Jambalaya, Jets, and Jams: Getting to know Mike Euper

In this episode of Above and Beyond, host Jan Simon sits down with Mike Euper, a man whose life has been a whirlwind of unique experiences. Growing up in Bell Chase, Louisiana, Euper shares how his upbringing by strong women shaped his values and life choices. From his time in the Air National Guard as a jet engine mechanic, to his days spinning records and opening nightclubs across the country, Mike's story is one of passion, pivoting careers, and purpose. Discover how he transitioned from the nightlife to owning a mobile DJ business in Arizona, and eventually into corporate America in the security industry. Join us for an insightful dive into a life well-lived, filled with reinvention and the pursuit of excellence.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

You know, I having that father figure in my world, no one gave me a rule book. No one gave me, you know, the way to do it. I mean, I learned how to do a lot of different things by watching my friends do it with their dads. Yeah. You know, so for me there was no rule book. There was definitely no guidance. And so when you bring that that newborn home and you're like, okay, I'm gonna do everything in my power to make sure that this person has something that I did not.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Hey there, welcome back to Above and Beyond Rest of Switch Celebrated. I'm your host, John Simon, and this season we're raising the bar, diving into the fact of the purpose, and finding moments of leaders toim I think ideas. Real stories. Let's get into it. Today on Above and Beyond, we're sitting down with a man whose life has tougher than anything but ordinary. He grew up in Bel Chase, Louisiana, raised by strong women who changed his values early on. After serving the Air National Guard as a jet engine mechanic to help pay for college, he followed a different kind of calling. Music. From spinning records as a DJ in New Orleans to opening nightclubs across the country with East CI Entertainment. His early years were filled with sound, movement, and hustle. But in 1997, he pivoted landing in Arizona and starting his own mobile DJ business, which he grew and eventually sold nearly two decades later. Now working in corporate America in the security industry, he brings decades of experience in reinvention, risk taking and staying grounded through change. Join us as we dive into his story, a journey of passion, pivot, and purpose that defines what it means to go above and beyond. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mike Euper. Never been considered that way before. So exciting. There you go. You work it and you make it sound good, and there it is. So Mike, we're sitting down for the first time. I really don't know you much. So we can dig into early on. Yeah. La Chase. Did I say that right? Belle Chase. Bell Chase. Bell Chase, Louise Chase. Bell Chase. Louisiana.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Louisiana, Nollins. Nollins, yeah. Yeah, about 30 minutes outside of New Orleans. Now is that that's south of New Orleans, right? South. So we're more towards the boot. So like when you get towards like Venice, Boothville, the end of the world. Is there actually land down there? There is land.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Okay. Remember, we're six, eight feet under sea level. I say, I thought Louisiana was like below the is it a dike? Is that what it's called? We have levees. Levee. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

It keeps us kind of uh afloat. Okay. So to speak, or it keeps the water out. Okay. But we're surrounded by water. Matter of fact, when Katrina happened in 2005, we had ships 125 feet, 250 feet that were seven miles inland. No kidding. That's how harsh the water was. And then like in Plackman's Parish where I grew up, they're all parishes, not counting. Is that like a county? Kind of like a county. We ended up with no government help, no state, federal help. It was just local help. Okay. And so my mom was living there at the time in in Bell Chase, which is probably twenty, thirty minutes from where it actually came across. I think it was Port Self A where it actually crossed. Okay. And we wouldn't have heard about New Orleans at all if it wasn't for the levees breaking. Oh, really? Yeah, because it was pretty much done and then the levees broken and it just flooded. So were were you impacted out there at all? Who you were? My mom was. Yeah. So I left home in 91 and really never went back. Okay. And so, but she living in Belle Chase, very affected. Matter of fact, one of the things that just threw me for a big loop was a home across the street, the slab of the home, a quarter of the slab had moved like a hundred yards. No kidding. So that just gives you an idea how powerful Mother Earth is. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

To move a slab. For sure. Yeah. Well, it's it's crazy because I've never, I don't think, been in a natural disaster. I I fought forest fires for a while. So I guess you could probably say that a little bit. But and and being able to see, I actually was watching on the news the other night, they were showing, and I think it was the grain the fire up by the Grand Canyon, the two cells kind of coming together and creating a fire, a fire, we call a fire devil, but basically a twister. And I I can remember seeing those. But being in a situation like that where weather, you know, you have no control. I mean, and you don't have control of fire, but man, no control. That'd be just freaky.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

It is, and you're not going to save anything. So when and and New Orleans being one of those places where you get a lot of hurricanes that'll that'll go a different direction. So they don't always hit you, but they always have to put out the warning. You might want to leave, you might want to, you know, buckle down. And yeah, and but it's just one of those things where it's hit or miss. And most of the time it's miss. Yeah. And when it does hit, it's pretty catastrophic. I've been telling my family for the longest time, it's not if it's when or if it's when. And the big one will come and it'll drown them out, and the levees will all break, and you know, the Corps of Engineers won't be able to save it.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Be underground, underwater. It will be underwater. So let's let's talk about childhood. Did you were you born and raised in in Velchase? Mm-hmm. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

So I was born in Merero, Louisiana. Okay. St. Jefferson Hospital. Then we lived in Vell Chase until I was about kindergarten age. Okay. My dad was working for my mom's brother, opening nightclubs. Okay. It was called the Cockpit. It was in Memphis, Tennessee. Good. So my family moved out there. We were there probably a year and a half when my folks got divorced. Okay. And my mom moved back to New Orleans where her family was. And the good thing, my mom had all the support, especially from even my dad's side. That's good. So it was really, really good. As a child, I had all the support I needed from family. Maybe not so much my father, but definitely family. So my mom did the best she could. She worked like all the time. And so as I got older, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, who at least I had a stable home. I had food, I had shelter, you know, because my mom worked in the man's industry. She worked for Chevron for 20 something years. And she worked shift work. So she was gone 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Wow. And so for me getting up, going to school, this, that, and the other, my grandmother was a huge help in my upbringing and also just helping around anything that you know a boy would need. I had a younger sister at the time, two years younger. She spent most of her time at my mom's. And I spent most of my time, especially when I got into high school, with my grandmother. Lived there, was closer to school, and uh she it was easier for my grandmother to get me around and for me to do the things that I needed football, sports, that sort of thing. So it was easier for me than traveling back and forth to my mom's house, which was only another 15-20 minutes. Gotcha. But it was just easier from a discipline standpoint to have some adult supervision.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

For sure. For sure. Stupid question. Food. Is it as stereotypical as you think it is? Like crawfish and jumbo and jabalaya and it's better. Really?

SPEAKER_02 7:37

It's I'd put it against any country. It's probably the best food in the world. Really? And I've done a lot of traveling. I've been around at least this country. Not too much overseas, but as far as the food, it's it's about seasoning, it's about culture, history, you know, and I don't know if it's something in the atmosphere because we do a lot of crawfish balls out here in Arizona. I've taken all the ingredients from home, brought them here, made the same dish, and it tastes different. And I do believe it has something to do with water or humidity.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Yeah. Oh, well, there you go. Without a doubt. Now, can you get crawfish shipped here? Yep. Live. Okay. Oh, to your door. Okay. I didn't I've never I don't think I've ever eaten a crawfish. I love seafood. Love lobster. I don't think I've ever eaten a crawfish.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Crawfish is they they call it a mud bug for a reason. It's the lowest form of food from from the south, I guess you could call it. They they are bottom feeders, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Yeah. It's a poor man's lobster. That's funny. Can can you can you eat them without peeling them? I mean, do you do you can you suck the whole thing?

SPEAKER_02 8:42

So it it's all in the cooking process, and a lot of people with the boiling, if you overboil them, they get hard. And and then the skin and the outside attaches to the actual meat. You can so you can't get it out. Uh and so you have to do more extra peels to get it out. If you cook them right, which is usually about seven minutes, once it gets to boil, seven minutes, take them out. And you can always test them and retest them. But if you get it right, you can squeeze the tail, bite, and pull it right out.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

And it comes right out.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

And then, you know, if you want to gross people out, use your finger and take what's inside the head, which is, you know, all the really good juicy.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

You know, we were we were in Vegas one time, and actually the first time I ever saw anybody eat lobster, we were with a friend, and I think we were at Mirage, maybe. Anyways, doesn't matter. We were some restaurant, and they brought the lobster, and it was a full lobster, and they had turned the brain and stuff up because that's like the delicacy. Like there is no way it hell that's going into my mouth. That was my favorite part. Really? Oh, it's it's the inner and they say that. They say that it's like it is like the delicacy, but it really is.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

So it's the same thing with the crawfish or the mud bugs. So we used to have in Arizona when I moved here, a friend of ours used to do what was it called? Cinco de Mayo or Cinco de Cajun Cajun de Mayo. Oh, that's what it was called. Cajun de Mayo. And we would do crawfish boil. So after a golf turn lit, we come back to his house. I would boil up all the crawfish, and we'd have hundreds of pounds of crawfish, and people would try it for the first time. So whenever you put on an exhibition or at least you show people how to do this, yeah, they're amazed. But you will gross them out when you stick your finger into the head of a crawfish, right? See, I'm gonna get it. If you pull out this yellowish black, dripping, and then it goes in your mouth, and they're like, Oh, I'm out, I'm out, I'm not touching that. And they're like, Stop, we'll never get rid of all this crawfish. I'm like, Yeah, more for us. Because once you're done eating it, yeah, you've had your fill and you have all this left, then you've got to peel it and put it away for etuffe, jambalaya, anything that you want to mix with crawfish, you can put it in your breakfast meals. So it is really good. The one thing I would say is different between the crawfish and the lobster, and maybe I've had some bad lobster, but they tend to be rubbery. Lobster. Yeah, yeah. More of that that feel overcooked, yeah. You don't get that with crawfish.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

It it's just like eating a meat. I mean, you bite it, chew it. Okay, well, well, I'm gonna hold you to it someday. We will have it. I promise lobster boil. We will get it. I mean a crawfish boil. That would be that would be a blast. And and we've been, I've done we have uh Christine's aunt lives in uh New Jersey, and we've done crab boil, blue crab boil stuff, you know. I mean, and God, I love that stuff. But I would love to try. I've never I don't think I've ever had crawfish. We used to catch them as kids. Oh, they were, you know, little tiny ones. Little bitty ones. Yeah, we didn't have big ones.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Yep, little ones, big ones. Same thing with the shrimp. You get little shrimp, and then you know, they classify shrimp by the size to make a pound. So like three to a pound, ten to a pound, twenty to a pound, you know. So you get twenty thirties, that's how many it takes to make a pound.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

But the we do uh we do the blue crabs as well. Okay. That's a that's a big thing. Oh yeah. Oh really? Okay. Blue crabs, we also have the oysters.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Oh. And I'll eat oysters in any way. Christine loves oysters. When I was when I was uh I was probably 16. I think I was younger than that. I had braces, and we were at my uncle's house in so I grew up in Washington, we're in Puget Sound, we're my uncle's house, and we go down to the beach and get clams and oysters and all that stuff, and and so we're doing an oyster boil, and my dad dared me, he's like, hey, I'll give you a dollar if you chew that oyster. Well, I have braces, so I start chewing the oyster, it got stuck in my back brace. I go to swallow it, and it's like stuck and down my throat. I've not been able to eat oysters since. But Christine loves oysters. We'll go places, should be like oyster Rockefeller or oyster, whatever it is that she gets, I don't know. But you know, the the raw ones with the horseradish and I'll eat them any way you you make them.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

But I can tell you my my favorite way is charbrolled. Yeah. And it's so funny, it took me leaving and going back home to have charbroil for the first time. Really? It's hard to believe, but I never so I only spent my childhood in Louisiana. Gotcha. So when I was done with college, I moved away. I was working for a company that got me away from New Orleans, and it was perfect timing for me. New Orleans was a great place, or just outside of New Orleans. Bell Chase, we had it all. So as a child, we swam in the canals, the channels, the intercoastal, the Mississippi. We hunted, we fished. Like we would take, you know, at eleven, we'd sneak out of the house at night and shoot rabbits and squirrels and neutra and whatever else. And then we'd have a guy in the neighborhood that would, you know, buy the meat or the pelts. Yep. And so we would do that, and that would he would pay us. So we did just about anything back in the day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Lady she had a really bad crow problem, and she paid me to kill crows. Well, if anybody knows, crows are stupid smart. As soon as you take one shot, they're gone the rest of the day. Like they will not come back. Pigeons are not smart. They just sit there and back down.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

We we had that problem when I first moved out here. So you could always tell the adolescent pigeons. So they'd sit up on the roof and you'd shoot one, and the one would look at them go like, What the what happened? Hey, get back up here, buddy. Give me time to reload and shoot the other one. Where if it was a parent, you shoot up there, miss or hit, yeah, the other one's gone.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Crows are the same way. You take one shot, there could be 30 of them in the trees, they're gone, and you will not see another one for the rest of the day. It's the craziest thing. I never knew that about them. They're dumb smart. But yeah. So sports.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Did you play sports growing up? I did. I played the baseball, I played golf, I played football. When I was 11, we figured out that I have congenital dislocated radio heads. So the ulna and the radius in my forearms, both of them, are cockeyed. Huh. So playing football, I would I was the opposite of Popeye. So all the padding was around my elbows. Uh-huh. And when I would get hit, it would hurt. Oh. So you can see this bone. Yeah. It just sticks out. So on both arms, my left is a little better than my right. I can extend my left arm a little further than my right. Oh wow. We knew that I wasn't going to play football for long because as soon as the other team figures it out, and I was uh I was the fullback and linebacker. Okay. So we I played both ways. Pretty good sport, athlete, baseball. I was average at best. Picked up golf when I was nine. My dad actually gave me a set of clubs, which I found out later were blades. I wanted to kill him. Thank you, Dad. But I think it was me and a way for my dad to actually connect because he wasn't around. Yeah. He was he was an absent father. I think he had us for one week in a month and two weeks in the summer. Oh wow. And we'd get excuses, you know. And look, man, he had his own life, I get it. Maybe he wasn't ready for kids, that sort of thing. But uh he started another family immediately. So I have two younger half-brothers. Oh wow. That are twelve and fourteen years apart from me, younger. And my sister, and then of course she still lives in in Louisiana. She runs a hotel. So she's more connected with my younger brothers, but I was never there. Gotcha. So when I got home from the military, I saw them, and then I was off to school, and so I never really not I wouldn't say connect. I love them to death, but you know, we've never had that brother sibling relationship. But back to the golf, my dad taught me when I was nine, and it was something that gave us time together, not a lot of talking. So as I grew up for him and I to stay away from the subject that was painful, it was play golf. Yeah. We drank and then we'd play pool. And then it avoided the conversation that always needed to happen. Yeah. And uh but I got really good at golf. I would show up at his country club at seven in the morning, and he had three nines. It was the front back and then the levy nine. And I would play the levy nine until 1 p.m. when they allowed juniors to to play the front and back. And so I got really good, and I didn't know how good I was until I was about 15. And I was playing in different tournaments, junior tournaments. Started the golf team at Bell Chase High School. Okay. And our coach Smith, he was more like a chaperone. He couldn't break a hundred and he was left-handed. God rest his soul. But he used to take us to all our events. Okay. It was a lot of fun. And there was a few members of our team that can come, you know, contributed and participated and can play decent.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

But I had a lot of fun with it. It was another way for me to just, you know, stay away from trouble.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Yeah. Stay out of trouble. And do you feel like at all it helped you, although you were not connected with your dad, do you feel like that helped you connect with your dad? Yeah, it was the one way we were able to do to connect.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Because I always knew that when we had that conversation, it was not going to go well or whether he wanted to have it. And our that we he was he was much older. I was 18 at the time. And he had asked me. We had a couple drinks. I think we had played golf, and he's like, hey, is there anything you want to talk about? And I was like, woo, floodgates. Yeah. Yeah. You asked, where do I start? And you know, he he cried and I cried, and we decided that, you know, hey, I still need a father. I'm 18. I'm you know, and life's not done. But but it gave us something to do to avoid the pain and to not talk about, you know, the fact that he was not there and there was an excuse here or an excuse there and whatnot. I I remember every birthday or Christmas and whatnot, I would get a polo shirt and a hundred bucks.

SPEAKER_05 18:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

That's what I got. And like I said, it was very rare that we would get to see him in that once a month type of thing. And so it it pains him to hear me say it, but I've said it in front of him. When people ask, you know, what'd you learn from your father? I was like, how not to be a father. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and it's it's painful, but you know, it's the truth.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yeah. Well, that's that's tough. You know, it's yeah, is he still around today?

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Absolutely. And we're we're friends calling dad, you know, and we have that relationship. Like I said, we get together, yeah, we play golf. Okay. We drink, we have a good time, we'll play some pool, we'll listen to music, yeah, we drink wine together, we have fun. Nice. Don't get me wrong. But you know, it's it's something that will be with me until I die. And yeah, back in the day, there was no such thing as therapist or you know, going to that thing. And then if we could, I don't know if my mom would have been able to afford it. Yeah. You know, back in the day. So, like we talk about government food. When I stay with my grandmother, she would get, you know, rations. I remember getting that big old glob of block. Yeah, the big cheese, yeah. Powdered milk.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Oh my god, we got powdered milk. I grew up on powdered milk. I don't remember who I was talking to about that. I grew up on powdered milk. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Listen to that one. Powdered milk, man. I'll tell you. God, that picks up the flavor of the kit of the refrigerator too. Couple days old, it's not good anymore. It's harsh. Yeah. So, and and we we usually mixed it pretty thin because you know, you gotta make it stretch. So that's right. But playing golf, did you play on the the high school you played on high school team? Played on the high school team.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

I was never I didn't get to a college level, but I did chase the mini tours for many years.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Did you not get to the college level because you didn't feel like you were good enough? Or I knew I wasn't good enough in the head to do so.

SPEAKER_02 20:52

I mean, let's be honest, I had anger issues, you know, childhood anger issues that just carried over. And yeah if there was a therapist that could have helped me, maybe. You know, I wasn't a bad golfer. I just knew that from a from a head case standpoint that I was never gonna go anywhere with it. You know, there were tournaments that I finished with one club because I broke all the rest.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

I can look back and laugh now, but back in the day that was stupid. Yeah, oh for sure. Well, you think about, I mean, with the right mentor, probably golf can be a great game to help you manage that, right? That that that that pissed off demon inside. Yeah. You know, that wants to come out and just break the club. There's so many there's one of them that's like, oh, and I'm my Karen and I were talking. I'm my own worst enemy. I am very harsh on myself. Like, I feel I should play way better. And I'll play with people who are worse than me. They're like, I'm sorry. I'm like, this is not about you. This is 100% about me and the fact that I can't hit the damn ball straight. Yeah, it it it comes down to it.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

So I play with a lot of really good golfers, I play with a lot of really bad golfers. And I can tell you from the from when I started playing and the competitiveness of it to where I am now, 48 years later of playing golf. Yeah. I can tell you that I have so much fun out there playing with anyone. And if I can see someone or work on someone's game and get them better and have them playing better, that's all the kudos I need.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

So that's what I love doing. Do you ever play my grandfather? We used to play all the time. I shouldn't say all the time, but I used to play with him quite a bit. He's the one that really kind of got me into it. But I used to go play with him. And he would give me, like, I think it was his goal every hole to give me one more thing to think about and work on. So it was like, okay, now if you stand with your feet a little bit like this, and by the time we got done, I was so jacked up in the head I couldn't play. You ever do that with anybody? You screw with people? No, I don't.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

To be honest, it would be very easy to do that, but I don't. I really want the people, the people that I play golf with, I play golf with them for a reason. Yeah. They bring something to the table. Maybe it's not golf and they're learning golf, but it's the conversation or their lifestyle or the meaning that they, you know, whatever it may be, there's something that brings us together that allows us to go out and enjoy this four hours because you really have to enjoy someone's company to be out there for four or five hours. And if you don't, you learn real quickly. And being in sales now, if I'm talking to someone on the phone and they want to go out and play golf, I'm gonna do lunch with them first. I'm gonna have a cup of coffee. And then I figure out whether I want to spend four hours of front nine with them. Right. Let alone the back nine. Or the whole 18th type of thing. Because I could tell you, it is hard playing with people that are difficult. Yeah. And I'm not even talking about, I don't care how bad your game is. If you're not a con if you can't hold a conversation or there's nothing interesting about you, or we have nothing in common, whatever it may be. Now you'll see every time that I go out and play golf, I like to have a cocktail. I like to listen to music from start to finish. Yeah. I don't even take it out when I swing. You can ask people that I play golf. They'll tell you. I I just, it's something that happened about 15, 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah. It just stuck. That's funny. And so I started having that, and I think that's really when it became fun to play golf. Where it was no longer about, I mean, I could close my eyes, turned into John Daly. I don't play barefoot like like Frank, but I do enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

That's awesome. That's awesome. I I mean I feel the same way. Like I love being out. I have gotten to the point where I know I'm as good as I'm gonna get. I mean, I could probably get better if I took lessons somewhere. I've never taken a lesson in my life. I guarantee I can make you better. Well, let's go call. Exactly. But I did get new grips, which has been freaking awesome. But anyways, air guards, let's step back. Yeah, go into the Air National Guard.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Yeah, so out of high school, my mom goes, Hey, look, I got your first semester of college. If you get all A's or all Fs, I got your first semester of college. And I was like, Oh, I gotta figure this out. So if she's gonna pay for the first semester, how do I pay for the second and the third and the second year, third year, and whatnot. So I'm like, oh, the GI Bill. Let's try that. Let's and then I went in and I took a test. And I'm like, man, you scored really well. You can really pick whatever branch you want to go in. Like, I'll take it. Yeah. I need encouragement here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I knew I wasn't going overseas. I knew that I wasn't going to, you know, I wanted to pay for school. That's the avenue I thought that I needed to take. And uh was that during the first Cold War? Yeah, so this was back in 88. Okay. I graduated high school in 87. Okay. And it was okay. I did a semester at University of New Orleans. Okay. That was not for me. I'm like, I think I need to go away to school. I got to get away from my current situation, my mom. I mean, look, as much as I love that woman, she inspires me. I look up to her and respect her more than anybody else on this planet, besides my grandmother, Rita, who passed away many, many years ago. Yeah. I had to just get away from that situation and be on my own. And so when I graduated high school, signed the paperwork, and they told me I was going to shlinois after San Antonio. So Lackland was where we did our basic training. Okay. That was a kind of an interesting time. So I arrived there and we had like co-op type bases where my particular unit had a female unit, not in our barracks, but next to our barracks. Okay. And so we shared like athletic time, running time, a lot of different things with this team and females. And it's kind of funny. So you would get mail from home. You would send mail home. When you get mail from the next barracks over, no, that becomes a big deal. So when the when your drill instructors get a hold of this, they're like, oh, Airman Green is sending Airman Upper a letter. No. We should read this. Oh no. Thank God there's some beer in the water, because I'm telling you, you start reading this, and these boys are going to get excited. Oh, absolutely. And uh so they did, and we stayed in touch throughout the entire time we were there. And our TIs, I think there's a there's a saying where you don't want to be first, you don't want to be last, you want to be somewhere in the middle. Well, I felt like I was in the middle towards the top. Okay. I wasn't the guy, hey, I'll do that, I'll volunteer, I'll go and, you know, whatever. I just I wanted to get it done. Did you go active first and then go guard? Or were you still? No, there was no such thing as active for me. Oh, okay. It was literally to pay for my schooling. So I went to Lochland Air Force Base, and I think our training for the Air Force was six weeks, where everybody else was, or eight weeks, and I think everybody else was 10, 12, you know, the Army, the Marines. Yeah. And then when I left there, my MO was jet engine mechanic. So I went to Chinute, Illinois, in the middle of nowhere. And it the base was in the middle there. It was in an a multi-use base or multi-branch. Okay. So they had different uh branches there. They had a golf course. Ah. Well, perfect. So the first three weeks you're there, you can't leave the base. You have short hair. They know if you leave the base, you're gonna get in trouble. And people are gonna pick on you. You're gonna end up in a situation you don't need to be into. So I never left the base. So for three weeks I played golf. Oh my gosh. And within the first, I don't know, four days, I catch a group that's out there. I don't think anything of it. They invite me to play with them. So I think I finish eight holes with them. And then three days later, my TI pulls me into the office. He's like, hey, who do you know here? I'm like, I don't know anybody. He goes, Well, you know somebody. He goes, because you need to take your golf clubs to this golf course on Saturday morning. I'm like, oh, okay. Well, the guys that I ended up playing with, he was the general of the base. Oh, no kidding. Every week I played with the general base. And he would put me in scrambles. I mean, I was a good player back then. That's how I got to play golf. I was in the best shape of my life. Yeah, granted, it was just out of high school, but I would never trade my time in the air or the air guard for anything. I would not. Because, like I said, there was a time that I needed some discipline. Yeah. I needed some guidance. And I was able to get that from all the guys, our TIs, even the guys at Lackland. When when we got our day pass, our hall pass at the end, we've done all our training. We're we've passed. Now it should get a free day to go into town. He pulled us in there, me and one other guy. And he's like, All right, look, I know you're gonna go with Airman Green, probably straight to a hotel.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

How did you guess? Lucky guess. Let me give you these. You know what they're for, right? It's not a raincoat. He was pretty cool. He's like, I bring you back a souvenir.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

So I think I brought him an ashtray, and then the airman Juan Carlos Benito was his name. He went with another female that from the barracks next door. And his dad was a general in the Peruvian Air Force. Oh. He didn't want any part of that. So he came to the United States. He joined the guard. He was with in my unit particularly in that during that time frame. And Juan, boy, Mr. Benito, he comes back with towels and robes and soap. And so he brought all kinds of mirrors back. But I thought it was funny because we went to the we went to the BX before going into town. And the girls are buying like hairdryers and makeup. And I'm like, you're not going to need any of that.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Yeah, we're not going anywhere.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

We're not going anywhere. Once that door closes, it ain't open anymore. Yeah, because after about the third, second or third week being there, they don't they don't force you to drink the water anymore. So we figured out that the saltpeter had to be in the water because they need that. They really do, because you're not, you don't get excited. It never gets hard. You are just doing your thing. You're focused on teaching and training and running and exercising and all this other good stuff. But once you no longer have to drink the water and you can drink juice or milk or whatever, and you stop drinking the water from the like it starts. I remember one guy waking up one way, he's like, it works.

SPEAKER_04 31:23

That still works.

SPEAKER_02 31:24

So it's just a different yeah. That was that was an interesting time. I uh I did a total of six years because I wasn't finished with school in four. But it was fun. That's I I wouldn't trade it for anything. I enjoyed the hell out of it. What what type of aircraft do you work on? So I worked on the F-100 engine, which was made by Pratt and Whitney back in the time that were in the F-15s and 16s. Okay. But our planes were old, and so for every two hours they spent in the air, they were probably six to eight on the ground. Oh wow. Oh yeah. They're I think they were built in the 60s, so they were very old aircraft. All training aircraft, is that what they yeah, and uh so we had the uh F-15 A's and Bs, which were the single-seater, two seaters. And then any time that the uh anyone ever got to go up, it was during dog fights. Oh, okay. And I remember Morton Anderson, the kicker for the Saints, because the it was the Naval Air Air Station in Bell Chase, where I came back and did my two weeks in the summer and all that stuff. He went up and they all these pilots they'd go through you know some training with them and they're like, don't throw up in the plane.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Well, you have to clean that up. No, not me, but I heard the stories. I did hear the stories. Nasty. So during that time, you're going to college, I heard from a little someone that it may have been a southeastern Louisiana.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Yeah, I I went to LSU briefly and I I knew that wasn't gonna work for me. It was too big, GPA was gonna just fall out of the sky, and so went to Southeastern Louisiana University, played Sigma Pie with a lot of my friends that were already, you know, six months a year ahead of me. Really? Did you play golf there? I did not. Okay. It was I played the intramural golf there. Okay. And all the other intramural sports. I I like I said, I I wasn't that good. And when I went there, it was literally to focus on school and be a college student. Gotcha. So to speak, not an athlete. Did you you finish school? College? I did not. Okay. I did not finish. I'm a few semesters, probably three away from graduating. Okay. And I just I got to a point where I knew it it was a marketing degree that I was after.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

And then I think as you get older, you start to figure out, man, this is probably not for me. And but the fact that my mom didn't have to pay for it, I didn't have I didn't have school debt. Yeah. And someone else did. I figured out that the school was not for me. And I certainly wasn't going to be using a marketing degree. And so when I before I even graduated, I was working for ECI.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:01

And working for a place there in New Orleans. Matter of fact, it was the biggest nightclub. It was bigger than Billy Bob's in Texas. Oh wow. I think it was a total of 55,000 square feet.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Is is it true what they say you shouldn't go to certain sides of the street in Louisiana? Sides of the street? I don't know. Like various blocks. Oh.

SPEAKER_02 34:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's certain areas that you should not go to. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And I would probably say one of them is Bourbon Street. So if you haven't experienced it, you you should. Yeah. And uh it's it's different. It's the people are so sweet and nice there. They'll give you the shirt off their back and never ask for anything in return. But I do believe we just took over the murder capital from Chicago. Oh wow. Per capita. And that's not a good stat.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

No, no, that's not a good stack. That's not not a good one to hold on to. While you're doing the DJ stuff, well, you were DJing, right? With ECI? So I was DJing.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

Matter of fact, I started as a bar back. It was something to work at night, go to school during the day. And I wanted to figure out, hey, is this something I want to do? I don't know. It was a job. And so I'm pushing around trash can. I'm singing songs and you know, picking up trash after cowboys. Okay. And it was definitely a cowboy bar. It was called Mud Bugs. Okay. Of call things. Of all things. It was called Mud Bugs. And depending on where they opened the club, they had different names that they used. So one could be Cowboys, one was Deniman Diamonds, one was Cactus Moon, just depending on the state, location. But New Orleans Mud Bugs just fit.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

It was their first big one. And like I said, it was huge. We had a 22,000 square foot horseshoe dance floor. Oh wow. And I think 22,000? 22,000 square feet. Bro. That's huge. I think the capacity was just over 7,000. That's insane. Yeah. And for Merle Haggard, I think we had almost 11,000 people in there. Wow. Well, good thing the fire marshal didn't show up. He was paid. I think he was standing at the front door. Yeah. One check, no more. No more. No more. No more. One. No. But I'll never forget Merle Haggard. So I'm in the DJ booth. Yeah. And Merle Haggard. So they allowed me to go on his bus, pay for his night, and I got to find out that they ordered like 12 loaves of bread, like eight white and four wheat, you know. And then I think there was like nine bottles of Jack Daniels for just that night. Yeah. You know, or their two-day stay, because the band gets in there, they do some practicing either the night before or all during the day, because we're closed. And Merle got up there and he sang three songs. And maybe 15, 20 seconds into his fourth song, he slowly just started to mumble, turns from the microphone to his band members, and they slowly stop playing, and it gets completely quiet in here. And then he turns around to the mic and he's like, Holy shit, I forgot the words. And everybody goes nuts. And I was like embarrassed. I'm like, I've been listening to he was so drunk he couldn't remember the words to a song he's been singing for decades.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

That's so funny. He reminds my son when he turned 16, before he turned 16, Van Halen was coming to town with David Lee Roth. And then he's like, Hey Dad, have you heard of this band? I think you know when I grew up, maybe I may have listened to him a couple times. He says, You want to go? I'm like, Yeah, let's go. So we go, we went out to, I don't know, cricket pavilion, whatever it is out there in the west side. David Lee Roth. I same thing. I think he was so drunk. It's like he'd start singing. Pretty soon he's just mumbling. Then the crowd singing, so it's like you don't know, but he's you know, it's like, come on, dude.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Well, every year we would get the uh the concert series Summer Pass to auction pavilion, you know, the outdoor like 75th in McDowell. Yep. And about two years ago, he was there, and it all acts because it's around, you know, a community. So it's homes and everything. So they have a cutoff at 11 o'clock. Uh music has to be cut off. Well, he didn't want to leave the stage. Oh, oh, he just kept singing. They finally they drug him all the way. Oh, yeah, they drug him off. No way, but it was so good. I mean, he's 74 years old, he was still killing it. It's crazy. And then so we've seen a lot of acts out there. That's awesome. Music is a huge part of my life. So are you a singer too? No, okay, and I don't play an instrument either. Okay, but but you you'd or mix all the music, yes. And so, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Were you on the tables and stuff? I mean, what did you do?

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Yep, so a lot of the stuff, so you don't mix country music. I mean, you well, and you could you could back in the day, so this is the 80s, early 90s. It's lay. You're not you're not really mixing a lot of next. We're gonna play boot cut and boogie. So the country song, and then you, you know, you talk over the mix most of the time, but uh it's stuck, and so it's kind of that neon cowboy feel. So m most weekdays it was all country music. Okay, and then you get to the weekends and you mix in. That was when it was still country music too. It was, it was different, so but you would still mix in all of your nightclub popular music, okay, you know, and read the crowd. Yeah. You know, if they wanted all country and they weren't up there dancing to it, then you went back to country. But it was that type of setup and that type of situation to where you'd mix it in on the weekends.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

How how much how much prep time did that take you to kind of get ready for that stuff? Or did you just come in with a playlist and you're like, okay, I'm do the same thing every time. Oh, you know, if this isn't working, we're gonna bounce over here and do that. Actually, no playlist.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

I never ever set up a night with a playlist. Okay. It was all just read the crowd, figure out who was in there. If we would do dance lessons before, then I know that they would stay afterwards, and then you know, the start of the evening, they'd want to hear some more of you. Maybe uh we taught them a line dance that night. They'd want to hear more songs that you could do that particular line dance to. Gotcha. And then so it just if you play a like a triple step type song, and you had a large crowd, then you would find more of those type of songs to play or the two-step. And I don't think it was until I moved away from New Orleans that I learned about the one-step. I didn't even know that was a thing. Most everybody did a two-step, but I think to be able to do all the different moves and spins and turns. So a two-step is like one, two, one, one, two, one. And then like a triple step is one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. And then a waltz is so just different tempos to the song made you do a different type of dance. Well, the one step you can pretty much do to any song, which you don't ever have to count your feet, you never have to worry about off steps because you're just doing a one-step. Gotcha. It allows you to do more of the the moves, show off the girl, because that's really what dancing is. You're showing off the female.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Yeah, yeah. We used to my ex and I, when we were in college, there was a place called the Buckbourne, Buckboard Tavern. I can't buckboard tavern for you to buckboard tavern. And we used to go, we go line dance all the time, swing, line dancing, loved it. I mean, love dancing back then. That was a that was a blast. We used to do that all the time.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

It was a fun time. We had uh we had a guy that used to make us shirts. I guess probably Garth Brooks kicked off all the different styles of shirts and whatnot. So we just copied all of that. And we had a guy that would make them fluorescent, and we had a lot of black lights in the club. So just white shirts would stand out, all the different colors, the pinks and the oranges and the greens and things was really, really cool.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

The hard hard-pressed Wranglers and uh it's like I uh ropers, everybody had them.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

It was a lot of fun. So when they offered me the position of opening more clubs is basically when the uh the schooling came to an end. And so I started traveling with the company. Opening clubs, we'd spend seven, eight months, and then move on.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Oh wow. And so did you like teach somebody to basically do what you were doing then? Yep, I'd hire the DJ and then I'd build the DJ.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

Okay. And I'd train the staff on the DJ and then I'd help wherever else was needed. Okay. And then once everything was up and running, we'd spend probably two to three weeks grand opening. And then we were off. I can't get over a twenty-two thousand square foot dance floor. Big. That is freaking huge. It is it was massive. It was an it was an old storage unit. And they just refabbed it and made it into the night club. I just think about the footprint of the storage unit now. I think it was like an old Mervyn's or something. It was a big old department store.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

I just feel like to be able to fill that to the point where you know you're in the black. It's that's so much space.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

And they would put a lot of people, but I can tell you, you can always tell when it was empty. Oh, yeah, oh, I'm sure. Oh my goodness. You walk into a 55,000 square foot place, there's no one there. Like that, you know, we saw it every day before we opened, you go in and like, oh, there's nobody here. But you're playing music and there's 20 people out there, and you're like, oh crap. It was so big you couldn't tell who was standing on the other side, like from one end to the other, you couldn't tell who that person was. That's crazy. So, how long did you do that? So I did that for a few years, ended up in Colorado. They allowed me to have that store. So I ran Denver. It was in Thornton, Colorado, in a strip mall, and it was 22,000 square feet. Okay. And same concept. It was that neon cowboy. We played country music, and then Thursday, Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays, we would play more of the mix. Okay. A variety of different music. But I had a DJ doing that. I started that. That was the store we opened. So once we trained the staff, I became the manager there, GM. And that lasted a few years. We kind of changed concepts, shut down, reopened. Didn't change much, but that's how the nightclubs do it. You know, they'll change concepts every few years, bring in a whole new crowd. And then they told me when we were reopening in ninety six that they were gonna do 18 and older. And that's when I kind of wash my hands and said, I have enough trouble with 21 and older. Yeah. Yeah. But it was a lot of fun. We had the we had the avalanche in there all the time. Oh no kidding. Adam Foot. Yeah. Most of the time. That's pretty crazy. We would throw him out from time to time. And he's like, CNX homesteading. I mean, it was it's a lot of fun. Look, the the nightclub business has its fringe benefits, a lot of fringe benefits. Yeah, yeah. But uh it's your world. I was on property 80 hours a week. That's insane. That's a lot. It is. It was from 10 a.m. most days till because you do the payroll, you do the ordering of all the booths, the food, booking the acts, the bands. Wow. Everything. Wow. And uh you get help, and then like I said, having the right staff members, you know the lifers between the, you know, ones that are there part-time, the ones that are, you know, they know that they're going to school, so they're just there for a couple of months. Yeah. So you know the different styles and different people that you have, and so you give them more authority and allow them to start making schedules and taking a little bit of the weight off your shoulders. Yeah. It makes it easier. And then you give those guys, gals, bar tabs. You know, a fifty dollar bar tab to someone is five bucks to me. Yeah. You know, in cost. And back in the day, I think we were paying fifty-two dollars fifty-two cents a bottle, you know, for long nets. Oh, wow. Yeah. So it was cheap. Oh, it was. And the company was making a ton of money off of us. I remember when I I signed that first contract with those guys. I think my salary was less than $30,000.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

It's just oh, where do I sign up? Yeah. I'm rich. Oh, yeah. And I'm sure back then I remember my first job out of college, signing in insurance 30 years ago. $26,400. And literally, I thought I hit the jackpot. Oh yeah. I'm like, winter, really making money now. Really? So, okay, so so you wrap up the the the DJ gig, opening clubs, how partying every night. Yeah, I got married. Different lady every night.

SPEAKER_02 46:43

I got married when I was in Colorado. Yeah. Beautiful woman. She was six years older than I was. I was 23 when we got married. My folks came out. It was it was a pretty big-to-do wedding. She was she was huge in the uh equestrian world. Okay. So she used to ride horses. She'd been doing it since she was four. She her parents grew up in like Hollister, California. Okay. Next to Gilroy, you know, the garlic capital. They had property and horses and all that good stuff. And they were living out in Colorado at the time or moved out to Colorado after. But uh it lasted three years. Her and I woke up one day and we're like, hey, let's uh what do you say we go our separate ways? And we did. We didn't have any kids, so we split everything, we sold the house and went our separate ways, and it was really, really good. Gotcha. Didn't need to get lawyers involved, anything. So it worked out really great, but I was way too young to get married, but it was an experience. I mean, I bought my first house with her and then I moved to uh Arizona at the end of or there, it was January of ninety seven. What brought you here? I needed a different scenery again. Okay. You know, I had to get away from Colorado. You know, I loved Colorado. I'd probably go back if my wife now could stand the cold. Yeah. But I know it's changed. I have customers that are in Colorado, so I'm there a lot. And you know, it's it has distinctive four seasons. It's a beautiful place. Moved here to play a little bit more golf and you know, find something new. Mobile DJ business in '98. Okay. And that kind of grew. It took a a little while to kind of take off. And uh in 2016, when I finally sold it, I had 28 contracts with elementary, wow, junior high, high schools, doing two to three events a year. And then the weddings were a huge part of the my business. Did you ever do anything at Greenfield Elementary School?

SPEAKER_01 48:38

Probably. Trying to think the kids, I mean, this is 20 years ago.

unknown 48:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

We had a we had a DJ there.

SPEAKER_02 48:43

I'm wondering if it was you. It's possible. And a lot of times you can't make it. And so I would send, you know, over time I I decided to uh to expand and bring on DJs, so I'd have a couple part-timers and then one or two full timers that that handled the weddings. Cause to be honest, that that whole weddings is where the money was. And when I first started, I remember doing weddings for 400 bucks. And when I finished, I was doing weddings for 3200 bucks.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

Yeah. Well, it's it's crazy. My daughter just got married in February, and uh I wasn't in on a ton of the planning. It was more her mom that did most of that stuff, whatever. But the little things that we talked about, I feel like you add wedding to whatever it is. We're having a family get together. Oh, it happens to be a wedding. Well, the price just like quadrupled. It goes through the roof. It's like, how about we just leave that word out? Yeah. We'll just tell them we're we're just having a get together. We're having a family picnic, and then we'll pop on that as a wedding.

SPEAKER_02 49:42

Yeah, there is definitely the bridezillas, the momzillas in that industry. I thought about writing a book, at least just a table book, because I have all of these thoughts and things that have happened over time, like you write them on a napkin, or you know, just so you don't forget, but they're memories. And most of them were great. And like I said, this was a solid 18 years of doing this. And so I saw quite a bit, was involved in quite a bit. I remember when I was still doing like the lower end weddings, I wasn't I wasn't getting what I was worth yet. Yeah. And uh there was a couple, she comes to the DJ booth crying, this is the bride. And I'm like, what did I do? That's my first thought. What did I do? And then she's like, I can't find my husband. I'm like, oh, piece of cake. Turn the microphone on. Has anybody seen the groom? Anyone, anyone, has anyone seen the groom? And from across the room, keep in mind this was a low-wind wedding. This gentleman yells out, find out that it was her uncle. He's taking his shit. I can't make this up. So I look at her and I'm like, Well, there you go, honey. You know you've been a bathroom. Which she could be worse.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

But when she left, that's my thought process was where did she think he was? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's in the bridal suite with the bridesmaid, somebody. But he uh yeah, he yelled that out. I was like, Wow, that's hilarious! Thank you. That's and with that, yeah we go to I Got Friends in Low Places.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

So dumb. But anything, I mean, I've seen cakes fall off the table, I've seen ambulances show up at at these weddings. And you know, I think over the years, I think I've really learned to just calm them down. And it's all in the pre-planning. And I still think to this day, if you wedding coordinators are worth their weight and goal, you're gonna pay out the ass for them, but they are worth their weight and gold because there's so many things that happen prior to the wedding that you're not in the mindset to take care of. There's, you know, a month out, three weeks out, two weeks out, a week out, the day of, all these different things. Like they're rings. Who's in charge of those? And then if you give your mom and dad anything of like responsibility, they're gonna mess it up because they're not in the right frame of mind. Their daughter just got married. I gotta think about my speech, and I gotta do this, and I gotta do that. And it's tough. And so I became a wedding planner, so to speak, as well as a DJ. So the words of wisdom and how to handle certain situations, and look, there was things out of their control. If the cake falls off the table, both of y'all take a bite, take a picture, and let everybody else fend for themselves. Don't cry. Yeah, don't run off and hide. I had a bride, literally, her grandfather choked on a chicken bone, and the ambulances came. And when the venue called them, I said, Hey, have them turn the lights and the sirens off. Yeah. If they come rolling down the it was a long road to get in, they would see him and hear him coming in and then pulling in. I said, Your wedding is over. Yeah. So don't do, don't have them do that. So they turned off everything. She storms upstairs into the bride's room, and then grandpa gets checked out. He's fine, but he was drunk. And uh so no one can get her down. And her father finally says, Hey Mike, can you go upstairs? And I'm like, What am I gonna do? I'm the DJ. Yeah, yeah. If her mom can't get her down or her girlfriend can't get her down, and you, her father can't get her down, what am I gonna do? Right. So I went up there and I'm like, Hey, DJ. I'm like, uh just so you know, grandpa's fine. I know you haven't asked about him. I said, but the only person ruining your wedding is you. I said, I can tell you this. If you're not down in 10 minutes, I'm leaving. And that's all I said.

SPEAKER_01 53:36

Oh no kidding.

SPEAKER_02 53:37

I went downstairs and dad goes, How's it go? I go, Well, you're gonna fire me. And she came down. Really? And he's like, Ah, I have to know what you said. I'm like, No, you know, that's between the show later.

SPEAKER_01 53:47

She will. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:49

Show it to you. No doubt. And I remember when I was when I decided to raise my rates, when I was doing $600 weddings or $800 weddings, I sat with this couple, and they had all of their family aunts, uncles, siblings, dads, both sides sitting there, and they're just bombarding me with questions, and I'm answering them all. And I got paperwork and I'm showing them this and examples, and we're going through a bunch of different things. And before I even discussed price, dad got up, put his hand around my shoulder, and he's like, You're my man. And I'm like, Oh, Timothy's tonight. So when they ask price, I put the pricing stuff back in my folder, and I'm like, $1,400. And he's like, and I was waiting for, well, that's I'm like, I'm your man. But I never got it. So he never bitched. And then so every time I ran into an example to raise my rates. How much am I giving these people? What am I doing for the amount of money? Are you hiring a wedding planner? Am I gonna end up being that person? Because the caterers, they think about food, they're worried about food. The DJ kind of orchestrates the whole evening, sets the tone for pretty much everything that takes place. You are the guiding light of everything that happens that evening. Yeah. Unless you have a coordinator. Then that coordinator is telling everybody where to be.

SPEAKER_01 55:05

Still the DJ's dry really graphic. I mean they are directing. Yeah. I mean, because you you can I mean, I think of all the weddings I've been at, and you can be playing the chicken dance, and everybody's happy and whatever, because this stupid ass song is playing, and then you go and you play something else and crickets. Yep. And now you gotta go, okay. Now I gotta pick it back up. I gotta get back involved.

SPEAKER_02 55:28

And you gotta swallow your pride because there's times you're gonna play something, yeah, and you're gonna go, oh, that was a flop. I'm gonna use my power of veto, get rid of it, and move on. Kick it out. Damn.

SPEAKER_01 55:39

Thought that would have worked. Bleed it into something else. Yeah. So do you have do you have a do you have a least favorite song for a wedding? Is it the chicken dance? Probably the Macarena.

SPEAKER_02 55:49

No, yeah. Or the YMCA. Oh, God. And it never fails. You always have those aunts and uncles that always come up. I don't I don't mind that, you know, because it's a crowd favorite. Yeah. People get along. So anything that was, you know, sing alongs or could get people more involved, I was all for. Definitely the songs that Macarena, the chicken dance, I could do without them. But you look, if you have kids at weddings, they're gonna want them. People are always but I always listen. So on my list of things to fill out for the bride and groom, because there's uh I have paperwork for them. They have to do their homework and have to fill it out. If they just hand it back blank, it's like this is my wedding, not your wedding. Yep. So please fill out this information. Yeah. And along with what to play and you know the music, because you only have a certain amount of time to get to know these folks, what their likes are, what their dislikes are, things of that nature. So I would always have what they want played, and then also I want to list the what you do not want to hear because I have no problem telling aunt and uncle that this song is not gonna be played tonight. Yeah. And that's you know, you're a guest. But we were like the like there was a strobe like going off saying information center. That's what the DJ is. And everybody came to me. When are we gonna eat? I don't know. If you're that hungry, maybe you should have gotten something to eat before you came. Right. According to my notes here, it says another hour and a half. Bride and groom are taking photos, and then we'll be back in two hours. Enjoy a cocktail.

SPEAKER_05 57:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:15

So but we were the information source for just about everything. So rolling forward, you what I mean, you you got out of that. Yeah, I sold it, but uh, before I sold it, I had full-time DJs working for me that were out there doing most of the work. So I kind of slowly kind of like Frank and APN. Okay. So working on the business, not in the business. Yeah. And so I kind of took a back seat and was working more on it, allowing these guys to go out and do the work. Now I would still book myself, and I mean you can't pass up that kind of money, but I wasn't working as much. Gotcha. I mean, there were there were some years we would do 250 to 300 events. Wow. Holy smoke. In a year. So, and that's mainly Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays. And so it was, like I said, it was a lot of fun, but it was a business. Yeah. I mean, you you worked on it, you worked in it, and uh, thank God I made it a lot of fun. And, you know, I had a checklist when I'd leave the house to make sure that I didn't leave anything. But every once in a while, I'd be like, hey, honey, I forgot this. Can you bring it to me? And she would. She'd bring it out to me. In 2011, I went to work for a company that literally bought homes from the steps. And I would go and inspect them and put together the crews to fix them up, and then we'd flip them. They were buying anywhere from 45 to 60 homes a month. Wow. And so I'd be in homes from the crack of dawn any way I possibly could, jumping finches, breaking windows, just to find out if there was anything wrong with this house that would avoid them from buying at it at all. You know, anything that was visual that I could see. Was it like a tax lean auction or something? Or foreclosures and most of them were, and it was, you know, back in the time where, you know, 2008 crash and 2011, this was, you know. And so I was doing that in Phoenix. And then I started traveling to other states. I was in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio. And then the market started to dry up here. And they're like, Mike, we need you to move to Atlanta. I'm like, I'm done with that. Yeah. I'm not moving to Atlanta. Not going to Atlanta. I mean, if you'd have said maybe Ohio or, you know, Florida, I'm maybe. But Atlanta know I was not going there. And then I got into the security industry. A gentleman from our neighborhood was like, Hey, you want to try your luck at security? I'm like, sure, why not? And so I started selling commercial security for a company called Tyco. And I did that in Arizona. And then must have done it well enough. I got a chance to do it on a global scale or national scale. So I worked for National Accounts as a business development and security. And I did that for many years to 2020 was May of 2020. They called COVID. And they're like, Your last day is May 1st. Like, good luck. Yay! Yeah. Thank you. And then I bounced around from a couple security companies to where I'm in now. A friend of mine offered me a on the manufacturing side. Okay. And so I took that just over a year ago. Matter of fact, the tune made a year for me. Okay. And I feel like I've finally found a home where I belong. And my opinion and what I do matters. And the people that that I worked for are working for me. Gotcha. So to speak. Yeah, yeah. Don't know a better way to describe that. More of a team environment. Everybody wants everybody to serve succeed. They ask questions and not just dictate. And I love that. That's awesome. And they hired me for my experience. They hired me for what I do and told me just that. Mike, I need you to do what you do. That's awesome. And so it's been working out really, really good. That's awesome. And somewhere along the way, you got remarried. I got remarried. So I moved to Arizona and, you know, January 97 and met my wife in 99. She came to, I was a golf pro at Rolling Hills. Oh. And I went from Rolling Hills to what's the Kim McDonald. And then I went from Ken McDonald to Desert Mountain. Really? But while I was at Rolling Hills, she came in there one day with her three girlfriends. And she had worked for the airline industry. And she's like, We need some sticks. And I'm like, golf clubs? She's like, no, you know, sticks. I'm like, tease? And then by now she already thinks I'm a smart ass. So like this is not going to work out great. She's like, no. I don't know how to just stick things. And I'm like, golf clubs. She's like, no. And then she goes outside and she gets one of the pull carts and brings it into the door. So we had the pull cart handles.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:09

Oh God. I'm like, I'm sitting here and think, what could she mean other than golf clubs? That was me, you know, typical male.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:16

Yeah, trying to fix the problem, but I don't really know the problem. And so I was I was trying to get to her point of view, but I I wasn't getting there. And of course, she didn't think much of me at the time. And so when I called them to the T, I called them the Sticks Force. I'm no. And then it was literally a week, maybe two weeks later, I had a date, and it was Fat Tuesday. And so and on Miller Avenue, they had a place called Fat Tuesday. New Orleans. So where else was I going to be?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:46

So I had a date, and there's a huge line to get in. And I'm I told my date, I said, I'm not standing in this line. I'm going to just go to the front, VIP, and I'll speak Cajun and they'll let me in. So I said, if I'm not back in five minutes, come to that line, I'll get you in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So came around, said something to the guy, he let me in. I went to the straight to the bar, got a beer, got a shot, and I went back to the line. I waited. She never came. So I went back to the bar, got a beer, got a shot. And then as I'm walking through the crowd, place is packed. And you know how small it was. It's a small place. I hear this girl go, There's the golf die. Oh no. I'm like, oh. And I turn and it's her and her friend. And her friend disappears. And her. So Trisha and I start talking. And before you know it, we I don't know how long we were talking because we were just in involved and thralled in the conversation with each other. And I knew we were around the same age, but I w I wasn't sure. I really didn't know her, hadn't talked to her. So we start telling each other everything we want out of life. This is what I want. I've been married before. This is no kids. And you know, I want to live here, and I do want kids. And you know, it just went on and on and on and on. And before you know it, we were kissing. Oh, kid you not. We were kissing. And then I got a tap on the shoulder. My date. Oh, I kid you not. And so it's I turn around, I see her, I reach into my wallet, I get 20 bucks, and I'm like, bit of cap. That's when Trisha started to like me, I think. Oh my God, that's hilarious. And we've been together ever since. That's hilarious. And we just hit 25 years. Wow. Congratulations. Yeah, we got married. We got married up at the Desert Mountain. Okay. On July 21st of 2000. So for me, it's easy. I just got to add the years. Yeah. Any kids? We have two. I have two lovely kids. Madison, she's 22. Okay. And Carson 18. Just graduated from Castillo High School. Okay. He's about to go to NAU. And Madison just moved out in June. Thank you, baby. No, she's very independent. She was due to be out sooner. She just changed the locks on the house. It's no, you know, but it's funny, they come over from time to time, like, hey, you guys need a call. Yeah. I said, you know, mom and dad are empty nesters, and we're kind of living our life now. And, you know, but we set up dinners with them and that sort of thing. But yeah, Madison's super smart. She's uh she's got a lot of street smart. That's good. A lot like her dad. She works for a restaurant company in the valley, and uh she travels the country opening up new restaurants, and then when she's not, she's here serving and bartending. But at the age of 20, 22, she can do that. That's good. And you know, I wish her all the best. Carson, he is living his best life. He's 18, just graduated from high school. He's been a lifeguard for three years at our local community pool. And then he just got a he's been there eight months now at that new Rebels Surf Park. Yep. And I guess that's Mesa. I don't think it's still Mesa. And so when I say living his best life, he literally works and surfs. Wow. And He's about to go to the NAU where life's someone hit him in the city.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:04

Does it have to work?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:05

He does that too. I I think of what our kids get nowadays to what I had available to me. And it's different. I think my kids would be good without the phones if it wasn't introduced to them like it was not introduced for us back in the day. Yeah. I think they'd be fine because they're definitely outdoorsy. Madison, it was tough for her in high school because COVID was her last two years, and she was a spirited school student. She was like vice president of Stugo. She was on the drama club. She did stand up. She did improv. No kidding. My daughter did improv. That's awesome. That was the coolest thing. And literally like throw them a topic and they'd run with it. That's awesome. It was really, really cool. She was on the soccer team, was a really good soccer athlete. And then Carson, poor thing, we drug him to all of Madison's events as he was growing up because they're four years apart. And uh he wasn't really a ball sport kid. We threw him into everything football, baseball, basketball. And, you know, like me, he was kind of average at those things. He was really good at wrestling, super strong. And then uh he started skateboarding and snowboarding and surfing, and he's a really good surfer, and he's only been doing it for seven months. No kidding. And now he's he's getting to meet some of his like surfer heroes and that sort of thing. How cool is that? Yeah, so like I said, he's he's living his best life. He'll be on tour in Australia before you know it. Who knows if he sticks because he certainly looks like a surfer. Yeah, he is adapted to that look.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:39

So much for NAU. Yeah, he's gonna fit right in. He's gonna fit right in. That's too funny. So now you're an empty nester. What's next? Soon to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:49

We drop him off in a couple of weeks at NAU, and then I know for a fact we gotta go back there in September for Parents' Weekend. I think we're looking forward to that. But uh no, it's been kind of cool with the with the wife and I, we've just been experiencing different things. And uh look, man, when you put all your time and effort, and I have to give most of almost all the credit to my wife because she's always been there for my kids. She's you know, I I say baby, but uh, you know, you could call it nurture. Um help them with anything and everything. And you know, I've always been the disciplinary, you know, so I've always been kind of like the bad guy. Yeah. But I'm okay with that title because, you know, not having that father figure in my world, no one gave me a rule book. No one gave me you know the way to do it. I mean, I learned how to do a lot of different things by watching my friends do it with their dads. Yeah. You know, so for me, there was no rule book. There was definitely no guidance. And so when you bring that that newborn home and you're like, okay, I'm gonna do everything in my power to make sure that this person has something that I did not or have everything that I did not. So you tend to give them a little bit more and a little bit more leeway, and you know, and I think we have two super kids. That's really great kids. That's awesome. Where we really didn't have to discipline them too much, we didn't have to punish them too much or take things away. They've always chosen more the right path than the wrong. That's awesome. And I'd like to think that most of that has to do with, you know, some of me. Yeah. Mostly my wife. She's she's always been there for them and and uh but now that we're uh close to being empty nesters, you have to figure out how to enjoy the things that you and your wife have in common. So we we play pickleball together. Nice. We obviously love dancing, nightlife, listening to music, drinking, you know, going out to dinners. So we do really enjoy a lot of different things. We have to find hobbies.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:43

She's got 'em. I'm learning to kind of adapt to some of her hobbies, which is crafts. I'm not a crafter at all, but I will try. Yeah. And if it's something that makes her happy, I feel like I have to try. She uh she told me the other night at Glow Golf that that is the first time she's done in two years. Okay. That she wants to do it more. Okay. Nice. Which I think is great. Yeah. So we'll get out and we'll play more golf together. That's good. Which will be super. Yeah. And then uh the pickleball. We I I take my pickleball paddle and I travel. So I play quite often. I'm up every morning and play at 5 30. At least four days a week. Show up to a court. Yeah, we have a little text thing that goes out, and so you you I play doubles, so you definitely want to show up with your four and the and play. So there's a text group that goes out, so you're not just showing up, at least not that early, yeah, to play. And it's a lot of fun. My wife gets involved, she's more of a social aspect of it. Off the nine holes and then, you know, lunch and drinks, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where I can play all day.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:46

Yeah. Yeah. Nice. A little different. So let's talk about APN for a minute. Just because your membership's a little bit different than most? Everybody else. Yeah. You're the outlier. No, I'm just kidding. I'm the social guy. Yeah. So so talk to me about the social. I mean, how did you get involved with APN? How'd you get involved with Frank and how that all all happened?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:07

So over four years ago, Eric Lopez called me uh spur of the moment and said, Hey man, we have a spot for Palm Spring golf tournament in two weeks. Like I just happened to be at Carson's track meet. Uh, we found out he's not a track star either. He was doing the long jump and the triple jump, and like Carson, I'm sorry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:30

I'm sorry this is coming out now. Oh yeah. But uh But he's a surfer. That's good.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:34

He is definitely a surfer. But like I said, he was a skateboarder? He was a skateboarder. Okay. He learned how to skateboard. But like I said, just all the sports. He just never attached himself to him, never did them. I think he he was involved in the sports, the ball sports, because his friends were involved in the sports. And the only reason he didn't stick with wrestling is because none of his friends wrestled. And you know, when you're a kid, you're kind of influenced by that thing. If my friends aren't doing it, I'm not doing it. But he was really good at wrestling. What were we talking about? I was talking oh, 8 p.m. 8 p.m. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Eric called me and said we have a spot. And we were at the track meet and Trisha was there, and I'm like, hey, there's a golf tournament. Can I play? They have a spot. Sure go. And uh I went and won. And it became a thing. And I'm like, well, you gotta join now. So I joined over four years ago, and it's been an absolute blast. And because my business is national, it's not local to Arizona. I don't I don't have a business membership. I just have a social. Yep. But I am at the majority of the events and I've made so many good friends, people that I hang around with weekly, monthly, daily, that I play golf with, that I go to cigar events, Letitia. You know, I've met so many great people that have businesses that are involved in APN. And I'm a huge promoter. Yeah. I try and get as many people to get involved, especially if you have a business, it doesn't matter what it is. This is unlike any other networking, and I've been involved in B and I and a few others. It's just not the same.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:13

For me, what I see with the different businesses, I get to take it full advantage of them. You know, I don't promote a business, but man, if I need my car fixed, Jeff's my guy. My AC is about to go out. I know that I'm gonna be calling Andrew. Yeah. You know, so there's always someone. And if you don't know someone, call Frank. I promise you he knows someone.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:35

Even if they're not involved in the network. But APN's been great, a lot of great friends. And uh I think now that you know we've become the empty nesters, we'll be able to take part in more of the events. Makes sense. Like Myrtle. Yeah. Trisha's gonna come to Myrtle. I think there's more couples going to that event I expected. Yeah. Which will be a lot of fun, you know. And then, you know, them getting APN started over there, which is great. It'll be cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:59

I I just think of one of the things Frank said to me, and I I I I like to remember a conversation Frank and I had, or at least believe in my head that it was a conversation we had. But him saying, you know, part of the reason he started APN was really he just wanted buddies to hang out with, you know, it's like you just need someone to hang out with. So I like that aspect of it, that it's like really more, you know, cultivate friendships and whatever comes from it from that, you know. So I I think it's really awesome that they have that social level, but you're you're able to find value in it, even though it's not a, hey, I'm gonna promote my business in this, so to speak. You're just you know, you're there and and cultivating relationships. So I think that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:40

Yeah, and you'll find a multitude of different friends to do different things with. So like I have my golfing buddies, but maybe if it's dinners or a conversation, then I'm gonna go and hang out with this person, you know. Not that I wouldn't hang out with my golf buddies for that, but uh cigars, not everybody smokes cigars, so I meet a different type of crowd that smokes cigars, yeah. And so I get to enjoy their company as well. So APN's just brought a variety to my life and uh given me something to look forward to weekly, monthly with the different events that go on, and then especially the golf. I mean, I've made so many good friends and the majority of them I've I've I've given some lessons to and you know tried to help with their games because trust me, if any of your friends get better at golf and you get to see them succeed, yeah, that gives me the warm and fuzzies.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:34

Well that's that's awesome. I uh I'll look forward to someday we'll be carp buddies and you can give me some pointers. Yeah, I have no because I'll tell you, I I think I it's crazy. I had and I related it to my clubs and I don't know what it is, but I had and I need to get new clubs. I just say that, but I finally got them re-gripped. But I went from pings that were standard shafts to callaways that were an inch over standard because I was taller. Yep. And I've lost 20 yards on my clubs as age. Yeah. Well, and I figure part of it is aged, but but before that it wasn't, you know, and so now it's like I'm you know, I'm w watch some of these guys hit these long days. I pull out their pitching wedge from 150 yards. I'm like, dude, if I can hit 90, I'm lucky. Anyways, but no, I I I I appreciate that. I appreciate the that uh your your willingness to to explore that because I like I said, it's it's interesting to me, right? And I think that it's awesome that there is the opportunity to say, you know what, I want a call it a club, you know, to be involved in, and that you can be involved and you can step in and you can say, Yeah, you know what, I'm gonna be as involved or uninvolved as I want to be. And and I can tell you, I mean, having been involved in some of those things like you mentioned with B and I and different things, there is a completely different feel. It's a business. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:02

That's the way that I it it came across to me, and it's the way that it's I think it's designed is just to grow your business. And but only from a business standpoint. You're gonna build relationships out of that, don't get me wrong. Yeah, but this is more of a network that you can grow your business from. Yeah. It is a fun network to grow your business from, for sure. And I think a lot of people get I don't know, I'm I'm social, so I can't speak for them. Yeah. But uh I've gotten a lot out of it and will continue to get a lot out of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:34

Well, I just remember the first time I quasi met you, it was at Augusta, and Frank had challenged you to go stroke to stroke with a certain somebody to play golf. Yep. And that certain somebody I think kicked your ass at. She she beat me by one.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:53

She beat me by one. Well, I didn't I didn't know that your hair handicap was better than mine to start with. But leave it to Frank to set me up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was pretty I walked right into that one. That was pretty funny. The ego got smashed. Oh, yeah. But I didn't I don't mind losing as long as I get a chance to to regain. Yeah. Well, of course, you get opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:16

Right. That's all you can say. Well, and and I think, you know, stepping into it the second time, you you're you're a little more prepared. You say, okay, I now I now I know what I'm in for.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:27

I I just met her, so didn't know her. And now that I know her, great girl. Great woman. Yeah. Say girl. Hell of a golfer, and we have a lot of fun. She is a friend. That's good. And we do get to get out and play golf from time to time. And uh it's competitive, but now that I know her, I get to work on some of the mind games.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:48

There you go. Go along with right. Hey, you know, if you just turn your right hand, you turn that time fan over just a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:54

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can get into someone's head real easily, and it's usually with a compliment. That's awesome. I mean, I I I have been playing this game since I was nine, so I've I've learned a few things.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:03

Learned it. Well, that's awesome. Well, hey, I greatly appreciate you coming on. Well, it's been a blast. No, I appreciate it. Everybody who comes on does get a gift, so I'll reach under the magic counter here. We'll give you the gift. We've got uh coin there, and then you've got your own little custom tumbler. It actually has your name engraved on it from Rock's Ink Calligraphy. Come on. And so for whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:31

That's awesome. So we're glad to be a part of it. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:35

I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story with us and just having a conversation. It's been good to get to know you. And I look forward to many years to come getting to know you better.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:44

Yeah, maybe even if I can listen to it, you'll be able to announce me a little bit differently than the Mike R Palm Springs champion. Yeah, right. Mike Gard two times Palm Spring Champion. There is like a mic, I don't even know what you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:56

There is more capital to you than just call. There really is. So there's hey, I greatly appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:02

Thank you so much. I appreciate it too. Thank you, John. This is Mike Cooper, and I went above MB.