#20 Malls
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What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Nateland podcast. I am Nate, sitting here with Aaron Weber, Brian Bates. Hello, folks. Welcome to... All right. I don't know. You know, the rhythm's not there. Helix. Thank you guys for listening. As always, we're excited for you to be here. And we're going to... Let's just get into it. I'd like to get right into it. I've noticed a lot with Zoom interviews on... If you watch anything on TV with a Zoom interview...

They need to get rid of, thanks for coming. Thank you. Just get rid of it. You ever see it in the interviews? They should say, the producers should say, hey...

He might say, thanks for coming, because obviously he should, whoever's the host of the show, and you just nod yes. Because it's always a delay. It always goes. He goes, and we're going to talk to this person. Aaron, thanks for coming. Then there's a delay. And then the person starts to think, so when did you... Thank you for having me. Just clunky. Yeah. Do it. Do it and ask me questions. Like say... Nate, what do you feel like... No, no, just...

say we're going to interview Nate and then I'll show you how they do it. Well, today we have Nate Bargatze as our guest. Nate, thanks for coming. I'd like to ask you your thoughts. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. I'd like to ask you your thoughts on this week's Masters. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. And that's what it is. I mean, it's just multiple out of the gate. And you're watching it like, oh, just everybody, please quit talking. Please.

There's no need to. Then when they leave, all right, thanks for coming. There's a good three seconds, which is valuable TV time. Just thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming. Satellite interviews can be like that too. You mentioned once

You got to cut out the small chit-chat. Yeah. Have long answers or not at all. Yeah, just get into it. You know, Dan Patrick always does, which I'm an enormous Dan Patrick fan. Dan Patrick was always very good at talking and just, you know, he'd be like, the person's on the line and they answer and he goes, oh, and this guy, you know...

Reggie Miller with the NBA. He's been a long friend of ours. Reggie, they were – I was thinking about why are they – why is LeBron James going to Los Angeles? He just starts with a question. And the people that are on the show a lot know it, but the new people, he'll just – I mean, full-on questions asked. Hey, do you think the Titans have a really good chance to get the Super Bowl this year? I mean, how are they feeling down there?

Dan, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. I think, and you're like, ah, you're like, just go with it, dude. Like, but it's where it's a very nice thing because it's where everybody's being polite. But unless you're in the room, if you're in the room, you can do it. If you're on zoom or something like that, got to get rid of it. Yeah. Got to get rid of it. All right.

Kurt, first comment. Comments are there from YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Apple Podcast Reviews, and nateland at natebargetzi.com. You can email us any of those. Curtis Watkins, Nate, Aaron, and Battleship, you guys give me a true escape from the world's ugly noise, and I look forward to it every Wednesday. Thank you. Quick weird question. Do you guys swear outside of work? Bates has got a bit of a mouth on him. It's a problem.

I try not to. I mean, you know, my mom's listening, so no, I don't ever. But no, I don't think, not really. No one does. I mean, I'm sure sometimes you can get around some comics. If you get around New York comics, it kind of feels like you're, you know, like a sailor just getting back with it. But yeah, you try. That's a big thing. If anyone wants to start comedy, you want to be a clean comedian, first thing that you can do every day, do not swear in regular life.

If you want to get rid of swearing in your act, if you're a comic, quit swearing in regular life. I would almost say even if you do want to swear in your act, you should still try to not do it in regular life. There's little things that I try not to do

as in regular like i i like i say like all the time and like like you know and i've tried to consciously in the past month i've kind of just started trying to not do it and i still do it i can't not it's very hard to do it takes a long time but you should practice it in your regular speech chris radcliffe hello host nate your rant on celebrities and voting was spot on whenever celebrity talks about voting i literally have the same rant in my head it's unbelievable

Radcliffe gets it. I like him. I was worried about saying that. After I said it, I was like, I don't know. Especially people who are going to care. It's yelling about something, but it is true. Celebrities are the worst. Nat, when celebrities urge people to vote and describe the process, they aren't assuming people are dumb. They are trying to normalize it and convince people how important it is because so many people are

Ambivalent. God, that was a lot. He did that on purpose. Nat, you're probably innate. And you threw me under the, I mean, that was a, he got that one in there real good. Oh, yeah. Ambivalent? Ambivalent. Ambivalent. I know that word. Yeah. I don't know the word that I was saying. When I said ambivalent, I was like, well, that's, I mean, this guy, what are you, the smartest kid? No, what's the word? Ambivalent. Oh, I don't really know what it means, but I've heard it.

What does it mean? It means like don't care one way or the other. Okay. Yeah. That's not a very, that's not a good word for the meaning of don't care one way or another. That's, you know, it's a very hard word for it to just be like, it doesn't really matter, man. That's what the meaning is. Is that not kind of crazy? Yeah, it is crazy. Why would that word be so ridiculous? Right. It's like abbreviations, a very long word to describe something. Yeah. That's short. To go, what is that? Short and stuff. Well, that's stupid. And they go, well, yeah, I know. Yeah.

Holly Carter. I was kind of nervous when I saw that you all were talking about a potentially controversial topic this week, yet in typical Nate land fashion, you all opened with the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit and then proceeded to talk about daylight savings. Absolutely perfect. Yeah.

Thank you, Holly. That's what we do. We get you into going, oh, where's this going to go? And I promise it's going nowhere. I think if we talked about voting, I did one like old elections. I guarantee I could talk about it and never talk about this one. Right. Just because it's fun. I looked up like landslide. I was like one day looking at it. Reagan won some big ones. Yeah, he won all but one state. I can remember that. Yeah. Yeah.

84. That's crazy. Did Nixon do that too? Nixon won 49 states? I don't know. Yeah, that stuff's kind of crazy. Like if someone just dominates. Yeah. It's hard to imagine that much of the country agreeing on something. You know? It feels weird. Different time. Yeah. Dan Wood. Until this episode, I still thought the McDonnell lawsuit was silly. The more you know. That's true. I mean, how many people think that still? Yeah. I thought it was too. I thought it was too.

And then that, it makes sense. Ryan Cotton, you guys got to stop playing with the paper so much. Aaron and Nate, you don't even read. Aaron and Nate, you don't even read. Then you just make sure they are consistently straight. Quaker Oats isn't so bad. Well, now we got Quaker Oats has papers. I know. That's because he didn't have papers. But now he does. No, I had them. You're going to see how fun this kind of is. But I'll get rid of them. I'll throw them away.

I'll throw them. Just open that window. That'll be part of the segment is when we're done, we open the window and I throw them out of my backyard. I litter in my backyard. Catherine Klein. It's a good name. Catherine Klein. I wonder if that's her name or if she married into it. She married into it. She did real good. She could have chose the guy for the name. Catherine Klein. Is that not a good name? Yeah. It's an alliteration. Feels good. Catherine Klein. Where's Catherine Klein? You'd be like, oh, I don't know.

You don't even know what she does. And if she walked in, you'd be like, hey. Kind of straighten up a little bit. How you doing? This is Miss Catherine Klein. Wow. Nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you. Nate asking beef stick questions about daylight savings was like watching Michael Scott ask Pam Landlord what she does with the checks.

That's so funny. What was that one? Do you remember that? It's when he went on the blind date with Pam's landlord. He's so disappointed. He's like, all right, what do you do when you collect the rent? And she's like, you want me to tell you what I do with the money? He's like, look, I'm just trying to make conversation. Like it was her fault. Yeah. Yeah.

That was a very good episode. Isn't that where he goes, it was like talking to the sweet old lady on the bus. Yeah. That's incredibly rude. That's incredibly rude. Yeah, she nailed that analogy. That is a great one. That's like when his wife, or when he's dating Pam's mom, finds out how old she is. That's another. Just him just doing the math in his head of going, well, I still want to do stuff. I want to hike. I mean, stuff that you can't do anymore. Yeah.

Joshua Tencher. Hello, folks. Hello, Nate, Aaron, and Buford. My dog man story. This is Kevin. This is all he's been waiting for. Yeah. He's going to love this. My dog man story. In 2006 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, me, my brother, and two friends were walking in the back of an unfinished neighborhood in the black man community. Black man. That sounds much better than that, man.

I mean, that sounds... You're like, where's this going? I was like, oh my God. That's crazy. Unfinished neighborhood and the black man community. What is this podcast? That's... How you say that is super important. That's a very important... I should have got some heads up. I should have been briefed before we got to that one. Wow. Wow.

Black men count. Yeah. That's not community. That sounds so much better. Yeah. In the back of an unfinished neighborhood in the black men community. And my friend noticed a huge, oddly shaped dog on all fours walking at a normal pace. When my friend drew our attention to it, I was so astonished and curious. I tried to get closer to it, but it got up on two feet and went into a full sprint.

I tried to chase it, but it disappeared in some nearby woods. We joked around about it to this day, but never really told other people because we know how crazy it sounded. Love the podcast. Can't get enough. God bless. Well, Joshua Tensher, you're about to have someone reach out to you. That's what he's been wanting. He said, I bet there's going to be people in the comment. There you go. Anybody else that got a Dogman story, let us know.

That's super fun. Got up on two. That one, you can't say Dog Man for that one. Dog Man. Dog Man. You just said Dog Man. That's what sent me in the direction of that. Right. Dog Man sent me into, you know, in the black man community. It's kind of a sweet moment when somebody opens up about stories like this because they're like, they know it's a judgment-free zone. Yeah. We don't care. I love it. I hope you're right.

And you're going to see something. He saw it. What did he find out? They're like, ah, we were pretty drunk. But you're like, oh, okay. That makes sense. To go up on two feet and run in a full sprint. That's crazy. And he said he tried to chase it. I mean, this guy's insane. Yeah. He ran after it. In the Blackman community, they're running in some woods, man.

That's what they do. They're not scared. I mean, you ever see, there's a video of a, I just saw some gigantic snake in wherever, you know, some other country, Amazon. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. And a guy's pulling it in the boat. The guy's trying to pull it in the boat. I mean, this snake is a hundred feet long. He just grabs it like it's a gardener snake. I mean, there's just guys that are like that. Yeah. They just don't care. And this Joshua is one. He's, I mean, to chase it.

That's what we need, though, for the Bigfoot people. We need people like that to run after something like that. Wow. David Ramsey. Is it Dave Ramsey? I doubt it. Maybe he just doesn't want... This is enough to throw you off. Based on the first sentence, I don't think so. David Ramsey. I was born in the 70s. I remember my dad buying several different cars. Yeah, that's not David...

And the first thing he did was literally cut the seatbelts out of them. He didn't just push them into the seat. He cut them out and disabled the buzzer sound. We weren't big on safety in our house. That is not Dave. That's like a sentence. If you said, prove you're not Dave Ramsey. And he goes, okay. And then he makes that sentence. If people are listening, and I think a lot of people know Dave Ramsey. Dave Ramsey is a financial guy. Better than I deserve. Isn't that what he says? I'm doing better than, yeah, better than I deserve.

started golfing too a little bit from what I've heard. But he, I moved him once too when I moved people a couple days ago. But they, he did, a lot of people don't know, if they don't know Dave Renz, that's all the same. It's who he is. He's a big financial guy. He's been around, he's Nashville, but I think he's everywhere, right? Yeah. Yeah, he's syndicated, talks about, he's my favorite guy

calls or people when they call into him and they say because they call in and they go uh their problems are all the same where they don't have money we need help with money and he goes all right so what what's the situation is like i've got five credit cards on two boats you know yeah so how much money do you make he's like we're not i mean we don't i work part-time you're like

And he just has to sit. All right, here we go. And then he, I mean, every advice is the same. I mean, some people are calling about real, I'm trying to buy my first house or whatever. And he, I mean, you're not going to, if you call, you're not going to have fun. His answers are never fun. Yeah. He's very anti credit card, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. Big things. Yeah. Cut them up. Cut them. He's a cut them up. Oh yeah. People cut them. People call in and cut them up.

That seems a little theatrical. Why can't you just throw it away? Because the point of it is you were... Oh, okay. It's like a symbolic... This thing ruled you, this credit card. You bought all this stuff. You've been paying it off forever. Oh, you cut it off when you're done paying it off the card. Yeah, yeah. And then you go, I'm debt-free. You want to be debt-free is the main thing. It's not a bad thing to be. But it's definitely not a...

I mean, you're not calling that. You don't call in a Dave Ramsey to him to go go have fun. Yeah. I mean, no answer is fun. You could be you could call in and go, I have one billion dollars. And he'd be like, you should get rid of your credit cards. You don't need them. And you'd be like, well, I just I have a billion dollars. You don't thought you don't cut yours up when you throw them away. I don't know if I've ever thrown one away. He's too. He just got him. I just I'm on my first ever credit card. OK. Yeah. I mean, it's a good time.

Yeah. You know, that's the, yeah. You just haven't had, you just got it now. I got one of the two years ago. Yeah. I've had a debit card, but a credit card is my friend. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember your first credit card? I think so. Yeah. Was there, what did you, I mean, I remember paying by check.

check was a gigantic thing. You carried your checkbook around. I remember having to... You'd balance your checkbook. Do people still balance their checkbooks? Older people do. My mom does. You wanted to thank me, but now... I never really did. I was never that organized. You carried your checkbook around with you? Yeah. I think I did when I was...

18, 19. Okay. Like right around then. If you went to like a bar or a restaurant, did you just bring a checkbook with you? Not there. Not there. But I remember I would write checks to Walmart. You could write a check for Walmart to get cash back. Yeah. So you'd write over. And then that was, as a teenager, you would do that even though knowing I don't have that money in there. But I'd still get $20. And then your...

then you're over draft or whatever, you know, you just would hope you have $20 in there. And so you'd go in there and write a check and then over it. And then they'd be like, you know, but I remember doing that a lot. I've written maybe five checks my whole life.

Yeah, I mean, I don't anymore. We write checks. If I paid someone for the road, we have checks for that. We have to write people checks. You still get paid in checks. I get paid in checks a lot, yeah, but I'm not making them. Direct deposit is starting to become a big thing.

Apparently it's going to catch on. Grace Sloan. I love how David Ramsey, we never even commented on this comment. We just talked about Dave Ramsey for 10 minutes. Oh, yeah. David Ramsey's parents. Yeah, they cut the seatbelts. That is a legit. That's a guy that, you know, it's funny to go. I bet if you talk to his dad now, it's like, why did you cut him out? He's like, I don't know. That was, you know.

But it was just what you did. The buzzer is what drives you crazy enough to then cut the seatbelt. Yeah. If there was no buzzer, I bet he doesn't cut seatbelts. But the buzzer is enough that, you know what? He tried that first, probably. That didn't work. And so then he had to disable the buzzer. I do think there shouldn't be a buzzer. My turn signal is pretty loud. I wish I could turn that down. I would love that. The click? Yeah. It's a lot. And I don't want to use it as much.

Because it's that loud. Yeah. If I'm on the phone, someone goes, what's that? It goes, my turn signal. And it's a loud turn signal. And it should be toned down. I mean, I don't know, you know, what are you telling me for? I was very involved in turning this turn signal on. Grace Sloan. Thank you, Aaron, for being the only not married man in the room and still actually somewhat understanding women.

Obviously, women are allowed to be bigger than men. Childbirth changes a woman's entire body chemistry. Like, honestly, you think men should be cut more slack for sitting around eating gummy worms and playing golf while the women are over here pooping out eight pound humans? Honestly, I'm shocked. Aside from the hilarious, ridiculous oversight, I truly love the podcast, a funny and innocent escape from a truly insane world.

All right. This was about the Japan measuring, which I said to Aaron was probably right. Yeah. That women. Yeah. Oh, okay. I wasn't sure. So they're allowed to just get bigger for pregnancy. Are they saying they don't because it's like they don't come back. Well, someone pointed out women's bodies are just shaped different. They've got birthing hips. So a woman could still be smaller than us, but have lighter hips. Yeah. Yeah. I could see that. Yeah. So it makes a lot of sense. You give them a little more wiggle room.

It's like a bridge. Well, their hips could be bigger. Yeah. They could be way skinnier. They'd have giant hips. That's why women, I think, usually go in sizes like 2, 4, 6. They're not buying 40. Because they don't want to say, I wear 40. That's why. Because that's, you know. What size do you need? I need a 42. You're like, whoa. All right. That's funny.

All right. She wins. Yeah. I do eat gummy worms and play golf. Did those things this weekend. Uh, so, but I'm a size. No, I don't know. I'm 34, which is respectable. Uh, 32 is what you, that's where it gets good. Aaron, what are you? Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

It always is two people and one person's like, well, this is not fun. It's never the person that would not want to say it.

But you're just a big dude. Yeah, man. You got your jacket on. I got the jacket on, dude. This is what I'm talking about. I feel powerful in it, to be honest. This is what having a credit card will do. Yeah, this is what... I got a credit card. Next thing you know, I'm buying NASCAR jackets. I mean, yeah, this is Dave Ramsey. This is what he imagined. He imagines everybody that calls in, they're doing.

That's what he thinks when they call in and they say, what do you got? I got just bought two boats. Oh, you live on the water. No, but be honest, you're not that close. And and they imagine the guy sitting in his kitchen with that hat and jacket on. Bushlight NASCAR jacket. We just can't seem got five leans on my house.

I don't even really know what those are, but they're not good. They're not good. I've learned that. I had to ask someone. I have to ask my neighbors stuff like that, which is kind of crazy. Like what a lien is? Yeah. Isn't a lien where the government takes it from you? No, you don't want liens against your house, which means you over... You took money off your house or something. You got money...

something with the bank. Yeah. I don't know. It's not good. I have to ask my neighbors all this stuff. Reverse mortgage. Remember reverse mortgage. Fred Thompson kept trying to get me to do those. I think Tom Selleck doesn't know. He doesn't reverse mortgage. I think so. Yeah. I, uh, yeah, I always have to ask him like, what's, you know, I try to ask him way. I'm like, yeah, he's like, there's probably a couple of liens on. I was like, that's crazy. What's Hey, what would people say? Lines are like, how would you explain it to me? Like a five-year-old. Yeah. Yeah.

Luana Rodriguez, right? Rodriguez? Yep. Luana? Luana Rodriguez. I've lived in Germany and I've been on the Autobahn in the fast lane cruising at about 90 miles per hour and a Mercedes got on our tail, flashed his lights, and we moved over and he flew by us. My dad thought it would be cool to catch up and blew the engine to our American-made car. That's crazy. I mean, that's just like sitting there flying, dude.

Autobahn, 90, 90. And he's like, come on. 90 would be the Autobahn. You got to be like, that's like going 40 on our interstates. Man, just flying that fast. What if you took it every day? Like if you lived where you could take it, that was like your interstate. I think it is there. People come in, it's just like the highway. It's not one road, it's the highway system. Oh, it's the whole system. That's what people come in. Wow. Wow. I wonder how many wrecks they have.

They said not many because it's really expensive to get a license there. So people are good drivers. Yeah. And they're going so fast. So they do better. They do better than that. Oh, wow. That's crazy. All right.

Last one, Lori Bourne. I've been watching the Showtime Comedy Store documentary. It's been absolutely amazing. I noticed that Nate was interviewed briefly in the very last episode. What role has the Comedy Store played in Nate's career? Any interesting stories to share? Lori, you were letting me know that I was on it. So thank you. I honestly didn't know until I read this. I did do an interview for it, and I just haven't watched it yet.

I haven't watched really any of them. The Comedy Store, what it played in my career, when I first started comedy, I moved to Chicago. And me and Michael Clay, my buddy that we moved with, we went out to L.A. and went to the Comedy Store. And I was doing comedy maybe a year. And so I was, another friend of mine, they were in a band, I think it's called Prom Queens. I don't think it's a band anymore. Josh Baker, Matt Baker.

And great family, very talented family there. Josh, Josh still does music. And Matt, his brother was just one of the most athletic people I've ever met. A guy that could do a flip in this room. He could just any sport he played. He just picked it up immediately. Could you gymnastics? I mean, just anything was like, go try this. He's like, OK, and would be the best at that. Very athletic guy.

But, uh, so we go the prom, my buddy Josh is in that band, the prom queen. So we go out there. I mean, we're, you know, 24 maybe. And, um,

We go to the comedy store. He was the guy, Joe Rogan was a fan of that podcast. I mean, not podcast, of that band. So we went to the, the band did a show that night. We went to it. Joe Rogan introduced him. I ended up talking to Joe Rogan a lot about just comedy. That was a year into comedy, so I don't even really know what to talk to. But Joe Rogan was super nice. Talked to me about comedy. All, you know, just would tell me, yeah, I don't know, just a great dude.

And then we go to the comedy store. He's like, come watch me at the comedy store. So we went to the comedy store and we went and watched him. We sat in the front, watched him. It was great. And then we got done. And then I went to, we're in the back talking. And I was like, I was trying to do, he was like, are you going to go up here? And I was like, well, I was going to try to, but at the open mic, the open mic there at the time, I don't know if you do it now, but at the time you had to,

You had to go, you had to sign up the Monday before you waited in line on Monday to sign up for the next week. So I wasn't going to be in town the next week. And then he called and said, Rogan just said, Hey, let this kid go up. And so I got to go up. I got to go up on stage. It was one of the, I mean, honestly, maybe the first comedy club I performed at. Wow. Truthfully, now that I think of it, I've never said that. I thought it was Zany Chicago, but it probably was the comedy store.

Because I wouldn't have been back here. I wouldn't have done Zany's. I would have just been doing bars in Chicago. It's either Zany's Chicago or that was the first club we can know. It was the Comedy Store. Wow. It was probably the first comedy club I ever went up. I never thought about that. I definitely didn't say that in the interview because I did not think about it.

And so they introduced me. It was an open mic. No one's in there at the time. And I remember they introduced me and they said, this next guy is like Joe Rogan's best friend. And I mean, I feel like everybody hated me because I got to get up and then I got to skip over the process. And then I was introduced to Joe Rogan's best friend, which I don't think Joe Rogan knows who I am now at all. So it's...

it's, it's, it's just, it was funny to like get that, but that's, uh, yeah. So that's my comedy store story. I still go back there. I go to the comedy store. I did get, I'm in there now and,

It's a very amazing place. There's a lot of clubs. I go to Laugh Factory out there in LA, Hollywood Improv. Laugh Factory is great too. They're all great. But the Comedy Store with it, I mean, yeah, the stories. There's a bullet hole behind the sign where Sam Kinison shot a gun one night. Wow. And the bullet hole is still there. I mean, the old story of in the 70s, there's great books on it.

where they had a big comedy strike in the 70s and 80s, and they didn't get paid. So one of the comedians that wasn't getting spots and wasn't getting paid jumped off a building and killed himself in the parking lot of the comedy store. And that just got real, obviously, very dark over comedy. This guy killed himself. It was like during a show. They just did it and jumped. But they, I mean, at the time, right now,

Now with COVID, I think they're still doing stuff outside. But right now, the connoisseur is thriving. I mean, it was, dude, it's rolling. And when you go in there in the crowds, it's packed. And it's just, I mean, the lineups are pretty nuts. I mean, pretty famous lineups of people that you see. Yeah.

It's an amazing place. It's played more in my career later than it did. At the very beginning, it was nothing because I was in New York. All my stories are New York stories. It played it later in my life. Great Comedy Store documentary on Showtime. Everybody check that out. End of our comments. Let me get to this. Sorry, all the papers.

All right, here we go. So we did a poll last week to be what should the fans of the podcast be called. We did it on Twitter, and it was Nate Landers, Folks, Breakfast Club, or the Warriors. Warriors was 8%. This is at a 225 votes. I feel like that's a good representation of the listeners. Yeah.

Can we do an Instagram poll? We do much better followers on Instagram, right? We're doing Instagram polls. All right. You can do one on a story. We can do one. Oh, yeah. You can do it on a story. We're doing another one on a story. Warriors is at 8%. Breakfast Club was at 6.2%. Nate Landers, 23%. Folks. Folks. Hello, folks. That is a good one. Yeah. 62.2% is where they're at on that.

So we're going to see what, what, what should fans of the podcast be called? Hello folks. Cause that is a good, yeah, it's a good start. That actually makes it pretty smart to start. Cause I'm talking to you guys. Yeah. Hello folks. And we know that it means everybody's like, Oh, is he talking about generally folks? And we're like, get out of here, dude. If you don't know what it means, if you don't know what folks really means, then I'm definitely not talking to you. Yeah. That's what I say. I mean, specifically you Aaron. Uh,

So, all right. Yeah, that was fun. We'll put one on Instagram too so you can see that. If you want to type in to vote. It looks like folks is running away, but stuff might happen and it might change in the middle of the night. Wake up tomorrow and be like, whoa, look at this, Warriors. Coming in hot.

So this weekend, we're going to just try a new little different format. We do have a topic we're going to talk about, but we're going to just kind of talk about what we did this weekend. I had a fun weekend. A lot of golf, a lot of gummy worms, as she said. And we did golfing. So I did two. I did two scrambles. One was a lot of musicians. Jake Owens, a musician.

He does a great charity event. And then we golfed. A lot of musicians were there. I golfed with Shea, my buddy Shea, Mooney, Dan and Shea. Go listen to them. So this is a dumb question for people that don't play golf. What's the difference between a scramble and just playing golf? No golf ball. Yeah, it's more just play on the honors. What if it was that big of a thing? On carpet. If it was that giant of a thing.

You're like, God, that is a huge difference. You throw the ball. Not on a golf course. One of the main differences. It's a scrambles between, so it'd be four of us. So four of us get together. You tee off. You take the best drive there.

Then you four hit into the green. You take the best shot. So you get, everybody gets four chances. Okay. And then you, and then four putts, you know, and you take your best. So your group is a, is a team is a team. Okay. And so that's when that's people get, you play scramble stuff gets real dicey. I mean, because they have all the fun stuff. There's always, they didn't this one, but, uh,

Some of them will do, you can shoot a golf ball out of a cannon. They have these like a T-shirt gun shooter. Like we did that and you shoot a golf out of a cannon and you play the ball where it lands. And then, so there's a bunch of weird stuff. There's some that you can, everybody gets one red tee. So you can use a red tee. So it's just the ladies tee. So you get to go up to the ladies tee and tee off.

And so you decide where you're going to use that. But all that stuff, I mean, people get where they shoot 20 under. I mean, it gets nuts. You know, and you start, you're like, it's almost impossible to win. It's almost impossible to win. I went closer to the pin at Jake's thing, which was pretty fun. Nailed it early in the day so everybody saw it. Because you write your name, so you put a thing in with your name written on it. And then whoever gets closer writes their name under it. And, I mean, it was –

It was this far. So there to the, you know, about eight, 12, 10 inches. Boom. Right next to the rest of the day. Everybody sees it and everybody brings it up. Everybody knows it. You know, you get a little closer to the pin. I was like, I don't, is it still up there? You just act like, uh, but it was, uh, so it was a very, uh,

it was a very fun trip and then we did i did another one with had them wearing sweden's cove which is a golf course it's uh kind of near i want to i feel like it's near chattanooga somewhere down that way uh and they it's a nine hole course and the greens have two pins on them and the greens are very big the greens are awesome and so you play nine holes going to the

you know, the white flag. And then you go back to the same tee boxes and then aim to the blue flag for the, so that's how you play 18. And so Mike Jashimski plays for the San Francisco Giants, a Vandy baseball guy. And so he was doing a big tournament for Hearts and Armor, I believe it's the foundation for soldiers when they come back from PTSD, they have that to get them back into regular life.

and uh to help him out so it's a very good thing we just did is like 22 guys and we rented out he rented out the whole course which was unbelievable to do not as much as you think they have uh and i bet it's going to go away it was like 4 500 bucks which he's doing it for a charity thing like 4 500 bucks to rent a course out for the entire day that's pretty crazy and you get to do so if you wanted to just be like i want to play a golf course by myself for the whole day it's 4 500 dollars

And so then everybody pitches in. I mean, you could be – it's cheaper than a greens fee. So it's South Pittsburgh. South Pittsburgh, yes. South Pittsburgh. Is that near Chattanooga? Marion County. Yeah. South Pittsburgh used to beat us in football every year until we beat them in high school. And then we won our senior year. But they – and I didn't play, but I'm just saying. I was most school spirit. Were you really? Yeah. I got most school spirit and homecoming king.

Yeah, not playing sports. Home cooking, not playing sports. I mean, that's impressive. That's tough to do. That's tough to do. Girls from the younger, they always liked me, the younger girls. If I was a senior, the freshmen, sophomores, they liked me. Your class hated you? I don't think they hated me. I don't think they were voting for me as much.

But I would talk to everybody. And the other ones would, I think, look down on them. And I did it. Right. And that was what pulled me through. You weren't an arrogant jock. No. That's what pulled me through. And you could come up and talk to me. Yeah. I was the guy that got cut from basketball my freshman year. Every year I got cut.

But my freshman year, I got cut from basketball, and my dad was the coach, and he cut me. Are you serious? Yeah, and that started a trend that I got cut every year from there on out. Wow. Yeah. Set the tone quick at the house. The dinner that night was awkward. That proves your dad's a man of integrity. Yeah, yeah. He's not going to give it to me. He's willing to hurt his relationship with his son just to have the best team. It's probably a pretty obvious way to do it.

I was a pretty good ball player. I should have been on play. So your dad should have? Yeah. He was too hard on you? I think you go over correct. You go over correct. I could see that. To go, I was a freshman. It doesn't matter. You can cut me as a freshman. But then I got cut. From there on out, the coach, I still think about him all the time.

cut me from it. I should have made it once. I was good enough to make, I'm not, I was saying I would have been a starter. We actually had really good athletes in our team. I went to a small school. I could have made it. I should have made it one year. Maybe, you know, something one year, one year. I should have made it. I'm not a bad basketball player. You'd be the guy, the equipment manager they put in for, for one minute at the end of the season. Yeah. You could have been that guy. Yeah. But no one's good. Usually it's a kid with like autism and then no one's going to show my videos. Oh,

And they just, you know, you're not going to see that. Here comes the equipment manager. They're going to go, that guy should be starting. That's what they would say about me when I come out there and drain him. I dunked a Nerf basketball my senior year. It's pretty good. That's pretty good hops. Yeah. I was like 5'9". Dunked a Nerf basketball. Not a big deal. Couldn't get a real basketball in there. You could pull down the rim. Not saying I was crushing as an athlete, but I could make the team. I went and played church basketball. I'm out of that joke.

And just dominated church basketball. I mean, just came in and was the leader. If I'm the leader of the church basketball team, I think I can get a spot on a local high school basketball team. That's what I'm saying. You know? But I'm over it. It doesn't bother me now. I can tell, man. You've clearly moved on. I'll tell you something. I think about it every day.

I got a picture of that coach when I wake up, I look at it and go, I'm going to show you today. You're like Michael Jordan. I am the Michael Jordan of comedy. Now, wasn't Michael Jordan's whole thing, he wasn't actually cut, he just didn't make varsity? Yes. So he was on JV. Yeah, but that might as well be cut for him, for that level. Yeah, it's not that inspirational of a story in my opinion.

Yeah, you're an underclassman. You're supposed to be on JV. I think he's the most overrated player that's ever lived. You want to go with that? Is that what you're trying to say, Aaron? No, I'm just saying it's like one of the – you hear that growing up. Oh, Michael Jordan got cut from the team, and then you find out, no, he really didn't. That he was – yeah, that it was just JV? Yeah. It's disappointing. It is disappointing. You're saying you would have tried more. No, I'm not disappointed in him. I'm just saying I don't like that the story became that he was wronged in this big way. When did you learn that he was –

I mean, maybe a year ago. The last dance? Did they talk about it in the last dance? Did you feel your productivity in your life slow down when you heard this? Like, do you think this was the drive in everything you do? And then you found that out and you felt that next day was a little lazier than normal. Maybe? I don't think anything Michael Jordan's ever done has affected my life in any way. But it just, it hurt a little bit to know that that story was a lie. Yeah.

Well, I think for – he should have been on the varsity team. I think then that was – I mean, if you go to a small school, it's like almost everybody's making the team. And then if he goes to JV, then he's basically not making the team. Yeah, I feel bad for that coach. How was he supposed to know that this kid was going to be the best basketball player ever, you know? And one of the biggest grudge holders. I mean, imagine that. You have no idea. You just got to –

You think you're like, I don't know. I put him on the JV team. His freshman year is not insane. And you're like, hey, turns out he never lets it go. And we'll bring it up in his Hall of Fame speech. He brought up a lot of stuff. Would your dad have put him on varsity over you? Oh, absolutely. I mean, look, I think even a JV, Michael Jordan, I don't think we're competing. I mean, I'm not delusional. I'm just saying.

For a small Christian high school, Donaldson Christian Academy. What's the oldest Michael Jordan you think you could beat in a game of one-on-one? I think I could take an 11-year-old Jordan. I bet you couldn't. I think 12 years old, he's got me beat. I think I could take an 11-year-old. Are you talking about you right now? Right now. Right now. I don't think you could 11. I would say 8, like Harper's age.

Full court? Oh, that's a good point. Because if it's full court, he's got you at six. Eight, nine. I mean, did some of these kids dunk at like nine or ten? I don't think he was doing that, dude. Yeah, but I think... Some of them are freaks. You're a phenom that you go get... You ever see the kid videos of them doing golf videos where they swing and it's just a perfect swing? Tiger had it. Yeah. Where Tiger could beat you in golf at eight.

I mean, the only thing is his distance. You could hit farther. Jordan was 5'10 when he was 15, and he grew five inches over the next year. So he was probably eight, nine years old. He's probably pretty tall. I think you would tie. I don't think you're ever going to be able to stand in front of him. That's the problem. Yeah. And actually, that's why I think you would lose, even because he's going to just be able to run around you, and so you can't. So you're either going to tie or you're going to lose.

But you're going to have to... You think you can take an 11-year-old? I think I can take my Jordan right now. So, I mean, is that...

How old do you think he has to get on the other end for you to beat him? That's what I thought we were doing, by the way. You kind of shocked me when you said 11. I thought that's what we were talking about. He's probably 20 years away from losing the B. 70. He'll have to get into his 70s. He literally can't be in a wheelchair. And he'll probably still beat me then. But you'll be in your 40s, so yeah, he's still going to beat you. I plan on being in good shape in my 40s. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's what you're shooting for. That's what I'm working on. I'm going to turn things around. I'm working on that.

Best I ever felt, that's what I'm going to say. You said this is the best shape. Right now it's probably the best shape I've ever been in. Yeah. And it's still not good shape, but it's coming from nothing. You're in good shape. I know. I'm in good shape, but it's better than what I've ever done. Yeah. You know? I made the varsity baseball team my senior year. I didn't deserve it, but the coach was just being nice. See, I never got thrown a bone. You're going to tell me breakfast can make it?

Our last game our senior year, he gathers all the seniors around and gets each one up beside him to say something nice about what they meant to the team. Just like your example. And you've been there one year, right? I mean, I've been on JV or freshman all four years. Oh, all four years. Okay. Yeah. He says something nice about every player. I'm like, what's he going to say about me? And I was near the end. He got up there and he said –

This boy's dad was one of the best ballplayers I ever seen. Yeah. He was such a good player. Thanks for being on the – I mean, then I sat back down. It was about my dad. Was your dad great? Yeah, my dad was very good. Yeah. Yeah. Did he play in college? Uh-huh. Where at? At Cumberland. Oh, okay. Oh, nice. Yeah, Cumberland. I know Drew Denton went to Cumberland, played baseball there.

Yeah, they've got a great baseball program. I don't think they did when my dad was there, but they do now. Man, I mean, when that first coach, when he heard your name coming through, he's got to be like, here we go. And just, I mean, just when he watched tape on you and he watched you steal that base. Steal first. Steal first to run back. He goes, what's this? That's the Bates. That's the young Bates.

He's like, oh, no. Chip off the old block. Chip off the old block. Look at it. He's confused. He's just, I mean, for your dad, like, and your dad just to be like, you're a college baseball player. That's awesome. What's your son do? He's a weatherman. Channel 5. That's cool, man. That's cool.

You go to college and stuff like that? He's like, yeah, yeah. You went to college. You got to learn weather stuff. Isn't that usually given to women? Is it? Mostly. Mostly. Weather jobs? Weather jobs. There's got to be more women doing weather jobs. I don't know. I'd say that was a pretty close one. In right now? I mean, it might be more women now, but it's still not, I don't think, a landslide. Think about...

I think about the meteorologists that we have here in Nashville. It's split, but either they're really old. Is there any younger men doing it now in Nashville? I know of a guy, he's in his 40s. Oh. Yeah. I've got the data here. Yeah. Do you think there are more men or women? I would think there's more women. What do you think, Brian? Slightly more women, but I think it's pretty close.

2016, they found 2,040 weather casters. Of those 2,040, 1,400 were men and 600 were women. They outnumber them almost three to one. Men do? Yeah. Well, that's crazy. Well, that's old data. Well, that was based off, yeah. If I had the laptop, we'd be getting current data, but...

That's also based off nothing of my knowledge. You're right. I have zero. No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying my knowledge of being more women is never thought about it. Never crossed my mind. Don't watch weather on the news. And I just said that. I could be completely wrong in the fact that. But I will say when I think of a weather person, I do think of a woman in front of the green screen pointing at stuff. I think it should be more women. I think so too. Yeah. Why? Why?

Well, maybe not, because their giant hips might cover up too much of the screen. Yeah, can't see Kansas. We've got a big problem there. Maybe that's why it's a bin. Finally, I can get some of Tennessee on the map.

Have you ever done, was it very hard to do the weather thing? Like get used to that? Yeah. And then I didn't do the weather. You just had that one video. That was in college. Yeah. But yeah, it's hard. Kermakee. Cause yeah. I mean, that's where you gotta get good at looking and pointing and, you know, I bet you learn it in an hour, but it's about, I bet that hour is hard. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm not trying to – as I talk about it, they're not working on a – You couldn't jump in and be good at it right away. No. You could figure it. Yeah. I mean, yeah, they're not laying pipe somewhere. They're not roofers. Right. I bet they picked it up in an hour and they got – So, yeah. So anyway, I don't even know where we've ever been talking about. I was talking about golf. I did that. It was a fun weekend. Yeah.

We all did that. Well, we also did, so we did the golf thing. We played 18 holes, a lot of, a lot of Vandy baseballs. I'm going to have some of them come in here too and sit with us. And they, we did one thing that they did. Cause you, since you run this course, so you run around back and forth. Peyton Manning is very involved in this course. It's, I mean, it's, it's maybe the number one nine hour, nine hole course in the country. And then it's starting to be known as one of the top courses in the country. And, uh,

And I think renting it out for that $4,500 is going to go away. I just think that's pretty... Not that $4,500 is not a lot of money, but everybody would agree to own a course for a day. That doesn't seem like a lot. I mean, if you had 45 guys paid $100, you know, that's it. And you just get to do whatever you want. And so... I can see how companies might do that. I don't know many... Great corporate events. Yeah, many just individuals that...

Would want to do it. But if you've got a bunch of buddies together, it's like ordering a fight. I know. But if you have, think about, you go member at a country club. I mean, there's usually 800 members at a country club, four to 800. I mean, you know, if you just said, hey, I'm renting this thing out. You asked a hundred dudes at a country club.

They would be like, oh, I'll do it. How much is it? A hundred bucks? Yeah, I'll do it. But if you don't want it, 200 bucks, you get half that, which is a perfect number. Because what they also do, they set up, at the end of it, we set up a different way where, I think it was called the Illuminati round. And the idea of it is you start on like one,

tee box and you're playing to eight green so you're going across different holes wow so you're just it could be like 800 yards yeah and you're you got to go like you got to figure what's the best way for you to get across that's crazy yeah which is very fun to do that's a very big thing that a lot of guys do it at clubs if it's late it's not busy they'll do that all right we got to play from here to wherever the next place is which is a kind of a

I didn't really hear about it until if you join somewhere and then you find like a lot of the staff does that or like, you know, the younger, the cart guys will do it and stuff. So, which is very fun, but yeah, it was a fun weekend. And so big golf weekend. Uh, so I think that was all I did. And then did y'all do anything?

I went out of town, went to the Smoky Mountains this weekend and tried to go to Dollywood, but it was sold out. Oh, really? Yeah. But still, you know, we had a nice, beautiful weather this weekend. The honeymoon? No. Where'd y'all go for your honeymoon? New York. Oh, that's right. That's right. Wait, Dollywood was sold out? Yeah. It's half capacity and you got to reserve your tickets. It's the time to go. If you want to go to Disney World or any of that stuff, this is the time.

I mean, I know someone that went to Disney World. They were like, it's the best experience they've ever had. No one's there. And we drove back early yesterday morning. We went to the Titans game yesterday. Yeah. And that was fun because there's nobody there either. And concession stand lines wide open. There's no public parking, walking in. Yeah. Beautiful weather. You and Ruth sit next to each other. Yeah. You didn't have a separation because of your wife. You can't do it with your wife.

Like if me and you went to it, we would have had a seat in between us. I thought you were talking about because of COVID. No, no, no. You're talking about just people. I mean, just comfortableness to go. There's no reason for us. There's no one around us. So spread out. So if you and Laura went, you'd spread out? Probably not. I mean, I mean...

I probably would ask, but I'm not the most normal person, and Laura knows that. But they've zip-tied the seats, so you can't just sit in any seat. Oh, wow. So you can't... Well, I mean, if I have to go even farther, then we have to go farther. But I would try to ask if you could... So you couldn't have sat next... Like, you couldn't have one seat between y'all? No. Yeah. No. If you could have, would you have? No. See, why would you...

Just be more comfortable, right? Go to a movie theater. Why do you not just sit spread out? You do it with dudes. Guys will go, come on, spread out. Always put a seat in between. You always put a seat in between. But your wife, you don't. I know a lot of guys that don't even want to do it in movie theaters. Those people are insane. And that's crazy. And that's uncomfortable. If you go with someone. I've been to a movie theater and no one's in there and I'm sitting down in the seat and I've seen a guy sit behind me. And it's me and him. Maybe, no, I think it was me and him.

Just the two of you? Just the two of us. Some theater, I forget where, on the road somewhere. Because people, watch people line up. When people go get in lines, people just naturally go next to the person. And he said behind me, I don't even remember the movie because I was so, I couldn't get over it. I never got over it. I would have gotten up and moved to the other side. Well, then, because then I think, was that rude? Am I starting something? Is it, you know, but it was, I mean, I was...

I was so angry. I could never let my mind leave that guy and just watch the movie. Because I was, I'm like, why would you ever do that, man? Why would you not just, not go right behind me? If you went to a movie that looked like it could be sold out with a buddy, would you go ahead and spread out? Or would you wait and see?

I wouldn't, I would wait and see then. Yeah. That's, that's, and then I would, I would try to, if we can try to spread out, but I'm not going to be a problem. I'm not, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll sit next to each other and be packed in and I'm fine with that. But yeah, I've, I've been, when you go with a friend and they don't, you're like, come on, just get spread out. Like, what are we doing? Like,

It's insane. But people just naturally, I like to watch that. I watch that a lot. Watch people go into any line. Watch people park. They park at a store. I mean, somewhere up front, but you could park anywhere crazy. You'll never be able to really be parked alone because people naturally will just pull, and they pull right next to it. Look at lines. When you go to lines, I mean, now with COVID, it's a little different. Before, people just get close. People just naturally will go in a herd, and you can watch them, and you just think, just go this way.

And I think about it all the time. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Aaron, what did you do? I was at Zaney's this weekend with Preacher Lawson. That's fun. Did some shows. It was a good time. Yeah. There you go. Good wrap-up, Aaron. Everybody brought some stuff to it. I got to watch Notre Dame. Big win. Big win. Maybe the biggest Notre Dame win of my lifetime. Yeah. Really? Yeah.

That's true. Without their star quarterback. But I was thinking about it. Yeah, it probably is the biggest Notre Dame win. When did they win the championship last time? 1988, three years before I was born. You were born in 91? Yeah. That's nuts, dude. Yeah.

So that's the biggest wins. It was pretty sweet watching that. Yeah, that was a big win. Number two in the country now. I heard on the radio this morning, they were talking about that game, and they said it's a tradition in Notre Dame that if someone leaves their bike unlocked, they put it in their tree. Yeah, that's a big thing. It's a big thing. If you walk around campus at like 3 in the morning, you'll see people. It's just when people walk back to their dorms drunk from the bars, if you see a bike out, you just throw it up in a tree.

if you don't have a bike. I imagine if you have a bike, it's pretty frustrating. Yeah. If you walk around campus in the morning, you'll just see bikes everywhere and trees. Wow. And they stay up there. Yeah. Well, they're tough to get down. You put them up pretty high. Yeah. My buddy had a, uh, one of those two seat bikes, tandem bikes.

That's probably tough to get up there. He and his, he and another guy would ride it on campus. Even his roommate, they lived off campus. They'd ride to campus. Wow. On a tandem bike. They're on the rugby team. I bet they sat together at movies. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you ride a tandem bike, do you go, do you go, I mean, we're already committed to the day, so we might as well also sit next to each other. Yeah. Or do you go, maybe the guy in the back goes, I can't. And then there's like five seats in between you. Cause you're going, I, it's,

It's too much. Yeah. It's too much. We're too on each other today. So this week episode, we are going to talk about malls. Did y'all watch the Jasper? I wanted to talk about malls. Did you watch the Jasper mall thing? Mm-hmm. I watched it. Did you watch it? I forgot. Here we go. Did you have all weekend of doing nothing? There you go. Watch it real fast now. 85 minutes long.

Long. Not that long. It is. I was telling Laura, it got great reviews. It's definitely interesting. It's a mall in Alabama, Jasper County or Jasper something. And it was kind of slow, very slow. Nothing really to it. And I honestly think, so I think if you're from the South and I'm, you know, Tennessee and I go to malls a lot.

to me it was like boring and then like my neighbors who were from New Jersey loved it and I think they love it because it's like watching zoo animals to them is honestly what I believe I almost think it's insulting that back to how many people they love it being because you saw these very old southern kind of characters these old men playing dominoes they play there every day showing the mall walkers they say pledge allegiance to the flag every morning it was just I mean it is showing a small town but

But then I take it as... I loved it, but it's because I feel like it reminds me of people I grew up with. Yeah. Yes, I loved it for that too, but it got... Towards the end, I'm like, all right. This is... I could love 45 minutes of it. I love the pacing of it and stuff. And then 85, you're like... There's nothing going on. I think I'm thinking too...

I think I went into it wrong. I'm thinking something's going to happen. Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, nothing really happens. No. But if you want to see Southern, I mean, honestly, maybe captured small-town living better than anything that there is. I mean, there wasn't. That's small-town living. That's mall living. They go in, be mall walkers.

It's pretty, it's that, but I don't, you feel like people like, I think people like it cause they go, they want to see, they look at it as like, that's what those people are like. Yeah. A little bit. I'm sure that's probably true. Uh, I mean, there were some funny moments in it. Yeah. The old guy on his phone. Yeah. The, the army training place. Do you remember that? Yeah. Yeah.

They made them train and they go to the, you sign up for the army there and you have to do the training there. They just, it's supposed to help you get ready to go in the army. And it's a guy and a girl. The girl just does great. Doesn't even need breathing allowed. The guy has to stop. He can't, he can't keep going. Wow. Yeah. I mean, he had the guy, yeah. Who knows if he made it. Yeah. Yeah. It didn't look like it. I mean, it's the mall's shutting down. They're trying to get a big, I mean, I, two stuff I'd never noticed that they said with the, uh,

With a mall, they're like, they're asking, they go, do you have two anchors? And so anchors are stores. What are your two big stores? So now all they have left is Belk, but they used to have Kmart and JCPenney. So they used to have four anchors. They had Kmart, JCPenney, Belk, or maybe something else, but whatever. So when you think of a store, the mall here, Cool Springs Mall, the anchors, they have a Belk, there's a Macy's. But like those big stores are your anchors.

So if you lose those anchors, that kind of crushes them all. Be like Bass Pro Shops at Opry Mills. Sort of the staple of the mall. Maybe you got to walk through it to get into the mall. Yeah. One of those places. Yeah. They used to have all that stuff. I mean, I love seeing guys, these old people be these like mall walkers. They come do it every morning. Man, they get there.

I was wondering when that guy slept, the guy that ran it. Yeah. Because he would be, he locks it up at 7. And then, I mean, they were getting there at dark, and they looked like they were getting there at 6 in the morning. Yeah. You know? And then he's back there. It made it look like he's there around the clock. Yeah. The mall walkers would show up early. Early. In big groups. Yep. It's interesting, man. Because I think you've got to unlock the doors where you can get in a mall. Maybe the stores can open whenever they want to open. Mm-hmm.

I think I would have thought that they're all under, like we're all in this together, but it's not. I mean, you're a business that's like, you're basically just renting out a building inside a mall, but malls are, you know, I mean, this small, I mean, they said in the eighties, they were, they, they trying to drum up business. They had these quartets.

come seeing one day and that was kind of a big event for them. And it was, you know, it looked like it was kind of crowded. Uh, I mean, relatively speaking, there's all these old, just older people come watching them and, uh, playing like gospel music, gospel quartets. Yeah. Yeah. And I was just trying to get, you know, get some people in the door, maybe see some stuff. The guy, one guy was a jewel jewelry guy, jeweler. And he, is that right? Jeweler, jeweler. Yeah.

I think, yeah. See, that's why I would say jewelry guy because I'm scared of that word, jeweler. I would avoid it. I would say like a ring guy. If you can avoid words like that, I usually try to. I try to too, which I think is a big thing to do in comedy. If you can avoid the easiest word to describe what you're trying to say and try to say it in another game. It's funnier to say jewelry guy.

I do that a lot in comedy. If anybody ever, if you don't know if anybody cares. But just if you're wondering, I do that a lot. So don't pick the main word that everybody would use to describe that guy. The proper word. Yeah. Describe it in a, like that way, avoid the word jewelry guy. Yeah. And if you had a joke saying the jewelry guy comes over, that's very funny. Ring guy. He makes rings, you know, whatever that guy is. Yeah. I mean, that's way more of a funny description.

Anyway, I'm going to teach a comedy class at Jesser Mall. If you come sign up. My wife went to college. She went to, took classes in a mall. Really? Yeah. She went to like a college in Alabama, the Madison Mall in Huntsville. Oh, yeah. And she went in there and she said she took classes and,

And then just left and moved to Nashville not much after that. And because she was taking, she couldn't, she stopped going because it was learning history. And you're like, but we're in a mall. Like you could never get over the idea that you're, you're like, we're in a mall. Someone's buying toys in there. People are doing, you know, and you're like, in history today, like it would be very, it's kind of weird. You don't feel the full experience. Have you done a lot of comedy clubs in malls?

Yeah, I mean, there's a million of them that are in malls. Yeah. But do you have that moment too when you're in there? I had it. I was just in one where you're like, man, there's like a Lego store right outside this comedy club right now. It's a little strange. I think once you get in, I don't think I ever thought of it like that. I love malls so much that I'm excited to be in there. If I find one and there's a comedy club in the mall, I'm very happy just because I know I'm going to go walk in this mall all weekend. And I love walking around a mall.

I mean, I love being outside, but I love also being inside. There's people. That's why I think so many people go to it. It's really, you feel like you're doing something. If you're going, I'm going to the mall today. It's like, oh, I'm going to do something. Whether you buy something or not, it's an activity. You're actually doing something. You're walking around. Right. You know, I've been to Mall of America, one of the biggest malls in the country. I don't remember what the biggest mall is. It is the biggest mall in the country. It is the biggest mall in the country. Yes. I've been to one in, there's one in Canada too. Yeah.

That one's bigger. Yeah, that one's bigger. I've been to both of those. It's the biggest one in North America. Yeah, they're huge. One in Dallas is huge. They have ice skating rings. I mean, you walk around it, it's a haul, man. I went to one. Was it Vancouver that there's a really big one? I guess like Edmonton. Edmonton. Yeah. I went to one in Canada. There's an ice skating rink in the middle, and they just had like a youth hockey game.

inside the mall. Yeah. And everybody would gather around and watch it. Yeah. This is, yeah, this felt like the cultural hub of the city almost. Yeah. They, and so in high school they used to do, so they did fashion shows at that Jasper mall. They showed that. So they used to do fashion shows were really big to do at malls. So we and my buddies would always go and try to get in and get on these fashion shows. I never got on one. They all got on it. So four of us would go. Was your dad the judge? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I see a trend here. I know. Four of us would go, and they would cut me. I would never get it. They would go, all right. My buddy Nick did it. Nick Newman, he did it all the time. He did every one of them. And I think Kenny did one, but Kenny and Travis Morris are like kind of four guys, or three guys including me. And then they all got to do it. Everybody was like, yeah, yes, absolutely, absolutely. And I would go, can I do it? They'd go, no.

What reason? No, they would not let me. I wasn't good-looking enough to be a model. Were your friends that did it, were they pretty good-looking people? I mean, regular guys. I mean, yeah, I guess so back then. I guess, I don't know. I mean, there's... Where is it? I don't have the picture. Lar, bring that high school picture. This is my high school picture. This is what I looked like in high school. And it was... It wasn't... I mean, I wasn't just...

Just a problem. I should have been able to at a local mall. Well, that's a glamour shot. This kid can't wear a shirt in the middle of a regular mall. Is that your senior picture? Yeah, I think you're making their point. That's a good picture. That's a good picture.

Look at those. Now, Brian, what did you say? You said that's a glamour shot? Yeah. You said that's best case. Come on. That's best case scenario right there. Yeah. But that's what, well, when you're modeling, you're not going, do not best case. You're doing best case. You're bringing best case to the table. That's true. Why do I not get to do it? I had a lot of stuff there. Yeah. Why did I get told no so much?

I got told no all the time. That prepared you for comedy. My preparation of continuing to get told no. Yeah. I mean, I'm in a business that is just constantly no. You want a TV show? We're going to let you get as far as you can and then no. Stand up? No. Everything's no. You're going to do this? No. Everything's no. Everything. Yeah. You're in comedy, which is what I love about this business. It is the most no's I've ever been told.

And I think it's, I mean, I, for me, it was dating. Yeah. That was your nose. Have you been told no in comedy? I don't know if I've been told yes. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. It's all nose. Everything's a no.

I did a fashion show in high school once. I mean, come on. Yeah. I mean, it was, you just get, there's this tux company and they did a fashion show. They get seniors to wear their tuxes and do fashion. And then you got a discount for your prom. Yeah. I remember this woman, the woman that ran the tux place, she gave me,

It's one of those tux where the jacket is super long. I look like Penguin from Batman. Penguin? Who? You look like Penguin from Batman? I didn't mean to say it. Is that how they say it in Batman? Penguin? Penguin.

I don't think they did. Oh, I don't know. I don't even think they'd be scared if that's how you say it. But did they? I don't think that's how they say it in Batman. The point is it was a ridiculous looking suit that they had me in. Yeah. And I felt super, I mean, it looked, yeah, it looked like that. It's hard to argue that with you're wearing that jacket. This is a person watching now watching this goes, I think I did the right thing.

That's the person that she sees you wear. Well, here's what happened. I was so self-conscious about the length of this coat that I went and found another guy and I traded jackets. So I mismatched the jacket. So I had like the normal suit and then this white. It looked so stupid. That lady was furious at me. I bet. She's furious. Because you're not having to wear that jacket for the... Not for prom. You just got to model this. Just walk out. It was so stupid. And you were just the person fitting that...

like you were just the guy that's gonna be yeah so she's like that's the whole point of this did you have to pay full price no she still gave me the discount she was too but she was so mad yeah that i did that she was like that's the whole point is that you're supposed to yeah and uh anyway yeah i mean but that yeah you but you're yeah you're i mean see i would have wore whatever they wanted you would have been a team player dude i was trying to be a team player every year got told no

Penguin. How do they say it in Batman? We can pull it up. Yeah, I'm very curious how they say Penguin in Batman. I think they say Penguin. I don't know if they say Penguin. Here comes the Penguin. The Penguin. Yeah, we got to figure out. We got to find a clip where they actually say it. Just see. Somebody's not as good on the laptop as we hoped. Oh, dude, you would still be typing in Penguin right now. I mean, I would. Yeah, you'd be looking up Jasper Maul. I hope that crashes so bad. There's...

I, so, so yeah, the Jasper mall was, it was, uh,

Trying to figure that out or trying to watch that. I did enjoy it. If you want to watch, you know, real Alabama, and they capture it, which is pretty crazy. I love the older guys. I could be, I mean, I definitely would be a mall walker. Definitely. I didn't know that was a thing. And about two years ago, I was trying to get in my steps every day. It was about this time of year. It was very warm. And then one day it was really cold and I was out right near Green Hills mall. And I thought, I'm going to go in here. Like I was the first person to think of it. And I'm just going to,

get my laps in here at this mall. And I go in, I'm walking and I see an old dude like on the other side with his tennis shoes on. He kind of gives me a salute. I'm like, all right, he's just being friendly. And then I started noticing I'm seeing all these old people walking

just we're all making the laps together and they're all waving and passing each other and I realized that's an old person I did not know it till then you fit right in you fit right in well that's your sign of your age is you slowly just start figuring it out you start figuring stuff out on your own yeah and you go you know what a mall would be great yeah to go walk in so that's you know it's you

You've stumbled into basically, oh, you're the young guy there. Yeah. You're like, look at this guy. Young buck. Finally getting some young guys. We don't look as bad. Yep. Did you feel like they surrounded you? They passed me. I don't know if they surrounded me. And just going through. The CDC recommends it. I saw that. They have a whole guide on how to start mall walking. It's a CDC approved activity for old people because there's no traffic. You're not going to get run over by a car.

It's indoors, you know? Yeah. But now they don't want you indoors. All right. Well, I don't think they wrote it now, but before COVID. Before COVID. They wanted old people to do it. Yeah. It's a safe place to walk around. Yeah, I agree with that. I think you should. I love the mall. I love every mall, and I would go to all the malls, and I'm a giant fan. When you were growing up, you went a lot? We would...

Yeah, we'd go to the mall. It was a big deal to go to the mall. I mean, malls were thriving when I was growing up. But now on the road, if I'm somewhere that's a mall, I still am excited and I will go to that mall. I just want to go walk around. I go walk around every day. I just enjoy it. It's fun to, you know, it's just fun to do. When did malls start? They started in the 50s. Yeah? I thought it'd be like the 100s, like 1900s.

The first one opened in Indina, Minnesota, 1956. Would you have thought it was that soon? I would have thought more recently, to be honest with you. The opposite? I thought it was like an 80s thing. They just invented malls? I mean, shopping. I would think that malls would just be, you know, like, here's a different version, but it was started in 1920. You know, I mean, would...

The Pilgrims, they probably had an aversion. You had to go buy stuff. I mean, there was some Italian examples of kind of malls back in the 1800s, but the real, what we think of as malls was in the 1950s, started here in America. In Minnesota. I know outdoor malls used to be big. Yeah, I'm talking about indoor. Yeah. Outdoor used to be, outdoor was probably older. I guess. Yeah. Because someone was hard to define what exactly a mall is. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, an outdoor mall. Certainly strips, shopping centers. That's what I loved about L.A. because California would have all these outdoor malls. And so they were just awesome. I mean, when we moved to California, I would go sometimes if I just have anything to do in a day and I was at home and I just wanted to go out and go do something, I would leave my house and go walk around the malls in California. They were outside. I enjoyed it.

I don't think I buy that much stuff. It's not like I go and buy stuff. I just enjoy walking around. Yeah. And, uh,

I remember it was a big deal for us to go to the mall. Yeah. Cause we didn't drive in Nashville. Yeah. So we'd go to Hickory hollow or river gate. Yeah. There was two big malls and it was a big deal. I remember the, like my mom would let me first time ever, like, all right, I'm going to let you go on your own. We'll meet back here at the food court. Yeah. Like one o'clock. Yeah. And that was a big deal. Yeah. I remember that too. How old were you at the time? You're 12. Yeah. Yeah.

But it does seem weird now because we didn't have cell phones. So it does seem kind of scary to think about. Yeah, you couldn't. They couldn't find you. I remember getting to go by myself. People used to fight, though, at Rivergate Mall. That's when it started changing. People would meet there for fights. Yeah, they're still fighting there. Yeah. Yeah. They would say, come meet here at the Rivergate Mall. In the parking lot? No, sometimes in the mall. Wow. So we're all going to meet there, and then that's where they're going to fight. Like high school kids were doing this? Yeah.

Yeah. Did you ever go to one of those? No. But I think it was after me. But I remember going. Because malls have taken a turn. Yeah.

Yeah. They've taken a bad turn. Oh, yeah. I was going to say, I kind of feel like I caught the tail end of that because I don't know if kids were hanging out in malls when I was in high school. I remember a little bit of it when I was in middle school, but it was just never much of a thing. And I was here in Nashville. We have a good mall here in Opry Mills, but I don't know if anybody... Well, I remember Opry Mills, Opryland Theme Park was there, and they knocked it down for the mall. And I remember I was like, and how much I love malls, I was still a little excited that the mall was coming.

but I was like, that's so stupid. Why would you do that? And I still don't agree with it. They should still have the theme park there. Cause the theme park was the best to go walk around in high. Like if you go in high school, you get it. We'd get a patent. That was my first job. Yeah. I'm actually going there today or the Grand Ole Opry today, but there, that was my first job was to do that. I was 15 and I was a sweeper. I just swept the park up and went and walked. I had dogs and,

I would sit, people leave their dogs. Like we left when Dollywood, we had Holly. And so we put her in the kennel and I would be in charge of those kennel. One dog got out because they'd had these S clips to put in the cages. Yeah. And they did, they were one short. So I was having to like guess on which dog do I think would figure out because how to get this thing open. So you just kind of like, you'd have to guess the dumbest dog, which dog do you think is not going to be able to figure it out?

And, uh, I did not choose correctly. And this dog, the doors, someone's, the doors open. And I remember someone was paying or something. The doors open. I'm 15, 16 years old. And I just see the corner of my eye and I'm like, and this dog is gone. Just in, you remember the parking lot would just be packed. And, uh,

and dogs are in the parking lot so then we gotta run out there but I can't leave because then there's other dogs and we call I have to call and they have to come they have to go really look for this dog and they find the dog finally underneath the car oh wow and uh he was dead no I'm just what if I said it that way no he was fine that's the wrong way uh did you get in trouble uh I think so but it wasn't my fault they didn't have the

They were short on the... You'd put these clips in because if a dog could hit the cage, he could get the little lock. So you had to have that in so they couldn't. But it was just... The whole thing was just dogs bringing... I'm trying to think if anybody brought any weird animals either. These were vacationers? Yeah. So they come in, they bring their dog, and then you just put them in there. And we put Holly in when we went to Dollywood. I know it's a much more...

prevalent thing now to take your pets with you on the road. I felt like back in the eighties and nineties, I'm surprised people were doing that. I think people would be, you know, people going to Opryland would be camping a lot, RVs. Yeah. And you would, and they would have their animals. I don't think they're bringing them into hotels. Yeah. I don't think they would allow it then. Yeah. You know, but they're bringing them those other way, but we did that. But now then became a mall and now it's a mall. Wow. 1950s. It's pretty crazy.

Maul's had a good run then. It's funny. Maul's lifestyle, life, what is it? Life expectancy or life. Lifespan. Lifespan. I was bad and I was around. Yeah, you could do that. You know, it's getting there. I knew, I knew. It's like feeling for, I can't, I bring up examples I can't say. It was when the wood and the drywall. God. You know, when you kind of hit on a wall. Did you find the stud? Found the stud. Yeah. I was like.

I was like, near it. Even my examples are not good at my examples, but they, I feel like it was very quick because it feels like they're going away. You know, our malls are driving at all. They're all going away, right? Most of them are going away. There's something here that said 25% of how many miles you think are left in the country? Can you tell me how many were there?

What are we? When you say mall, it's what we're thinking. I'm talking about what you think of. What do you think of a large enclosure with different stores inside? I'm going to get in America, or I would say 2,500. I don't know how many you think there were. I mean, would you say- I don't know at its peak what it was. Yeah, 5,000 or is that- At its peak? Insane, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think I don't know if it's- How many-

Nice open. At least one new shopping building. All right. We're looking stuff up. Yeah. And it's how many malls are left?

116, there's 116,000 shopping malls. That's a spread. Yeah, but that's back in the seventies. There were only 30,000. Should we go with the 30,000 number? Is that better to go? No, that's counting. That's not counting what we're talking about. What are the figures you, yeah. What are the ones? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of bombing as the researcher here, but 6,000, 1,000, 1,000, roughly 1,000 malls left in America. Really? And this one article says 25% of them will close over the next three to five years. Wow.

And definitely not helped by what's going on now, right? Yeah, it's definitely speeding up. They are. The expert. We've got an expert, Aaron Weber. Here's our COVID guy. COVID's bad for malls too. Oh, never thought about that. Indoor.

things that old people walk around in. You think that'd be bad for COVID? Well, you think that these malls are going to have to rethink. They're going to have to do more events like you were talking about. Stuff going on inside the mall. Yeah, the new ones coming up, they're more than just a mall. They've got an entertainment complex connected to it. Just all kinds of stuff. Yeah, that's what they should be. Columbus, you know, you were at the Columbus Funny Bone, right? Yeah. Columbus Funny Bone, one of the top comedy clubs in the country.

And that's...

Do that kind of route more where you have movie theater, you have that comedy club and you have like go that route and be like, it's the center of these towns and it's, this is where you're going to go have bars, have, you know, restaurants, but they need to be good restaurants. They need to be, you know, they got it. It can't, I think it's like we kind of grew past all the stuff that was in there. I don't understand where people are shopping. I don't know. I don't know how to shop outside of going to mall when someone, um,

is says they're gonna go buy clothes and i'm like so you go to the mall right i don't understand people are like no i don't go to the mall at all yeah that's always crazy to me it's either walmart or the mall for me yeah online shop yeah i guess i'm just not into online shopping like i think i gotta try stuff on too much to see how it fits and i you know you're old school but us young guys that's what that's what we do yeah i'm an amazon guy you just buy all your clothes on amazon no but my wife does like a weird

Sometimes I'll go to the store with the intention of let me learn about or try on the product, and then I'll buy it online at a cheaper price, but I'm just impatient. I always end up just buying it there. Don't you want to try it on? You buy stuff with impulse? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Occasionally you maybe buy something? Yeah, I'm a big impulse buyer for sure. You'd be on the picture on the website. Are you tired of being an impulse buyer? Just picture of you with all that on.

and dude yeah i'm bad about it man if i'm in a checkout aisle at a store dude i start looking around yeah i'll start maybe i'll read this magazine you know yeah you buy a magazine if it dude if it looks good yeah you know buy a little word search book yeah or something yeah time life yeah something man uh

Dan Soder, I might have told this story on there, but he would, I remember one day we were driven, he was opening for me somewhere, I want to say Pennsylvania or something, and we go to a Walmart store,

And he buys, we go into this Walmart. We just walk in there in the middle of town where, you know, we've been living in New York for a long time. So it's like, he's like, ah, like, you know, he grew up in Colorado, but like outside Colorado. So he's like, oh, this is like old memories going into, because when you're in New York, I mean, there's nothing in New York.

outside of like real places and uh real stores and then Soder just goes in and uh buys this is a long time ago he just buys uh like a six pack of jeans and he goes all right and puts them in the cart goes I'm good and I was like this is how you buy your jeans he goes yeah yeah bought six of them right there I mean he was buying stuff

From Walmart? Walmart Jeans. Just bought a six pack of them. Like he was an 80-year-old man that just goes, oh, I need new jeans. These are the size. I love it. Yeah. He died and he doesn't do that now. I can assure you that. He's probably not far off from... He's probably still closer to that than he is away from it. But I don't think he's doing that now.

Yeah, ghost malls is a big thing. I was reading about the biggest mall in the world up until recently was in China as far as just square footage. But it was a ghost mall for like 10 years. And then they finally... What's a ghost mall? Just empty? No one goes? Yeah, dead mall. Yeah, just stores are empty. Things like that. But you can still go in it like...

Yeah, it was open. It was kind of just empty. And then they had a lot of high-end stores and it was in a part of China that people just couldn't afford it. And they kind of revamped it and started putting in more different types of stores, middle class. And now it's kind of thriving. Yeah. But...

It's known as the world's largest ghost mall. It was the largest mall in the world up until just a couple years ago. What is the largest one now? In Iran. Really? Yeah. How big is it? It is 21 million square feet. 21 million. The Mall of America is 5.6 million. So it's four times the size. Four times the size of the Mall of America. But you read this and you're like, how is this even considered a mall? Tennis court, swimming pool, ice rink.

Probably people live there. Probably, yeah. Probably so. It's just, that's a city. Yeah. Yeah. That's what they're going to have to do is do that. Like just, I mean, you go, you got to like live there. People can shop, walk around. Just create little cities within cities. Yes. Yes. And it's a one, you go there and we get it all done. And then, you know, I mean, I love them all. I don't know if people do. I mean, do people not like them, I guess?

I think once the big stores leave, if a big store goes out of one, then you just, you know, I guess there's got to be a reason for you to go there. But that guy, the jeweler that we were talking about earlier, I don't think I finished. That guy said on that Jasper, he had one day, he goes out a $24 day and a $16 day. So in his business that day, he made $16 one day. He's like, yeah, I mean, that's just not going to.

Not going to do it. I don't know how much they're selling. I mean, I would think malls around here are doing good. I mean, they're definitely not. Some will be crowded. The weekends will be crowded. Yeah. I feel like Opry Mills is still crowded. Opry Mills. Opry Mills is pretty crowded, but you still walk past stores and it's like, I don't know if anybody's been in there all week. Yeah. You know, it's just how are these places making money? Yeah.

That guy said he would sit in his office and there's days where he wouldn't see a person walk. So he would be in the back room because that's where he works on the rings. And then he's got a window and he could look through it. And he's like, there's days you don't see a person walking. It's not like they're not coming into your store. You're not even seeing people. Yeah, that's crazy. It's crazy. Have you been to that Lebanon Outlet Mall lately? Not lately. I mean, it's becoming a ghost town. Really? Oh, yeah. Lots of empty stores there.

Yeah, I mean, it's, what's, yeah, what's another fun fact of Malls? All right, Mall of America, which is the largest mall in the United States and most visited, supposedly, in the world, if you spent 10 minutes at every store, so think about that, which that's easy to do, it would take a shopper more than 86 hours to complete their visit to Mall of America. Wow. Which is more than three days. Man, that's why you're, you'd be like, let's go. That's crazy. Let's go. That's a lot. That's a lot.

Yeah. There's a new mall supposedly opening in Miami that will be the new largest mall in the United States. It's called American Dream Miami, but there's still some hangups and council and stuff like that. It's going to have 2000 hotel rooms, a massive theme park, 16 story indoor ski slope, 20 slide water park.

So it's either a destination place because now if you live there, the only thing they would have to do is you got to make it easy for the people that live there. Because if you live there, you're like, I'm not going to that mall. It's going to be tonight. I'm not paying to park. I'm not like, you know, if I'm just trying to go to the gap, I'm not going to go through all these hoops to...

But I think that's a great way to go. Yeah. It's like you have that stuff be attached to it. Maybe this side is the mall where people can come and go. But if they want to walk and kind of see some of the roller coasters, I mean, in the Mall of America, they have the theme park inside of it. And they have a roller coaster. You can ride those rides. And I saw Larry Fitzgerald. He was in there. Yeah? Yeah. I remember just seeing, like, because he's from there, Minneapolis. I didn't know that. Or Minnesota. Yeah. Yeah.

And yeah, he was a, like he worked in the, for the Vikings. Like he was a ball or his dad worked in the body. He's maybe his concession stand or something. He worked in the Viking stadium. That's cool. And, uh, so, and I saw him just, he was like hanging out at the mall. Like they were walking around in those rides. But if you have stuff like that, the thing is the stores have to feel good. Like you have to, you got to want to go to these stores. And I don't know if malls have a bad, you know, people look down on them. I think, you

They think they're gross, so they think I'm above them all. I don't go to the mall. People have that kind of air to them. People that would actually spend money are not going to go. I guess they're not going to go to a mall. If you had some real stores in it, there's one in Atlanta in Buckhead. I think that's a mall that's just super nice stores. I feel like if someone's buying something crazy, they want to buy it not at a mall.

You know what I mean? Like if you're trying to buy, say a purse, that's whatever the expensive Louis Vuitton or Louis Vuitton purse. It's you want it to come from somewhere other than that store. Yeah, I would think if you're going to go spend that much. We saw it. Let's go to a Louis Vuitton store somewhere. I mean, I'm saying even if you go into the Louis Vuitton store, I don't know my head. I think I don't know how you would get it.

I guess you would go to the store. Maybe buy it online. Like, would you want to buy it online then? Or you'd want to buy it from someone that sells those purses? Like, oh, this person, they, yeah, I got this Louis Vuitton purse. Like, there's a story. You want a story. That's what I mean. That's what I'm trying to say. You want a story. If you're buying something like that, you want a story of how you got it. You don't want it to be, I went down to the Louis Vuitton store and bought it. Like, that's why people buy all that stuff in New York, those crazy purses. Yeah.

because they want the story attached to how'd you get this purse you're like oh yeah we

We went to one of them in Chinatown where they have the, you would go down like this, you know, you have to like say some guy goes, go to that guy. And that guy's looking, you go to that guy. And he's like, y'all hear about the person? They go, yeah. And I remember we walked, you go down these steps and you walk down this real long hallway and shut the door behind you. And you're like, I don't know what's happening. And then you get in. So, I mean, there's like, you know, it's like this guy's telling you to go to this guy. It's like a drug deal. Yeah.

And then you go walk down and you go in this room and then he's got all the, all the purses that you want. Real, real purse. I think they're, I think they're real at that point. Yeah. They're not, they're not knockoffs. They're, I think they're real, but maybe they're not. Maybe the knockoffs are, they're straight up knockoffs where it's not, you know, usually there's something they would, they would always say, I don't know if I talk about it in New York. If you go by,

The purses on the street in New York City, you don't ever buy them from the guys that can properly just sit there all day. They have a stand.

You got to buy it from the guys that are, if they're laid out on a blanket, those are the guys, because those guys are constantly having to grab it, wrap it up and run. So they're the ones that are going to have the real stuff. If you buy it from a guy that's allowed to just sit there all day, well, he's got the proper documentation to sell stuff. So his purses are not going to be as good. Really? You need them from the guy that's on the blankets. I would have thought about the opposite.

Yeah. Well, they're the ones that go get more trouble. So their purses are more, if you were trying to get a knockoff purse, that's the one that's going to be more legit. Huh? Yeah. Have you ever lost your car at the mall? Not like, not something that I remember. I mean, I definitely forgot where I parked or I'm trying nothing off the top of my head that I can think of. I went to the mall with my grandpa once.

We had no idea where we parked, and we walked around for hours looking for this car. Wow. Yeah, around the Montgomery Mall, which doesn't even exist anymore. We were just walking around the perimeter trying to find it. I remember that.

There was a case in, I think, Santa Monica now they have, maybe more malls have this, where it scans your license plate when you enter, like a camera does. And then if you can't find your car, you go to a kiosk, you got to know your license plate number, put it in, and it'll find it for you and tell you what floor and what row you're on. And they says it saves money because a lot of people are having mall security have to drive them around to find their car. Yeah. I don't like that at all.

That sounds like one of those things where they're tracking you and then they're convincing you that it's for some greater, oh, we're actually doing it to help you. It's like, no, they're just keeping track of where every car is on their property. For what reason? I don't know. They just want to know where you are.

They can keep track of when you're there, what time. You got an iPhone and an Apple Watch on you. They can track you no matter what. I'm just saying, yeah, it's just another thing. It's another way. Now they know when I'm at the mall. They know what car I'm driving there. They already know. You don't think they're benefiting from that knowledge in any way? Yeah. The government? No, this private company. Whatever mall this is at. Bigfoot? Dogman?

Who's been it? Who's that? I don't think I'm being crazy here. I get told that a lot. Who's they? I get any argument I get in. Someone always goes, well, who is that? Yeah. And I go, I don't know who they are. They know who they are. Somebody says, who is they? I'm like, maybe I made a mistake with this argument. Who's that?

I don't think it's crazy to think that a large corporation, a shopping complex, is tracking you and benefiting from that information. Maybe so. There was one guy who lost his car for six months. At the mall? At a parking garage. He borrowed his buddy's car. This was in the UK. And he went to a concert. And when he left, he couldn't find it. He walked around.

In the parking garage. Searching, searching, searching. And there was a bunch of parking garage. He couldn't remember which one. He finally, after like a week, they just had to report the car stolen. They thought somebody stole the car. That's why I can't find it. And then six months later, security finally was like, what is it with this car? And they search it and they found out it was. That guy's car. Yeah. Man, how do you, how do you feel about that when they. And it was one you pay to enter.

They say it was 5,000 pounds, which would be equivalent to like 6,000 US dollars. Oh, it just kept racking up a bill. Yeah. Did he have to pay it? I don't know, but. They should have made him. To be like, if you can't do that, if you can't find your car. Did he not have the ticket on him?

That's a good question. I don't know. Maybe he left it in the car because some of them you leave it in the car. Maybe. Yeah. But he borrowed his buddy's car and six months it was missing. Yeah. Hard to come back from that. Yeah. Hey, can I borrow your car again? You know what, dude? You can take a new one. Yeah. If you can find it. I found it interesting that I read that malls, they lay out like casinos. They don't want you to leave. So they set it up in a way that gets you disoriented. Yeah.

And, um, there's even a, it's called the Gruen transfer or the Gruen effect. It's named after the first guy who invented malls and it's to try to give you a pleasant experience. So you don't want to leave windowless mazes of stores and it makes you buy more supposedly. And you talked about the scent thing. I believe that. Yeah. A lot of scent marketing going on in malls in particular because they're indoors and

a lot of smells can get trapped inside like they can't other places. So we're just being manipulated in so many ways. Like food or other sensory overload food, food, especially. Yeah. Like if you, if you walk around the mall,

And you start to smell Cinnabon. That is by design. Cinnabon puts ingredients. They want it to get out. They want it to get out. And it increases their sales by a huge percentage. They have ingredients in their cinnamon rolls that are only there to increase the smell of it. And then they put the ovens. So you don't even get that cinnamon roll? What's that? You don't even get that one? What do you mean? It's like a dummy one? Yeah.

Like, can you buy that one or they just, that's in all this, all the cinnamon. Yes. They have ingredients in there just designed to increase the smell. Okay. That's it's perfect. And they put those ovens right in front. So everybody smells them. Some places they'll, they'll go to vending machines and they'll take like little strips of artificially chocolate smells and put it there.

by the vending machine. So you walk up to a vending machine, you start to smell chocolate and that'll increase the Hershey's. And you, so you, and you don't believe in dog, man, this is, this is not a conspiracy theory. I mean, this is, this is, you're on the verge of, I mean, if I was a, say I wanted you to believe in dog, man, I would think we have a window, a door has opened.

And you're not far off. I mean, you're wearing a jacket that looks like a jacket that goes, here's all the malls we have in our store. It's just, all it is is just, I mean, logos. Dude, Starbucks. You like Starbucks. Starbucks has a, they have an Aroma Task Force. They have a division at the company. Type that in. I want to see it pop up. Aroma Task Force at Starbucks. They have a division of the company.

Now, look, they don't have anything on their website about it. Oh, here we go. I'm not saying that. Yeah, I didn't think that there was. I'm not saying even their thing, but I don't even see anything just popping up.

Starbucks, they have a division of their company. Do you need your other computer to look all this stuff up? I need to open up my tour. Yeah, you're like, do you think this computer's good? Do you think Apple's going to let me see this stuff? No. And then you pull out a, you got like an old DVD player that you've made a computer. That's how you do it. You go, well, look at this website. Yeah.

I'm not the best vehicle for this information, I'm realizing. I enjoy it, though. Starbucks, they have a division of their company. They have people whose sole purpose is to work on the scent in these places. Because if they weren't manipulating the smell in a Starbucks at all, it would just smell like cheese from the breakfast food. Oh, yeah. So they pump in.

coffee smell at these stores. And when they're in malls, they pump out the smell of coffee to draw people in.

Yeah. I mean, that's what I think of when I go into a mall. But is that a bad thing? I mean, wouldn't you want your store to smell good? No, I'm not saying it's an evil thing. I'm just saying that's what I think of when I go into a mall. It's just sensory overload. We're being manipulated in all these ways because it's influencing customer behavior. Yeah. You know? Even the music. When you go into a mall, there are companies. I used to, one of them, when I worked at a marketing company, they were one of my clients. They would make playlists.

that they argued would drive customer behavior in a certain way. They said, we've got this playlist built out that if you play this at your store, people will buy this kind of food. Yeah. Because it's just, you know, if you get a pulse going or something, it's crazy the ways that we're being manipulated. Well, it's like being listening to music. I always think I don't listen to music a ton and I've actually tried to listen to more music when I drive just to,

like lighten your, you know, I would listen to like pop rock or something from 2000 pop rock. And just, it's like nice. It's fun. It's, you know, and like try to make you in a better mood. So the stuff does make you in a better, I do. When we do the playlist for our shows, you do a,

That kind of fits your comedy. It's the experience when they walk in, you want people to maybe sing us, you know, they're kind of singing a little bit with the song. They're like, oh, I love the song or whatever. Just, yeah, it does get you in a better mood. Right. And it'll depends on the pace of the store too. If it's a store where you're buying like a luxury, like a Rolex, you don't want, you don't want like a, you don't want like a fast paced, you want something a little more,

something that makes you thoughtful, makes you, you know. Yeah. So there's all of that's going on. Well, that boom, boom, like that was American Eagle was like the DJ music type. Wasn't it American Eagle? Hollister. Hollister. There's another, Abercrombie and Finch. Right. And that was, Abercrombie and Finch, they,

they wouldn't sell sizes over like 34. There's just, you can't get it. So women couldn't buy clothes there. Women specifically going after women. Yeah, they couldn't, but, uh, well they, you know, they could until they get knocked up and then their clothes get them knocked up and then they go, I think you know where to go now, lady. And then that lady has to go to Kmart. Uh,

But they wouldn't... I remember someone saying that they don't have jeans over 34 because they're like, yeah, we don't want you to wear our clothes. Well, they told people not to donate their clothes to Goodwill because they didn't want ugly and poor people wearing their clothes after the... And I remember looking it up and their CEO is one of the most weird looking people. There he is. That guy doesn't want ugly people wearing his clothes. Oh, yeah. You know? That's the Abercrombie and Fish guy. I think he looks nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway. I think that's one of the guys from the doppelgangers. It looks like that guy looked like a guy that you said, you can't say that. He's like, what? Why can't I say that? He just doesn't. He's just learning that. Yeah. No, you can't. That's just mean to say. He's like, I don't think it's mean. Is that Abercrombie or Fitch? I think his name is Mike. Oh. Mike Abercrombie Fitch. I don't think he started the company. I think he was just the CEO at one point.

Yeah, they play that music. And that music will run you out. I could see that. I could go in a store and you're like, I can't listen to this music. And you just know, well, this store is not for me. And then kids are going in like, they love it. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.

Yeah, man. You're being manipulated. Well, you're being manipulated. Old sales tactics, all of it. Right, right. The problem is it's getting scarier now because it's in your phones and computers. So you used to have to go somewhere to enjoy that. I think you're going to miss the days of going to a mall and being manipulated. You see an old man, it's an old trick. Yeah. That's a...

dim lighting and whatever. That's how you move merchandise. Or not Seinfeld. Morty Seinfeld. Morty Seinfeld. What did he say? He saw the raincoats. Yeah. Yeah, it was...

The stories are what sell this merchandise. Oh, that's what Peterman said, yeah. That's what Peterman says, and then he says... Cheap fabric and... Yeah, cheap fabric and dim lightings. That's how you move merchandise. Merchandise. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, very funny. How you move merchandise. Mm-hmm.

The Jasper Mall documentary, it showed Amal Santa and it kind of showed him. And I thought he did a good job. He did a good job. You like how serious it takes. I like seeing them backstage. I do too. They did good shooting it. It's a very...

Towards the end, we kind of kept moving along. We're like, all right. But it's like watching Santa get ready in a very nice, quiet thing. It's kind of entrancing. It is, but they show the guy with the shirt off. That works. That worked? Entrancing or trancing? Entrancing. I've never heard entrancing used like that. It puts you in a trance. Puts you in a trance. There you go. Entrancing is a word. Hey! Entrancing.

All right. Pying one. So I looked up how much mall Santas make. Yeah. Do you guys think they make a lot? A little? If they're, they can't make a lot. It can't be a full-time job unless you're crushing it. Oh, I think some people, my guess is there are people that they're just seasonal workers. They're Santas. And then that's kind of the job. I was thinking a little more, maybe $10 an hour, a little more than minimum wage. Yeah. I'll say 12. The median pay for a mall Santa is $30 per hour. Wow.

But those at the top of the sale can earn more than $100 per hour. Most mall Santas make somewhere between $5,000 and $15,000 for six weeks of work. The cream of the crop can make $20,000 or more. Wow. I mean, just you have a big year. I mean, imagine that. You're probably retired. You're making money. And I think there's a big difference between some mall Santas, they just got the fake beard and all that. And some guys look like- If you have a real beard, I mean, I think you move to the top. Yeah, I think so. You're just gigantic at the top. Because you have to be committed to that basically all year. Right.

yeah and so you look like saying all year and everybody's going you look like saying it all year long you're like i know you're committed yeah you're like make some pretty good coin on this and but imagine that you just work for six weeks 20 grand yeah especially if you're retired that's great yeah you're tired yeah i mean you're just like get those money you get have fun you go to get a mall yeah that's crazy uh we're about to wrap up is there any more fun facts

Not fun. I'm just going to find some crime. Just some crime stories. That sounds fun. Yeah. You want to hear those? Is there a future? Future's not good. They're not going to be around much longer. Yeah, which I always look up the future. I always like to look up the future of something. And it's funny that malls, yeah, there's not. I did look it up. It doesn't look good.

Kids used to gather at malls. That was the hangout. Now they can find each other online without having to do that. Online shopping is a big thing. It used to be a status symbol to go to the mall, but now people want to do selfies places other than malls. A lot of just technologies. You're going to need to do outdoor malls, probably seasonal malls. You're going to have to make them events. Yes, and attractions have to be connected to them. I think what's still appealing about a mall is there's no other...

in American life where there's just a cross section of everybody. Yeah. I can't think of another place where you go and you just see people all different, you know, wealth levels, races, everybody's just around. So I think that's still appealing about it, you know? Yeah. But I mean, no one's there now, but yeah.

I mean, some of them were getting dangerous. I mean, there was a mall in, I thought Memphis was called Murder Mall. Look up Murder Mall. Murder Mall, Memphis. And I think it was known that gangs would be there. I mean, some malls were crazy. The largest mall in Tennessee is Westtown Mall in Knoxville. Mall of Murder. Mall of Murder, sorry. Your sound's better. Ladies in the early 90s, several...

Several deadly shootings and irrational robberies occurred near the mall's parking lots. These events led to the Mall of Memphis developing a reputation for being unsafe and being nicknamed the Mall of Murder. Wow. So that, I mean, that hurts. Number of anchor tenants, three. They had three anchor tenants. Yeah. What's another crime? Oh, a crime? Well, there was one, a serial killer in Boca...

Yeah, Boca Raton, Florida. Boca Vista? Yeah, Boca Vista. In 2007, a 52-year-old woman was kidnapped and murdered. That was in March. In August, a woman and her son were kidnapped and tied, found in their car, but left alive. And then in December of that year, a woman and her seven-year-old daughter were also kidnapped and later found bound and killed. All in the same year at this place. No one has yet to be arrested for that.

Oh, still. Still on the loose. She said the one people who lived, they said the person blindfolded her. Yeah. And so they're still looking for that. That same year, a 19-year-old shot and killed eight people and wounded four others at a mall in Omaha, Nebraska, West Roads Mall, before killing himself. What year was that? 2007. Wow.

I don't even remember that. That's kind of sad. Is there a, uh, I mean, is there just a lighter note to get off on? I mean, I, it's funny. It's like the crime we should have gotten that earlier. Yeah. But you think like crime's gonna, you know, I think sometimes I, I was, I like them. I want those stories too. I think it's gonna be like some, this guy tried to have a fake store and they're like, Oh, that's funny. And it's like, uh, it's just going four people. Guy was a family was tied up in their, uh,

of their car and they were luckily found and they both lived and yeah, pretty crazy. Like, wow. You're like, who did it? Still don't know. Still don't know who did it. He's still out there. He's probably listening. Oh, he's probably listening. He's gone. All right. Still make it. This is that this was what helped all he needed to get back going again. Escalators. Escalators were miles. One of the first places escalators were put in. Wow. You know,

Las Vegas was the first I saw an escalator outside and I was blown away. Outdoors? An outside escalator. I don't know if I've seen it. Maybe I have. At an airport, they might have. Now, once you see it, you realize, yeah, it's not as crazy. But I remember thinking like, wow, dude. I remember going to Las Vegas. They have escalators. They're just outside. That's wild. You're like, I need to wrap my head around it. It could get rained on? It can get rained on. Yeah. It must be waterproof.

I'll tell you the one thing I'm snobby about is I walk up and down escalators. Oh, yeah? You don't just ride them? No, I think they're meant to be. I think that's the whole point is that they're meant to be walked up like stairs. If you're holding a bag or suitcase or something, I get it. But if you're just walking like at a mall, I'll walk up and down them. I don't think so because they have stairs also.

That's in case the escalators break, you know? Well, then as Mitch Hedberg said, they just become stairs. So they can't, it's, I don't think so because they have regular stairs. So if you want to go walk, then go use the regular stairs versus like a moving sidewalk. Yeah.

That is meant to walk on at an airport because that's meant to just speed up your walk because it's a long way to walk. I think it's meant to speed up your stair walking. I think that's the intent. I don't think it is. Most small escalators aren't that long because usually you're going to the next floor. I feel like you're getting off. Yeah. So you think that's more of a reason to walk it? I think so. Yeah.

I could see maybe it was a really long one like you see at the airport or some places. Like Atlanta's airport's got enormous ones. But those, you ain't gonna walk those because those are, it's so long, no one's walking it. It's just so funny to me. You'll see people walking super fast at an airport and then they get to the escalator and they just stop. Yeah. And I'm like, you can just keep walking. If no one's in front of you, I would say keep going. But I think the general is there, yeah, it's a ride. Okay. And then, you know, so. All right. I mean,

All right. Well, that's it. Do we have anything else? That's it? We did it? I think that's it. That's it. Support your local mall. Go to your local malls, man. You know, they are regular people. They are just regular people's stores. I think people can think two malls are a chain. Right. And they think that these guys just start these stores. It is no different than a store being on a corner of a street. Mm-hmm.

go to your malls buy some stuff some fun stuff in the mall you get a t-shirt with a wolf on it where are you gonna get that gonna get it at a mall uh thank you guys for listening as always leaving the comments uh i got two more dates for the one night only tour drive-in dates san diego and anaheim december five and six you can go check that out y'all have anything i'm headlining the stardome this thursday night in birmingham alabama so that's tomorrow i got a good mall there

What's that? They got a good mall there. They got a great mall there. The Galleria. Yeah. And then O'Fallon, Missouri. I'm headlining Backdoor Comedy Club right outside St. Louis. We're just there. We're just there. They're on the drive-in tour. So go see that. Yeah. I got nothing. Wide open. All right. Well, thank you guys. Listen, leave your comments, all that stuff. Truly. We love you very much. And yeah, we'll talk to you soon, folks. Folks. We'll find out. We'll see you on Instagram. All right.

Thanks, everybody, for listening to the Nate Land podcast. Be sure to subscribe to our show on iTunes, Spotify, you know, wherever you listen to your podcasts. And please remember to leave us a rating or comment. Nate Land is produced by me, Nate Bargetti, and my wife, Laura, on the All Things Comedy Network. Recording and editing for the show is done by Genovation Consulting in partnership with Center Street Media. Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to catch us next week on the Nate Land podcast.