We talk about the COVID Pandemic a it's effect on the power-sports industry. We talk about why everyone thinks Harley-Davidson is going under. We also get way off topic and discuss all kind of other things that have nothing to do with COVID or Motorcycles.
We talk about the COVID Pandemic a it's effect on the power-sports industry. We talk about why everyone thinks Harley-Davidson is going under. We also get way off topic and discuss all kind of other things that have nothing to do with COVID or Motorcycles.
All right, you ready? Yes, sir.
Roy Merritt :Once again, it's time to open your ears and expand your mind. Or maybe it's stole your mind. Either way, I think these boys have something to say. So sit back, grab a brew. We're gonna have some to give you our point of view here on talking breath. Well yeah, we haven't died from Corona yet. I'm trying
Jordan Huerta :I brought it from seven hours away. You don't know yet. Yeah.
Roy Merritt :brought some with you. Yeah. So welcome back. And you know what I didn't even do the count. I think this is Episode Four. ticker ticker season two episode four. Episode Four is where it all started. Yeah, it's good for a new hope a new because we should title this to Episode Four A New Hope you know talk of the town
Unknown Speaker :Wait,
Unknown Speaker :where are they?
Unknown Speaker :What do we got on this thing? A Cuisinart? No, sir. Sir,
Unknown Speaker :prepare for lightspeed. lightspeed is too slow. It's been too slow. Yes, we're gonna have to go right to do it.
Unknown Speaker :Sanders, chicken.
Aaron Staudinger :Oh, that's baseball.
Roy Merritt :Oh, yes. Baseball. I see your Schwartz is as big as mine.
Mike VO :sees you know how to handle.
Roy Merritt :love that movie Mel Brooks is, is one of the best. It's the most powerful force
Mike VO :of the universe. Schwartz no merchandising baseball's the lunchbox baseball's the flame thrower The kids love.
Roy Merritt :So I think the topic tonight is a little sparked by a Articles I've been reading more than one about, you know, the power sports industry right now in the middle of the pandemic. And and how you know Harley's dying. You know, according to the numbers and according to everybody else outside of Harley, you know, Harley's dying. We call bullshit. Yeah, I mean, you know, we have a unique perspective and point of view here in that one, we're in Tennessee. So, when it came to Coronavirus, and the lockdown and things like that,
Unknown Speaker :um
Roy Merritt :you know, we we stayed busy. We had so much work already kind of going that service kind of kept going. Yeah, the front of the house, the sales, the motor clothes, things like that did slow down some for obvious reasons, because people aren't leaving the house. But, you know, we we have continued You too, you know stay busy. I hear about a lot of dealerships closing up. There's talk of of maybe more coming in in the near future something like 20 or so I think they said you know, and I think what what would what a lot of it boils down to is one we're in Tennessee you know, they kind of said you're gonna do this but they weren't out with a weight to that. Ah, you know, they weren't out with you know, the police knocking on your door necessarily, and it didn't feel as enforced as, as what the media would like to have have made other places seem like granite we were we are considered an essential business. So, during the midst of all of this pandemic, there was actually legislation done Nationally that actually added power sports into the automotive part of the central business. So legally, officially, it's on paper. And that happened during that, you know, this this pandemic, always. It's always been kind of, Oh, yeah, you know, you work on motorcycles, that's automotive, you know what I mean? And you, you get kind of lumped into there, but now now it has actually officially been labeled separately. So, you know, we are an essential business. I think that the dealerships that closed are the ones that are really going to hurt. I think,
Mike VO :well, every business that closes is going to hurt.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, but but so
Roy Merritt :the reason I say that is you want to get in touch with your customers, okay? In any business, it doesn't matter if your dealership whatever it is, you know, getting in touch and engaged with your customers and making your customers feel engaged. is the key to any successful business. I don't care what you're doing, oh, we were in touch man. We are the videos, all the stuff that we do allows customers to sit at home and feel engaged by the dealership. Right. And the more we put out, the happier they are. The dealerships that do not engage their customers are gonna hurt when this is all said and done. You know, I think that's why we are seeing the success, you know that we are seeing why we're seeing so many people coming in right now. I mean, this memorial day weekend, I I want to say that was one of the busiest Saturday's I've ever seen here. I mean, maybe maybe the name change was bigger, you know, there was a lot of people here then maybe one or two, maybe one or two times maybe would give it a run for its money. But that was one of the busiest days I've ever seen. Without question. I was pretty rockin. Yeah. So, you know,
Mike VO :I think it was like that everywhere though because I think people just got sick of it. I agree. Yeah, I think they're like, you know what, Fuck this. Yeah, but lockdown
Roy Merritt :book your rules. We're gonna go have fun so according according to all the rules Why can't you ride your motorcycle?
Aaron Staudinger :Well, there was a while there they said that it was like essential travel only right?
Mike VO :Use a car. Yeah, it sounds like it is loud over here.
Roy Merritt :So,
Mike VO :back to back to it.
Roy Merritt :What we were talking about there. I would say though, like over the course of this, that's
Mike VO :not our beer.
Aaron Staudinger :Over the course of the pandemic, man, people were like on the phone more than they had been in a long, long time. People had the time to go through and search through, you know, what, what they really wanted to try and get done and they were calling us like Yeah, cuz they were just sitting home bored. No, like, gotta figure out what I'm doing my bike. They call us up. We take care of them kind of kept there it was it was a, I think a really pleasant distraction for a lot of people. So Jordan,
Roy Merritt :yes. For the listeners out there we have Jordan here as well and he's a new guy to the shop. And he is coming from you're working in Detroit and living in Ohio. Yep. So things were way different up there.
Jordan Huerta :Yeah, I think so. Because when I first had my came down to talk to Mike, um, it was kind of mind blowing coming. It was kind of the beginning of the COVID thing, right? Yeah. And yeah, one of the first time I came down that one day shot, I drove down here, stayed here for two hours and drove back and one day, it was
Mike VO :like the middle of middle of March. Yeah.
Jordan Huerta :And things of they're getting a little weird with everything, but I came down here and things were a lot more Normal, you know, the restaurants were closed and everything like that, but
Mike VO :people were still out and about up there.
Jordan Huerta :I lived in a suburb of Toledo, Ohio, which is right on the Michigan Ohio border. And things were just I don't know, man get a little weird. Yeah. You know, and especially with Detroit the way I worked outside of dealership outside of Detroit,
Mike VO :and Detroit, Detroit. I don't know. Man, it's
Jordan Huerta :gonna make some money. I think
Roy Merritt :he's right. Right now they say I think I don't know. I don't know.
Jordan Huerta :I just everyone there had like the de Detroit sticker on their car, and I really wanted to get one even though it's not fitting.
Roy Merritt :Well, so you don't get your radio stolen or shot? Yeah, yeah. Like, in Detroit. Oh, yeah. He's got these cool shoe.
Jordan Huerta :Yeah. Yeah, I know if they're here. They
Mike VO :just go. He doesn't have any But
Jordan Huerta :we know up there in Detroit being hotspot there for a little things got real weird our dealership it closed down these we were considered essential like you guys were saying but because we worked on the police motorcycles as well there but not as much as here but I think the the powers that be thought you know maybe wasn't worth it because of the workload that we had because sales parts and clothing all shut down and service obviously was available to be open but I don't think they thought that we had like eight texts at the time seven eight texts So yeah, I don't think they thought it was really worth it. You know, and then randomly they'd have they'd call they'd call three of us in said hey, we need you guys come in Wednesday through Sunday or Wednesday through Saturday and just knock a little bit workout. But you know, it's a lot of the guys didn't want to because you make more money on you make
Mike VO :1100 bucks, thousand bucks
Jordan Huerta :and unemployment or go in there. You know, trying to give an incentive and I know some of my buddies that work down in the Toledo area dealerships, they're getting paid hazard pay is text so they're getting paid hourly. It was an hourly chapeaus and flat rate they're getting hourly but they're getting time and a half on top of their commission bonuses as well. So they're making you know, 30 bucks an hour
Mike VO :hourly to get hazard pay.
Roy Merritt :Live in Tennessee, because it wasn't you know, to brute force but it's bad. We live in secrecy because we just got to keep working. And she didn't really change.
Mike VO :at all, he was spreading her fucking cock on mouth about how they want to do hazard pay for all the essential workers. I was like.
Roy Merritt :Yeah, that's what I said. I'm like, if these motherfuckers are getting paid fucking, it's like, what did I figure it out? It's like 20 bucks an hour. So you have to sit at home, even here in Tennessee. It does, say 275 875 a week or whatever it is. And I was like, Fuck, man. I'm doing the I'm like, it's like 20 bucks an hour. $21 an hour. I was like, so what are they doing for the people that are our central workers that aren't making $41? Yeah. Fair if
Aaron Staudinger :you work through the pandemic, man make it where you pay zero federal tax this year. How about that? make it worth my while do something for me.
Jordan Huerta :That's right. When my girlfriend when this thing went off when my girlfriend is working part time cutting hair, you know, I don't know 25 hours a week maybe. And when obviously the in Ohio The first thing to get cut was like salons and everything like that. And she was begin a week. I think she was bringing home like 970 bucks. Oh, she was part time because they went off your 2018 whatever you filed then and she then she was working full time. So yeah, it's wild, man. I think it's mind blowing.
Mike VO :like wow. Let's go to New Year's
Roy Merritt :So if we're gonna tell you to take a shot in the dark here, what do you think the percentage of people that had to keep or didn't keep working was? I think 50%
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. 5050 something like that.
Roy Merritt :So do you say hi? I would have said like, 25 I would guess 25 I mean, well, I probably could have researched this, you know, we could probably, uh,
Mike VO :well, but but you're not gonna be able to find an accurate number because you can't find accurate stats on any of it. So here's the thing.
Roy Merritt :The essential workers got a fat check from the government. If they have families. They don't they still got a little check from the government.
Mike VO :Unless you made enough money.
Roy Merritt :Well, yeah, unless you're making ridiculous amount of money, then you got nothing.
Mike VO :I don't think $100,000 is ridiculous. We'll just sing it more. I mean, that's pretty good. But it's not ridiculous. No.
Roy Merritt :Okay. So it's not
Mike VO :I mean, that's middle class yet. Well, yeah. Nowadays. Yeah,
Roy Merritt :it is. But those people are demographic for power sports in general?
Aaron Staudinger :Yeah. A little bit. So expendable income. Yeah,
Roy Merritt :all of those people that ride four wheelers and jet skis and all that shit are like landscapers and fucking essential goddamn businesses, you know what I mean? So, now you just gave them more money and gave them a way to make more money. You know what I mean? So what are they gonna do with it? They're gonna put it in toys. And I really think that the world is preparing for this you know, horrible thing and the powers for dear the industry's preparing for the you know, this huge drop in everything. I
Aaron Staudinger :don't think it's gonna be that way. Man. There was some really funny silence. I saw that we're like, we know you just got 1200 dollars. Yeah, bring your ass in here.
Jordan Huerta :Yeah, there we go. You got it right when this thing kicked off in the state of Michigan after the law was but you can sell a motorcycle car anything like that when it first kicked off, and there was a dealership up by a fortune. dealer up by us. And they sold one car on a Saturday. And I think they got fined 10 or $15,000. And then they sold another car and they actually the state pulled their their entire license.
Mike VO :So do you think the governor of Michigan is gonna get reelected? sighs
Unknown Speaker :so I don't understand how any
Mike VO :of that holds up? Well, I'll tell you how they're rolling the dice. The partisan the partisanship has come to a point now where it's an all out assault.
Roy Merritt :Well, no, you know, what's happened is the general populace. This newer generation is such a bunch of fucking pussies that they will not stand up and say no. So, so the fucking whole world. They got on the news and said, stay inside. Don't go outside. Okay.
Mike VO :Now quit
Roy Merritt :not not a fucking fight. Dude, you ever go back to how many Revolutionary Wars things like that had been fought if then people seen how the United States reacted to this? I think they would fucking go
Mike VO :crazy. But devil's advocate here because you guys know my stance. Yeah. How many people actually stood up and fought in the Revolutionary War?
Roy Merritt :What percentage of the population? Yeah,
Mike VO :so when when the Boston Tea Party happened? How many people participated in the tea party? How many people went Get the fuck out of here?
Roy Merritt :Oh, yeah. Most of the people cut the fuck out of there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Not. Everybody has to be a National Guard. Ethan's in the background like he was trying his best to be quiet, but
Mike VO :I heard Yeah, National Guard.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah.
Mike VO :I'll tell you what triggers him is sandbags.
Roy Merritt :Sam bags.
Unknown Speaker :We're gonna stop the water this time.
Roy Merritt :That's awesome.
Unknown Speaker :But hurricane relief, so.
Mike VO :So, you know, I don't I don't I don't think that the COVID-19 is made up that the actual virus itself. I don't think it's made up. No, but I think the fix is in. And I think that it's become I think it was a very convenient time or a political play. Oh yeah there is something much bigger than that and we can't remember it ever
Jordan Huerta :happens or every new election you know the past couple years you know, something comes up well
Mike VO :you know the New World Order if you want to say that things aren't going their direction. Yeah. scandals or they've been lit on I mean, you like look at just the things that are stacking up you know, the Jeffrey Epstein and just all the all the crazy shit. That's this worldwide thing that they've been trying keep a lid on for so long. And unfortunately, you know independent journalism being what it is. You can't stop people from finding out what's happening. But you can dilute it to the point where it seems like when somebody's telling you the truth is so outlandish. Because you have Chris Cuomo over here, who got COVID-19 and then had a special on CNN about how devastating it is. You know what, shut the fuck up.
Roy Merritt :It's just like a 99% survival rate. It's still like, after all this is said and done. It's still has a ridiculously high, so that
Unknown Speaker :depends on where you get your stats.
Roy Merritt :Well, yeah, but I'm saying if you go worldwide worldwide
Mike VO :depends. Yes, that's from Oh, and
Roy Merritt :they're all bullshit. Have you seen? Have you look so a couple days ago, I don't know might have been a week ago. I don't know. I went on and I looked online. I was like, what are what are the number of things Cases worldwide. So I go through it does each country okay? China's still 87,000 Fuck you go fuck yeah, fuck you try
Mike VO :a third of the entire population of the world. So in that 20 million population every
Roy Merritt :other country is listed in their America 1.5 million closest second was like 300,000 in like Italy or somewhere stupid, you know what I mean? I don't remember now. But our we were the only person in the million It was like, All right, come on. There's some fucking bullshit going. But
Mike VO :but but here's here's another thing that people don't think about. If you take the United States of America and you take all of Europe, it's closely the same size and the countries in Europe are much closer to the size of the states in the United States. Yeah, then our entire nation. So if you take the United States which the name of our Republic itself, decries that they are individual states that are united under one gun. Yeah. Right. So if you take the United States and the European Union, the numbers are very, very similar. Yeah. But if you if you single out France, and Spain and Italy and the Netherlands that's like China Fuck you.
Roy Merritt :80,000 you did 1.5 million China's 80,000 Fuck you. Yeah. She didn't start in China anyway,
Mike VO :but who cares about China? True. But But you take like, like the European individual, European sovereignties and the individual states in the United States. You have the densely democratic controlled European states like Italy, Spain, France. The numbers are super high. Yeah, just like yeah, the independent, democratically controlled states.
Roy Merritt :New York, California,
Mike VO :California, Michigan, Michigan, Michigan. Yeah, New Jersey. And then you take some of the more modern European state i don't know if they're moderate I don't know if any of the European countries are moderate. I mean they're they're all fairly governmentally controlled. It's not not like here over there, you know, I mean, they really like Big Brother taking care of everything. They don't mind paying super high taxes. You know, they like having centralized
Roy Merritt :health care well that's that's the democratic way life. I mean, they'd like the whole and and so the reason that we're where we're at is because schools teach you that that is what you want. Yeah. Right. You go to college. College teaches you that you want to be liberal like yeah, that that you know, everybody should make the same money and and that you should sacrifice so that you know, the other people can have a day one this and that and that it's a grander thing. When in the end, all it is is fucking the smart people. And the people that can actually go out and make fucking money And getting lazy people that want to sit on their fucking ass and given them everything in the fucking world. You know, that's what it works out in the in the end that sort of works out to be that was a crazy suit would work if everyone worked hard right
Jordan Huerta :and up there when we got laid off, man, I've never been on unemployment. I'm 28 you know, still pretty young but I've never been on unemployment ever. That was the weirdest thing ever is waiting for that check to hit my bank account so I could pay my bills. So I was completely reliant on the man, you know, these women? Yeah, it was weird, man. It was weird. Like, I'm not doing shit. I'm staying home fucking chillin playing Xbox.
Unknown Speaker :I was
Jordan Huerta :hanging out and I'm waiting for these dudes to give me some money so I could pay my mortgage every month. No, and it was it well,
Unknown Speaker :it's really weird. I think that's a man thing. I hate to say it like that. That
Roy Merritt :that I guess desire to provide and you know, to make sure you got all your shit covered.
Unknown Speaker :Wow, how's that? Oh, man.
Aaron Staudinger :Oh, man Well, now I mean, I think that's being like taught out
Roy Merritt :well, you know, I I think there's instinctual things male female, you know, I hate to be sexist or whatever there is I think there's instinctual things no matter what male female for
Aaron Staudinger :an A type personality. Yeah, but yeah, that is now evil. You're not supposed to be an A type personality you're supposed to be. I don't know what the hell they want you to be. But certainly I mean, an alpha type. You're told that you're what is the term for like, like toxic mosque masculinity. You heard that term? No. That's the day.
Mike VO :I was reading that article. We're all fucking toxic. Yeah, I was reading an article yesterday and like they were talking about how in New Jersey. All these people like shamed this lady out of a grocery store. She wasn't wearing a mask. I was like, why wouldn't somebody starts with shit like that with me because I would just, I'll just charge them. Now you did you you had an awesome story the other day at Walmart, but that's right. Yeah, we don't have time for that right now but that was awesome told me I was like fuck you tell me
Aaron Staudinger :your face but
Roy Merritt :they're telling you the reason for the mask is so you're not spreading right? That's the only reason it's not stopping you from getting anything. It's so that when you speak when you sneeze when you whatever you're not spitting everywhere. Why the fuck are people where it seems like walking down the road? driving your car? Yeah, in your fucking car is gonna give you Corona? No, you're wearing the mask for me? Not for you. You're wearing the mask for me so that you're not fucking spitting over me. Okay, so I don't understand it. You know, I I'm not wearing a fucking mask.
Jordan Huerta :Man. I went to Costco like I seen the other day.
Roy Merritt :Oh, that's assuming that you have it. Right? It's not Like if you don't have it you're spreading it anyway.
Jordan Huerta :Yeah, you do it I mean, that's my girlfriend we walked over to Costco you know, three or four days ago and went in there and everyone already knew the drill when you know last hour Costco was up in Ohio Yeah, they went someone down the road here and we're walking up and everyone's putting the mask on I didn't think any you know hey, if you want to wear one cool if you don't wanna wear I don't get I don't wear one I've never worn one Yeah. Oh, we grab our cart whatever going up there and like some dude like looked at us real weird and then shuffled up said hey, don't you guys have a mask? We're like, no, and he's like, oh, to get inside here. You guys have to have masks now. He said you don't have to like no. Oh, they provided us one and to go into store we had to put them in. That was the first time I'm going on. I'm like, this is fucking crazy man.
Roy Merritt :My wife made me one. I usually have it but I haven't bought it yet.
Jordan Huerta :I mean, okay, if you want to like more power to you can do whatever you want. But tell me I have to I was like, Man, this is
Roy Merritt :fucking so here's
Mike VO :where you have your choice. You You don't have to support the business. Exactly. That's what I told her. I said, Dude, hey, we'll go to fucking somewhere else. Yeah, yeah,
Jordan Huerta :yeah, I was I really rubbed me the wrong way for someone to say hey, you know you pay a monthly or a yearly membership fee to go to Costco and for you to tell me I have to to come in here and spend my money here like man you
Roy Merritt :and I would be like, Hey motherfucker six months ago when you had to fucking cold cold and we're walking around sniffing and fucking rubbing your shit all over the place. I didn't see you stepping out of your fucking way. Yeah go fuck yourself because that's what I was
Jordan Huerta :like now I look back I wish I would have blown up. I was so caught off guard. Yeah, I didn't know that was the thing man. I didn't know that. You could really tell me to come into the store. I had to I need to go you know if you know they recommend that you were on Okay, I get it whatever. But I was completely caught off guard that he told me I had to wear one. I was like, fuck
Roy Merritt :it. I get it in the commercial settings, like a grocery store or something like that. Like I said, You know you're trying to spread it but ultimately
Unknown Speaker :99%
Roy Merritt :seriously people now if you know people were dying and a lot of people have died from this a lot of people die from the flu every year there's a lot a lot of people die from fucking car accidents. A lot of people die from getting hit with a fucking hammer look it up there's a lot of people a die every year from getting hit with a fucking hammer.
Jordan Huerta :Yeah, before I left Michigan, we were looking at the swimming pool deaths at like homes and it was way higher than what Kobe was. Exactly. Yes.
Roy Merritt :A Florida Oh, yeah. Dude, like kids are dying in pool time in Florida. Exactly. That's why they had to make laws. So down in Florida. You have to have like a fence or something to pull guard or something. Kids should have to be like you cannot have a piece of property in Florida with a pool in it without some kind of protection to keep other people out of it.
Jordan Huerta :Yep, can't do it. My house in Ohio that I have rented out and has a pool and we Have a big fence
Aaron Staudinger :California was the same way well I have a pool built in California we had to have like alarms on all the doors and all this kind of crap. Yeah, I had them there basically for the one day the inspector was there, which I promptly ripped right off and they were gone like the day that that that permit was signed. He's like Yeah, you got your alarms. Yeah, I'm good. watch them go down the driveway. Okay, cool. Yeah, out fucked every time you open the door sound like fucking world war three man's wild, horrible. I didn't know this thing. Man. You had to have alarms on every door. So that kid walked in and could access the pool. You'd be alerted. Oh.
Roy Merritt :Or, you know, that's that's democratic way of life though. If your neighbor was too stupid to mow his own lawn, you need to get a landscaper for your house so he can get one for his two. Huh? That's that's the democratic way of thought.
Aaron Staudinger :Dude, I had to put one of those saying why deport those CPR, frickin things on my back gate and all that kind of stuff like by the pool. In order for in case of emergency and all this kind of stuff, I've learned how to cut someone's chest and all that shit by reading assign
Roy Merritt :the fuck out of here. How did we make it to however many billion people we have? How do we make it? Look I found all these rules. You know, it's amazing it's amazing that you and I and
Mike VO :I say let Darwin take over at some point at
Unknown Speaker :some point, man, I'm gonna go back to hammers. hammers.
Roy Merritt :Yeah, no you look it up. This is a good one.
Mike VO :According to the FBI more than five times as many people were killed in 2018 by knives, clubs, and other instruments including hammers and rifles.
Roy Merritt :The weird part is, is a hammers has like some weirdly high number, like it's one of those things that pops up on the list and you're like, you know, it's like cigarettes and liver disease and bow and then hammer. machetes Like, seriously. I forget where I seen that, but Yeah, hammers
Unknown Speaker :and people you know
Roy Merritt :the you know the world is is is in a strange place right
Aaron Staudinger :now we're all shaking our heads right now. Yeah,
Mike VO :well I mean 443 people this year killed by hammers maybe for them 43 so it's how many
Roy Merritt :months, five months six months of the year about three and 555
Mike VO :to a day to three people a day die from a hammer hammers already These are
Unknown Speaker :two to three
Aaron Staudinger :ideas made the hammer pretty soon now
Unknown Speaker :the non essentials are back out so the numbers gonna go up.
Unknown Speaker :It's not telling you when the non essentials were in home, I love coming to work.
Roy Merritt :See now you watch those movies were like
Mike VO :so nice driving
Roy Merritt :technology so far dance and all that stuff. I'd love to have it so far advanced that you could like send somebody a message like easily so I would ride with a hammer and then when they looked at me I'd pick up the hammer and then send them all the stats about how many people a day die from fucking
Jordan Huerta :hardcore way to go out
Roy Merritt :like bitch, I got a hammer, three people a day die from
Unknown Speaker :this motherfucker.
Unknown Speaker :I was just gonna say like, how
Aaron Staudinger :does this relate back to the original
Mike VO :fuck Polaris.
Roy Merritt :But, you know, we, I, I wish I could, like foresee the future a little bit. Because I think there's going to be a separation in the industry between, you know, businesses or dealerships that engage with their customers and those that don't. And I think that the ones that are Truly engaging with their customers and trying to engage with their customers are going to pull from the dealerships that are you know, and I think we kind of see that here you know the the Oh yeah, we're really we're raping
Mike VO :the whole market well, like wow while the whales are happening the other dealerships were pretty much closed if they were open you know i don't i don't ever go to the other dealerships because it doesn't make a difference. But you know, like you'd go into bumpers and everybody said that like they have like this weird caution tape and you have to like walk down this strange aisle through the service area to the window to get parts and I'm like that's the fucking dumbest thing ever. You know and and the term new normal there's no new normal. That's that's subliminal advertising. Well, there's you guys know that there's just the way it is and the way it is either. You can make it super shitty and a pain in the ass and complicated because of whatever happening in the environment or you can just open the fucking door and make money. Yeah. And we had hundreds of people that normally don't come here that now come here because they're like those It was like they'd go there and it was like all sketched out and I would see it even going shopping other places. And I was talking to Marcus one of our other texts when we're doing some work in my house. I think one of the things that we've done here is it's been so regular, we haven't changed changed. We haven't changed the way we operate. We haven't changed the way we interact with customers. So when people come in, nobody wears masks here like one out of 100 people and those are just like the fucking weirdos that are trying to make a point you know, they're obviously Joe gonna vote for Joe Biden whether it's a bj whether they're you know, and that's fine. I don't care if their money is the same color as everybody else's. Yeah, but when I go somewhere else, I'm like, Where the fuck am I? Yeah. Because it's so weird our day to day hasn't changed throughout this whole thing. You know, the only thing that's changed is the news is on repeat. And
Roy Merritt :I haven't even watched the news. I mean, I
Mike VO :watch the news and for one day, and then you skip it for three weeks and watch it again, it's the same exact same video clip, same video clip, except they just input higher numbers. Ultimately, my life is pretty small.
Roy Merritt :I go to work, I go home, I go to work at home. At work, I go home, that's what everybody does. You know, that's, that's my life. I don't do much else than that. So, to me, I give a shit what else is going on? I enjoy my job. I like it here, you know? And I like my house. I like my family. So I am content in both of those locations. So fuck do I care what's going right outside of these buildings, you know,
Mike VO :but then when you like, like, you go to Walmart. And you can't go in through the this door. You're like what the fuck is going on? Oh, you can't go. What are you doing? I'm like, I'm trying to go into stores. Spend money you can't go in that door. You can only go in this door. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, we can only go we can only get so many people in. Hey, you know what? Fuck you. I'm not one of those people. I'm gonna go
Jordan Huerta :to Walmart down the road here last night man. And we went in we're walking out and there was like a cripple lady legit by herself on like crutches so I was fucked up man don't like that's fucked up right? Anyway, dude the guy at the door wouldn't even let her walk in the closer door was the exit and she could barely walk in. He made her walk around the whole fucking fence. What if everyone dies because she was in?
Unknown Speaker :General Do
Mike VO :you think about it? Everyone could die if they let her in that door. No, everyone.
Roy Merritt :Everyone you know, the whole the whole world is changing for sure.
Jordan Huerta :I think it's a test run man.
Roy Merritt :My world is changing. So yeah, there's some way bigger. Yeah, I think it's
Jordan Huerta :Yeah, hate to be that conspiracy theorist guy but there's so way bigger. They're seeing how far Oh, let's come up this and all these rules, whatever, whatever. Let's see the people do So see how many abide by the rules. When
Roy Merritt :this first started a war I've been saying it the whole time. I say you know when you watch a movie, and it's like 100 200 years in the future and the whole world is devastated it's you know, post apocalyptic bullshit and Mad Max or whatever. And then they fucking they montage to how we got there. It starts exactly like this,
Mike VO :except it's real. It starts except it's not an imaginary,
Roy Merritt :but it doesn't matter. I mean, Hey, man, hey, hey, it you know, there's so many things that have happened in the movies that come true in real life, you know what I'm saying? So all I'm saying is the government find some reason to take control. Okay, you know, quote unquote, do a cookie cutter up but
Mike VO :sketch our National Guard. Extraordinary over here. just sent me a post on Instagram from OJ Simpson and oj simpson is convinced the Carole Baskin murdered her husband.
Roy Merritt :Oh, Jesus Christ. Dude, I can tell you the first time I looked at that bitch Damn, that pitch is crazy. And they're like, Oh, she might have murdered her. Oh, she murdered her husband I tell the look in her eyes but anyways
Mike VO :yeah, some point we need to talk about motorcycle Yeah,
Roy Merritt :we were we were on a good tangent there
Mike VO :like Indian sucks in the Coronavirus.
Roy Merritt :I can't back it up. I don't know where where I was at in that conversation when he interrupted
Mike VO :I don't know. Sorry. I think we were at Carole Baskin, murder husband,
Roy Merritt :Tiger King.
Mike VO :So motorcycles during Corona and his Harley Davidson going on. Business
Roy Merritt :fuck no no no come on in World War One World War Two fucking you know how many things are going on you're gonna tell me Coronavirus World War Two we'll be back. No just saying so much is this Seriously? Seriously The worst thing Harley Davidson as a company has seen fuck i think
Mike VO :i think this is I think the best thing that's happened to Harley in the last 20 years
Roy Merritt :shut down production.
Mike VO :Yeah so the the models are becoming limited and everybody knows that so we're
Roy Merritt :running out of bikes. Yeah we out the number of used bikes we have on the lot are in the teens. And the
Mike VO :reason is because I've never seen this place
Roy Merritt :empty of bikes. So
Mike VO :typically when people buy a motorcycle, it's just like any other vehicle. They trade in their old one and they buy a new one and they're not. They're not trading rights. Yeah, and they're buying us ones outright. They're keeping whatever they have because they're like, hold on a minute, these are going to be limited. So the markets gonna go up. And now that Matt Levitin has gone and done driving the company into the ground jokin whatever his name is the new acting out, is he still shopping
Roy Merritt :sites? I think it is him.
Mike VO :You know, he has a really good idea. We're going to introduce the 2021 models in 2021 in the spring,
Aaron Staudinger :yeah. Now this is mind blowing. We just came in August, right?
Mike VO :Yeah, we usually see we usually see the new models come out at the end of riders, which is the dumbest fucking thing ever well, and then they go all the way through the winter and sit on the showroom floors and cost everybody money and then in the spring, but now we're
Roy Merritt :in the spring, Texas, Florida, places like that winter. Is busier. Winter is our sec was our busy season in Florida. So August when they would come out with Like, in August, July and August in Florida, nobody wants to ride a motorcycle. It is 800 fucking degrees outside 87 and no no, it's 107 it's not. That's the index now we're talking 97 right 777 easily you get over 100 all the time. Okay, it happens here Nashville. But it is it's hot as fuck and nobody wants to ride so August September rolls around and you get Sturgis, go to Sturgis then you got like tober fest come in and stuff like that so that the season picks up. But oddly enough, not only does Harley introduced their models, then they also stopped doing classes. So, or no they start doing classes. So everywhere else in the country does all their classes over the winter while the South is busy. Is But I never thought about that. And then when the summer comes and we're slow, there's no classes, because they're busy up north. And it's like, uh, what about us? You know, what about us down here? You say that all the times like, man, give us some classes in the fucking summer. You know, like, we have plenty of time in the summer. In the winter. We're cranking I mean, everybody from Canada goes down to Florida and rides or fucking motorcycles around. It's, you know, that's what Florida is. Do Florida is a goddamn vacation spots. God's waiting room. I was always on in this go on down there. If you're sending your teenage daughter down, there's a good chance he's gonna end up in porn and maybe dead anyways. So it's God's waiting room. You know?
Mike VO :That's why the Amish do that. Right? Because then they come back they're like, okay, you made it.
Roy Merritt :Yeah, Heaven, right. Yeah, you get you can sit in on this person today Daytona and a go back to their place.
Unknown Speaker :Brother Jones Yeah you're going to heaven yeah so boobies
Roy Merritt :yeah I think right around
Jordan Huerta :no they party hard as fuck though
Roy Merritt :I'm sure everybody parties man thousand 2000 years ago people were still
Jordan Huerta :vote no they don't I seen smile Michigan no no you have not that's what can
Aaron Staudinger :you do for almost midnight
Jordan Huerta :they have that little break or whatever they are. Yeah.
Mike VO :And then they all go to Florida yeah the midnight smoking so the Amish are like no technology The amendments are like cars are badass we like lights Yeah, but yet still want to dress we make our own clothes bonnet. So we're like, Is that is that like, you know is that like the Mexicans so they were Aztecs and then the Spanish came and now they're like, well, I don't know we were. We were native but the Spanish kind of did their thing and now we have this whole another race is out. The Mennonites
Roy Merritt :are being answered. I am sort America now.
Aaron Staudinger :Jeff, how'd you learn how to make wax?
Mike VO :He's like, I don't know. I don't do that. I make bonnets and cabinets. And I put him in the back of my van because of our midnight.
Roy Merritt :The sofa computer you have fucking email me.
Mike VO :That's right, yeah. You don't need to tear the number off and then go to the town square and go I'm looking for Josiah. He says he makes cabinets for Josh Yoder here for
Roy Merritt :more power to him. I mean, you know, I bought some Amish furniture stuff.
Mike VO :I bought some food, just pie and make really good pie. No.
Roy Merritt :Did they do good work? You know, they work hard. They're you know, they are there
Mike VO :is a place you imagine Could you imagine that like if if there was some sort of a an Amish union and they started building houses. Because it sounds a bit you can build some buildings a direct they can
Roy Merritt :but they would all be Dude I'll be like dude pin no nails no no
Mike VO :just travel they could travel and do like just dude they would
Aaron Staudinger :nail guns
Roy Merritt :they have to go to Chicago you how long it takes on a fucking buggy and a horse here right? Like a traveling like a like a like a carpenters union you haven't been tainted the internet there's no way they work as hard as fucking Amish they are Amish Exactly. People without internet if you make there's no fucking way that that the midnight people that have internet are work as hard as Amish people that don't there's no fucking way you cannot convince me that they have nothing. So Amish people. They don't have internet they have nothing else to do but work that's it man. What can I do I make something I fucking dig this hole over here I go sweep that floor. I go fucking do those dishes. Mennonites. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna get on the fucking internet. Let's hear what's up YouTube today you know what I'm saying? Like there's there's a different thought process there right
Unknown Speaker :do the right by
Unknown Speaker :you what they right Mike's
Roy Merritt :shooting in the dark room I asked him a hole in the ground
Unknown Speaker :we've gone way off into left field talking about Amish people. Man
Mike VO :I just think that they could really take a lot of these other unions give them a run for their money.
Roy Merritt :Do you think Mennonites ride motorcycles?
Mike VO :I've never seen one I've ever seen
Roy Merritt :but I mean that's our untapped
Mike VO :but if they go to Florida don't come back
Roy Merritt :they're no longer Mennonite. Yeah,
Mike VO :and then maybe like you know what, fuck it. I wrote a motorcycle. I'm not going back.
Roy Merritt :I think everyone should ride a motorcycle. I believe that. I know there's something about the the necessity to kind of be hyper aware of what you're doing in your surroundings, that really does kind of, I kind of draw that line in your brain that separates the day you know, you've
Aaron Staudinger :as we talked earlier about Darwin cleaning some of this shit up, put everyone on a bike and
Roy Merritt :now here's the deal. So people will not be coming home if you're the guy that has the Plex audio, and your phone mounted and you're texting your girlfriend and you're listening to radio all the time. Yeah, you're probably gonna die on your bike. So Cedric, yeah, basically, you're probably gonna die on your bike or you're gonna wreck it you're gonna get yourself hurt. Or Jeremy I mean, not to be a dick. But Jeremy was the same fucking he literally did that. Literally did that. Like I I bet you that most of the bikes that get wrecked either have speakers or something that is distracting. So myself, I tend to get on a bike. to clear my head to you know be distracted to kind of focus on something other than everything else so when I get on a bike I can't help but ride hard so we have video of the day we went out last Sunday with with sketch and a bunch of other guys sketch had a fucking car for the listeners here should have fun car radio dude. He I can't imagine seriously he deserves some props on this because he had car I'm going to say reasonably we're doing 4550 mile an hour. We're coming in that 60 Lisa 60 at 60 would have been my guest but I'm saying reasonably 4550 because we were getting into a curve so we might have been coming down
Jordan Huerta :I was I was in third gear and I dropped it in a second pop the clutch and grab both breaks because I was coming in way too high. Oh he was right in front of me so yeah,
Roy Merritt :we're we're hauling man it's funny because that video of this I had a GoPro kind of thing mounted. I don't I don't have his resident I needed but I swear to God, I swear to God, watch go VX Terra past me and then you hear I'm like, No way I chip I kept backing up like was that the accident? No way you know, but you know we were in a really hard right hand turn. The exterior was coming opposite direction and he was in a left hand turn sketch drifted and got into his running boards and pumped up punctured a hole in his tire. I mean, it it did some damage to this truck. It does some damage to the bike. The fact that he stayed up in the turn and everything was going on. It definitely deserves a little bit of credit because
Jordan Huerta :I honestly thought his bike was going to hit I seen that truck or whatever the hell it was coming right there and I'm like, Oh my god, I thought his bike was literally gonna explode. I thought it was gonna see.
Roy Merritt :Oh, yeah, so I I didn't see it happen because I was. It's funny because I watched the video and you can tell that I was in go mode. Because like we start a couple of sweepers and I downshift and I'm like, why Every time I get into a turn, you could just hear me getting down on the throttle. Until we get to this turn, which I had my GPS up so I could tell how sharp the curves were coming. So I had a good idea of how I needed to be. But when we went through this turn in that did you guys drink up a Budweiser? He has gone
Unknown Speaker :gone. I bought fucking Bud Light.
Roy Merritt :Do you have drink? Oh, yeah, everybody's drinking by Budweiser in there.
Jordan Huerta :I'm sampling.
Unknown Speaker :Anyways,
Roy Merritt :you we get into this hard right turn. And I slow down. We don't need I'll get through it. I see this car passed me. And by the time I looked back sketch was passed. Like the car was already passing. I couldn't see the car the next era. But he was well into their lane, like three quarters of the way over into that lane and drifting back over and then the Lady, whoever the guy lady, whatever, over out of the way. Well no, this was after you hit him after you hit him. And I looked back and all I could see was sketch kind of in that lane. But did he dip back into our lane and look like he was going I could tell everybody slowed down. So I slowed down the next turn after that was like a dogleg right, it was a fucking hard turn. So I slowed way down. And I looked back in the end, they were still kind of falling behind me. So as I went through that turn, I turned off and I waited and then I saw all of them pop up around the turn, so I'm like, fuck it. I go, you know, I see him I'm gonna go I'm gonna stay out in front. And then I turn make that turn. I look back there all stop like, Fuck, so I didn't turn around and go back. Look what happened. Oh, you get a car?
Jordan Huerta :Yes, soon as as soon as it happened. He tagged that car. And I was like, I thought his leg was gonna fucking fly off but I was right behind them. And all that seems sudden pop off which I thought was maybe like a highway peg or at least Something it's actually the dudes fucking chunk of that wheel that he took out of the yes
Mike VO :truck.
Roy Merritt :That's pictures of man took a huge gash in the tire.
Aaron Staudinger :For the life of me understand how it's like didn't catch I don't know. I don't either.
Mike VO :It's a miracle.
Roy Merritt :Yeah. Fucking miracle COVID miracle The only way he could have been any better is if he had like a body camera on, you know?
Mike VO :Not that I want you to die but wouldn't related death?
Aaron Staudinger :Yes, absolutely would have been.
Unknown Speaker :Yes.
Unknown Speaker :Certified.
Roy Merritt :Yeah, that would have been COVID related for sure.
Aaron Staudinger :The hospital wants their money. Yeah.
Roy Merritt :You're gonna get the 1.5 million didn't come from just people with COVID Okay, you couldn't get this number somehow? Well, I mean, oh, you had a cough? Yeah. COVID There you go.
Mike VO :Well, you know, they did say that this this winter is gonna be especially hard because they're gonna have to deal with COVID and the flu. But I thought the flu stopped.
Roy Merritt :Well, it like right now. It's only
Mike VO :on vacation for this season.
Roy Merritt :So can you get the flu and COVID next year you can next year you can lose on vacation right now right now.
Mike VO :But this fall and winter, you're going to be able to get one or the other or both. So it's going to be especially,
Roy Merritt :that's a statement I've already had. Because the the talks about this, I've already had it. Yeah, the thing is, though this percentage is going to stay the same. It always does. So that's the thing about percentages. You can do a lot of things, percentages usually stay around the same numbers mean blah, blah, blah, the percentages, you know, like, the percent of the population that's actually going to die from this is not going to change much. It's gonna be very low.
Mike VO :Well, actually, it'll go way down. a population that actually died from it is actually is unknown, because they've inflated the number so badly, but yet now because they've even admitted in almost every major news outlet that they've added presumption to the numbers. So they don't you don't they just look Well, he coughed. Well, there was a funeral. Funeral Home. Retirement Home. Yeah, or something here in Nashville that are 27 people or something all died in all COVID related. I wonder how much those were actually tested? Or if they were just like, fuck
Unknown Speaker :it, we're letting everybody died. It's
Jordan Huerta :one more thousand per if it's COVID
Mike VO :everything else down. So
Roy Merritt :how do you let a whole so all right. You run a fucking nursing home isn't the only object of running a nursing home to keep your people alive and not let them spread their diseases to each other. Well, I mean, isn't that like, it's got to be at least 93% of the job.
Mike VO :I think it's only 43.2 I don't know.
Roy Merritt :I'm shooting in the dark here. 40% revenue 40% revenue
Mike VO :is 60% of 40%. If you don't make money, you don't have a nursing home. Yeah, but if you
Roy Merritt :can't keep alive, if you can't keep people alive and from getting diseases from each other, you're not gonna have people in your COVID
Mike VO :if you get a large if you get a large take in money from people dying from COVID you know, it's all Yeah, you have to weigh the pros and cons here. So a business standpoint, but if you're in the medical profession, okay, so I can get into agents for people to die somebody at
Roy Merritt :Joe blows motorcycle shop gets COVID and everybody there gets COVID
Mike VO :Yeah, absolutely makes no difference, get it
Roy Merritt :right. But somebody at a fucking nursing home gets COVID and everybody there dies of COVID. But if there's anywhere on the planet that should be or know what to do or train their people on what to do.
Mike VO :Wouldn't not be in a place like that. But if anyone here got COVID Which, by the way, oh every single day for the entire lockdown dealing with anyone and everyone who came in shaking hands, doing whatever nobody wearing masks, not one single person had any symptoms or even thought they was because we all had it on somebody, whatever, right but either either way doesn't matter. But even if somebody here got it and gave it to everybody else here and we had to shut down because we had no workforce, there would be no money. It would be we would have revenue lost. However, once all those people went to the hospital, the hospital then gains an exponential amount of money because they can claim COVID so at a nursing home, they make money when people are presumed presumed to have the symptoms
Unknown Speaker :plus or upset.
Roy Merritt :COVID that's nothing
Mike VO :they don't have to. Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't matter what they that's why they say complications. That's how that's how they that's how they lie to you and get away with it. Because they say complications from the Coronavirus or complications from COVID-19 that's how that's the out that they say that they have no nothing to do with it. But if we say this, they even I mean, they've talked about it even on the mainstream media they've talked about how they categorize it and they make the actually has it and may have it categories and you lump everything into
Roy Merritt :so you have it so they make more money, this whole bullshit thing that's going on. I am actually somewhat excited because I think in a year from now, when everything's said and done and more of the information is out there people with a brain are going to give up on the media. Oh, yeah. are gonna are gonna say you know what i'm done with the news. I'm done with the media. I'm done with listening to what you have to say to me and the brainwashing and I think we may have talked about this one. I was read a book about brainwashing and this guy's whole theory or however you want to put it stance was everyone's brainwashing you for who you are. Yeah, everyone's brainwashed you are brainwashed by what you choose to ingest and and and Facebook and Google and these things feed on now that's that's how they get what they want is when you you know fuck China or whatever it is you look up this meme The next thing you know this shits popping up Yeah, and this is how they feed that addiction is they is they brainwash you so if you're looking at liberal type articles, they're gonna feed you liberal type water articles that are just hating on Trump. So when you when you kind of lean that way on anything, it brainwashes you into that way of thinking and there is no way there is There's no way to really stay, you know unmarshal or however you want to put it, you know, there is no way because you the information that is given to you, is given to you for a reason, no matter what it is given to you to make you think a certain way or do whatever it is, and, or you could try to choose from here and here and do your best. And that's what I try to do. I try to look at both, and try to grab my best idea. But ultimately, there is only one man in this country that gets as much information as possible, and that's the fucking president. Everybody else is working with bits and pieces. You know, when it comes to him, you know, when people are bitching about him and everything else. He's the only one that gets all the information. We don't get to the information he gets when he makes decisions. So people want to bash him. I didn't bash Obama. You know, I didn't bash anybody before that because I understand that that person is surrounded by people that they They take the information they get. And then they twist it in the way they want to give him the information they want him to have. And then he takes that information and does what he thinks is best for them. You know, none of us get all the information, none of us get it right. And when it's all said and done, every every bit of information we get is brainwashing us. It's taking us to you know, it's crazy. So, that was when I stopped Facebooking I totally stopped I go on Facebook maybe once or twice a week
Jordan Huerta :when I was 21. I kind of got down that same rabbit hole. And I I just got social media back in 2019. From the you know, that's, you know, for my generation, all my friends all everyone had face up. That was like the summer I seen how I got like, super addicted, like social media, you know, like, I'd be like, I'd sit down and boom, scrolling and then an hour buy in and when I was starting out I got really weird about it and I felt like I was super hooked to my phone and I had no Facebook nothing for a really long time and then I got Instagram back last year
Roy Merritt :yeah this year like motorcycle I don't mind Yeah, I don't mind
Unknown Speaker :Oh, you see this new port
Roy Merritt :include dude it'll be like a really long post and I'm like nope yeah to the next one. I'm not reading shit. Pictures
Jordan Huerta :Yeah, I originally got my Instagram back last year just solely for motorcycle related only. Um, but then next thing you know like friends old friends start and Nila like fuck man is turning into not what I want. I'm
Roy Merritt :lucky to have my personal one and then I have Talkin Braap video. So with Talkin Braap I only like and follow things that are motorcycle related. So I tend to never go on my personal one because my Talkin Braap Woods got a lot of cool shit on there. So I you know, I go through and follow a lot of that but yeah, social media is the devil.
Unknown Speaker :That's for sure. Now this thing's completely off.
Roy Merritt :Ah, there Yeah, yeah, you went to the bathroom so I turned it down so you weren't right.
Aaron Staudinger :Things fucked anyway.
Roy Merritt :Yeah, no, I'm yesterday. I swear to God, I sound sounds good. We can hear you. Okay, just barely be good. But sounds good. So, power sports. I don't think you're going anywhere. I think I'm
Aaron Staudinger :doing nothing but increasing.
Roy Merritt :Yeah. We have necessarily year over year. I don't know how that's looked. It's out. Imagine we were selling the hell out of somebody last year. I mean, we're still in the habit of some bikes right now. But I would imagine that those numbers are maybe a stalemate if anything else, you know,
Mike VO :I don't know. I don't know about the actual unit sales. I didn't look it up. But I know in parts and service, we're killing it. Yeah. Yep, motorcycles is gonna make their numbers. I mean, Saturday, you know, just, it didn't it doesn't take much just takes a little bit like you said of, you know, if the people feel welcome. Then when they're, when they feel like they can go somewhere, they're going to decide where they go. You know, I'm not going to shop at Costco. I'm not going to go to a restaurant where they have to take my temperature and you know, get my money. Yeah. You know, there's a little tiny mom this little place called Katy pies right down the road from my house. And just this crappy old lady from New Jersey runs it and it's just breakfast and lunch. And, you know, we like as soon as they open restaurants back up, we were like, oh, let's go to Waffle House. And it was like, fucking weird and sick. They give you these these paper menus. And I'm like, well, you have the laminated ones right over there. You can sanitize. Why do you keep giving me these paper ones? You throw these away every time? No, and I'm like, you just use the laminated ones right over there. You can sanitize it. Yeah. Oh, and I'm like I realized that there's there's people above you that are stupid you're just doing your job I'm just it's just odd you don't get any condiments they give you shit in like this little to go things you're trying to put hot sauce on eggs from a fucking little ketchup thing. Like you can just wipe all the shit down like you were doing before every time you don't mean isn't that kind of normal restaurant etiquette to wipe the table down to wipe all the economists down and maybe seat
Aaron Staudinger :maybe it's questionable
Mike VO :why we are where we are right but but I mean like it's stupid shit so no,
Roy Merritt :that's not why we are where we are.
Mike VO :So so we go we go to you go to eat somewhere and it's just like, awkward and strange. You know? Do you have a menu? No, they're online. So I have to look it up on my phone. It's Yeah, I would get ugly. Yeah, like, like laughter we went to brew house and they said that we couldn't all sit together. And we went in through the game. Friday Saturdays. I don't know. I saw dun dun dun with him. We went in where we the way we always go in. I mean, we've been going there for years, when in the way they're like you can't go in that way you have to go into the front door. Well then why is it unlocked?
Roy Merritt :Well, I want to go through where there are people.
Mike VO :Yeah. Why can't we just walk over here and sit at the tables we've sat at? The entire time we've gone here was
Roy Merritt :our source and it is indoors. Yeah.
Mike VO :And they're like, well, so that we all get together, we start pulling the tables. You can't do that. You can't do that. Why? We've all been together. Yeah, all fucking day long. We spent the last
Roy Merritt :12 hours considering a family that lives together.
Mike VO :Like, like, these people think that these fucking stupid rules are going to do something other than just piss people off that. So here's how here's what I do. I'm never going to brewhouse again. Yeah, but Jonathan's because you know, what was cool about john Johnson stayed over, those bastards stayed open. Even after they shut the restaurant down. They kept the bar open for to go and you go in there, get a drink until the cops went in and said, Listen, you can't fake your daughter and they will Okay, so then you can go there and drink while we're waiting for you go orders. I mean Java, you know, they had their they're
Roy Merritt :remodeling that place. So they painted, they cleaned, they move stuff around, they built some stuff they actually pay their employees to keep going right to build Yeah. And and they were like this is a perfect time for us to renovate and I was like, Man, you know what you guys have the right attitude, you know?
Mike VO :Yep, do it. We went over there the other day. Oh, shit. They're like, yeah, y'all aren't wearing masks. What does it mess with Tara?
Roy Merritt :Tara was wearing one and then she was the last time I was in there. And she's like only me and another girl over in this she's like, I'm probably not gonna keep wearing
Mike VO :like the state says we have to do it but fuck them.
Jordan Huerta :Yeah, but the dealership I was set up in Michigan when this whole thing popped off. They had to come around and physically give us one thing. Did you make cool Do
Aaron Staudinger :you know the fucking fridge? Yeah, do you
Jordan Huerta :know they had to physically come around? Hand us one. And you know, they had to like check sign off on a piece of paper that they handed us one. It's up to us. I think the frontline service writer dudes, they all had to wear one. But texts in the back, we you know, absolutely deal with people. So we were cool, but
Roy Merritt :I gave everybody gloves. And we gave him some handouts from corporate that were about COVID. And Jamie was really nervous. And he was like, well, we might have to shut down and me and Mike said in the office with him, and I said, Well, Jamie, you're gonna have a really hard time getting me not to come into work. And Mike literally said, The fuck is gonna stop me. And that was like day one. I think of this whole thing when it when it started. And we basically told Jamie that we were not planning on stopping. And thank God.
Mike VO :Yeah, we laid people off for about one week.
Roy Merritt :Oh no, it was there was a there was two and a half weeks where before we started getting people back, you don't remember because I was there was there was two, two and a half weeks of one service writer, one guy in the back and that's it. Because it was hell Trust me. I you know, I remember it. And, and then right after that, you know kind of we started bringing people back so, you know, we went back to doing other stuff but yeah, it was a it was interesting. Well, I think we're running into a stalemate here. Anyway,
Mike VO :we haven't talked about motorcycles yet.
Roy Merritt :I know prevented a lot of frustration about COVID COVID motorcycles, man, you know, fuck COVID
Unknown Speaker :COVID build
Roy Merritt :the COVID COVID bike.
Mike VO :I mean, it would just be like a pile of poop.
Jordan Huerta :Put a mask on
Mike VO :with a mask on FX archy fairing With a map, just about to say we take a fat Bob and just stretch over the stretch over the head lay like a headlight. Now it's gonna be like, let's just make it a bad boy. Is this the shittiest handling bike ever? Yeah, like, there you go. Speaking of bad boy
Roy Merritt :when we get to see wheels for that thing.
Aaron Staudinger :They're supposed to be here in three weeks,
Roy Merritt :three weeks. Holy Kelly, that's three more weeks. It'll be a year, we want to leave all that stuff. All
Aaron Staudinger :the other wheels are made in South Africa from BSD so they completely shut down. And then they had issues even if they were built. The ports were closed. Now I'm on the phone frocks, like crazy, like, Hey, what are you doing? He got to a point where he was literally gonna send either a charter plane or something because he had like hundred, I'm sure. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a wheel sitting there. He couldn't move. Yeah, and people calling him. Maybe we weren't the only ones calling him. I'm sure.
Roy Merritt :Well, yeah,
Aaron Staudinger :that's gonna be legit, though. When it's done. Yes we pretty badass yeah it is it's it is might handle a little bit better.
Mike VO :It's gonna handle the same
Aaron Staudinger :I thought I saw white right I saw white riding it out of the corner a little bit hot away. Is this thing ever gonna turn them?
Roy Merritt :yeah oh yeah they're like stand on them and they're like huh yeah like just the slowest turning by especially for sporty yeah I have a hard time getting on bigger bikes cuz I like throwing my bike around you know it's you're throwing a fat boy around. I thought you could actually break the V rod in today and the fact that things felt like a goddamn limousine compared to my bike.
Jordan Huerta :You're ripping on your bike every day. He's fucking hit that car.
Mike VO :You're that's why I hit the car. I was gonna say one of the things I learned
Roy Merritt :is that I am not a good leader. For a pack of people, it's, it's it's not usually good because as soon as the turns come like straightaways like straight down to Florida, long straight roads, give a fuck of the 45 miles an hour, I don't care. As soon as the turns come that feeling when you dip into a turn and you're accelerating into it and the grip that you get from accelerating into a turn, is the only way to go through a turn. So if I enter a turn hot, I often accelerate through it. If I you know, no matter what it is, I'm always shooting for that acceleration through the apex of the turn, there's just can't help it. So you know, 65 go into it from work and I'll cruise with Tyler. And then we hit the turns and I'll peg that fucker out and be gone every time I just cannot help it. I just there's something about leaning in. And you know that that just feeling when you're accelerating in a turn it's just really hard not to do so.
Mike VO :Tyler we go on Tesla rides and we fucking smoke that guy on the roundabout oh yeah
Roy Merritt :well it's I can't smoke him on maybe three and that but that bike should be able to wax my ass oh yeah i mean you know he'll get it you know he'll stay keep up with me but then when it comes to the like long distances of flat out, I'll have gone because I'll shoot gaps that he won't you know what I mean like I'm a little more comfortable on my bike and I get a sporty I don't have a bagger so you know I need like a foot or two and I think through there you know, and I'll shoot a couple of gaps and never see him again. And that's the end of it. Well, for Tyler, we're almost there. Check us out Talkin braap.com is Tyler
Unknown Speaker :on YouTube
Unknown Speaker :to the others. Tech.
Unknown Speaker :Oh shit,
Roy Merritt :we got some cool videos coming soon on YouTube. So Transcribed by https://otter.ai