what is going on? This is the IT in the D show. Episode 350.
We are, we got a great guest this week. Mike, Willis’ one of the founders of clear to go. And there’s a cool new app. That’s helping companies stay safe when they’re bringing people back, uh, from this Kobe madness, um, which is very timely, uh, and should be a great, great conversation. Uh, and speaking of which obviously, um, we, we all acknowledge what’s going on in the chaos in the world. Hopefully our show can give you a little break from that on behalf of all of us. We just want to say that we stand with all the peaceful protesters and, uh, we hope that some change can come about all of this and we can all be better for it. Um, so you know what, Dave, you may fire when ready? Okay. Welcome back. How’s everything doing? This is episode three 50 of the one and only it in the DJ. We all are, are all broadcasting live from our respective houses. This is Bob, the sales guy that is Dave, the geek Randy. I do the Twitters is doing the Twitters. You can find us online at it in the D that kind of do us a favor. Give us a like on the socials and subscribe to us everywhere. Fine podcasts are sold.
https://www.facebook.com/ITinTheD/videos/754224198716332/
Yeah. And Hey, here’s a slight change to, what’s become the norm over the past nine, 10 weeks. Um, we don’t have any events on the calendar just yet. Uh, but we’re about to, uh, so now that we’ve got a, you know, the stay at home order has been lifted. Uh, restaurants and bars are gonna start opening at 50% capacity starting next Monday. Uh, so yeah, it looks like we’re going to have the opportunity to start bringing some events back and we’ll see how we can do that. And with any luck our, uh, our guests will tell us how to do that. Not stupidly
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Sure. Yeah. I mean, uh, gosh, we’re in like week seven of this thing, uh, for us at least, uh, you know, I think we have Wednesday morning, I get a call from my partner and said, you know, uh, what if we had something to do like this? And it immediately just snowballed into this huge thing where yeah. Screening questions are definitely needed, but there’s this whole process that happens behind the scenes. Uh, HR teams have to make sure not just that people can come back to work, but what happens when they can’t and, and for all the various reasons why not? So, uh, you know, it just 18 hour days, 15 to 18 hour days for the past seven weeks, it’s getting pretty rough. But
how big, a big a team of coders do you have or are you guys doing all this internal?
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, luckily it was amazing, you know, just really lucky for us. We had a team that just kind of, uh, came off of another project and we’d all worked together before and just, it was like, we’re getting the band back together.
Yeah. That’s always a good feeling.
So I guess in short, what is it a technology or, or the app? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
So, you know, it starts off as like there’s, you know, a, an iOS and Android app and then there’s, we call it an SMS text app and basically a, you need, with those ways, you get a reminder in the morning, if you’re an employee of someplace, Hey, it’s time to screen, you know, uh, and, uh, you fill out a few questions. The questions are customized per employer. So, uh, you know, somebody in Georgia can have different questions than somebody in Michigan. It makes perfect sense. Right. Right. One size doesn’t fit all, especially for businesses. So, uh, you answer your questions and as long as you have it, your answer, everything, uh, you know, in the green, then basically you get your little badge and it’s green, so you can hold it up across the room and, and show it to people like in the lobby and say, yeah, I screened.
Um, I’m going to go through to go. And, um, and then there’s a barcode too, so that we can link that up, uh, through, uh, essentially a visitor management system. And so if you come in and you scan, we make that link electronically back to that business. Um, and so then on the, on the other side of that is case management where a response team or HR can manage what happens when somebody fails a screening. And so whether it’s asymptomatic symptomatic, whether they’ve been diagnosed, uh, and then following that process from, uh, just, uh, watching it to, uh, treatment to recovery, to finally being cleared, to return back to work
well. And, and I guess, like, that’s a good question. Cause like, you know, we’ve got, uh, friends that have gone back for, you know, whether it’s Ford or GM or, you know, something other big three. And like, I know like one of our buddies had an issue, uh, because one of the standard questions that they ask, uh, during their process is, you know, do you have a, a sore throat or a runny nose or anything like that? And well, it it’s allergy season and, and it’s Michigan. And, and so the answer for like everyone is yes, like that’s how that works.
I’m going to add to this. We got to have, we got a big sign on the outside of our door. Um, it says, you know, if you have any of these symptoms, you can’t get entry. And one of the symptoms is diarrhea and I’m walking with my boss and I’m like, they’re never going to let you that I’m building nice.
Yeah. I mean, part of it too is like making sure that you’re clear in the questions. So like, eh, have you had a persistent new cough for the past three days? Things like that. It’s a little, a little bit of nuance.
Well, and I guess, I guess that was, that was where I was going with that question is like, do you guys provide any guidance to what those questions should be? Or do you come with a default set of questions? That kind of thing.
Yeah. We’re trying not to prescribe and because it’s really easy for a, an HR department that’s just overworked right now to just take whatever’s off the shelf. And so we do make recommendations from, you’ve got the CDC, so federal you’ve got state, you’ve got County, you have sometimes cities recommending it. And, and, and so trying to pick and choose what works best for them, uh, based off those templates.
Yeah. That’s what I was going to ask you, Mike, like, can they, it’s there, it’s up to them to pick or choose like what compliance standards are there already, are they adhering to, is this
just, um, it’s basically,
you know, cause I filled out a half a dozen of them at different places already and they’re all different.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it’d be nice if there’s just one set up, but that’s it. And, uh, you know, for awhile it was like, Hey, we want to ask, uh, what their temperature is and you know, the temperature gets you into the HIPAA related issues, but we’ve had guidance that says that’s not HIPAA, but also temperature is a trailing indicator too. So I mean, it’s, it’s one of those things that’s tough. Um, we don’t have a good answer on, Hey, this is the best set of questions. I don’t think anybody does really.
No, but I’m just wondering like, okay, so they go through all your things, everyone’s got their, they’ve got the sticker. Um, you know, they can check that, I guess, what box can they check? Is this basically like for HR to go back to management and say, Hey, everyone, that’s come through. The facilities been is good to go clear to go. Sorry. Um, uh, you know what I mean? I guess what, uh, what, what’s the end game
I was going to say to me? I mean, to me it sounds like it’s, it’s a compliance and protect yourself from liability thing. Um, where, I mean, from a like, you know, and this is, you know, kind of like, you know, from our perspective, you know, getting ready, you know, to open up podcast Detroit and all that stuff, I would like to be able to have something, um, even if it’s just a, you know, a line in an Excel spreadsheet or a, you know, or something that says, Hey, the engineer that was in the room that day self-reported as, you know, clear to go and, and life’s good. I mean, and I would assume that would be w that’s what any employer is looking for. And you did touch on something that I was kind of curious about is that self reporting process, how, how, how does that bump up against HIPAA and how, like, how do you handle that?
Yeah, yeah. A couple of things there. One is, there’s definitely a CYA aspect of this is like, uh, let’s make sure that we don’t have any liability here of just we’ve done the things that we want to do. There’s this term from, uh, I forgot where I heard it, but like, make it ensuring the best possible outcome, right? There’s maybe something bad that happens, but let’s make sure the best possible thing that happens can’t happen or can happen, happens. And so that’s, that’s part of it of just, you know, and then, so it’s self reporting. An aspect of it is, uh, we’re getting, we’re getting guidance from federal that basically these particular items done in this particular fashion does not violate HIPAA. Uh, however, we are still going the compliance route where we’re making sure that we’re doing the things that you should be doing to protect data. Um, we’re also trying to avoid the 1984 aspect of it, where we track everybody’s location and all that information. I mean, uh, we’re very much, uh, privacy conscious. And so that’s the other aspect of it, you know, don’t track it if you don’t have to. And then if you do track it, track it well and keep it protected.
Yeah.
I mean, so going back to what Dave said is this, is this just a liability thing, I guess I’m just trying to, you know, we’re not talking to, you know, different companies in one, I’m bringing this up. I mean, conceptually, it sounds great. It sounds amazing, but I’m just, you know, again, who’s, who’s the one that’s, that’s going to be
the light bulb above the head going, yes, we need this.
It’s typically HR, but a lot of executives, I mean, uh, there’s not, you know, across industries where it’s legal. I mean, we have on here right now, legal hospitality, manufacturing education in this Valley surface industry, it goes on and on. There is not an industry that doesn’t need it or doesn’t want it when you talk to them about it. So there, there’s definitely a liability, but there’s also just, you know, when you’re dealing with five people as an employer, you can handle this. You can mentally keep track of who’s screened and who hasn’t. You can, even if you want to do an Excel spreadsheet, but at some point, if you have 500 employees or 5,000, this gets unmanageable with accelerator tools, you can’t use survey monkey for this.
Oh, that’s the thing we’re in a, you know, like I’ll just use us for an example where it’s in a 6,000 person building, but we’re not back all back yet. We’re trickling trickling. I’m in over about a six week period. Um, there’s stickers on the floor, there’s limits on the elevators. There’s, there’s basically hand sanitizer stations everywhere. You know, they’re basically, uh, or sitting checkerboard, if you, we used to sit on top of each other, but now it’s kinda like every other or every third. Um, you know, but nobody really there’s the signs outside saying if you have any of these symptoms go home, but nobody’s really checking you when you’re walking through the turnstiles.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it’s a really good point to bring that up because for me, the stickers on the floor were like, I remember the first I went to home Depot and my mask and I’m like, there’s, you know, stickers on the floor. Do we need this? I know how far six feet away is, but everybody’s naturally trained to do things. Not that are, that are not good in a pandemic. We’ve all been doing this for many, many years. Right. We go up and shake hands. We hug each other. And so you need these things that just kind of get you back in this mode that we need to be safe. And so when it comes to filling out three simple questions or answers to simple questions, it’s like, why do I need this when you need it? Because you’re not used to it. You need to get in the habit.
You need to be thinking about it, conscientiously that this is wait, was this cough here for awhile? Actually it has been, it’s getting worse too. You’ve got to need something to trigger that. So yeah, there’s the CYA aspect of it, the liability. But there’s also the real honest, we can make sure that people are safer because they’re not coming in. And this actually, this goes then into like what happens post pandemic? Well, there’s a thing that we learned about, uh, called, uh, absenteeism. And I hadn’t been familiar with it all in the beginning, but basically people it’s a manly thing to do. It’s a hard work ethic thing to do. And I say manly, just because I was a figure in the mind, but really it’s, it’s all about work ethic and come into the office, even though I’m sick and don’t feel well, well, that actually gets everybody else sick. And so whether it’s flu season or pandemic season, which hopefully this is a one time deal, uh, you you’ve got that problem. And this is a tool that can help to kind of manage that as well later, like flu season weapons, season, duck, season, duck, season.
It’s funny, like when you were talking earlier about, you know, home Depot in the, in the marks on the wall, like, it just reminds me of like, we want to go get ice cream with the kids this weekend. And there’s like our local place twist and dip in Auburn Hills. And I’m like, sweet. There’s only four people in the line. And then I go to pull them a lot, like, Nope, there’s 40 wrapped around the building. I’m like, damn social distancing, but you know, what’s your take on like, you know, with the bars getting opened up today or, or what next Monday? Yeah. Monday. Yeah. Like again, the six feet rule and the bars are usually you’re sitting on top of each other. Like, how do you, I mean, are you foreseeing using this in those, in hospitality facilities like restaurants? Or is this you, I guess what’s the, uh, you know, if you, you walk in and you’ve got a cop, you don’t want to drink, you’re not going to admit shit. Like, you know what I mean? Like gum some, well, you know, give me the right shot and that’ll make my cough go away. Let’s be real.
No, but how much for people being truthful? I mean, that’s a huge part of this, is it not?
You know, that’s a really good question too. I mean, if it’s going to be me, I might kind of like, wait a little while in my, my, uh, my home looks a little bit like Dave’s bar back there, but I th I think, uh, this system works well in a place where there’s, uh, you know, responsibility to, to answering truthfully. And then some cases employers at the beginning, they say, you must answer this truthfully, otherwise it’s grounds for termination. You know, it gets that extreme. You don’t have that type of, uh, you know, carrot for people going to a bar. So this probably doesn’t work well for that situation. Um, it could, but it’s going to require a lot of people to say, yeah, this makes a lot of sense. There’s places where this works. Well, think about like orange theory. You’re already used to using an app you’re already used to going in at a specific time. You’re already used to find a process that that’s something where this works and makes perfect sense for a bar where anybody can show up and maybe RDA has been drinking and pre-gaming, and isn’t thinking to, to, uh, do well. Well, that’s, that’s another story.
So is this like a free, if you’re a solo user costs of your business, I guess what’s the pricing model look like?
Yeah. So we have a nonprofit pricing, but really enterprises is really what we’re targeting for our small businesses. It’s free. So, um, the idea is that, and we also do, uh, first responders free for municipalities as well, so Oh, very cool. Yeah, we’re trying to, we’re trying to make it so it’s obtainable for everyone. And then still, you know, the, the, the capitalism kicks in and development gets paid for
someone has to pay if someone’s got, do we want to be helpful, but we’re not altruistic. Let’s, let’s be clear. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, can you, do you envision transitioning? COVID goes away, let’s say in July and it’s never to be seen again, obviously, obviously we’ll get another pandemic and a couple of years, but, um, do you, can you transition this into something else that’s applicable?
You know, I, me as a nerd and a developer, I was like, this thing will we’ll build it. And then, you know, what kind of side of the side, but realistically, as we’ve rolled it out and learned about absenteeism, and then you talk to HR departments, they go nuts about this. They want this, uh, it’s, it’s really crazy how excited they get about this whole process, because they see, uh, they’ve already been dealing with these types of issues. And so they see it at a post, uh, post pandemic.
Well, yeah, I was going to say, I mean, I wouldn’t think it’s a really hard transition to make this applicable to flu season or, you know, to whatever else.
Yeah. So that’s something where you’d like it during flu season where you’re going to have your entire employee base scanning, but the product changes a bit more where it’s like, you know, it’s a, I’m raising my hand, I’m letting people know, you know what, I’ve got these symptoms, I’m just not going to come in today. And then all the process that flows through that.
Cool. So, I mean, I guess, uh, where do we find you? How do we find out more information? That sort of thing?
Yeah, definitely. So the site is called clear to go.co one of those magical domain names that was available. And, uh, and yeah, so you can get in for more information there, there’s a little product demo video, uh, where we’re starting to show more and more features, uh, you know, early days of product development. It’s just get the features out the door and have time to talk about himself. We’re light on marketing, but, uh, there’s more information and we’re happy to give demos and talk to people about it. So, uh, yeah.
Awesome. Yeah. I’m going to, in to work tomorrow. I’ll, uh, if I need to get your info, I’ll get it from Pat or I think I probably have it in the emails. Um, but no, this sounds, uh, it sounds great for keeping compliant during these, uh, during these sessions.
I’m so tired of that phrase. Um, uh, and well, I guess, and, and is there any sort of, is there anything you wanted to hit on that we missed?
Oh man. I, you know, I could talk for days about it, but, uh, that that’d be boring. Uh, yeah. It’s, it’s funny. You get really passionate about something suddenly just consumed.
That’s how it’s supposed to be.
Yeah.
Cool. Well, Hey Mike, Willy clear to go.co obviously Apple and Google, right? If you want to dominate.
And I guess just to, just to clarify, is that clear the number two or clear Tio?
A Tio. Okay. Clear Theo go. That’s you. Gotcha.
Awesome. Well, Mike, I appreciate you spending time with us. Uh, best of luck. If we need anything, feel free to reach out in the future and best of luck in your, uh, like you just, uh, endeavor. Thanks so much for having me on it. It was my pleasure. Awesome. Great. Timely info. Appreciate it.
All right. Thank you.
Yeah, that makes for a, for an interesting concept, you’re going back to work like just to like, you know, cause, cause again, like with us being back at work, like everyone’s kind of looking sheepishly out. Some people like, you know, near me, like those eyeballs, it’s very, uh,
well, and I guess, I guess Mike, we didn’t, didn’t mention this. If you want to hang out for the rest of the episode, you’re more than welcome to do so if you’re, or if you need to break free, you can do that as well. It’s on, it’s up to you. I, you know, I feel kind of awkward watching you guys work. Like I said, Hey, it’s up to you one way that we’re both good. I’m going to take off, but thanks so much. It was really fun. All right. Awesome. Thanks for joining me. I really appreciate it. Um, before we dive in any further, capital one knows life. Doesn’t alert you about your credit card and that’s why they created Eno. The capital one assistant that looks out for surprise credit card charges like over tipping, duplicate charges or potential fraud, and then sends an alert to your phone and then helps you if you need to fix them another way, capital one is watching out for your money when you are not capital one, what’s in your wallet, see capital one.com for details.
So, uh, I guess diving in real quick, this has been a, uh, now I’m gonna go fight the power. No, I want to start out. We’ll get to that stuff in a minute. You know, we always talk about what we watched over the weekend. I think there’s a few things I wanted to hit on that were, uh, uh, especially on the sports front, it’s getting weirder. Like my German soccer now has cardboard cutouts in the stands. So they decided not to go the sex doll route is what you’re saying. They, they got the pipe that still piped into the chance. Well, I watched a, I don’t know if you saw the movie, the, uh, the hidden fortress. No. So there’s, there’s uh, what I did is I saw a thing with Lucas and he’s talking about all his influences talking about, you know, flash Gordon, obviously the thirties real. And he’s talking about this guy, uh, Kira, yo Yona Salwa was it Yoda, sour? I don’t know. I’m mispronouncing it regardless. There was a movie from the fifties called the hidden fortress and he said he basically ripped star Wars off of this. And it was funny. It was amazing when you watched it because it followed like these two goofballs in the like kind of walking in the desert. One was short where this tall, where they combing the desert. Yeah.
They bickered like the entire time. They basically, it was, uh, during the time and these guys were in like a labor camp and they broke out and along their journey. So it was like, what it’s supposed to be are two and three PO when you, as soon as you watch camera angles, your shit. And then as they’re walking, they find a, uh, a general or a samurai of behind enemy lines whose Baden was totally OB one basically. Then they find it like a posting for, you gotta find a princess and you get 10 gold pieces. Well, apparently 10 gold pieces you’re like set for life. So these guys were peasants, you know? So it basically, it follows the, it, it goes like star Wars where it follows the entire story through the eyes of the two Pez, interesting kind, kind of like
star Wars with the droids. Right. Instead of like the heroes, but then like, there’s like two scenes that are like, Oh my God, this is totally star Wars. They have a tool with the spheres and it’s totally like, you watch it. And it’s like, they almost choreographed obiwan verse Vader, move for move. Okay. Yeah. And then the bad guy comes back later with like all scarred up and like wearing all black. Okay. And it’s like, Oh, you know what? I think I see, I think I did watch this once upon a time. Cause that has been one of the stories that’s been floating around forever. Now that you’re given some of these details, it’s starting to come back and then there’s one scene. It’s like this little speeder bike scene.
I’ll be honest with you. Don’t get mad at me. It’s a really hard watch. It’s all subtitled. Oh yeah. No, it’s, it’s not something that your typical American audience is going to be like all in favor of, but it’s for, I mean, for nostalgia purposes and for seeing like, okay, yeah, yeah. The, the influences and all that stuff, it’s totally worth a watch. If you want to do the two ladies, you didn’t watch, they have YouTube things where it’s, side-by-sides perfect. But like it’s it’s yeah. It’s anyway, it’s away. It’s definitely worth a, but it was on HBO max until I watched it. Gotcha. So like my do my post about that. Like I don’t like it’s the HBO, max is the most confusing, ridiculous thing that anyone has ever done. So like, if you get it, here’s what I figured out. So if you get HBO through cable, then you automatically have HBO go, which will.
And then, and then if you have, if you have HBO through cable, you will automatically have access to HBO. Max, if you have HBO now, which is the, just on like just the, like the app version of it, then that’s somehow going to automatically transform to HBO max and that, but if you get HBO through like a Roku device or an Apple device, well, then they haven’t figured that out yet. And you don’t know what you’re doing pretty much. Like, I just don’t like, why, why could this not be easier? Like what in the ever living hell. Um, but no. So the one thing that I want, and I don’t know, did you watch a filthy rich? Yes.
I don’t like to be a feat if you don’t know what Dave’s talking about. It’s the Jeffrey Epstein. I’m filthy rich. It’s a mini docu series. It’s four episodes. They’re all about it. They’re each about an hour long and it’s not going to say, I feel it felt dirty watching it, but dude, that’s some creepy ass shit. Oh no, I absolutely felt dirty watching it. And I, and I honestly, I felt a lot of, a lot of anger watching it on, on, on several different levels. I mean, one, um, you know, finding it cause I mean, we all, you know, we’ve all heard some of it as it was going, you know, when he was arrested and all that stuff. And you heard a little bit about, you know, why Jim Acosta got pushed out of office and all that or resigned, um, you know, and that kind of stuff. When’s the first time we heard of the Lolita, that
was wasn’t that an inside joke from like the nineties. Yeah. Well, yeah, but I mean, but yeah. Who do you, but who knew what it was about? And so that’s the thing. The FBI got their first report on this JAG in 1996, um, from two sisters, uh, who had been his victims, um, and that got swept under the rug. And then you had, um, you know, the 2006 thing, you know, where, you know, basically Acosta behind closed doors and without any, um, you know, they, they basically cut them the, uh, I’m sorry, West Palm beach police department completely out of it. The FBI took things over and Acosta signed this behind closed doors, sweetheart deal that basically guaranteed immunity to Epstein and all of his named and unnamed co-conspirators. Um, so even though it was basically so saying like, basically at any point in time, he could say, Oh no, that was one of my unnamed co-conspirators you can’t prosecute them either.
Uh, and just, you know, in all this, you know, and just, and all the stuff with his lawyer, uh Oh, Alan Dershowitz. Yeah. Well, it was, you know, the guy that defended one of the guys that defended OJ, one of the guys, you know, he, I mean, he’s a very high profile, constitutional law lawyer. Well then like the guy that founded the limited that lives in central Ohio that Epstein apparently stole 46 million from, and yet he never bothered, prosecuting or reporting it even, which is kind of weird, like, yeah, it’s a $50,000 John Cash check, keep it. Um, but then, you know, you look at, you know, just all of the, you know, you know, especially when it comes to his townhouse, which, and townhouse does not do that. I mean, that was like a seven point something million dollar mansion, 70, Oh yeah, sorry. Seven.
Yeah. Um, yeah. And, and literally every single square inch of that house was wired for video, um, you know, bedrooms, bathrooms, common areas, everything. And so that’s one of those times where you sit back and go, Jesus, tap dancing Christ. How many people does this guy have video of? And that’s why he was alive. That’s why he was able to skate for so long. It was toilets and everything goes well. And honestly, so here, I mean the one, I guess the one positive, uh, that I will say, um, about the doc, I mean, cause it is, it can be a hard watch. The one positive is that it really does give the victims or at least, you know, these, these key ones that were part of the documentary, it gives them their voice, um, and gives them their chance to tell their story, which, you know, um, until a federal judge came along and overturned, um, Acosta’s plea deal.
Um, they weren’t allowed to because, you know, they, they, they never got their day in court. They never got there, you know, any of this stuff. Uh, and, and so, you know, just knowing, just knowing that they were able to finally have their voice and finally gets it, get some stuff out there. Um, w I mean, that’s good for them. And I, and I hope it’s cathartic. And, you know, I hope on some level it helps bring them some closure. Um, you know, because it has, I mean, it is, it has jumped all this stuff yet, again, up into the forefront. And, and I think if it weren’t for everything else going on in the country right now, you’d be seeing a lot more news, much more heavily focused on this.
I just hope it brings light to anyone else. That’s continuing if they are his bullshit.
Oh, I do not even care if it’s continuing. I want to know if they were a part of it in the past. I want to know. I, you know, I do, I do. I want to know who was on that damn Island. I want to know who was in that damn townhouse. I want to and string them all up. I don’t care what party you’re from. I don’t care what country you’re from. If you were a part of that in any way, shape or form, hope they hang you by your toes.
I hope you get the, uh, we hold the suicide two bullets in the back of it.
Yeah, exactly. Or, yeah. Conveniently, conveniently hang yourself when there’s not enough room for you to hang yourself. Yeah.
So answer me a question I’m kind of dying and kind of jumping all around here, but like the world health organization right now. So what was the standard? According to YouTube, everyone, but like now who comes out, who, but they were like, yeah, no masks after like everyone.
Well, to be clear, healthy people do not need to wear masks is what they’re saying. Not that nobody needs to wear masks because again, the, the, and that’s the thing. And that’s, that’s what people, and I think a lot. And so like that wasn’t really earth shattering news to me because their whole point is like these cloth masks that people are wearing are not there to, they can’t, it’s like the end 95 masks have a filtration system. The cloth masks are literally there to keep projectiles as you cough from coming out of your body and getting anywhere. So if you’re healthy, you don’t have anything to be projecting out onto people. It’s the sick people that need to have those masks on, in order to protect other people from getting the virus from them. And
have you seen where, sorry, Randy, but have you seen like where it’s gone though, like there’s videos and videos and videos on YouTube of like people getting shamed. I grew up with three stores and screamed at, for not wearing a mask it’s taken, it’s taken a complete life of its own where like the court of public opinion now has superseded any medical advice anyone has gotten
well, I mean, that’s usually how that works. Anyway. The court of public opinion trumps pretty much everything, no pun intended. And I was going to say with the way testing is limited, still so far with, uh, you know, not being able to get access to testing supplies, you know, if you’re healthy or
not so well, but then, you know, it gets back to our guests, you know, you’ve, you’ve got all these questions out there. Do I have a cough? No. Do I have a sore throat? No. Do I, you know, do I have a fever? No. All right. Well then I’m healthy, you know, and if that’s good enough to go to work, why isn’t that good enough to go to Meyer? Why, you know, why isn’t that good enough to go to wherever else? I mean, I can totally see both sides of this. And especially when they say, if you have diarrhea on the outside, I feel like, I feel like that should just be a general rule. Bob. I feel like if you have diarrhea, you should be nice to all of your fellow coworkers and just not destroy the toilets all day. Like that, that should just be a role, but I can’t go anyway.
Sorry, boss still got to work from home, had white castle and draft beer last night, but you know where we can go on next week HopCat and Royal Oak. Nope. HopCat Royal Oak fall down and go, boom. Um, and this sounds like a, another black thin situation where they tried to jump the rent up on them, um, dramatically and they couldn’t come to an accommodation. And so they said, see you for the work that they did on that building, that place was gorgeous, hands doing a half million dollars worth of construction. I read it is. I mean, and that’s, that’s a damn shame. I mean, cause I mean it, it, they definitely class that place up after it was Woody’s. I mean, dude, that rooftop lounge alone was amazing what they did up there. Um, and so yeah, I mean, I it’s a shame. I mean, it it’s, it, it really, really is.
Um, but then the other place you’re gonna be able to go starting in July, although I don’t know if you’re gonna want to bother, um, Disney has set their opening date of seven 11, uh, they’re opening on July 11th. Um, but uh, all employees must wear masks. All guests must wear masks inside or outside. The mask remains to be seen. Uh, they are not going to be doing any fireworks, parades or any other event that quote unquote draws a crowd. Um, I’m not sure they didn’t really have any details about how lines and that kind of stuff were going to work. Cause I mean, do you think the line at your little ice cream shop was crazy? Can you imagine like the space mountain line, you know, six feet apart from each other, it’s going to wrap around the park. When’s the last time you’ve been in Disney? Uh, 10 years. So just that whole getting to the very boat. Yeah. Like you’re standing on top of people. Like if you limit, like it’s gonna take 10 hours to get on the goddamn Island. Yeah. That’s yeah. So I mean, I, I, I, you know, honestly it’s a hard pass for me. Like I’ll, I’ll wait. Cause we have, we’ve been talked about taking the kids. Um, it that’s all wait until all
this nonsense settles down and things, approach something, you know, back to normal. Um, but yeah, no, that’s, I truly don’t even know why they’re bothering and, but Hey, I mean, if you want to, uh, today’s what the first, so Thursday you can fly out to Vegas if you want to.
I, um, so did you see with the D casino he offers? Um, I think I wrote the notes down. He offered what a thousand free tickets to come out to Vegas. Um, Oh yeah. He’s sold his first. This was from a friend of the guy when we went last year, friend of Albert, that friend of Derrick’s, uh, you go, Steven sold out his first round of a thousand and an hour. Did it again and sold out the next thousand and two hours. So basically it was given free flights to Vegas. It’d be just see, I don’t even think he needed to stay at the casino at his place. Oh, that’s crazy dude.
Like I, there’s a reason. I think that Vegas, uh, features prominently in, in several movies and stories like the stand, um, as the central of all of the, all of the plague stories. Um, and, and yet, no, no, I’m, I’m, I’m good. I’m good on Vegas. I’m good at, I’ll go to Disney before I go to Vegas. Put it that way.
Well, I mean it’s 110 degrees in that. Damn. Like, I don’t know what it says. Yeah. All guests must have their temperatures taken on arrival. It doesn’t say orally or annually. We’re hoping. Um, and its properties must have medical crews on site at all times, uh, designated areas for COVID testing and wait for the results masks available on request. Um, yeah, like, again, this is one of those things gambling like cut in half. So every other slot machine, yeah. They’re going to see like roped off like chairs and stools in front of every other gaming machine.
Well, and I think there were, I think I shared, uh, the pictures in one of the messenger chats or via text when we were talking about this before, um, where like you look at some of the setups they’re looking at for like the gaming tables, like poker and roulette and that kind of stuff where they’ve basically got these plexiglass shields around the gaming area with like a little, you know, gap underneath it that you can throw your chips out and that kind of stuff. Um, big partitions between, you know, where people are supposed to stand. I mean, it’s
art, get your cards from the church basket. Like they do it tomorrow.
Right. I’ll do it. Every everybody’s doing that now every, every, every takeout place is, is, is doing that now for the most part. Um, but yeah, I mean, I, again, nah, nah, now I’ll pass. I’ll wait, thanks.
I don’t need to go that bad. I mean, it’d be nice to get out and just be around people. But if I kind of like everything’s behind a plexi glass maze of shit.
Yes. I, if I’ve got to wear the full body condom from, you know, uh, everything I always wanted to know about sex, but was afraid
to it’s gotta be dead. No, I’m good. Did you see that? Uh, the story I sent was somebody designing, um, basically it’s a, it’s a Oh Microtel. No, it’s like a bubble suit for like micro shell. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. And then like, it looks like, it looks like you’re, you’re part of daft punk mixed with Tron. Yeah. Basically just so, Hey, how can we bring events back? Bring socialization that great. Everybody put on effing space suits and then they get talk to people. How much is that going to increase the ticket price to pay for these suits? I think you’ve got to buy one if they don’t give them to ya. Oh yeah. No, I think it’s yeah. I think Bob’s right. I think you’re supposed to, you’re supposed to have your own personal one that you wear to the concerts that you want to go to.
Absolutely not. This is the stupid quote is clown. We need to make sure that people want to wear, they feel good about wearing it. So it’s a little bit more of a fashion piece rather than something that looks like a medical device. So yeah, that’s what it looks like. It’s basically a Tron suit. Yeah. I don’t want to wear that shit. You’re going to be at an outdoor festival in 95 degrees and I got to wear goddamn motorcycle, leather suit. Kiss my ass. Yeah, exactly. I’ll be, I’ll be home if you need me. But now speaking to temperature, I did the story just kind of cracks me up where, so apparently Ford, the Ford, uh, car interceptor, uh, that they make for cops is going to have a builtin system that is going to raise the internal temperature of the vehicle to 133 degrees in an effort to combat, uh, coronavirus.
Uh I’m I’m saying it right now, loud and clear, someone’s going to get accidentally cooked. Like it’s it’s it’s going to happen. No, like that was like back in high school when you’d fart in the car and you close the windows and turn on the TV, this is what it was made for. Right. You have a virus, the mentor who wants to cook of the hot box. Yeah. Nice. It was friends in the car. He wants to do it. Yeah. I mean, that’s honestly that, that does. That just seems like it’s just that, that one is just rife for something going wrong with it. I’m not amused. It’s like he brought me in. They’re like, yes, go ahead. This sounds amazing. If you want to cook yourself medium rare. Right. Go for it. Uh, so one of our favorite shows, uh, Cobra Kai is coming up on their season three release and ahead of their season three release. Uh, they are apparently getting shopped by Yahoo, not Yahoo, um, YouTube, uh, who is getting out of the original content creation business. They were getting shopped around that didn’t last long. What did they have the show? Yeah, basically. Uh, and I ordered that shit. And so they’re getting shot at, it looks like either Netflix or Hulu
is going to be who picks them up. Um, and I, I guess part of the deal is if you’re going to pick it up, you have to contract for at least one more season. Uh, so I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s the good news on that front. They haven’t really announced yet which one it’s landed at if it has yet. Um, but yeah, I’m looking forward to season three to see Allie come back and then season four, we’ll see what happens.
Does that mean I can cancel YouTube premium now.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It’s not, yeah. It was YouTube bread that it was premium that, yeah. Um, I, I don’t know. Cause I, I think this, I think season three might still be getting released that way. Um, and cause it was like, okay, you’ll have exclusive access to the first two seasons. Um, but yeah, I mean, it was a really weird convoluted thing that they were trying to put out there. Uh, but you know, I think this, I think this season might still come out via YouTube premium, um, as well as whatever platform it’s on. And I guess we’ll, we’ll see, whenever some deal actually gets reached and it gets announced. I mean, it’s not like they’re not going to release it. They know, like you said, they know this is one of the only reasons why people are you and I have it,
bro. I don’t need it. Um, by the way, uh, I know we talked about this, uh, the secretary of state. Um, I got, I was gonna say, yeah. So did, did your license expire this year too? Well, mine expired. Bo’s expired and Gretchen’s turning 16. Oh, that’s right. Well, we just got our tabs today. Bo mail them in like April 5th because our birthdays are made first. We just got our tabs today. Oh, see, I did all that
stuff online and got them within like a week.
If I recall correctly, she mailed a manner. I don’t know she did it and my wife did it. Um, but then I, we, so we had to do a meeting. Um, today I had to look the soonest. I could get a meeting in person at Pontiac or at Rochester Hills was July 17th. Yep. So almost a month and three weeks, just an appointment. Cause there was a, cause my uh, physical therapy is next door to the one on crooks. Right. And you know, it was appointments only big signs they’re open now. So that means like literally they’ve been taking appointments starting now and they’re booked up that far in advance.
Well, yeah. Cause I mean there, cause I mean they laid off 80% of their staff, um, a couple of weeks ago. And so I don’t know that they’re fully ramped back up. So I mean there may only be one or two people in there trying to handle everything that’s going on and you know, you don’t know what kind of transactions people are coming in with and how convoluted and crazy things are gonna get. So I mean they did, I know they extended, it was originally June 30th. They have extended like if your, if your license has expired, I think it’s between May 1st and uh, February, I believe till whenever it ends. Um, they’ve extended everything out to July 31st.
Yeah. Hey, did you see the thing? Uh, Google’s doing a couple of cool things, you know, sometimes we trash around, but I’m going to give them credit when they do good, good stuff. Or you keep talking, I’m listening, I’m grabbing a drink. Yeah. Yeah. The, um, Randy don’t know if you saw this, they are giving ’em on Google, my business profiles, you know how you have a business profile with their map and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Well you can put a button up there to promote, uh, gift card purchases or to promote a donating to their staff. So it’s kind of like kind of helping the a, you know, they partnered, I guess with, uh, PayPal and go fund me for donations. Um, you know, thinking linked directly to their, uh, gift card page to buy those from square toads or whatever. And they’re basically, uh, and they’re also adding a new search option to find, uh, to find support or for customers to find port options for local business. Yeah. Yeah. So they, they kind of, uh, gave this out of nowhere. Um, you know, and I guess, uh, it’s increased more than 700% since February. So, uh, you know,
yeah. And then pretty soon they’re going to also allow businesses to Mark things like they have online classes or online appointments so that they don’t have to have customers in person. Yeah. That’s a weird thing. Like you’re opening up retail, but you’re saying by appointment only. So you mean to tell me, I gotta call game stop and I can book a one o’clock appointment to go buy Witcher three or whatever the hell they want to buy in. And yes. I mean, if you know what you’re going to buy, you just do curbside pickup. Yeah. You just need to browse, you know, you, I need a wedding gift or something like that. Then you get you to go browse, make an appointment to go browse the store for 15, 20 minutes to pick out the perfect gift or whatever, which you’re going to buy. It’s very pretty woman Bob, you get to shop by appointment. You’ll have your own personal shopper. That’s it. The other cool thing Google is doing is actually offering their employees a thousand dollars to build a work at home office. Yeah. Got it. That was pretty sweet. Yeah. And that’s for those that built a home office. I mean, I’m not saying that’s a lot of money where you can buy a whole lot of shit at Ikea for a thousand dollars. Pretty sure you can buy an Apple for me for a thousand,
my office that I built upstairs, which is basically like a, a L shaped, uh, bench. Um, and like the three cabinets above and then one below. Um, yeah.
I don’t even think that was 500 bucks for all of that. Yeah, no, Sam, I’ve got a $60 Ikea desk and a $40 on desk shelf with a thousand dollars. I could buy some nice stuff. Like some monitor stands and a keyboard tray and, you know, make it actually a workstation instead of just a flat surface.
I remember when I first started at HP, I guess they got so many people were out of work for like back problems and shit that they were like, go buy yourself the best office chair you can get at whatever store that’s closest to you and expense it. And because here’s the why we’ve had so many people with like bad backs and they’re gonna, you know, issues. Right. Carpool smart. Yeah. So like I still have that chair it’s weighs a ton, but it’s great, you know, phenomenal chair.
So I got a, I got a good touch in a bad touch for you, a good touch, uh, for all you people who have 97, uh, bags of cans and bottles sitting in your garage. Uh, apparently the flood Gates are open on June 15th. Uh, the state of Michigan said that’s when they are opening up to start accepting bottle returns again, whether or not that means that the, the individual stores are going to be hearing to that. I don’t know, but that’s, that’s the date that was put out there.
You know what I think, uh, that would be a great thing like to donate, like someone’s so much in it started this thing and picked five charities. Cause if there’s $50 million and think about the change, I mean, obviously people want their a hundred bucks. The think about the change that that could do for the state, for nonprofits that actually need this stuff and are absolutely food banks. Cause other people that have been out of work and missing rent. I mean, I know it’ll never happen. You know, there’s 10 million people in the States are doing Bob meth. Everybody gets five bucks a week.
We hate Bob math. Um, but then, so then there’s the bad touch. Uh, did anybody have, um, thieving aggressive COVID monkeys on, on their, uh, apocalypse bingo card?
I can’t believe that steals babies are blood
blood. No. So apparently these monkeys, uh, escaped from a lab in India, um, after wailing on a laptop tech, uh, and then were found later found I’m sitting up in a tree, um, eating the, uh, the coronavirus blood samples. Yeah.
You know, did, did we talk about the monkey that drove in on the little, uh, evil Knievel motorcycle and stole the baby? No, no, Holy shit. Look it up on YouTube. Just put monkey steals, baby. When was this? So help me, God, this some bitch drives down down the alley on one of those. Remember those evil Knievel ones he’s on, he’s on a fricking evil Knievel motorcycle gets off grabs this 18 month old baby. I’m assuming. And by the leg and starts running. And this guy like basically hollers at the thing, you know, let’s go to the baby, but he pulled the baby a good 10 yards, like down the alley.
We did planet of the apes is happening right now. Like that that’s in case that’s the June bingo square planet of the apes comes to fruition.
Well, that was the Holy cow. Yeah. The monkey just comes riding in on his motorcycle, jumps off, grabs a baby and starts dragging it down the alley. Yeah. That’s super fast too. That would be scary. Did you see the monkey gangs? Cause they can’t get any food because everybody’s in lockdown in Singapore. We brought this up already. Yeah. There’s like literally a thousand monkeys and that’s what they were all talking about is like, um, the rats are coming out now because they don’t have all the garbage and shit.
Oh yeah. Goats are breaking down fences and just getting into people’s yards and eating, know, eating whatever the hell they want. It’s do the earth has done with us there. Oh yeah. The other story that broke today. Yeah. There’s another Ebola outbreak going on. And Africa case you thought the earth was done with us 24 hours of earthquakes in Yellowstone. Yes. Yeah. Yes. He, and Jellystone Bob, it’s a picnic take baskets, no Yellowstone where there happens to be a giant, super volcano that if it erupts. Yeah. It takes out most of mankind. There’s there’s that? So yeah, I watched that when I was a kid. I remember that. Yeah, exactly. Uh, so what else we got? Oh, I thought it was, this was kinda cool. Uh, the news came out that, you know, Admiral thrawn, um, is one of the popular characters from, uh, both books and the cartoons.
Uh, and as apparently going to get a live action show, which is awesome. I just finished the star Wars rebels this weekend. Uh, I was surprised how much it was a direct continuation of the clone Wars. I expected a nod here and there, but I wasn’t expecting, you know, the return of Rex and the soca. Oh yeah. And a throne showed up season, season three and uh, he seemed interesting, but they didn’t really go into a whole lot about, and so it’d be cool to see him, you know, I think they, they basically assumed that anybody who was watching had read the, you know, the, the EU books that came out. I mean, I mean, that’s, you know, thrawn was one of the central, he was the central character in the books that basically started the star Wars come back, you know, air to the empire. Um, and that trilogy by Tim’s on, um, basically without that, there is no star Wars today. Cause star Wars was dead before those books came out.
Yeah. And he’s one of the best characters on star Wars heroes on the, uh, on the mobile phone, get a hold of him and get them ramped up. And he’s like, I still have not gone back to that game. I just got to level 81. And then Bob, I know you’re excited about the new home item. That is a game changer to end all game changers games. You just, so here’s the thing. This is what I love about ingenuity and capitalism. I don’t know if it’s capitalism or whatever this is with. Um, basically there’s been an argument going on since the Dawn of time, if you’re an over or under toilet paper person. Right. Does it roll under rollover? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. What does Kohler do? They throw out the middle finger to everybody they’re saying we’re squashing this once. And for all we’re putting at some bitch vertical, then another debate is, you know, behind her in front and said, yeah, you can’t, people are like pissy about it.
Like if you’re, if you’re under person like, Oh yeah, that could be, I think a girl telecom, she likes country music, like get out of my house. Exactly. Bare feet on my dashboard, dead to me like this, this thing’s vertical. And I’m like, I think I’m going to have to buy that. You think about that saves a little space. I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t, I don’t know. But then yeah, if you’re left to right or right to left, I think it doesn’t matter anymore. Easier to tear off the paper too, because it’s vertical. So you’ve got kind of like gravity going in your favor too. Yeah. And then you don’t be lazy and you don’t have to like do all that.
Yeah. You don’t have to hand it one to hold the roll in one to tear. I mean, I guess my whole thing is hopefully it’ll keep, uh, you know, dogs and cats from just going in and unrolling entire roles no matter which way it’s sitting. So yeah.
Yeah. There’s basically it’s, it’s Kohler’s way of saying shut up. There’s I freaking love it. No, by the way, I know there’s a, I don’t, I’m trying to stay away from all of madness and all the crap did, uh, did you see that they, they flew a predator drone over Minneapolis.
Okay. Well, yeah. And if, well, but, and if you read the story from the base commander that it was flown from, they do this all the time. Um, you know, they do it in support of when there are large fires going, they do it in support when there are large festivals going on, all that kind of stuff. So it’s really nothing new. It’s just, you know, one of those things that came to light as a result of this, well, he was unarmed. Yes, exactly. It wasn’t, it wasn’t actually armed or so they say, but it was essentially one of the predator drones,
but I guess the ACLU is just, is just literally pooping their pants over this one amongst other things.
Yeah. I’m sorry. Worry more about the ones that are being flown over Baltimore by the Texas billionaire dude. That’s doing that, that we talked about last week. Oh, that’s right. Yeah, exactly. Dude. It, it seems like it’s a year between shows now with everything that’s going on. Like I can’t even remotely keep up. Uh, but you know, speaking to the drones in the riots, Hey, shout out to Paul Thomas, uh, excuse me, dr. Paul Thomas. Um, our buddy from plum health. He’s been here on the show before I’ve done a lot of good stuff. Um, his office is one of those ones that got hit, although not bad, just the windows got graffitied. Uh, so he didn’t really have to deal with any damage or anything. Um, but he, I mean, he had a very, very positive outlook about it. Um, as, as he always tends to do about everything, uh, you know, he was just like, Hey look, um, you know, I’m here trying to lower everybody’s health costs and can you, can you not mess with me, but you know, we’re going to clean the windows and we’ll be open tomorrow. It is what it is.
Oh, the like Volta midnight got hit and gr yeah. And they got hit, they got hit pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s going to take days to back up,
you know what, and honestly, here’s, here’s the, here’s the one thing that I think is, is super cool that I think the media is, is not paying attention to. Um, so yeah, I mean, grand Rapids, a lot of shit went down and I mean, the, the pictures they were there, you know, the images they were showing of basically just an entire street, a row of cars on fire, um, you know, in a lot of this stuff going on, but there was also a volunteer crew. Um, just people that showed up starting at like six in the morning to clean up the city, um, you know, the, the local coffee shop there was handing out free coffee to everybody that showed up. Um, and, and, and they really busted their asses and got, you know, all the glass cleaned up and, and all that stuff. And it was, it was really great to see a community come together.
And I think that’s, that’s one of the things that, you know, is it’s one of those stories that, you know, you kinda cock your head a little bit at, and, and, and you wonder how much of it is true and how much of it is hype, you know, about all the outside agitators coming in and, and that sort of stuff. But, you know, I do, I, I, I find it, I find it kind of hard to believe that people would want to completely destroy their own neighborhoods and their, and their own stuff. I mean, that just, it’s not really logical. And you’ve got these stories about these mysterious pallets of bricks that are just showing up on street corners. They’re not near any construction zones, they’re not near anything, and they’re calling them, you know, they’re using the hashtag bait bricks. Um, you know, and, you know, if you see these, you know, take a picture and report just the police have them come get them. Um, you know, it’s, it’s, we’re in super interesting times right now. And, and I I’m, I’m, I’m tired of saying unprecedented times, uh, but, but we really, really are. I mean, there’s, there’s so much going on and, you know, we didn’t even touch on, you know, Trump’s war with Twitter that went down. Um, you know, he got,
if you want a blueprint though, of how to do it, right, the guy from Tennessee County, I mean, he’s gonna run for president someday, hopefully. Um, I don’t know if you watch that or not. Um, and if that didn’t bring you down, like just humble you and make you, like, if you, you didn’t see the video of him saying, Hey, I’ll walk with you. What are we up to take off all my shit? By the time I left, all of it, let’s go, what do you want to talk about? What is walk through people?
Well, and, and I mean, James, you know, and, and chief Craig, I mean, you know, in Detroit, you know, what, you know, try to, you know, try, you know, try to have a very calm, you know, mellow dialogue with people too. And it’s one of, you know, it is, and it is, I mean, it’s, it’s a struggle. Like I, I get it. Like there were, there were a lot of people that got angry about how the DPD, uh, acted, uh, last night in particular where, um, you know, so the, you know, the basically Detroit issued a curfew, uh, starting at 8:00 PM. Um, and there was a large gathering of people, uh, outside of DPD headquarters, uh, at eight o’clock, they said, Hey, you know, the cops started announcing on their Bullhorn and the, over the PA system, Hey, it’s eight o’clock curfews enabled time for everybody to go. Um, they said it again at eight 10, they said it again at eight 20, at eight,
the purge alarm went off. Was that a
all right? Um, at eight 30, I think this was brilliant at eight 30, they just said, Hey, we’re starting to tow cars from around streets of you’ve left your cars on the streets. Um, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a really, it’s a hard thing for, I think, police departments to try to balance that community interest and still keeping the peace in light of everything that’s going on after it gets dark. I mean, cause if you do, if you’re watching this, it is, it is two very different environments for the most part, at least, especially here in Detroit. I mean, there’s been, you know, in LA and a couple other places, there’s been shit on fire at nine o’clock in the morning, but I mean, you’ve got what seems to be a very peaceful, you know, calm set of people during the day, uh, you know, that are there to get their voices heard that are there to get their point across.
Uh, and then at night, I mean like just all hell breaks loose. And, and I don’t know if it’s, you know, because, you know, and we all, I mean, we’ve, I’m sure you’ve seen them too. The videos of, you know, basically unknown agitators and, and they usually, they all are almost always white, uh, that are walking around, you know, downtown areas and breaking windows and, and starting shit. Um, and then when confronted by locals, they run away. Uh it’s you know, and so, I mean, that’s, I, I, I do tend to believe that that’s real and that’s happening because I mean, there’s video evidence of it. Um, I just, I, yeah, I mean, I, I, I’m having a real hard time with anybody. That’s having a hard time with the protesters right now. I really, really am, especially, you know, the, the true processors, um, just because I get it. I mean, you know, there, there comes a time when staying quiet about shit just doesn’t work. I, you know, I mean, it doesn’t work anymore. I mean, you’ve got, you know, there, there have been peaceful protests. There’s been the take a knee. There’s been, you know, all this stuff going on over the last couple of years. And at some point in time, what the hell do you expect people to do? Like how, how much more has to go on before some shit’s going to get started?
It’s it’s I mean, no, I get it. I hear you too. And the frustration mounts up and you get the whole, I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, you know, you know, my big thing is, and then like, I’d love to see some, and then coming out of this, here’s a here’s what’s going on. Here’s what we want to do. We want to sit down and have dialogue. I mean, granted, that’s always, you know, I, then I feel like how many years of been trying to have dialogue and this shit still happens,
right? No, and that’s a big thing. I mean, and you’ve got, you know, and I do, I think some of it has to do with, I mean, you know, Hey, let’s not forget, we’re still in the middle of a global pandemic. Um, and so people have been cooped up in their houses for, you know, two, two and a half months and everybody’s on edge. And everybody’s, Holly’s, we think of the, the meme with the cruise ship in the background of the world fighting the pandemic and the, the, the dude on a surf board with an umbrella labeled the U S on their own side quests. Right. I mean, it’s, it’s just it’s. Yeah. Like I’m, I, you know, I did, my, my heart goes out to everybody on both sides. It really, really does. I mean, I, I want, I don’t like seeing, you know, cause there were, I mean, there’s, there’s story after story about, you know, uh, you know, the guy, um, who, you know, basically blew is entirely, he was that he was a firefighter and he, he spent his life savings getting the sports bar.
Um, they hadn’t even gotten to the point where they, they could have insurance yet, um, because they weren’t fully ready to open. And that’s one of the places that got destroyed. So no, that’s not one of those situations where, Oh, the insurance is gonna cover it. Don’t worry about businesses. They’ll be fine. You know, when it comes to the targets and you know, the major stores of the world. Yeah, absolutely. But you know, these small little places, you don’t know that that’s the case and, and, you know, but again, I, I also, you know, completely side with, you know, the voices of frustration and anger. I mean, there’s, there’s been too much of this shit going on and it’s got, it’s gotta stop. I mean, I, you know, I, I threw a donation that, you know, the bail project today, um, you know, it’s, you know, and that’s the thing, I mean, even if you can’t be on the front lines, you know, do what you can, you know, do, do what you can to help in any way that you can.
I mean, whether that’s, you know, just being there and being a voice. I mean, I can’t tell you, like I’ve had so many great conversations over the past couple of weeks, um, with officially over this past week with, you know, friends about okay, you know, just, just reaching out, Hey, how, how are you? And if you don’t want to talk right now, that’s cool. I I’m just, I’m here. If you need me. And sometimes that results in a phone call and just verbal diarrhea, all, you know, cause that’s, it’s all pent up and coming out. Um, and, and sometimes it’s, Hey, just, you know, not yet. I appreciate you and we’ll talk soon. Um, yeah, I, I just, I just, I want, I want good. I want, I want this to not be an issue anymore as so many other people do and, and yeah. The thing that’s not okay, is the police starting to attack and arrest journalists?
I didn’t catch my, why. I just saw that the CNN journalists was, were arrested, but I not do they try to tell them to disperse? And they say no. So that was, so that was, that was one weird situation. And the one that kind of started it off and honestly the disturbing part. So if you watch the entire video, um, the, the camera crew had backed off, um, from where the police line was. And then a protestor ran through the police line, basically right by the camera crew. Cops came after the protestor to get them camera crew basically had to dive out of the way. Um, and then shortly thereafter, the, the, the, the camera crew and the reporter got arrested. And what was disturbing in particular about that is the reporter. Cause they were released like an hour or whatever later, and the reporter was back, live on the air.
And he said, look, he said, I want to be absolutely clear with everybody. The, you know, the officer that I was dealing with the entire time could not have been more cordial. He could not have been more upfront about things. Um, he didn’t really understand what was going on and, and, and the, the, the phrase that bothered me the most is he told me he was just following orders. So somebody up the food chain said arrest that camera crew. And, and that’s a problem. Um, and then somebody from, I believe it was the Detroit news got, got tagged and bagged last night. Uh, yeah. Uh, got hit by bullets, a free press, uh, reporter got charged by a DPD officer. You know, here’s the thing, media thing and media zones are being harassed, just CIS that, all that characterization. I don’t necessarily know that I agree with because I mean, I saw we did, we watch live the, the situation with the free press reporter.
Um, that’s when they were out roaming around and that’s when everybody was running away on mass from the tear gas, um, and the cops were chasing everybody down at that point. Um, it’s, it’s hard. I mean, it’s, it’s today’s day and age, man. How do you know without taking the time to go, Hey, can you show me your credentials? Whether that person with a cell phone cam and a backpack is any, you know, that’s what the free press is any different than that person with a cell phone. Uh, that’s just doing shit on their own. And their backpack actually has like fireworks and shit that they’ve been shooting at you. Like, how do you know the difference between those two as a cop in a heat of the moment split like split D like, yeah.
They’re all on street clothes. I mean, and here’s the thing, like, you don’t need to have a PhD in human psychology to know that when police are dressed in militarized gear with, with militarized weapons and tanks, and it’s going to charge people up. There’s, there’s, there’s a there’s one. I’ll I’ll. I remember when Tom and our Don was making those Bulletproof baseball caps and we, and he was basically saying just to get people to like, not be on guard and not be charged up, just like, I’m one of like, just to be like, you know, so that’s like the guy in Flint basically dressed down, took off all his stuff and it brought people like call, well, you know what I’m saying? Like, I don’t understand why people think that forest is going to make people it’s going to piss people off more. And they’re going to double down when that shit’s not around. Like, it’s just it’s. So it’s it’s to me, it’s just basically one-on-one.
It is. And, and, you know, and again, you know, it comes, some of it comes down to psychology. Some con some of it comes down to, you know, reading the situation and try to understand things. And some of it comes down to directives. They’ve been given. I mean, dude, like how many times have you seen, you know, a verbal confrontation in a bar between two people and, and then either, and then one of two things happens, either talking works it out and everybody goes their own separate ways or that first punch gets thrown. And that first punch is almost inevitably a punch to the nose or the face, which is typically trying to be a heavily intimidating tactic in to hopefully stave off anything worse happening down the road. And so, like I said, I, I can see why I’m not saying it’s right. I want to be perfectly clear here. I’m not saying it’s right. I’m not saying it was the right course of action. I can see from a DPD point of view, why they took the action that they did last night, you know, just trying to diffuse the situation now with a punch to the nose, as opposed in a hopes, in the hopes of defusing, anything that might come down the road. Um,
do you not think that like doesn’t build any Goodwill within the community? Just,
I, I I’ve, like I said, dude, I’m not saying it’s right. And I’m, and I’m not saying
no, no, I’m not either. Yeah. Well, you’ve got to say it like there’s riots at the sporting events. They always bring out the horses. You know what I mean? Like a calmer version, like 4th of July calmer version, it’s just, we’re going to disperse the crowd. This is the way we’re doing it. When you start bringing tanks and tear guests out and shit. I mean, it’s like that that’s pandemonium, you know, dogs and cats living together, take stuff,
but look at, but again, and then, you know, dude, look at what’s happened to LA look at what’s happened in Minnesota. Look at what’s happened in DC. Look, I mean, look at, look, what do you really want that here in Detroit? And again, like I said, I’m not saying, I’m not saying I agree with it. I’m not saying it’s right, but I can see where from a mindset, Hey, if we come heavy early, we avoid, you know, like the situation. Like I don’t, I don’t even know why DC bothered to instill a curfew at 11:00 PM. Like to me, like that’s already too late. Like, you’re, you’re a threat. Like I, I thought Detroit was rational and reasonable 8:00 PM. Look, you got all day do your thing. It gives you about a half an hour, 45 minutes to get out of the city before it gets dark and all that stuff. Cool. And there we go. So, but yeah, I mean like, dude, DC escalated quickly last night, if you weren’t watching it. I mean, it went from peaceful protest to buildings, dumpsters, and all kinds of shit on fire and like clearly with accelerants and raging fires in the span of about 15 minutes. All I know is that like,
we can all agree that yeah. Cause you said it earlier, the timing of this, not saying it’s ever a good time, but this couldn’t have been a worst time. Everybody everybody’s literally was that edge and going crazy any way and you just eat literally just, you know, couldn’t have made this a worst situation. And I think, you know, I think it’s kind of awesome. You have other, you know, like London and Hong Kong and other, like there’s other areas that are like, um, kind of standing in solidarity. I think it’s, uh, I think it’s, you know, again, I’m all for the peaceful protest I’m going to that’s, that’s where I’m going to make my stand. Um, granted, um,
you know, I’m not a fan of collateral damage. Put it that way. Like if you’re going to do this shit, you know,
and again, I totally get it, you know, and, and that’s where, you know, I I’ve gotten involved in a number of those discussions this week and you know, the, Oh, well, you know, violence and looting never solved anything. Well, can we talk about the revolutionary war? Well, can we talk about the civil rights movement? Well, can we talk about the labor riots and the AFL CIO? Well, can we talk, I mean, it’s that, that’s just, that’s simply not true. Um, and, and sometimes it does take about, you know, it does take violence and upheaval in order to create change. And it is unfortunate that that is the case, because as we were talking about earlier, dude, like how this conversation has been begging to happen for so long, you know, why, you know, like, you know, there’s a, an article that I was reading today that said, Oh, you know, the NFL could really start to bring the country together.
If a team just hired Colin Kaepernick, finally, it’s a little too late for that. Yeah, exactly. Like I like that. Yeah. That ship sailed film at 11 that’s you, you miss that boat? Um, yeah, but I mean, like I said, you know, that’s, that’s a conversation that’s been begging to happen, you know, uh, through Ferguson did think about God. I mean, think, think back to how long ago that, you know, what does it mean to be black in America that we did with, you know, Calvin, Calvin and Karrie and Eric, um, you know, that, that four and a half hour marathon that we sat through and ran with them that, I mean, that, I mean, that was three, four years ago now. And, and I mean, it’s, it’s crazy to me that, you know, even, you know, and that was right after Ferguson and, and yet none of those conversations have happened, at least not at the levels they need to. I mean, we’ve had those conversations with our friends over and over and over again, we can only do what we can do, you know, we’re not the ones that are, you know, I mean, you’d vote and do all that stuff, but yeah. I mean, it’s, yeah, I gotta, I gotta, I got a lot of fields and a lot of thoughts about this, but I’m not going to go too deep
and I’m going to repeat what I said right at the top of the show. And we’ll probably end it on this. I hope this brings about some, uh, some discourse and some change and, and whatever that, whatever it is that may be, um, I just hope that, you know, whether it’s even, even having some guy think twice, somewhere, I just pulpit this, uh, you know, this can, this can help something. I don’t know.
Cool.
Um, but on that note, uh, you know, I guess we’ll, uh, cut you two clowns loose.
I’m probably just going to hop on another zoom, chat and drink with people. Cause I need to
wrap things up for this episode three 50 of the it and the D show like the thank God Mike, Willie from clear to go. Um, sounds like a pretty cool, pretty cool. I do like that about the, check it out. You get some attraction with that. Um, on behalf of Bob, Dave, and Randy, do us all a favor, drink a few drinks, get your phone numbers. Uh, I guess you can go out, you know, you, I said, I was going to say, stay her ass at all, but you don’t have to do anymore. Yeah. You can, uh, feel free to move about the cabin party. 100, one and strict guidelines on the six feet, not five feet, not seven feet, six feet. Um, but uh, there was a favorite drink up your drinks, get phone numbers. You don’t gotta go home. We just gotta get the hell out of here. See you next week. Drive. Careful beat it. Alright. See you guys stay safe. Bob, what was it called? The action on the, uh, by VPN, the VPN services.
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