temple where part of the manuscript was hidden. Zhang believes the cipher is cursed and des destined to destroy those who misuse it, but reluctantly joins the others to ensure it doesn't unleash chaos. That's fucking awesome.
SPEAKER_04:That is that is pretty good. I'm I'm not gonna lie to you.
SPEAKER_05:I mean, chat GPT, that that is fucking that is good. And the thing is with my GPT, so the the way that GPTs work is they take like your personality and all the questions you've been asking it, and and and and it knows essentially it it it learns you. So scary based on a lot of what I've talked about outside of business, I use it a lot for business stuff, you know, like like hook paragraphs and and product descriptions and stuff like that. It's really good for that. But from time to time I get bored and I just have conversations with it regarding certain things. Not like I'm not weird about it, right? I know I know it's chat GPT, I know I'm not talking to a person, but when I want logical answers rather than emotional answers, and I want unbiased logic, I just use chat GPT because then I don't have to parse through articles written by people that have opinions. So yeah, this is this is actually really good. I mean, that is a really good list.
SPEAKER_04:It's so cool. So I just typed in something in my chat GPT. I want to know the best movies of the 21st century.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Now I don't I don't know. I don't always agree with like best picture at the Academy Awards and blah blah blah.
SPEAKER_05:I rarely agree with it. It's funny because it's so predictable because you can always kind of tell what's gonna get it, you know.
SPEAKER_04:Right. So I type that in there, and I don't know if this is in order or if it's if it's just a list. Like Lord of the Rings, Return of the King, not even my favorite Lord of the Rings. I thought the first one was the best one, Fellowship of the Ring. Inceptions on here, great movie. Parasite, never saw it. The Dark Knight, favorite movie of all time. Have you ever seen There Will Be Blood with Daniel Day Lewis? No, but I've heard it's good. Fantastic movie. You need to watch that. No country for old men. Yep. Great. Mad Max, Fury Road. Yep. Social Network, Pan's Labyrinth, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, fantastic movie. Yes. Twelve Years a Slave. That was really good. Another really good one. Uh Get Out. I I don't know if I watched that. Get Out? Yeah. Was it good?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it was it was a Peel movie. I know that appeal. It was good. It's definitely a suspense thriller. The Departed. I love that movie. Great movie. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That was another all-star. Pretty good.
SPEAKER_04:I never I never got into it a lot, but and the la the only animated movie was Pixar's Inside Out. Yeah. Which is a fantastic movie. That is a fantastic. I would love a job picking people to do roles in movies. Oh, casting. I would love to do casting. Yeah. I I I think it'd be fun as hell. I I don't know if I'd be extremely good at it, but I think I could be decent at it. But yeah. So that being said, with our movies, his chat GPT movie and the one that I just picked off the top of the brain. If you guys have anything that you want to hear, or if you have opinions on what you would have picked for those, let us know. Comment. Tell us. Whatever you want to do. But that's really all I had for today. I know Tony wanted to keep it kind of shorter than we normally do, which is good because we're both tired and we both have to work tomorrow. Just remember, you know, I know it's end of golf season and whatnot, so uh Shankit Golf has some pretty good deals going on right now. I'll put the link in our bio for the discount on that. Pins and Aces, Cactus Golf Club, all that kind of stuff. Uh you guys have heard it before. And we'll keep pushing it. I know they have some good stuff in the winter. They get some layers and stuff like that for three-quarter zips and some sweaters and sweatshirts. Uh, don't forget about the Shopify store for all your Boss Tube Boys apparel. Don't forget to look on the website, make sure you're checking on dates for available availability with the sauna, renting, and for customs. Give us a call. Even if you have any questions or comments, concerns, things like that. I know that we or I or us have posted and reposted and shared the new bench butter that bench butter is available on Marketplace right now.
SPEAKER_05:On Etsy, once I get the Etsy store up and running, it'll be there too. But Marketplace for local people, buy it off Marketplace, I'll deliver. If you're not local, I will ship. But that will be easier to do through Etsy than Marketplace. However, I don't have to pay fees for marketplace. So obviously, I prefer if you go through Marketplace.
SPEAKER_04:So yeah, give us a call, give us a text, shoot us whatever information you need or want. And like I said, comment uh for any kind of future episodes that you want to hear us talk about, uh, whether people need support, anything like that. Uh hopefully until next time you can talk about a little bit earlier. I don't know what I've been talking about before the time.