100% Humboldt
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing Northcoast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt!
100% Humboldt
#79. From Dairy Farm to Music Store: Anthony Mantova's Humboldt Journey
What happens when you mix musical passion, Italian cuisine, and small-town entrepreneurship? Anthony Mantova, co-owner of Mantova's Two Street Music in Old Town Eureka, embodies this unexpected blend as he shares his journey from dairy farm days to running one of Humboldt County's most beloved music stores.
In this fascinating conversation, Anthony reveals how his family purchased Two Street Music in 2009, continuing a legacy that began in 1978 while bringing their own innovative approach to the business. From tearing down walls to create an open, welcoming space to an unexpected pandemic pivot that introduced Italian foods sharing the family name, Anthony's story exemplifies the creativity required to thrive in a rural economy.
The conversation takes surprising turns as Anthony shares his family's deep Humboldt roots dating back to Prohibition-era challenges, his educational journey to the Midwest, and political work that included collaborating with figures like James O'Keefe. His pragmatic yet compassionate approach to local challenges—particularly homelessness—stems from years of frontline experience in Old Town Eureka, where he's developed practical strategies now compiled in a book for fellow merchants.
What truly shines through is Anthony's unshakable belief in economic resilience through diversification. His personal goal of developing 1,000 different income streams and his refreshing perspective on Humboldt's boom-and-bust cycles offer valuable wisdom for anyone navigating uncertain economic waters. For music lovers, entrepreneurs, or anyone fascinated by the creative ways local businesses adapt and thrive, this episode delivers inspiration, practical insights, and a deep appreciation for the persistent spirit that keeps Humboldt's unique business community alive.
About 100% Humboldt with Scott Hammond
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing North Coast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt!
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Ladies, gentlemen, friends and neighbors, Scott Hammond and the 100% Humboldt Podcast with my new best friend, my old best friend, Anthony Mantova. Hey, Anthony, hey, it's great to be here.
Speaker 2:Can you hear me okay without headphones? Man, I got these invisible headphones from Bose. Those are cool $4.99 for them, available at your local music store. Good stuff, very comfy. What music store would that be? That'd be Movus Two Street Music.
Speaker 1:All right, we'll do plenty of shout outs. Yeah, yeah, do you guys have a website?
Speaker 2:and stuff we do. It's mtsmusiccom.
Speaker 1:Wow, and by the way, I brought you by. You know great to have you. Yeah, it's good to be here, so could I go back?
Speaker 2:a couple of years, many, many years, I think we first met at B&I. I wasn't going to join BNI until somebody would just buy me a sandwich. And you, scott Hammond, bought me an incredible Reuben, if I remember right.
Speaker 1:Wow, Okay, I don't remember that, but I'm a very generous individual so that had to be me. Yeah, Thanks for that. Sometimes Remember that all my kids out there yeah, so tell us who are you.
Speaker 2:What do you do first of all? Well, I work in music retail. My brothers and I bought Mantova's Two Street Music At the time. Of course, it was called Two Street Music, started in Old Town, eureka, in 1978. And we bought it in 2009. Oh nine, wow. We bought it from Kit Bradford and then, 10 years prior to that, he bought it from Russ Krause.
Speaker 1:Russ Krause, yeah Of course you know, Russ.
Speaker 2:He has the pawn shop up the street the biggest one up the street in the world, Yep and it has a beautiful big gold rock in front of it. I always admire that when I drive. Is it really made of gold? You know, I've been wanting to go over and chip a little piece and see, but I don't think it is. But maybe it is, I don't know. You know, it's quite a prop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's quite west, Very west, Very western, and Old Town is well. Old Town's got a colorful history, right where you're located it has a very colorful history.
Speaker 2:Tell us more. Yeah, no-transcript, so I'm kind of figuring it's about 1915. Kathleen would know if you wanted to ask her, but it's a really interesting building. It used to be a furniture store. I believe it was the site of Rendezvous Vending used to store their stuff in there. There was a skating rink on the top floor and I don't really know much about that transition. What happened as it went through those different things. But 1978, I believe, is when Russ started it and he was already in the music business space before that. He'd actually be a good guest for you, but he was gigging at the time and I believe he had his first business. I think he started in 75 or 76 up the street and they were in a really small one room deal where I think the back wall was on wheels. So if he had a lot of inventory he could push the wall back and if he sold a bunch, he could move the wall forward.
Speaker 2:So it's all about merchandising. It's always about merchandising.
Speaker 1:It's a presentation man Presentation's a huge part of it Blow the walls out, Exactly.
Speaker 2:So we took over. Kip had put up a bunch of fake walls because he was just going for kind of a different vibe. We tore all the walls down. I think within six months we tore down like seven walls in the store. So we really opened it up and we were all about a business model of a lot of accessories. We always said the meat potatoes of what musicians want.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to get my joke in here. Tear down the wall, mr Gorbachev. There it is, mr Mantova.
Speaker 2:Exactly right. But it was a really good move and we've always had that focus on moving a lot of accessories and just making sure that we're viable to as many people as possible, not just in Humboldt but up and down the highway from Portland to San Jose. We've always had that focus and everything kind of stems from that.
Speaker 1:So would a lot of traveling musicians pop in and oh a ton First name basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, first name basis with a lot of them. I have an incredible memory that I worked on getting and so I remember things five, six, 10 years back, and so when they come in I remember them, I remember what they did a conversation we had.
Speaker 1:I'm really good about that. Do you remember the Reuben sandwich I bought you to get you into?
Speaker 2:BNI. That's why I'm here, I only go where I'm fed.
Speaker 1:obviously I mean look at me.
Speaker 2:You don't get 300 pounds by eating sushi or something.
Speaker 1:There could be some Dick Taylor chocolate in this.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness gracious me, tanzania.
Speaker 1:I'm going to eat that one. Woo, you haven't earned it yet. We'll see about you. The jury's out. So that Reuben sandwich is all it took Cheap date.
Speaker 2:It really is sad, but yeah, food gets you places. Hey man, we became a grocery store, a low-level grocery store, five years ago. We brought on Mantova Foods, or, as they say in Italy, mantova, and so we sell incredible Italian cuisine high-end gnocchi, great olive oils In the store in the music store.
Speaker 1:In the music store Is it put in the? I bet in a couple of times not too long ago, but I would never, I would never, ever hide exquisite, gourmet Italian cuisine.
Speaker 2:It's right up front, by the front counter, where I can point at it and say, by the way, get some pasta.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty embarrassed now. I probably haven't been in for a minute, but hey, that's okay.
Speaker 2:But after COVID, we learned it was a good idea to be a grocery store, and so the first year that we did it in 2020, we did $10,000 of food sales, which blew my mind. I thought it was just going to be a fun thing. Hey, this Mantova Foods is the same as my last name. I'll just roll with that. So it is all branded. This is all branded. Mantova Brothers in 1905 started a food company In Italy, in Italy. Is that where you ship from and that's where we ship from?
Speaker 1:That's where we get it, not via America. Well, I guess it goes via America.
Speaker 2:It sits in Illinois for a while, but it is direct from Italy and it's the European food standard. So there's no artificial colors, no artificial flavors. It's real food, which I'm a big fan of. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know Me too.
Speaker 2:Kind of a controversy now, but real food is the best way to go. I know so many people that are getting older and their health isn't there because they don't eat right. Right Geez, not going to get on that soapbox, but it's for my own health too. It, but it's for my own health too. It saves me so many trips to the grocery store. I can just walk out in front of my counter and grab a bag of my own pasta. It's gnocchi for dinner, and gnocchi is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:Oh man so good.
Speaker 2:And never expires. I mean, we pull it by the expiration date, which is 10 months, but everything this was why the family did it. I am going somewhere with this Scott's, but where I'm going is the reason it worked out was any food that expires the family buys. There's zero waste. Oh, that's cool, yeah, so I've got probably 40 bags of gnocchi at home that didn't get sold on time. Technically it expires, but never really expires, it's freeze-dried. It's good for a long time.
Speaker 1:Where's it going to go?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's going to go in my belly eventually.
Speaker 1:I was getting trouble for eating the dated stuff at home.
Speaker 2:It's never this isn't bad. People are weird about that. Some people will go crazy if they look at a label, and it's because they're just programmed to think a certain way, right?
Speaker 1:It's not bad. It's not bad. Does it smell and taste good? I think it's good it is good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Arguably you might lose a little flavor, but yeah, it's a win-win.
Speaker 1:So we had a pre-wedding party at our house and we roasted up about a dozen chickens in the oven. Oh, incredible, and somehow I don't know how this happened, frankly, because there was a lot of people involved. They were there the next morning.
Speaker 2:you know cold.
Speaker 1:And my daughter goes. I think these would be fine. They smell great. They were left out all night In the oven. And Joni goes Cleo, that in a million years you're not touching those. No, that's different. You don't eat that, that's just death.
Speaker 2:That's a bad idea. You have a really bad time doing that. That's a really bad.
Speaker 1:That's not a good time.
Speaker 2:Audience please use on this. Please don't just take what we're saying and just eat anything expired. Make sure it's safe first. A little disclaimer there. I don't want to get sued.
Speaker 1:It's a free world Do what you want, man. So Old Town, eureka. We got a lot of history here. Yes, we do, and we'll go back into Russ and we'll move forward from there, but you're in the part of town which you know. I saw some photos of the 60s. Even it was Old Town. It sucked, man. It was still pretty rough right. Then they got all that retro money and they fixed it up in the early 70s maybe.
Speaker 2:Well, here's the thing. I'm in my 40s. I wasn't even around in the 60s, right, I have to lean on Stories. Well, I have to lean on the wise and seasoned citizens like yourself to keep me on track for how things were in the 60s.
Speaker 1:I'm here for you. I came in 78 from San Diego. What do I know?
Speaker 2:Okay, they didn't pay attention. You're a newbie. You're not 100% humble, but you're 78% humble.
Speaker 1:I'm 100% Iowa. Okay, incredible, it's right here on my back, oh wait.
Speaker 2:It's right here on my back, oh wait. No, it's interesting because, obviously, on the one hand, people are telling me, they're always asking me, how are things going down there? And it's a very open-ended question with a very direct expectation of what I'm going to say Right in that environment, and you deal with it. Obviously, I've tried to deal with it in a few different ways over the last few years, but when we first where I'm going with this is when we first took over I had such bigger problems with the criminal element, let's just say, than I do today, because there are things that people just have forgotten about. Right out front of the store in the morning at 6 am, 7 am, 8 am, I called them drug buses when we first took over, there'd be these vans that would just pull up in front of the store and literally like a taco truck, they would just hand the drugs out the window. What? And they? Yeah, for free. Well, I don't think so. I think there was some kind of illicit financial arrangement. It's the ice cream man.
Speaker 2:But I had to work with, like Officer Goodale, you remember him. I had to work with some of the police to get those drug buses just moved down the street. Obviously everybody knows they're going to do business, but you can't do it in front of a family store. You can't do it in front of a family-friendly store where kids are going in for music lessons. They can't do that. So we got the drug buses moved and it took quite a while to get those buses moved. That's way worse than what I'm dealing with now. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, what I mean. Yeah, and Eureka PD, I think, has come a long way in some respects. They've got staff that really know how to work with some of the worst of the criminal drug addicts and keep them moving, so we're happy about that. There are good things to point to. There is progress, sure, but on the other hand, is the problem getting worse with the homeless? Absolutely Is the problem getting worse with the?
Speaker 1:homeless, absolutely. Yes, I think I've seen it. Yeah, it's the numbers, yeah, and they're talking about it at city council chambers and so it's kind of re.
Speaker 2:Well, the city council came and decided to make the outdoor camping a misdemeanor. They can't even agree on that, and it's like you're not going to convince anybody to stop their illicit camping if you can't even give them a misdemeanor offense. Anything less than that is just a hey buddy, move on. And hey buddy moves on are okay, but not like this. There's no triage, there's no like John Shelter wants to do, there's no going in there and actually addressing. Hey, here's your criminal drug addicts, here's your mentally ill, and then here's your little group that really could just go talk to Brian at the rescue mission and get help. Nobody will produce the unique solutions each of the three groups needs, right? Not that you're here to talk with me about that.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely, it's easy to go down these topics. No, it's a great topic.
Speaker 2:Well, it affects everybody. Well, it's one of those, especially me.
Speaker 1:It Especially me. It's what it looks like the abortion issue or gun control or homelessness or health care. It's like we all, we all get it. It's all an issue. You get it because you're right. You're kind of a little bit in the heart of it, yeah, but I love the way that you creatively dealt with it. You've you, you, you. My perception is that you shoo people along and hey, there's kids here you go. Victor Green used to do it at In-N-Out Burger. Yeah, he's really good, was he? He's a great guy. He's the first mayor of Arcata. Now he's my age.
Speaker 2:Oh, interesting. Yeah, he's 59. Crazy. Well, if anybody wants to know, I wrote a book on it, available on straightforward. It's a great book and basically what it is is it's for merchants like myself. It has sold not hundreds of copies, because not very many people that are actually going to buy this.
Speaker 2:But what's special about the book is, if you're running a business and you need to deal with the criminal, drug addicts, the homeless which are two different things it actually breaks down what you can legally do and it takes what you can do and breaks it into three functions policy written, I'm sorry. Policy physical and verbal. Tricks, strategies, things that work to humanely deal with the problem. That's cool and I map it out. I go step by step because I've put in the work and I started working on this book in 2016. Wow, 10 years ago 10 years ago and I just added little bits to it and I'm still working on it, but there is an edition that's out available because I wanted to get it out there.
Speaker 2:It all started when Eureka Police. One of them said to me hey, you've got all of these tricks for keeping them out of your store and doing it peacefully. Okay, can you just put it in writing and teach other merchants? And that's what sparked it. It was actually the EPD and so I just started working on it and now it's available and there will be another edition coming and I'm hoping to add like 75 pages to it, because I've got new ideas and I want to. Some of it just needs a little bit more description, but that is available on Amazon Kindle, really so printed copies no, it's e-copies, it's an e-copy.
Speaker 2:Okay To do. They need more pages, they need a little bit different layout to do paperback and that's going to be next. It's called KDB.
Speaker 1:Press.
Speaker 2:They have their own division. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1:That's why I printed this one, which was their old WordPress format. Oh, very cool.
Speaker 2:I remember when that book came out you actually sold a lot of copies, I think dozens yeah.
Speaker 1:I remember my first bad review. I'm telling my son, jacob, what do I do? And he goes you got nine good ones, great ones. You got one bad one that's good because you want a 4.9. You don't want a 5.0, because otherwise it's BS.
Speaker 2:So many marketing firms pay for reviews and everyone kind of instinctively knows it. I think yeah. So you do need a few black eyes, so to say. But how do you deal with reviews? Does it bother you, does it talk to your soul, or does it bounce off you?
Speaker 1:I think I'm kind of a review wimp. I don't like a bad review. What really pisses me off is the lying sack of crap review that I don't know this person. They live in Reading. We've never done business. We have track records for 100 years of business. You know people that we've insured at, you know where insurance and it's really crazy because that's just a freaking lie. And you know, and Yelp is the chief culprit of social media of propagating, I guess, poop heads and trolls and people that somehow get their jollies from ripping on your business.
Speaker 2:The best thing that you can do to build that muscle of really not caring is to run for office. I've been wanting you to run for some office in Eureka for a long, long time, and I even I think I talked to one of your coworkers.
Speaker 1:I live in McKellieville. I can't do this, but I could move.
Speaker 2:You could run for county soup. You'd be a great county soup I'll run against.
Speaker 1:What's her name?
Speaker 2:You watch how quick this video is going to get canceled.
Speaker 1:Is it Mary Burke? Is that her name? She's running, actually. I heard that, yeah, we're talking about having her as a guest. Oh, that'd be great. Let's just make it a debate.
Speaker 2:Great, all for it. Just kidding. No, I wouldn't. No, you'd be fantastic, you really would Thank you I would watch every debate you do and we would laugh and scrap and maybe sometimes we'd even turn the sound on.
Speaker 1:Hilarious. Yeah, no, I'd be great at it. What happened to all Scott's hair so weird I used to know when he had hair. So, yeah, history. So Old Town, eureka's got this 200 years. Well, 150 years of history. Yeah, you're part of town, wasn't there? Is there still an art studio upstairs, anthony, yes, there's still an art studio.
Speaker 2:The incredible Augustus is up there and sometimes he's very loud because he's just passionate about his painting. You'll hear things flying and I don't know what's going on up there, but he does incredible work if you're into that kind of art, and it's not just him. I think there's five or six art studios up there, right, and we've been a whole bunch of different artists up there over the years, yeah, and we actually rent three different sections of the building and so our warehouse is by the stairwell back there, and so we hear we hear people running up and running back down. It's very busy, especially as you get close to Arts Alive, which is still a thing. Arts Alive is kind of like their big payday, you know, because the public can come up the stairs Check it out At least they used to be able to. I haven't been to one in a while, but the public used to be able to go up there Hope I'm still right about that and see the art and buy it and help pay the rent. You know, yeah, pay the rent. Who owns that?
Speaker 1:building Kathleen Krause Krause. Yeah, I know that name Is Elizabeth Berenger. Was that her name? That did the wire sculptures, the giant horse.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, Remember her. Yeah, I do.
Speaker 1:She may have maybe gone, but I I haven't thought of her that name in a long time. Super good artist.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we've had some real talent come through. We really have, and that's one thing that, if anybody will, just I get a lot of people looking for jobs, a lot of people looking for work not just now, but all the time, but it's definitely ramped up and if I get a clue that they've got an artisanal ability that they can actually make things there are. The water's warm right now to jump in to music retail creation. There are so many different products that locals could make that I would buy. And some of these things like hand pans, we need somebody to make. You know the big they look like a UFO and you, you, you, you beat on them Hand pans that those can sell for two to $8,000. Wow, and for a few years now I've just been looking for somebody locally to make them. Each one's about 40 hours of work to build, so it's not.
Speaker 2:You know it's it's, it's work, but it's like there's so many things that locals could be building. Wow, you don't just have to rely on a job. There are so many ways to make money.
Speaker 1:How about the guys up in Arcata that make xylophones? Marimba one, yeah. Marimba yeah, they're fantastic. Wait, they're making Marimbas.
Speaker 2:But they could make a handpan.
Speaker 1:They could Do. You know those guys? Steve actually started Yakima and Adventures Edge. He's Kokatat.
Speaker 2:Oh very cool. Steve Cole shout out what's up, Steve, there's a lot of people I know by face, but I don't have all the names down.
Speaker 1:So you're right next to the mission.
Speaker 2:So, brian and the crew, oh yeah, moved in there after we took over and Brian's been an incredible partner. He really has.
Speaker 1:He's a good man.
Speaker 2:Brian Hall shout out to Brian yeah, Brian's legit. Yeah, Does a lot of really good work down there.
Speaker 1:Good, good guy man, really big, deep respect for those guys. So let's go back to Russ. So Russ was the former Right and a funny story about Russ when I worked in newspaper remember this thing called a newspaper. Yeah, it was made out of paper. I remember those. Yeah, nick, do you recall that Nick's got his monitor where I can't see him now? So he's my fourth. Fifth wall is gone.
Speaker 2:Do you let people know that he sleeps back there? I don't say a thing. He's asleep right now. No way. I hope he's recording.
Speaker 1:I don't even know if he's recording so in the newspaper days. Russ would do a little one column by six inch ad, and so would Brooks up at Wildwood Music in Arcata, which is top of the bay in Arcata. Yeah, I think I know where it's at. You hang out with those guys, right.
Speaker 2:I go in once in a while time, or did he?
Speaker 1:I think it's errol errol running the place. Errol, yeah, yeah, remember sean mike matthias.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you remember brooks otis oh yeah yeah, anyway, brooks, um, he'd have, you know, 10 martin guitar, he'd very, he would cram this ad, sure, and russ would do these creative things like I don't you know, just weird. You know five words in this one column and it got him and he'd do a new one every week, really, and he just paid it's cheap ad, yeah, but he would do this rather than list instruments. He would do this other esoteric Zen campaign. You know quotes, cool quotes, interesting, and that worked. I think it worked good. Yeah, he stayed with it. It was. You know, it was cheap enough.
Speaker 2:See, my problem is I don't have the creative ability to do that. I'm so literal. The most literal guy you'll ever know is me, and so it's hard for me to write ads that are creative like that. My ads are incredibly boring.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, speaking of your dad, um, it's Lindy, right, yeah, lindy.
Speaker 1:Don't call him Cindy I I, I wouldn't do that and I want to talk about guests that have come through the store. But before I do that, if you're just joining us, this is the pregnant pause break. If you're just joining us, it's me, scott Hammond, with 100% Humboldt, here in Humboldt County, california, with my new best friend, the man, the myth, the legend, the great, anthony Mentova, and he is, he is my guest and we're talking about his experience in Eureka, in Old Town, at Two Street Music and former owners and moving forward to your dad, so your dad's musical accordion legend and DJ?
Speaker 2:right, he certainly is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's incredible Kids radio DJ for a minute.
Speaker 2:Yeah, news guy, he's a news. He read news. Yeah, reading the the news Cause you know, dj is a little different thing. Dj, you're doing music beds and you're doing the weather and all this other stuff in the old radio thing. No, I wouldn't call him a DJ news anchor. So he's getting a news anchor. Yep, uh, I, I did it first in 2002, I think that's right, I think I remember that.
Speaker 2:Doing a summer job kind of thing, and Hugo hired me. You know, Hugo was incredible and Hugo and Brian and I did that for a little while and then I went off to college and at the time there was a lot of turmoil in our family because, no small part due to Canadian tariffs, the milk business was not doing so hot and so we sold-. You guys dairy people, we were dairy people. I didn't even know this. Tell me where's the farm? Yeah, that's probably why we work so hard.
Speaker 2:The family is based in Carlotta. It's actually Hydesville, California, right there by Yager Creek, and I forget the name of the guy. But the guy that originally founded it as a farm was not a Mantova, he was an eccentric millionaire in the year 1900. And there has been some interesting research on the guy. But he came over from wherever he came from and he invested a ton of money in our neck of the woods and so our old barns have these old advanced pulley systems that were state of the art for their time and because redwood was super duper cheap and everywhere these incredible barns that we have on the property were that old growth redwood, Because back then nobody was hugging trees, there was no forest maintenance or anything.
Speaker 2:If there was a tree, it was going to be turned into a table or a barn or something, and so you know incredible or a home, yeah, and so there's some incredible buildings out there that were stay of the art for their time and they're still standing to this day. We don't know what the pulleys and things do, because he showed up in a rush, built all this stuff and then he disappeared in a rush. He was a bulb farmer and I still don't think anybody knows where he went or why, but he went away and Mantovas were highlighted recently at the Clark Museum during the Prohibition era. One or two of my family from back then might've been making too much wine, going past the wine limits, had a rough time in Eureka and moved to Hydesville and took over that spot.
Speaker 1:Interesting Okay.
Speaker 2:And that's kind of where the family has been ever since. This would be Lindy's dad, your grandpa, yeah, his grandpa. Actually, I'm third generation, so it would be Um, actually, uh, I'm third generation, so it would be um. His grandpa was involved. He was born in 22, I think, so it would be his relatives that were um part of um leaving Eureka during the prohibition era thing, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, he was too young to really be involved in that. But there, what people don't realize about prohibition is it's not as if alcohol was illegal and then it became legal and everything was fine. No, when you make a big change by amendment at the federal level, all of the state and local rules don't just go away. It takes time, and so my family basically got treated pretty roughly by the laws that were still on the books.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:That's not cool, and so I kind of like the idea that now, 100 years later or whatever, we're back. We made a comeback.
Speaker 1:We made a comeback, took a little while. How long was Prohibition? Any idea? It wasn't a full 10 years, no, but it was long enough to mess up the country In the 20s, late 20s maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, nickel look at that Jeopardy here.
Speaker 2:I don't remember, it's been too long yeah. But all the gin joints and all the All the speakeasies and all that stuff. Incredible bit of history.
Speaker 1:And all the South man. They made all the white lining stuff. Yeah, that's absolutely true. What's up? Y'all Shout out to the South.
Speaker 2:Hey, so tell me more about, uh, who's wandered in the music store over the years. That's interesting, that would be of note. Or leonardo dicaprio, when he's no movie, or we have. We have had a few a-listers um people that were playing or just traveling. No, no, you're always traveling. Um, I didn't know. You're gonna ask this. This is one of those things. It's not like it's a big secret or anything, but I I don't like to give the artist names, okay, because it's like you secret or anything, but I don't like to give the artists names.
Speaker 2:Okay, Because it's like you're either. There are some places where artists go and they just get hassled because they know they can't just go buy a pack of strings, Right, Instead. Oh, let me get a picture with you autograph.
Speaker 1:We don't do that. So you could reveal a name if it wasn't local, couldn't?
Speaker 2:you. I could tell you off air. Yeah, I'm not going to say it on here.
Speaker 1:How about Captain Beefheart in Trinidad? Okay, he, you know it was interesting. He did a really terrible set on SNL on Saturday Night Live, right, I just saw that in the history. It's like whoever cast him, like they went on with this crazy, loud, nutty, weird song. The captain? He lived up in Trinidad, as I understand. Yeah, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I met an incredible guy in Trinidad just today. His name is I can say this, his last name is Lockett. I just met him. Oh shoot, you look up his IMDB. You know his Hollywood profile.
Speaker 2:He did a whole bunch of scoring for big shows, their music, all the way back to 1997. That's cool. And I'm just blanking on his first name. I just met him. But what's really cool about this guy is he lives in Trinidad and he is staying and he wants to open a studio up to artists Cool. And he's going to start working with locals if it's a good fit and he's also going to start guitar repair Huh, and he's going to do some light violin repair too. And we just had a good discussion.
Speaker 2:Up in town Up in Trinidad. That's cool. So we had a really good discussion about what that actually looks like and how much business I could send him, and so far it's going really well. He's going to be sending me some more info, but yeah, we have a world-class studio right under our nose. There's so many things like that up here, but he is going to get more public and any serious bands that aren't going to waste his time. Please call me and I'll put you in touch.
Speaker 1:And you know Paul Beattie from the Steeple right.
Speaker 2:Of course.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, paul, tell us about that studio out yonder and toward wherever in the hills that's supposed to be. Do you know my?
Speaker 2:history with that Was In 2021,. I started a company, me and Justin called Noble House Studios, and it was exactly around for one year and I worked so dang hard to get the funding to buy that place, justin Hobart.
Speaker 2:No no, grimaldo. Okay, but we worked very it's not. There's not that much I can get into, but the fact is we worked really hard for a year to get the funding to get that place and it would have been amazing if we had pulled that off. It's world-class studio. They want too much money. Yeah, $6 million, it's still give me a break, is it still?
Speaker 2:existed. It still exists, um, I have no idea, um, what the state of it is, but I've been there once or twice and it's incredible. It could have been, it really could have been something, and it's just. You know, in life you try things, you know, yeah, and I have failed at so many more things than I've tried, and this was one of my many failures, but I learned a ton from it and I have zero regrets about trying.
Speaker 1:Hey man, it would have been really cool, though, watch what you pray for matter where you go, there you are. Yeah, let's keep those up. Exactly, we go back and forth all day, so let's go from your pedigree, from school. So you went to elementary school here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is where I hope I'm 100% humble. I went to Hydesville Elementary and graduated to Fortuna High, nice, and then I did College of the Redwoods for one year and then I just needed to change and, like I said, that was a very tough time for the family. It was tough because of transitions. You know, I think the cows were all sold by the time I was 16. So my whole life, 16 and before, was very heavy on the dairy work. You know people that don't know, really don't know. It's like those cows have to get fed calves morning and night 365.
Speaker 1:365, no vacations, which equals 700, 800 and some odd milkings.
Speaker 2:And without that work I don't think I could do what I do today. You know what I mean. But it was too much. It was too much and it got to the point where, by the time I was of that age, I wanted nothing to do with agriculture. I hated it.
Speaker 2:I mean I was like I got to get the heck out of here. So I went to Hillsdale, michigan, hillsdale College Wow, incredible school. It was really good for me. I was a transfer student from CR. They didn't take very many of my credits because you know their standards way higher. Love College of the Redwoods. But you know what? Any of my credits because you know their standards way higher Love College of the Redwoods.
Speaker 1:But you know what's Hillsdale? I've heard of it, hillsdale. What's it known for?
Speaker 2:If you're looking at the map of Michigan, it's right there.
Speaker 1:Is it what's it? Is it small? Midwest liberal arts.
Speaker 2:It's small Midwest liberal arts. It's basically the Harvard for conservative-minded people.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Conservative-minded people.
Speaker 1:I think we had some friends or kid go with that.
Speaker 2:What people don't understand, though, is people hear what I just said and they think, oh, it's all, it's a, there's no diversity. Right, you couldn't get more diverse, because when you go there, you do have a few liberals, but what you actually have is you have anarcho-capitalists, you have the Milton Friedman people, you've got the um the party type Republican type people. Right, it's actually incredibly diverse, and they argue all night long. And they have crazy parties and they have a good time over there and it's a wild place. Animal House actually was Hillsdale director.
Speaker 2:The guy went to Hillsdale.
Speaker 1:That's funny.
Speaker 2:So they've got that background, they got the pedigree for it. But no, it's an incredible school, incredible teachers. I had Victor Davis Hanson for a teacher. You know him, he's an incredible historian on Greek stuff. But I was a political science major and I was a music. I might as well. I was a classics minor with a focus on Latin, and then I might as well have been a music minor because I was always in the music building you know, I've always been a music kid, you know yeah. Tenor sax was my instrument.
Speaker 1:All those conservative musicians, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep, we're out there yeah. But, going to a place like that, you have to defend your point of view. So it's like and I find myself doing that now as an adult it's not an echo chamber, is my point. You're challenged on everything you really are and we should be. You should be.
Speaker 1:Why not? And that's a far cry from the division that we give a lot of press to. And I, I really I just decided on this show. Hey, we're all divided. You know what we're? There's some division, but we're not Fundamentally we. I think there's goodwill among men and women, and I've watched it. I mean we went to Boise, idaho. I've traveled. I mean, if somebody's kid falls, I mean everybody wants to help.
Speaker 2:You know humanity when you see it. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's not missed on me and I think if you're looking for it you're going to see it, and I think that myth of hey, we're done, sure that I don't get locked in an echo chamber.
Speaker 2:I turned off mass media years ago. I called it deprogramming a detox, media detoxing. I did that and it was one of the best things ever.
Speaker 2:I consume so little media. Like 1% of my day. Is media Cool, Including social media? Social media, yes. Actually I do very little Instagram anymore, but that's more recent, Because I have this goal by the time I'm your age, I want to have 1,000 different sources of income. This is a real goal of mine 1,000 different sources. Well, sadly, that involves social media. So there are certain apps I use that make money and I learn them, and my goal is to have 1,000 different incomes, and that definitely involves quite a few different apps that make me money.
Speaker 1:I'm always making money. It sounds like a lot of money.
Speaker 2:Well, it dribbles in. Here and there there might be something that I get started. That might be a few pennies a day, then there might be some other things that are the occasional $20 burst. But my way of looking at it is I'm staying in California, I'm staying here, where things are tricky and anything can happen. Every day is different. You know, when I go to work it's not your regular job. Anything can happen. To give you an idea, I can have three phone calls at once, I can have two different trade deals, and I can have one person that just wants to buy strings and talk about strings, and then I can have a criminal drug addict come in and want to go play guitars and his hands are full of you know, whatever, whatever. I have to deal with all that at once, wow, all the time. And it bounces off of me because I have that muscle I put in the work. I do it every day. And so my point is because I've really come to learn just how every day is a gift. Every day you wake up is a gift. Because I know that and I know it can be taken away very quickly.
Speaker 2:I want to have as many different sources of income as possible. Same old, same old. I'm looking at them, I'm like how there's so much to do. How can it be same old, same old? There's so many ways to make money and if you're creative, there's so many creative things you can do too and take care of people. Yep, that's a really good, really good thing, and I do that a lot. I'm always trying to identify what people are trying to do and help. Not now, what do you want to do? Because in my mind I'm thinking maybe I can find them some employment Good for you. And then they look at you. I do this all the time. Then they look at you and they say I'll do anything. Well, the problem is, I'll say if you can't think of anything, I can't think of anything. So then we talk a little bit about what we actually want to do.
Speaker 1:I want to be a brain surgeon.
Speaker 2:Yeah and uh right, and so it's like I'm always trying to find people jobs and help people, um cause that's what. That's what you should do.
Speaker 1:It's the referral thing. I love it, and that that harkens back to BNI business networking.
Speaker 2:Which started with that Reuben sandwich.
Speaker 1:With the, you know the Reuben, the, the famous Rubin. So you went to Hillsdale, then came back home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did Well, no, no, actually I went to Hillsdale and like a lot of people at that age, I was probably over the top looking back, hindsight's 20-20.
Speaker 2:I was so scared of getting locked in a career Because back then I'm jumping around a little bit, but I was just really scared about getting locked into a career which when you go to college and you graduate, the first thing you should do is get locked into a career to get the income so that you can pay your bills and do things. But I was a little too flighty for that. So I immediately took a job with the Leadership Institute Morton Blackwell's firm in Arlington, virginia, and I was a field rep. I was a field rep for Oregon, montana, idaho and Washington State and all that really means a lot of driving and I would go to the schools and try to start trouble, try to start organizations, find the leaders I worked with, like James O'Keefe you know he's very, very big deal now. I didn't work with him directly in the field, but we knew each other and it was incredible seeing him make it. He's fearless, he's incredible.
Speaker 1:Rewind me who he is, what he does.
Speaker 2:He started off at Rutgers University. He was a Lucky Charms kid. What he did was he patented I still don't really know how he does it. I mean, I kind of do, but he patented the hidden camera before it was mainstream. And so what he did was he got a meeting with the dean of the school at Rutgers and he formed a fake group called Irishmen for America or something, and basically his little group of Irishmen were trying to appeal to have Lucky Charms banned from the cafeteria because it's offensive to Irish people. It was a joke, but the Dean fell for it and it's still on YouTube. It's an incredibly funny video.
Speaker 2:He, um, guys like him. My job was to find guys like him. Well, in reality there's only a few guys like him, but I did make some great connections. Um, I did a few things behind the scenes that I'm really proud of in the political sphere, so I did that for a term and then I was the rep for California and Nevada, and that term was nowhere near successful. It's way more expensive to live. There were some operational things, but then I took an office job. They hired me to work in the office in Arlington, so I went. I moved Again. It was on a whim. You know, a lot of these decisions I made are very impulsive Is that Dulles Metroplex Arlington.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's Arlington it's about. It's just outside of DC.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry the other, I apologize, I'm in Texas.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no, no not.
Speaker 1:Texas, is that where the Rangers play?
Speaker 2:Right, right. Well, I was thinking like Dulles Airport.
Speaker 1:No, we're south of that. You're in DC Got it.
Speaker 2:I was there for 2006, 2007. And then Great opportunity back east, huge opportunity, and I was there for about a year in the office and then I ended up working a few odd jobs and then I finally found what if I still really wanted it. I found the perfect job. It was contracting with Dr Donald Devine. Dr Donald Devine was Reagan's swift, terrible sword. He was the director of OPM, the Office of Personal Management, and what people don't understand is that we have fired a bunch of bureaucrats before We've gone through this, before we went through it with Don Devine and he fired so many people. He fired 100,000, I believe federal workers in the 80s and what Reagan told him was I want you to fire lots of people and make the remaining ones work harder. That was his orders and he did. He was so effective that in 84, they would not reconfirm him.
Speaker 2:Just a little history bit I worked for him for a year and we taught something called the Federalist Leadership School, because by training he wasn't even really an employment guy. He is a professor of political history, of, not political economics. I forget the it's been 20 years since I thought of this, but he basically teaches a. When I was working with him. He was teaching a class about leadership principles for people that wanted to get into politics and we took it on the road. We did a few things in DC but we did classes in like Kansas. I don't know if we made it out to California, but we did the Midwest quite a bit, a lot of the Midwest, and it was just a crazy time in my life because I barely had any money and I might look at my bank account and be like, okay, I got 200 bucks and I need to drive to Ohio, but I'd find a way to do it. I did crazy stuff like that back then. How many?
Speaker 1:folks, do you think Trump's fired so far?
Speaker 2:Not enough. There's so many more that need to go. Look at the amount of embezzlement, the waste, fraud and abuse it was setting you up. On that one, we're just getting started. Do you think he's done 100,000 jobs yet? Probably.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, yeah, if you count the contractors that must be a number.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's at least 100,000. Yeah, but the problem is much bigger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, much bigger. Now we're a bigger nation. We Did. You know the guy that lived locally, so back to Reagan. He got Nancy and Ron to run. He was a local guy, peter.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:Great guy, had lunch with him a couple times. You know me, I'll just have room and sandwich with anybody.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, exactly right. Hope he bought it that time. You didn't buy him a sandwich, did you? I'm pretty sure he bought lunch. He can't afford his own sandwich. What a great guy. He was a really good guy. He popped in like twice in the music store and I got to talk to him a little bit. Peter shoot. I just met somebody. I have one of his books at home. I don't remember it's been a long time.
Speaker 1:We just met somebody that knew him and he oh, bill Barnum knows him. Bill knows everybody Bill's local royalty and you and I know every other buddy. It's truth, buddy. Hey, it's that time of the show. If you're just joining me, I'm here with my new best friend, anthony.
Speaker 2:I feel like we didn't cover any local history at all. Oh, maybe we'll do it again. We're having fun with it.
Speaker 1:Hey, well, we're going to make some history. Good deal, All right. Hey, on the quiz show part where you could win a fabulous Dick Taylor, that was a big bar, Tanzania bar, 65% dark chocolate folks. And you know what's cool about this Besides getting a buzz when you eat the chocolate, a nice whatever. That is endorphin thing like 140 calories.
Speaker 2:How'd they do that? I don't know, it's just sugar and they're not doing that Splenda thing, are they no? Better, be real sugar Careful.
Speaker 1:These guys are your neighbors, man. How come Barry Flitz is not going to buy their strings anymore from you? Make you in big trouble. Yeah, now that looks really delicious. I like dictation, obviously, you know, dustin and Adam Rapp. Yeah, you know, ray Robinson plays bass. Yeah, shout out to Ray. Yeah, yeah, of course. And the other guys. I should know them by first name. One guy works at McCray Nissan across the street, and the other guy is just the magical behind-the-scenes guitar player. He's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got to value guys like that and that's like a lot of these folks. I don't get the names all the time, but I remember their backstory. That's what.
Speaker 1:I'm good at hey you, that's our joke, joni you, that's our joke, joni, hey you. Yep, You're 65. I've met a lot of people. I'm sorry, I totally know who you are. I value everything about you, but, heck, if I know your name, right now you put a gun to my head. Maybe I'd get lucky.
Speaker 2:Now you can be like old man, perry. Once you get to 100, or even 90, I would argue, once you get to 90, you can call everybody a kid hey kid, he'll do that, you know. If there's an 80-year-old in the store, he'll be like hey kid, you know. But once you get to 90, you get these special privileges. Who's old man, perry? Does he work for you? No, perry, he's incredible. He's still alive. I couldn't believe it. I saw him the other day, perry of auditing Dianne Feinstein.
Speaker 2:That Perry that Perry yeah, he was amazing, amazing man. He's still alive. Perry Mason, he might as well be no, he's a one of the best dressed people in Humboldt, skinny dude, but he's in his 90s now and I wish them a happy birthday the other day. What's his last name and you're gonna ask me.
Speaker 1:Unforgettable. Hey, let's get you a chocolate bar Ready, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm ready. Question number one.
Speaker 1:You have the day off Tomorrow's Friday and you can do whatever you want with whomever you want, and no expenses spared. 9 am to 9 pm. Anthony Mantovano for 10 points. What do you do with your day?
Speaker 2:I never get a day off like that.
Speaker 1:This is your day off I know, I hear that you have to do. We're going to hold a gun to your head on this. You have to take the day off. Actually, I have to take the question too. I'm going to take the question, I won't dodge it. Can you put your headphones on and then tell me?
Speaker 2:some more musical people that come in. So I've been with my gorgeous her name's Di. I've been with her for about seven years, almost seven years now so obviously I'd be hanging out with her and she makes me incredible meals. I don't know if you ever go on Facebook at Humboldt Foodies. She posts her incredible meals on there every single day, and so it's so hard for us. I used to take her out fairly often, but now that she's really found her passion, which is cooking, we just don't go out as much, especially with our work schedules. We moved to Southern Humboldt but, to answer your question, and you found your passions, which is eating, yeah, I have, and it's working well for me.
Speaker 2:Follow me for more tips, but tonight we're actually going to go to Gallagher's and they just moved back to where they belong, next to me at the second street in the Eagle House. It's great to have them back. So her and I are going to do that, and that was actually what we would do back when we would get more days off, is we would often go to Gallagher's. That was one of our hangout spots Fish and chips. Fish and chips are fantastic. We like tandoori bites quite a bit, yeah, and occasionally we'll give Annie's a try too. Once in a while Annie's good, but that's about as far as we get. There's that burger place in Miranda that we're really interested in trying, but every time we get close to getting over there something comes up. But we are going to get there. We're going to try that burger because everybody's been raving about it. They got like 700 reviews on Google, which is very hard for a restaurant. That's really good.
Speaker 1:I was really impressed by that For in remote Miranda.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what I think. I think I'm right about that. Okay, yeah, so I got to try that.
Speaker 1:That's on the list. So a day with your gal and a dinner out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now, typically if I leave during a workday, I get this shock, this weird vibration, because they you know, my ankle bracelet. No, I'm just kidding, but I, yeah, a lot of times we'll go to Ferndale, we'll do some thrifting. We like our thrift stores, but you know, that's how we. One of the fun things we used to do was thrifting. But the problem is we bought $20,000 or, I'm sorry, not $20,000. We bought 20,000 comic books. Oh, she has an eBay business, oh, and so now that she's basically set for the next seven years, uh, for her eBay listing, we don't even go thrifting anymore because we don't need to buy more stuff.
Speaker 2:My office is full of comic books, really, and it's hard to move around. Do you buy one lot of comic books? We actually. Yeah, it was a pallet, and it was not just a pallet, it was four pallets. That's a lot of pallets, yeah, we don't even know how many. It's 15,000 to 20,000 comic books. Somebody the the other day asked me they said how much does that weigh? So I did the math it's almost two tons, really, 4,000 pounds of comic books.
Speaker 1:Is there a value in that, in those pallets, in terms of like mint condition Superman?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and that's the problem, is you?
Speaker 2:it's not like putting a CD on eBay. What you have to do is you have to go and give it a full description. But then you also have to look for if it's a key edition, which means that, like, let's say, it's the Luke Cage series, but it's Spider-Man's first time ever appearing, and let's say that the Marvel universe put him in Luke Cage first. They didn't, but let's say that they did Big thing that one edition might be worth 300 bucks, go figure. So you can't just take a picture and post it. You have to do the work, and so we did the math the other day. It's going to take her seven years to get them all listed. Is that right you?
Speaker 1:know, Don Chin oh yeah, of course I used to live next to him. Radioactive black belt hamsters yeah, what's up? Don Don Chin, don Chin, friend of mine. No, I like that. That's really cool. So comic books Wow. Speaking of thrifting, this is a thrift little item that I got. So in the Northwest, and even down to San Diego, our Mormon friends, the LDS folks, have a chain of thrift stores that are as big as Kmart's or bigger You're talking about that. Deseret Industries.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:The DI store, and so all good Mormons actually have a clothing day where they take all their thrift and they pick these up and they take these to these stores, get Under Armour for five bucks, then $200. This is an $800 shirt, mind you. It's funny how that works. Yeah, I got what's called a Hickey Freeman sport coat. They're 800 bucks, they're beautiful, and I wanted to get one out of insurance school in Irvine and they were 800 bucks. Wow, di up in Boise. That's why I love to go up there Besides grandkids, I thrift. I never admitted this to anyone before.
Speaker 2:Well, this is the time to confess all of your quirks. Everyone's listening. I have been quirky.
Speaker 1:Forgive me, Father, Shondala Honda and I got it for eight bucks and I feel really good about myself. It's a great feeling when you win like that. You know it's just all the workout garb and all this stuff.
Speaker 2:Do you know the story about how you got that shirt on the front end, though? Have you heard this? No, there's an insurance guy, I believe. He was in the Bay Area. He would only buy these starched collared shirts for $125 each, and this was like 20 years ago, when you were really hot on this stuff Tailored and so $125 a shirt. He wore them every day, but he would not. This is the key thing. He would not ever put them in the laundry wash, he would just give them away. And the reason he did that he spent like I don't know what that math is $100,000 a year in shirts or something. Whatever the math is, it's not that much $25,000, let's say, just in shirts.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, I want to get this right, but I know that they were like $125 per shirt. But he would donate each shirt after the day's use to charity. But the reason he did it was there was no other feeling in the world that he could get to go sell than to have that shirt. And then what's crazy is where does that shirt end up? It ends up with Scott Hammond at a thrift store for $8.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Or at the American Cancer Society thrift store, which is not a bad thrifting experience.
Speaker 2:He gave a lot of people a lot of professional clothing.
Speaker 1:That's cool. Now I've seen some amazing stuff. It's weird stuff. Hey, back to your quiz. Yeah, so you got the day off and you're going to go for a hike with your sweetheart. Where do you guys go for a walk? We?
Speaker 2:used to go to Headwaters because we lived close to there. Oh yeah, so we used to go there. That's a great spot. It's super easy to walk, it doesn't kill your knees. I'm going to point to it yeah, people see where it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's right there. Back in the day I wouldn't want you to do that because I want it to be a secret, but now I don't make it down there anymore. I have to always be by phone and stuff, but that's a great walk. It's been a long time since I've been up there. You can't go wrong with any Redwood Trail, like I can't think of one bad Redwood Trail. So that would be my vote would be Headwaters, yeah.
Speaker 1:It turns out, jody just hiked Fern Canyon and you need the permit after. Did you say May, honey? I forget. So there's a permitting process now for that for the busy season, okay, or maybe it's after May, but she said why are they?
Speaker 1:doing that Because it just got crowded. Gotcha Really crazy. That's where Mr Hamm and his wife were attacked by a mountain lion Remember, yeah, remember that I actually got to meet him after oh, wow, the attack at Starbucks. The attack wasn't at Starbucks, yeah, months later he was having a coffee and he had this scar, like this crazy scar. Oh, wow, he's lucky to be alive. Oh, the cub peeled his head back and his wife grabbed a freaking pen and stabbed this animal until it went away. Wow, and she used her shirt as a tourniquet. So when they find him and her, the CCC crew you know she's in her bra and they got mud all over. They don't know what happened to those two, but they made discovery Channel and it's a pretty good story.
Speaker 2:I didn't know. I mean, I knew about the attack, I didn't know it like that.
Speaker 1:Pretty heavy. You know pretty good story, good Samaritan story. Yeah, there's a party that passed them by first. Anyway, I digress. Hey, question number three yes, what do you like to listen to? What kind of music generally would be a semi-go-to for top three or five thing?
Speaker 2:genres that you would— I've changed so much over the years and nothing that I listened to in the past—and I listened to everything I listened to in the past too but I've just changed musically College Tower of Power. I discovered I was really into them a big time. I think I owned all their albums.
Speaker 1:Certainly the Warner.
Speaker 2:Brothers, the early years I was all about that, A lot of the big band stuff. After that, just because I played a lot in bands I listened to a lot of jazz at that time because I was really trying to get my artistic chops up I don't listen to jazz much anymore, honestly, don't even listen to Tower of Power much anymore. I do a lot of podcasts. Now that I listen to Not a whole lot of music in my life just because I'm at the store.
Speaker 2:But what is really cool and I should have brought some of them with me is I'm always getting CDs from local artists. Oh, yeah, and what's his name? Jeff Scolari, uh, dropped me off a CD the other day. And then, uh, steve Fox, down in Shelter Cove uh, his little band dropped me off a CD this morning. That's cool. So I've always got local stuff to listen to and I am always accepting those CDs and I I will follow you on Spotify if you're a local artist. So I have a really interesting list of people on there and I like how it just randomly selects one of them. That's cool. So, yeah, I'm not really on any one genre. So there's ways to support the local guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. If you're doing anything local, whether it's a podcast or an artist on Spotify or whatever, I'll watch you. Even if I'm not like a big raving fan, at least I'll give you the follow. Are you going to watch this? This Do you already?
Speaker 1:follow. I do follow Scott Hammond.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want to see the proof. No, I don't. I've trusted you complicitly. I just want that candy bar. Yeah, you're really working on it. No, I watched you talk with Fred Moore. Yeah, I I watched that one, and then I've watched a few of your other ones too. I talked to your one with Food for People. Oh yeah, david Reed, yeah, that was good. That was good stuff.
Speaker 1:Fred Moore is fun. He's a great guy. You probably know Fred from way back, I think so. So, before we sign off, and we're going to talk about your legacy, what you like to be known for and remembered for, wow. So I'm pre commercial, your your commercial, your your your answer. Um, it wouldn't be right to not talk about the problems that, the challenges that we're facing, as not just Eureka, but Humboldt and maybe the state. Um, and what do you see? Um, you know, bill Barnum surprised me. He, it's. It's not a rosy future, dude. We're not building homes, he goes. It's it, it was designed to happen 30 years ago. 5,000 homes, we built two.
Speaker 2:And I go oh shit.
Speaker 1:So what do you see? What's your optimistic, maybe pessimistic view of what are the key issues and solutions? Ladies and gentlemen, the man, the myth, the legend.
Speaker 2:How much time do I have?
Speaker 2:Not much Okay, so we'll do the very quick version. Number one the only thing that is holding this area together is the fact that a lot of the people who bought their homes 30 to 40 years ago in the Bay Area and LA cashed in. They sold their homes. They have buku bucks. They're coming up here, they're putting our tradesmen to work, they're putting our contractors to work. They are bringing that money with them, because that's all we have. Tourism is barely there. Cannabis forget about it. It's dead. Right, boom and bust, boom and bust. But here's the thing. Going on the optimist side, I'm jumping ahead, but I'm going to do it anyway.
Speaker 2:Humboldt County is always boom and bust. It's been boom and bust from the beginning. It was boom and bust in the 20s and it's boom and bust now. It will always be boom and bust, great point. But here's the thing People can do more with their time. They can find work. They can find ways to make money. If I can make money in my tiny bit of free time on all these different apps that are out there and again I'm happy to talk with anybody about these opportunities I'm not soliciting myself to do that, but just if you have questions about some of the apps that you can make money with right now, I'm happy to share a few, and then you can go try it. I shared one with you the other day. What was it? Zoom or something. It was a Flip Flip. I've made $115 on there since January and I barely do much on it. But my point is there are so many ways to make money. You don't have to be a victim of the rise and fall of Humboldt's economic roller coaster.
Speaker 2:Or any other, because I got news for you Humboldt will always be boom and bust because we're behind a redwood curtain, and so you need to eventually be a big fish in a small pond and give people goods and services and make yourself useful. Take up space and do something good and be positive and it'll work out for you. Don't fall for the gloom and doom stuff. The bill's not wrong. We've abandoned our general plan. The people that are in charge at City Hall. It's a disaster. It's easy to point to that. The homeless number is going up. They still are not willing to take the homeless community and break it up into the three groups, which is criminal, drug addicts, mentally ill and those down on their luck. Each of those three groups needs a different tailored approach, which I cover in my book and I've covered on the campaign trail until I was blue in the face Because you ran for city council. Right, ran for city council, tried to clean the mess up in 2018. Didn't work out, obviously, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong. In fact, unfortunately, I'm right and the problem still hasn't really been dealt with.
Speaker 2:And here's the thing. Here's the humanity crisis that we face with the homeless. If you treat the homeless all the same. If you treat the criminal drug addict just like the mentally ill person, well, what's going to happen is the criminal drug addicts, which make up about 80% of the homeless population, is criminal drug addicts. What they're going to do is they're going to abuse the other two groups. They're going to take all your handouts. They're going to abuse the mentally ill. They're going to abuse those down on their luck and then, yeah, and then they're going to invite their friends to come here and do the same. And that's what's happened to Humboldt. We have failed because of the housing first nonsense that the current group in power is trying to push. We are so far away from solving the homelessness. It's probably not going to happen in the next I hate to put a time limit on it the next 10 years you're not going to have a solution for the homeless because they're not willing to look at it. So that's one big problem.
Speaker 2:The second problem is the fact that there are no really good paying jobs, and that is a problem, and that's because we let our industry die on the vine, because we have people in charge that are making really bad decisions. We've taken the fishing harbor and we had this goofy idea to have it focus on windmill assembly, which isn't going to work out at all. We already see the money leaving that. So now the fishing industry has been displaced. That was a hundred jobs for the homeless and for people down on their luck that really relied on the fishing industry. Those jobs are gone. And then there's another hundred jobs from the pros that were in that space. Those jobs are gone, all because we did this head fake going into windmill production, which of course was a disaster. I was the first person to state publicly that building the offshore windmills was a disaster and I went into why have they pulled that back already?
Speaker 2:Not officially, but they might as well the money's not coming. It's a public-private partnership. Public sort of showed up. Private never did Forget about it. It's over. Yeah what?
Speaker 1:more. Do you need to know Fair enough? Yeah, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:I can on, but I think that's, I mean, those are too big enough. Yeah, wait, we're going to stay another hour and I did this without even getting political. This isn't left or right. I have so many liberal friends. I have so many conservative friends. I would never choose my friendships based on political belief. That is the worst thing you can do, because if you choose friends on both sides of the aisle, they'll edit you. If you're wrong on something, you can discuss it and actually learn from people. Imagine that. Imagine that, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we try to do that, yeah. So hey, how about your legacy? What do you want to be remembered for?
Speaker 2:I spend so little time thinking about that. I want my tombstone. Can I talk about my tombstone how I want this Exactly? I don't want a tombstone. I want my family to put me in a position that they'll like me in put me in the resin box and then on holidays just wheel me out and they'll just put me back when you're done with me. There's Jack Dempsey yeah, I mean Anthony and as far as the tombstone, I wanted to say he did really good stuff, he helped people, he was an okay dude.
Speaker 1:I'd be good with that. Hey man, Thanks for coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you. Oh, your chocolate bar. Can I get my chocolate bar? Ladies and gentlemen, hey, real quick, shout out for Anthony Mantovas, mantovas Second Street. Real quick, how do we find you?
Speaker 2:Mantovas Two Street Music. Our website is mtsmusiccom. We push through to other sales platforms, but the best thing to do is just stop by. We're there from Tuesday to Saturday, 10 am to 6 pm. We do trade, we do services, we fix stuff. We're there for you and just general questions, come on by.
Speaker 1:All right, hey, thanks for coming and thank you for listening. Scott Hammond, 100% Humboldt. Like us on all the platforms and YouTube Make a comment, win a chocolate bar and we'll see you again next week. And I was going to say like a good neighbor, but that wouldn't be appropriate.
Speaker 2:No, that wouldn't be, but you are a good neighbor, Scott.
Speaker 1:Thank you, man, thanks for coming.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
