Lose Your Money Slower

Brandt Goodwin (00:01.300)
So how many have you done? You started with Chris with this setup.

Kevin Mooney (00:07.980)
Actually, I haven't done one with Chris.

Brandt Goodwin (00:09.560)
I thought he was your first one.

Kevin Mooney (00:10.620)
No, he hasn't been in yet. He's I had him in for like a test trial thing just to like test the microphone. I needed a body in the room.

Brandt Goodwin (00:19.040)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (00:19.420)
Instead of sitting here and walking around and then and then speaking out. It was kind of a nightmare. And he was so awkward. I can show you the video. He was like I'm like, dude, just relax. We're just sitting here, we're having a conversation, it's all good.

Brandt Goodwin (00:34.960)
He was talking last night about Chris is really chill. But I didn't know how to explain that to him. That you know, he doesn't know anything about the personality stuff. Not that I know a lot about it, but he's very internally thinking and introverted and so And judging you.

Kevin Mooney (00:53.060)
He's for sure judging you.

Brandt Goodwin (00:55.920)
For sure, like in a but in a bad way.

Kevin Mooney (00:58.500)
No.

Brandt Goodwin (00:58.820)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (00:59.260)
No, not at all.

Brandt Goodwin (00:59.840)
I think he's processing, like the wheels are turning.

Kevin Mooney (01:02.900)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:03.240)
You know?

Kevin Mooney (01:03.560)
Always.

Brandt Goodwin (01:05.220)
Smart guy. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:09.260)
Yeah, he just is the way he is.

Brandt Goodwin (01:10.940)
So who's Travis?

Kevin Mooney (01:11.860)
Travis is my trainer. Mm. At the gym.

Brandt Goodwin (01:16.100)
The BJJ trainer or muscles. Muscles.

Kevin Mooney (01:19.320)
Muscles for sure. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I go in there and train because I'm a talker, so I talk while I'm training.

Brandt Goodwin (01:28.480)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:28.820)
You know?

Brandt Goodwin (01:29.160)
Well like breaks up the monotony.

Kevin Mooney (01:30.760)
For sure.

Brandt Goodwin (01:31.700)
The gym's so boring.

Kevin Mooney (01:32.860)
Yeah. I mean it's a different kind of gym, right? It is like a hybrid CrossFit.

Brandt Goodwin (01:39.680)
Yeah. Yeah. Kind of gym like high intensity and stuff.

Kevin Mooney (01:42.500)
High intensity training. And I spend the first twenty minutes or so doing mobility. Mm-hmm.

Brandt Goodwin (01:48.880)
So like stretching.

Kevin Mooney (01:50.660)
A lot of stretching and foam rolling and smashing muscles and, you know, banded I don't know, pigeon poses or whatever, just to get like deep stretches and smash muscles. And then there's typically like a warm up something or another where I ride the assault bike and then I do jumping jacks or jump rope or some pull-ups or something like that. Then there's a core strength thing where we're gonna do either one lift, let's say deadlift, and we might roll in What do they call it? Supersets or something where you're like hammering your legs. So you'll jump from No rest. Yeah, no rest. And you'll do the three movements and then and then that's it.

Brandt Goodwin (02:38.840)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:39.120)
And then the very last part of the workout is a high intensity training. So you'll do an AMRAP AMRAP or an EMOM or something like that. Do you know anything?

Brandt Goodwin (02:49.100)
No.

Kevin Mooney (02:51.360)
It's like CrossFit stuff. Yeah. So AMRAP is as many rounds as possible. So you'll have three movements like a kettlebell swing, push-ups or pull-ups or lunges with a twist and a weight or something like that, and you have a dedicated amount of reps, and you go through the three, four, five exercises as many times as you can in 20 minutes.

Brandt Goodwin (03:20.220)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (03:20.480)
And it's fucking exhausting.

Brandt Goodwin (03:22.480)
Yeah, I bet.

Kevin Mooney (03:23.000)
So like sometimes there's a sled pull. You know, they'll put a 200 pounds on a sled and you gotta pull it 40 yards. You gotta do that eight fucking times or something.

Brandt Goodwin (03:31.540)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (03:31.800)
So it's intense for fucking sure.

Brandt Goodwin (03:36.580)
I think that the trainer aspect of things could be the push to be more motivated to go. I'm just so bored.

Kevin Mooney (03:46.520)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (03:46.960)
I hate it in there. It's the same fucking lifts all the time. And I try to like ask Chad or something like, hey, give me a routine or whatever this. And I see it. I'm just like, I

Kevin Mooney (03:57.000)
Don't want to do

Brandt Goodwin (03:57.420)
That. I don't even want to be here. You know? Like I started working for Los and I thought this was April 1st was the first day. And I'm thinking, dude, we'll get back to our routine. I need somebody to be there with me. It's just so boring. And he just breaks my heart and is like.

Kevin Mooney (04:53.580)
Dude, that's the only time that I get a break where I could turn everything off, so I'm gonna have to pass. Man. And I'm like, you gotta be shit me. Yeah. But the gym stuff, I mean, I tell my trainer all the time, after high school, I was like, I don't wanna fucking go to the gym. Right. I don't like six AM practices to six PM basically, right? Cause you have your morning workout, zero period or whatever the hell we called it. School football theory. The fourth block. Yeah. Fourth block is basically practice. Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (04:49.000)
And then practice after this. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (04:50.960)
And then I don't remember when that ended, six or some shit like that. And so you're sitting there working out all the time. And when what when I was done with high school, I'm like, fuck this, I'm done.

Brandt Goodwin (05:00.320)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (05:00.640)
Completely done with it. And I didn't touch anything for years.

Brandt Goodwin (05:03.720)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (05:04.060)
So starting back up at thirty eight was like starting from zero.

Brandt Goodwin (05:08.240)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (05:08.740)
The movements felt familiar, but I didn't have any like Base strength.

Brandt Goodwin (05:13.360)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (05:14.020)
Like the first day he was like, I'm just gonna see where your baseline's at. And he put 225 on the bar, and he was like, Alright, you're gonna deadlift this. I couldn't even pick the fucking thing up.

Brandt Goodwin (05:26.300)
Right. Even like grip.

Kevin Mooney (05:27.820)
Like the grip, everything. I just was like, I can't fucking get it up, you know. And I was like, boy, I have a long way to go. I remember in high school doing hang cleans at two twenty five.

Brandt Goodwin (05:39.500)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (05:39.780)
Right. And it was just one of those moments where you're like, fuck. It's been years. I haven't done shit. And now there's not a problem to pick up two twenty five and do it.

Brandt Goodwin (05:51.020)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (05:51.320)
You know. Thirty times or something.

Brandt Goodwin (05:54.060)
I like the I mean we were doing something, you know, and then you had hormones, you had the testosterone going, girls, that's there was something like motivating behind it. And I continue that after, with a little bit of help from some under the counter things and stuff, and then performance enhancement pick up basketball at like Hell Fit and all that. And then there was a long break, and then I had this opportunity to get back like in softball again. And I think the problem now is like the injuries have plagued. Where you're going out there and something's happening every session or every year to where now it's affecting me in the gym.

So half the stuff that even if it's normal in routine and the same stuff I've been doing for twenty years, I can't even do half of them. So it's like, what am I doing here?

Kevin Mooney (06:40.280)
That's the reason that I pay like thousand dollars a month right for the trainer.

Brandt Goodwin (06:46.280)
Even if it's the conversation, like you were saying, you like to talk or something like that. I can't go in that the music doesn't help any like it's the same even though the music's changed, it's like that's not crazy. Yeah. So I just can't get into this motivation of anything and I wish there was something and those paddle boards have kind of done it. I know it's pretty basic, but trying to fit it into where you're actually doing something and if I can get off work and get to the river, go down to the wire and back. At least there's like the process and you did something fun and you get some sun and everything, but yeah to go to the gym and the gym's like a hundred fucking yards away.

I mean, I walk there, I do go and I walk there, like there's no excuse. And there's times I leave, you know, the gym and go, Hey, you've hit it pretty well today, but it that like euphoria of going to the gym lasts. It's always lasted about five minutes.

Kevin Mooney (07:41.140)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (07:41.480)
And then you get home and you get back into your head about all the other shit that you've got going on. And it's like you don't I wish I had that mental thing that like Los and Jake H, I mean Jake D like all these guys that are just like, I have to go.

Kevin Mooney (07:56.740)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (07:57.200)
If I don't go, something feels wrong.

Kevin Mooney (07:59.480)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (07:59.480)
It's and it's like Joe Rogan says that's what is that? You know, like I have not

Kevin Mooney (08:04.100)
I'm starting to understand it more. I have the same stuff with injuries. Like my body just can't do what it used to do. We were doing pull-ups yesterday and all d all night last night my shoulder hurt like hell.

Brandt Goodwin (08:21.020)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (08:21.320)
Like whatever deep in this behind my delt or something like that. And it still hurts to this, you know, to this day. It still hurts this morning, right? Where it's like, dude. Just hanging from a bar and pulling my body weight up tweaks something in my shoulder.

Brandt Goodwin (08:37.380)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (08:37.820)
So the next on Monday when I go into the gym, I'm gonna be like, Hey, can we avoid pull-ups? Well, that's a fucking crazy thing to do. Like you should do pull-ups every day.

Brandt Goodwin (08:48.560)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (08:48.900)
You should be able to. Or my back starts hurting or my knees start hurting. Like I stepped on the stairs at the house Friday morning before the gym. And I you know how your elbow kind of gets stuck and you have to like pop it. Have you ever had that feeling?

Brandt Goodwin (09:05.260)
No, they fall asleep a lot, but no, not that popping thing.

Kevin Mooney (09:09.560)
Sometimes like it feels like the bone is just kind of like grinding on itself and then you pop it and it like breaks through.

Brandt Goodwin (09:15.520)
Yeah. No, I know what you mean.

Kevin Mooney (09:16.840)
That's like how it felt on my knee.

Brandt Goodwin (09:18.700)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (09:19.000)
And I was like, dude, I can't squat. A bunch of weight today, it hurts like hell.

Brandt Goodwin (09:23.580)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (09:24.240)
So what am I gonna do? And that's the part about the personal training that I like the most. Cause he'll be like, Let's do something different.

Brandt Goodwin (09:31.140)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (09:31.440)
Whatever else works. Like I can still work.

Brandt Goodwin (09:33.480)
What you can handle today or whatever. Did you s I don't know if you saw me get out of your truck today, like this morning. And that's another like discouraging thing. You know, I see my dad who took a year off this year for softball just 'cause he said he was sucking ass. But he's still golfing and stuff. The guy's seventy-five.

Kevin Mooney (09:51.180)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (09:51.500)
And he's still complimented on how he looks and just the genes that we have. And I'm sitting here thinking my dad's been doing this since he was in his twenties and he's and he's seventies, still playing and still rocking, still going to the gym. He does arms only. Just I think biceps and triceps on the machine.

Kevin Mooney (10:06.600)
That's it.

Brandt Goodwin (10:07.620)
But here I am like at I'll be forty-two next month and I don't know how much longer. And then I can't fathom I can't even do softball, you know. Without being that guy that like needs a courtesy runner every time you get on base and then when do I s you know, I could probably play first or pitch or catcher and stuff, but putting me in the outfield, it's not just what you're talking about with your elbow and like getting out of your truck with a eighteen inch drop, you're like, Whoa, like that I can just feel I gotta lose weight, but sure. The what was I gonna say about the outfield?

Sorry, running. No, not the like the also the competitiveness too. Like do you wanna be that guy that like is too slow to get here or there and stuff like Right, you play right field.

Kevin Mooney (10:54.940)
We're gonna stick them out and right.

Brandt Goodwin (10:56.400)
Do you have like do you am I really gonna have to hang up?

Kevin Mooney (11:00.640)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (11:00.640)
Cause then what's left? I mean, we're sports guys.

Kevin Mooney (11:04.440)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (11:04.800)
Whether we follow or do or whatever, it's like their that mind is always there. And now it's like, wow, up forty-five, I'm gonna have to hang them up and then what do I do?

Kevin Mooney (11:12.720)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (11:13.100)
Talk about a midlife crisis coming.

Kevin Mooney (11:15.060)
Yeah, it's that's a fucking weird thing. It's weird to even think about it. Because in my mind, I'm still right out of high school. You know, there's still this like even remodeling the kitchen. I'm like, I can just pick anything up. No, I can't pick up a fucking dishwasher right now and just carry it over my shoulder. There's just something weird about it. And it seeps into your brain and you start questioning yourself can I do this?

Brandt Goodwin (11:40.720)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (11:41.000)
That's why I think those people that have a bunch of money are like, I'm gonna go buy a Ferrari.

Brandt Goodwin (11:46.100)
Right. Because this is the next best thing or something. I think that it was probably guys, sports guys know this, especially if you were an athlete. If you don't go further past high school, there's always that in the back of your mind when you're watching, like, I could do this. I could be there.

Kevin Mooney (12:03.180)
We were just at the Bend Elks game and there was a pitcher. He was throwing They had normally they have some guys they throw in the next gas.

Brandt Goodwin (12:10.900)
They throw some just seventy five cock shots down the middle.

Kevin Mooney (12:15.080)
Maybe seventy five. It was like sixty seven, seventy two. You're watching the thing.

Brandt Goodwin (12:19.780)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (12:19.920)
And I just made a comment. I was like, I can go with that.

Brandt Goodwin (12:22.540)
But I was like,

Kevin Mooney (12:23.960)
I could go How do you sign

Brandt Goodwin (12:24.740)
Up? Where do you go? Is there a tryout?

Kevin Mooney (12:26.900)
And Marchelle just started dying laughing. Like you think that you could go play with these college kids right now?

Brandt Goodwin (12:32.600)
Yeah. There's a transition.

Kevin Mooney (12:34.800)
I think I could.

Brandt Goodwin (12:35.380)
Yeah. There's something like that works. I think for years it was like always, man, if you trained hard or something like that, may just to go see. Even if you didn't make it, just see where you're at, right? And just prove yourself wrong. And then it went to it I think it w Two maybe two or three years ago, which is so long, like what the fuck am I thinking at thirty eight years old that I can go still go out there and like manage a fucking professional sport. And so I think two or three years ago it was kind of just like now it's like I remember those days.

You know, maybe there was a time that you could have done it, but no, those three's are over. And they obviously were never they never began or else I wouldn't be here. It would have happened already.

Kevin Mooney (13:20.600)
But I don't remember when we played when I played softball here.

Brandt Goodwin (13:26.040)
Very early. It went I mean it was early.

Kevin Mooney (13:29.100)
It was it was after college.

Brandt Goodwin (13:35.120)
When you were doing scooters for Jared, I think I came up one time and you had a game and I played in that game with you once.

Kevin Mooney (13:42.940)
I and I just so maybe that was in the my twenties.

Brandt Goodwin (13:47.660)
Late twenties, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (13:49.120)
Probably late twenties. I guess where I'm going with this whole thing is at that time I played like I was playing in a high school game. Like I was diving, laying out for balls shortstop.

Brandt Goodwin (14:02.760)
Performance wise, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (14:04.180)
Just like really going for it. And I remember thinking then, like, I still got this. This the fundamentals are still here.

Brandt Goodwin (14:13.680)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (14:13.920)
It's weird to throw a softball instead of a baseball.

Brandt Goodwin (14:16.560)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (14:16.920)
And then I think the last year that I played, I threw a ball from like deep in the hole. Right. I don't know if I laid out for it, but I was probably cheating over, got it from third and threw it over to first

Brandt Goodwin (14:34.940)
And my arm went out.

Kevin Mooney (14:36.100)
Arm just went out like that like that. And I never played after that. Yeah. And I know the injury that it came from is when I broke my arm on the quad with laying down at Folsom Lake.

Brandt Goodwin (14:51.820)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (14:52.120)
But I never I never played again. And every time I go out to play catch with Cass I'm like underhand. I can't quite get it there, you know? And so I know there's so much so many parts of me that like couldn't compete now.

Injuries, Softball, and Athletic Identity

Brandt Goodwin (15:09.020)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (15:09.460)
But at that time when I was playing softball, I was like, I still got this. I could I could play on the men's league. Yeah, you know, for baseball.

Brandt Goodwin (15:17.320)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (15:18.720)
And the reality is I don't think I could. But I guess my question to you is when you play softball, even to this day, are you still that competitive or do you just kinda

Brandt Goodwin (15:28.160)
Within my limits, you know? There are times I think that I don't know if this is just a brain thing, but I play second base a lot. That's where I've been put the last like couple years. That's just my spot. And so there's times I'll foreshadow the play where if it's like, yeah, if it if it gets a little over here, I'm gonna have to dive. Sometimes these things happen.

Kevin Mooney (15:47.400)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (15:47.680)
I wouldn't say like diving, but like there are times where I still impress myself, like, dude, you still got it. You know, there's a little Aussie out there, but you're not stretching out, you know, you're not stretching out singles anymore. I mean, this I gotta I gotta hit a liner off the fence because when I come out of the box, I'm so nervous about re-injuring something. And continuing this like discouragement of the gym and just your body and you're changing, you're getting older. You are you gonna have to quit one day where it's just I don't push it anymore. So you're not stretching out doubles.

I mean, there are times when you probably could dive, but I have d I have dough for a ball and got it, and you're just like, dude, this is sick. And then, well, now you have to get up. You have to get up and now you have to make the throw. And you're like, that seems like it takes forever.

Kevin Mooney (16:37.460)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (16:38.020)
And so no, I mean I think the competitive never goes, but I'll just try to stay within my limits. I did the same thing with the shoulder. I didn't play for I didn't play when I was here. And I was in, I didn't play there was a big gap, years. And then my brother and I moved in with each other when we bought the house in Loomis. And I went and started playing on because he constantly played all the time. I'm like, dude, let's just go back and do it. First time out there, like same thing with your shoulder at third base. Like this is a softball, it's heavier.

You haven't thrown in ten years. And now you're playing long toss like before the game. And I was started out in the outfield a year four or five years ago and they were making those bigger throws and it was the first or second game, shoulders gone.

Kevin Mooney (17:25.880)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (17:26.220)
I never had a great arm to begin with, but now it's like pathetically bad.

Kevin Mooney (17:30.940)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (17:31.180)
And then there was a game, probably the same session, the first one, diving in the outfield, land on the other shoulder, make the catch, it's great. And then you come up and you're like, that didn't feel good. And now it you feel it when you're doing shoulders at the gym. So that's gone. I think 2021, I was on second base, and guy hits it, easy, just take the turn at third, and you're going home. I take one step off of second base and something like a it feel like felt like a somebody threw a rock. I mean, it's felt such like that I turned around like, did somebody just throw a rock and hit me in the calf?

And I take right step and then my left step collapsed to the ground. I had snapped my fucking calf in half. I crawled to third base, it's super embarrassing and stuff. And now I have this calf thing where like my left calf is half the size of my other one now. I mean, I finally got back to it where I can run, but it gets tight. Am I gonna do it again? I start to feel at my right calf. Like when's the next one gonna happen, like and even everything out. And so then what was it a week before I turned forty? My knee decided to turn forty early.

Kevin Mooney (18:42.100)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (18:42.640)
So I'm playing shortstop. We're at Rush Park in Citrus Heights, which is a dog shit field.

Kevin Mooney (18:47.740)
I don't even know that part.

Brandt Goodwin (18:49.280)
It's older it's one of those softball fields where you have they're back to back, but they have a thirty foot net.

Kevin Mooney (18:56.080)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (18:56.500)
But people can still hit bombs over that. So center field on the other field, like better be heads up.

Kevin Mooney (19:01.420)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (19:02.620)
I have a play where I go to my backhand at shortstop and I go to jump off of my left foot to turn and throw, and I land in a sprinkler hole. And there goes my knee. Hyper extent, MCL, meniscus. And so then that now there's that. And then just recently this year, I was on second base again and I took a turn around third to go home halfway to home. Something snaps. I've never felt this before. Snapping the hamstring. And I'm hobbling to sh home. It took so long. They ended up throwing home and tagging me out. I'm like, well, all right, well, that's this session.

You know, like I'm getting you're supposed to play what, like eight games, maybe. There's not a lot of teams. I think there's six teams, but you get eight games in or whatever, then some playoffs. The last two sessions now it's been I'm playing two games and I'm like, sorry guys, like can't make it.

Kevin Mooney (19:53.480)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (19:53.860)
Let's wait till the end of this one and start a new one. And then something else comes back. And it's like that's where it gets into do you really have to quit? Cause I don't want to be the guys that also you piss you off.

Kevin Mooney (20:05.940)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (20:06.520)
These guys that are fat well, because everyone else is

Kevin Mooney (20:08.720)
Competitive and they don't want the fucking loser.

Brandt Goodwin (20:11.180)
Here I am running. I'm hitting cleanup and I'm at second base. I think I'm one of those guys they depend on where I can just play the game. And now I'm the one that's like, we already have five people that can use a courtesy runner because they move like molasses and it hurts us in scoring. And now I'm the guy that's got to be like, Brandt, you want a runner? And I'm like thinking of the score and like where we're at in the game. And it's just like or how many outs there are like get strategic with it. We're like, no, I don't need one.

And then there's times it's like, yeah, we got to score, like come on in. But then we just move you only get one per batting inning, half of the inning. So you're wasting it on me and I've got five, you know, fifty year old fat people like behind me that actually need one. It's just like this is I'm not helping.

Kevin Mooney (20:56.280)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (20:56.740)
I mean that's I don't care if we win or lose. Like that's never been I'm not that guy. I do not give a fuck. It drives me nuts when those softball bros are out there and they get like hated with the blue or even their own players or whatever. But I'm still competitive with myself.

Kevin Mooney (21:13.540)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (21:13.880)
You know, and so it doesn't, you know.

Kevin Mooney (21:15.600)
That's the thing is the competitiveness with yourself. You know, we I don't know what league you're in, but we were in like the we started in like C League, which was straight beer league, yeah, you know, old man stuff, and we crushed it. And we had gotten all the way through the playoffs into like the final game, and then whatever the team was that we were playing with. They brought in a bunch of like alien players.

Brandt Goodwin (21:45.940)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (21:46.320)
Holy smokes, man. These are the guys that, you know, they like chop at the ball to give it the spin. And you know, you go from pretty routine ground balls to one hoppers at 120 miles an hour.

Brandt Goodwin (21:58.620)
No cup.

Kevin Mooney (21:59.260)
No cup. I'm like, dude, I we brought a keg to this game. Like it was great to like get to this game, right? We're like, Feeling like, yeah, man, we made it all the way to the fucking whatever the championship game.

Brandt Goodwin (22:14.120)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (22:14.560)
And then these guys come in and just start fucking hammering balls at you and hitting home runs a hundred feet over the fence, like over the park scene.

Brandt Goodwin (22:24.040)
Scoring fourteen and a half of an inning.

Kevin Mooney (22:26.180)
And like, what in the fuck is going on? And I just remember at that point being like I don't know. I don't really want to be a softball bro. This was just like a fun activity.

Brandt Goodwin (22:36.060)
Yeah. Yeah, a lot of

Kevin Mooney (22:37.240)
I was still competitive and still wanted to do what I did, but yeah, that was a it was a tough thing to fucking do.

Brandt Goodwin (22:43.300)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (22:43.680)
And I don't know, maybe that was part of me saying you're not as good as you think you are. Mm-hmm. Or like you couldn't play in the college league, right?

Brandt Goodwin (22:53.520)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (22:55.020)
I don't know what it was and how I'm tying this in, but it was just a sort of a realization of like I don't need this. I don't need to fucking hurt myself. I don't need to take a hundred mile an hour softball to the dick.

Brandt Goodwin (23:06.380)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (23:06.760)
That's not what I fucking happen.

Brandt Goodwin (23:08.580)
Yeah. I the injury go ahead.

Kevin Mooney (23:10.420)
One hit my you know, it just hopped weird and it hit my

Brandt Goodwin (23:14.480)
The butt of your glove. Or the butt on

Kevin Mooney (23:16.700)
My glove, right? On the on my hand. I thought my hand shattered.

Brandt Goodwin (23:20.880)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (23:21.220)
I was like, no I'm not doing this. Like, who are these guys? When did they get here?

Brandt Goodwin (23:25.900)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (23:26.180)
Like we've played this team four times throughout the season.

Brandt Goodwin (23:29.380)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (23:29.760)
And once in the playoffs, like why am I doing this now? Yeah, that was that was fucking insane.

Brandt Goodwin (23:36.180)
Yeah. Re for pretty fucking dumb.

Kevin Mooney (23:37.820)
But I don't know. It's just that competitiveness. And part of part of the thing I was thinking about when you were talking was that's why I go to the gym, and that's why I have that trainer, because he's so focused on I'm not here to get you jacked. I'm not preparing you for the CrossFit games. I'm getting you ready for day to day life.

Brandt Goodwin (24:00.080)
Like sustainability. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (24:00.380)
So you can pick your daughter up and fucking walk down to the beach.

Brandt Goodwin (24:05.400)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (24:05.700)
Or walk down to the river. Or you know I was we went to we went to Texas and Marchelle was already there and I had to bring both kids, a stroller, diaper bag, my luggage, Cass's luggage, Mabel's luggage. So I had all of this stuff and you know, I felt like super dad 'cause I'm fucking carrying everything and not only from the parking lot to the airport, but at the time Redmond was getting some work done and it was like a four hundred yard walking.

Brandt Goodwin (24:38.560)
Detour to the you

Kevin Mooney (24:40.040)
Know, and so I'm just fucking carrying everything and I was like, This is what I trained for, you know.

Brandt Goodwin (24:45.100)
There I need a breather.

Kevin Mooney (24:48.200)
I just whatever I was doing was stupid. Why was I carrying this the stroller?

Brandt Goodwin (24:54.780)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (24:55.300)
Like I was like,

Brandt Goodwin (24:56.520)
Well, you're dude. We're only making one trip.

Kevin Mooney (24:59.040)
Right. We're only making one trip. You just have your balls are speaking to you like must fucking go. Halfway down the tarmac, right? I'm like, fuck this and I pull the stroller out and I put the kid in the stroller, put some shit and I and I push the rest of the way. But the whole point is like that's the stuff that I'm training for. Yeah. In the process, I'm getting to learn some of these cool things that I actually thought were real fucking dumb. Like Kipping pull ups. Do you know what a kipping pull ups?

Brandt Goodwin (25:29.160)
Yeah, where you swing and you swing and you find Yeah, it's like the first half of the guys that actually can get above the bar and start doing gymnastics shit.

Kevin Mooney (25:35.680)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (25:35.960)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (25:37.280)
And, you know, to be fair, we do train mostly strict pull ups. Mm-hmm. But I was like, hey, I just want I wanna know how this thing goes. And then I started doing and I'm still not great at them. It's a the mechanics is a very weird thing. I was never a gymnastics person. Point is that When you do it, you can get more pull ups than you've ever gotten. Let's say your max is two. You can get six pretty fucking easily. And, you know, if you ask Matt, he's like, that's cheating. You're fucking swinging.

Brandt Goodwin (26:09.300)
Yeah, all this stuff. I get the yeah.

Kevin Mooney (26:11.060)
Holy shit. That is it's like a full body workout.

Brandt Goodwin (26:15.400)
Yeah. You get your core, your bac everything's going in there. Your hip flexors. I just saw a video this morning. Same thing. I think a chick was doing it. And the first thing I thought of was like Well, anybody can do that when you know, it's like doing a curl with your shoulder and you're Yeah. But I could see it w she did like six of and I was like, you know what? I bet your core's going, I bet your hip flexors are going, your timing's going, your grip is going, your forearms are going. Like that's probably an all body pull up.

Kevin Mooney (26:48.260)
It's wild.

Brandt Goodwin (26:48.980)
It is cheating 'cause it's a pull up, but who gives a fuck?

Kevin Mooney (26:54.000)
Yeah, I mean I don't know that I ever had the it's cheating stance. I was just more Well

Brandt Goodwin (27:03.040)
It's not it's not cheating because it's not it's not a pull up.

Kevin Mooney (27:05.540)
Well right. It's yeah I mean it is a pull up but it's not It's

Brandt Goodwin (27:09.000)
A pull up motion.

Kevin Mooney (27:09.900)
It's a it's just a whole fucking thing. And so I asked my trainer all the time, because he was a CrossFit guy and he was in the like he was in CrossFit before CrossFit was cool.

Brandt Goodwin (27:20.860)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (27:21.200)
And CrossFit games number one, he was like in it competing. And so I ask him all these questions all the time, like what is your stance on it? He's like, Here's the reality, dude. When you go into these games and you have to do four rounds of twenty pull ups, yeah, like go ahead, do strict all you want.

Brandt Goodwin (27:43.340)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (27:43.680)
Or fucking do it this way so that you can.

Brandt Goodwin (27:49.060)
Who gives a fuck, right?

Kevin Mooney (27:50.120)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (27:50.340)
The same thing with probably like the Ninja Warrior.

Kevin Mooney (27:52.400)
Sure.

Brandt Goodwin (27:52.400)
Yeah, the goal is to get from A to B.

Kevin Mooney (27:54.880)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (27:55.260)
No one said it needs to look pretty.

Kevin Mooney (27:57.160)
Right. So yeah, he's always he's always like, you know, the reality of that competitive game is like you just get it done however you have to get it done.

Brandt Goodwin (28:06.820)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (28:07.440)
And the interesting thing about the games is how much movement you do, how much weight you're doing, how many times you're doing it consistently over three or four days and eighteen events or whatever they do. And so he's like, that's kind of where the kipping pull up came from.

Why Functional Fitness Matters

Brandt Goodwin (28:23.920)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (28:24.840)
But going backwards, after learning the kipping pull ups, I prefer them over the strict because it does feel like that full body thing. Like your lats are just completely wrecked after those things.

Brandt Goodwin (28:40.720)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (28:41.040)
And you would think in a pull up scenario, just being strict, just going like this, that you're gonna kill your lats. But Just the whole movement. It just does everything for you and you're like, Yeah, that was a that was a good workout.

Brandt Goodwin (28:55.440)
You make a good point about that sustainability for like your daughter and stuff, because thinking about this kid right here, w she's two.

Kevin Mooney (29:03.580)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (29:04.180)
I was twenty eight years old.

Kevin Mooney (29:05.740)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (29:06.300)
I think, right? It was turn I was turning twenty nine. After he turned two, I'm twenty nine years old. And it's like, what a better time to have to do all this little kid stuff.

Kevin Mooney (29:19.600)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (29:19.940)
Whatever and picking them up and carrying them all that stuff. But it also couldn't imagine having a one right now. I mean, I can I mean what's it? I stopped the cigarettes thing. Not that the vape is probably helping the lungs at all, but to think to have like a newborn baby at forty two years old, like can we want to go outside and play? Like, yeah, let's go. You ready to go inside? Like, there's no way I could do this.

Kevin Mooney (29:47.720)
But I mean, even kids aside, the whole thing about just going to play softball. Mm-hmm. Like if you are because I think I'm projecting here and I'm guessing, but when you go to the gym, you might walk on the treadmill and then you do like bench, maybe a squat or

Brandt Goodwin (30:10.500)
Usually one muscle group, but it's the same Sure. Three or four lifts that I've been doing since I was twenty one.

Kevin Mooney (30:15.880)
It's the same shit that we've been we probably did in high school. Chest and dries, back and buys, and then, you know, squat or some shit like that. Right. They were just kind of those core things. And that stuff's good for muscle building. Right. But it's not it's not gonna help you fucking run. Right. It's not gonna help you Play software.

Brandt Goodwin (30:38.160)
There's nothing elastic about it that stretches anything out, which is probably more crucial than anything right now at this age.

Kevin Mooney (30:43.960)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (30:44.660)
It's I got classic me, I get a yoga setup off of Amazon with the mat and all the props and all that stuff, and it's sit in the corner of my room forever, knowing that's the probably most important thing that I could be doing right now. That for 20 minutes on a daily basis to stretch everything up because you're just closing everything in with this. You know, what can you do with two twenty five still?

Kevin Mooney (31:09.840)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (31:10.380)
Can I two seventy five? Like let's keep going. And you're probably just getting prone to injuries either. Your bones aren't for that. You know, I'm not stacking steroids either. Like just a guy.

Kevin Mooney (31:21.500)
Yeah, I think that is what is fun about the style of stuff that we do at his gym. It's pretty much different every single day. And the movements are I mean, just kettlebell swings. Like that's such a foreign movement. It seems like it would be really easy and it's really not fucking easy. And there's a lot of stretching in that 'cause you're swinging up and coming back and your hips are moving and you're just using all of these different muscles and stabilizers that you don't get in a squat or a deadlift or a bench or a tricep fucking skull crusher or something like that, you know? Yeah, I don't know. That's all I got for that.

Brandt Goodwin (32:11.940)
Yeah. Well, thinking about him too, like, cause we've worked out together and he's in high school and stuff. Nothing's changed. They're not doing the stuff that you and your trainer are doing. I was just dating this girl for a few weeks and she was showing me this app that she does her workout off of, and I was seeing all the lifts that she does. And it's like, I've never heard it before. I mean, I've been in the gym, so I can see like what muscles being used for it, but there's all these names, and I'm just like, and where do you do it? You know, there's kind of a r at the place that I go, there's a room with all that stuff, but then it's like it almost just looks like it's not doing anything.

Kevin Mooney (32:45.400)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (32:45.840)
You know, like I don't know, having that trainer there probably helping with form and all that stuff. And you can start to just use all those auxiliary things and auxiliary muscles and you're just like, this is why this is good. Otherwise I just get discouraged because I'm like, I don't really know. Like I'm just gonna go do incline dumbbells again.

Kevin Mooney (33:03.440)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (33:03.920)
For the f twentieth year in a row.

Kevin Mooney (33:06.640)
Like that's the you know, not to just dwell on the topic, but that's what's so great about I don't maybe it's just the crossfit hybrid hit type of exercises. It's like you don't really need anything.

Brandt Goodwin (33:22.760)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (33:23.300)
Like there's fucking tires.

Brandt Goodwin (33:24.820)
Do it at home almost. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (33:26.100)
It's pretty minimal stuff. You could have one kettlebell and have an entire full body workout with it. It's just knowing what those movements are. Yeah. I don't even know the names of some of the things, you know, Turkish get ups and stuff like that. I didn't know what this was. Yeah. Especially playing sports in high school. And now you do it and you're like, holy shit, that's fucking hard. Yeah. And you get all your stretches and you get all your stabilizers and then you get your strength from it. And it's pretty incredible what you can do with very little equipment. Where we came from, meaning like our training back then was like you needed a gym, you need a rack, you need a barbell, you need all this stuff.

And then here are the things that you do. And we always just rotated between three sets of five, four sets of four, two sets of three, whatever it was. Bench squat. We barely got into some cleans. But yeah, there's just a big difference between all of that stuff.

Brandt Goodwin (34:26.920)
Yeah. How are you liking it here? We've talked about this on the phone. It's and Bend, you know? You guys ever talk about leaving? Or is it pretty set here, especially with our parents being here?

Oregon, California, and Choosing Where to Live

Kevin Mooney (34:41.400)
Yeah, we'll move at some point, but I think it's gonna be another couple of few years. For a while there I thought we were gonna be leaving any minute.

Brandt Goodwin (34:55.820)
Down south.

Kevin Mooney (34:56.540)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (34:57.240)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (34:59.300)
It's hard to come from San Diego and then be in Bend, Oregon.

Brandt Goodwin (35:03.640)
For her.

Kevin Mooney (35:04.800)
For her. I think for probably a lot of people. I mean, I asked Weston, like, hey, what do you think of Oregon? He's like, six, seven.

Brandt Goodwin (35:12.840)
And it's like, I

Kevin Mooney (35:19.460)
Get it. Why would you move to a place like Oregon when in California you've got all California things and you know you're far tanner than I am. And It's also being a kid and just running around outside and stuff. But you know San Diego is sunny and seventy eleven months of the year.

Brandt Goodwin (35:42.080)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (35:42.380)
There's one month in June that is like off.

Brandt Goodwin (35:44.800)
The class the beach and all that, you know, depending on where you're at. And so not that we had that where we're from, but

Kevin Mooney (35:50.560)
No, we didn't have that. But even thinking about going down for my sister's wedding, it's gonna be October.

Brandt Goodwin (35:58.140)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (35:58.600)
That's probably still debatably hot.

Brandt Goodwin (36:02.400)
Yeah, for compared to here. Compared to the time of year. Yeah, it'll be eighty. Right. Give or take. Eighty.

Kevin Mooney (36:08.400)
I mean, geez, we'll be in October, it'll be fifty-two degrees.

Brandt Goodwin (36:12.120)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (36:12.900)
And so I'm just showing that when you have like this consistent, sunny, warm temperature for pretty much the entire year, and then you come up here and we have Three solid months of summer. It's basically middle of June to middle of August or September.

Brandt Goodwin (36:39.480)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (36:39.740)
You know, because September can be it can be warm or it can be pretty fucking cold. October hits and we might have snow. We might not. So if you start looking at and this is all tied into the gym stuff, if you start looking at the biology part of it, you know, we don't have the sunlight. The sun is basically at a I don't know what a degree twenty-five degree angle to us. Where down in Southern California, it's the sun is still pretty high. Nice and up, yeah. So you're not getting your vitamin D. So the sicknesses start happening. It gets dark at four o'clock in the wintertime.

Brandt Goodwin (37:19.020)
Yeah. It's cold bones, cold joints, yeah. Everything.

Kevin Mooney (37:22.280)
So coming from that to this is kind of a shock.

Brandt Goodwin (37:25.520)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (37:25.800)
And I think it's really tough. I mean, I'm feeling it more and more. And I don't know if it's just that whole idea of, you know, how women's periods. Periods sync up when they live in the same house. You know, you put four of them together, they're all gonna be menstruating at the same exact time.

Brandt Goodwin (37:40.680)
Sweet.

Kevin Mooney (37:41.020)
I don't know if I'm doing the same thing because with her. But I'm feeling it yeah more and more. And now that we have young kids, I'm getting fucking sick a lot. Wintertime comes around and I'm sick from I don't know, November to March. Yeah. And it's like That just wears you the fuck down. And so I'm not saying that a move would be a hundred percent on her or like her choice only. There's parts of me that's like, yeah, you know, all this snow and it yeah, it could be.

Brandt Goodwin (38:20.000)
Like going down. That's where you'd go probably, right?

Kevin Mooney (38:22.840)
We would go down there somewhere. I mean The hard part is her parents here live here and they're fucking great. And they're great for support and dropping the kids off for a night or something.

Brandt Goodwin (38:35.240)
Did they accidentally move here or did they come here because Marchelle was here?

Kevin Mooney (38:38.740)
No, they were here first.

Brandt Goodwin (38:40.260)
They were here first. Okay.

Kevin Mooney (38:41.500)
Robin I don't know

Brandt Goodwin (38:44.920)
Like before you guys even met?

Kevin Mooney (38:47.360)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (38:47.780)
Okay.

Kevin Mooney (38:48.200)
So they actually they moved here before we met. They moved here I think Robin's friend lived here and was like, you gotta move up there. It's fucking great. You know, whatever. And then so after living in Poway or wherever in Southern California for their whole lives, they were like, We're gonna move to a mountain town. Moved here. And then Marchelle essentially was like, Well, if you guys are leaving, I'm a single mom. I need yeah, I need the support. So she moved up. And then I met her within like a month or two of that. But that would be hard to move away from them, especially with my dad up here and then my mom down in Sacramento. Like I'm still kind of in between them and not that they provide a ton of support

Brandt Goodwin (39:42.520)
And stuff around here.

Kevin Mooney (39:45.140)
Even though they bitch about it.

Brandt Goodwin (39:47.380)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (39:47.880)
We don't get to see you guys all that much. Like, well, hey, you know where I live. Like, come on by.

Brandt Goodwin (39:56.560)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (39:57.040)
I don't know. I still love it. I feel like this place I've been saying this for too many years and I hope it's not just like a pipe dream, but I feel like this place is just closer and closer to being primed for like really good business activity.

Brandt Goodwin (40:14.120)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (40:14.320)
But just like I was describing on the way here, all the new people that are moving in and starting businesses, they're just They're like, let's make it look like Bend stuff.

Brandt Goodwin (40:24.800)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (40:25.360)
Let's get a mountain logo. Let's fucking, I don't know, do stupid social media posts and whatever the heck it is that they do. I'm not knocking them because it works. Because when you move from a city to a place like Bend, you're like, it's just such a nice little cute, knit, tight knit community. And I want to do all the Bend things. And so we go down to the river trail and we go to the coffee shop on the river and did it, you know. And we go to Sister's Coffee.

Brandt Goodwin (40:54.420)
And it's probably natural to acclimate to the place that you're going to.

Kevin Mooney (40:59.060)
Right. And so I guess I'm just illustrating the idea that the people that are moving here and the businesses that they're opening, they're just trying to fall into the same category. And what Bend really needs is just something different.

Brandt Goodwin (41:11.440)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (41:11.880)
And this place is not quite. The same as like the Rocklin, Roseville, Placer County stuff, because that boomed overnight. Like Stanford Ranch just showed up. It was all fields from my Casa Grande house. You know, there was an AMP that was surrounded by I don't know, fifteen thousand acres.

Brandt Goodwin (41:35.320)
Yeah. Yellow cheat grass. Cheat grass everywhere.

Kevin Mooney (41:37.900)
And then one day Stanford Red. At the end of

Brandt Goodwin (41:41.500)
High school, you could go all the way down sunset and hit sixty-five. That was never a thing.

Kevin Mooney (41:44.960)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (41:45.300)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (41:45.600)
And then, you know, there's every chain rest. I mean, that's the difference between Bend and that area is they were like, How many chains

Brandt Goodwin (41:52.580)
Can we put in

Kevin Mooney (41:53.360)
Here? Yeah. Let's put every fucking TGI Fridays and Island Boys or whatever the fuck those places are, Tahoe Joe's and yeah. They just like shoved it all in and everybody in that area have you been to the new PF chains things lately? Like, let's fucking go.

Brandt Goodwin (42:11.960)
No, they just opened up another one.

Kevin Mooney (42:13.600)
My god.

Brandt Goodwin (42:13.980)
It's closer.

Kevin Mooney (42:14.820)
It's closer. Let's go to that one. And I was always like, this is fucking terrible. And so I guess the point is up here, they're not really bringing the chains in, but they are just trying to make it.

Brandt Goodwin (42:25.160)
They're still chaining the yeah, the vision or whatever.

Kevin Mooney (42:27.540)
Yeah, it's a hard concept to do. So I'm no longer sitting in that place of like, there's gonna be so much opportunity here. Because there's not. They're just gonna, they're gonna show up here, they're gonna bring their dumb ideas and they're gonna fucking put it in. And maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. Yeah. So you extrapolate that out to a possibility of moving to like San Diego. You go, there's two and a half million people in San Diego County or something like that. There's only 130,000 people here. So you can open up something shitty there and survive. Yeah. Where here you have to be really good to survive.

You have to stand out above the crowd and do something completely different in order to get the that like percentage of the population to show up. Think about it all the time. Like if I were in New York. I could be doing ten thousand dollar websites, which I don't want to do, but I could be doing a million ten thousand dollar websites because there's a business on every fucking corner of every block with, you know, fifteen million people there.

Brandt Goodwin (43:36.720)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (43:37.860)
But here you gotta be a little bit more picky and choosy, and then they're picky and choosy about who they work with. So the idea of moving to a bigger place is like, well, I could do that. I could Yeah, I could move there. I could get a lot more work. And being in San Diego or LA, they expect a little bit more creativity out of the people they work with. Here they're like, whatever standard issue, you know, right down the center of the line, just fucking

Brandt Goodwin (44:05.840)
Get the template up, just call it this. Call it this, put it on there.

Kevin Mooney (44:09.800)
Put the colors on there, you know, and down there at least you have a little more freedom to just I don't know, there's more personality. There's no personality in Bend. It's fucking boring. It's just Patagonia jacket wearing people who are like, I like hiking and biking.

Brandt Goodwin (44:27.520)
Do you still think that it's more person like I can't put my finger on there's this point I've been coming up here since you moved up here, and then I lived here for a couple of years and I did a lot of drives back for Weston and those weekends and stuff, and there's always a point getting through Dorris. Where you're now just past the state line and there is this aura or energy that comes up. It just happened yesterday on our way up. And I can't put my finger on like why Oregon is different or why Oregon does that. I'm not saying I'm the only one.

It probably does that for everybody who's traveling. But do you even with the same old shit popping up in Bend, it's st Maybe still more personality than what it is down there. I don't know. What do you think the biggest difference is? Now that Bend is not the Bend that you move to, and Bend is like a I would say Bend is like a combo of Roseville and Truckee or Roseville and Tahoe because of the scenery and stuff. But I mean, what are the big differences up here?

Kevin Mooney (45:31.580)
I think It's weird because it has changed a bunch. You know Oregon is very liberal.

Brandt Goodwin (45:47.540)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (45:48.020)
And it's only liberal in Portland and Eugene. And then the rest of the state is whatever the other color is. I don't know, blue or red, or they're whatever. They're the opposite thing. But Oregon traditionally has always been more. I don't know, it's a complicated thought. They have been more liberal and conservative at the same exact time, meaning they care about the state cares about its resources. It cares about its land, its water, the resources in it. And it didn't really like outsiders. So it didn't really like Californians. There you can watch documentaries and movies going way back. Where people were they'd put up gates, like just citizens.

They'd put up their own fucking gate at the entrance of Oregon. And they were like, You're not allowed here. And this kind of ties into that state of Jefferson thing where, you know, Oregon and that Northern California, the Humboldt area, the triangle or whatever it is up there, they kinda tried to make their own state of Jefferson. And there's just this like rebel mentality.

Brandt Goodwin (47:08.220)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (47:08.680)
We're gonna do whatever the fuck we wanna do, but we're also kind of hippies.

Brandt Goodwin (47:12.260)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (47:12.660)
So we're gonna protect our land, we're gonna protect our resources, and that mentality is way different from California. So I think you feel that when you cross that border. And you go, I'm not saying that California does not have Vast openness, yeah. But as soon as you cross the border into Oregon, you're like, Whoa, this is vast! Yeah, you hit Dorris. And you don't hit anything for another three hours until you hit Bend.

Brandt Goodwin (47:44.220)
Once you pass Klamath Falls, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (47:45.500)
Right. You hit a well, even Klamath is you blink an eye and you're through it.

Brandt Goodwin (47:49.220)
Right, 'cause you're yeah, you don't you take the wrong turn or yeah, you don't go to town.

Kevin Mooney (47:53.200)
Even if you are you're staying on I five, you're gonna hit a bunch of those small like Oregon tweaker towns and Medford and Roseburg and all of that stuff, but there's just so much space in between the towns and the cities that you just have it's the same feeling.

Brandt Goodwin (48:48.300)
When I go up to Montana, you get up there and you're like, whoa, this is big. Yeah. That's why they say everything is big in Montana, you know, big sky, big mountain, big trucks. It's like ag. Yeah. Which you think conservative, red. And then you get into town and you see all the signs and you see all the bums and you see all this stuff. And you're like, we're in blue now. Yeah. And then you're through the town and two lights or two exits. Yeah. And then you're back to ag. So it's like, it's confusing. Like, what is Oregon? Yeah. And I mean to be fair, I've traveled

Kevin Mooney (48:43.480)
Up and down Oregon and California and California has

Brandt Goodwin (48:48.100)
The same thing,

Kevin Mooney (48:49.760)
But it feels different. The ag in California feels industrial. It feels bigger. You drive through Oregon, you're like, this is a small mom and pop shop.

Brandt Goodwin (49:00.580)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (49:01.500)
This has probably been in the family for a very long time and they're running a bunch of cattle on it or something. But you get in California and you drive by those fucking I don't even know what they're called.

Brandt Goodwin (49:12.820)
How about vineyards? Vineyards can go two hills over, and you know that's one fucking company.

Kevin Mooney (49:19.380)
Right. Well it's on both

Brandt Goodwin (49:20.940)
Sides of the freeway.

Kevin Mooney (49:21.880)
That's kind of the thing, is like the ag is different up here. I'm not saying that there's not vineyards. There's plenty of vineyards. The whole Willamette Valley is a lot of lot of vineyards. But We all know those places on like five or ninety-nine going south in California and you're like, What is that fucking smell?

Brandt Goodwin (49:45.000)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (49:45.980)
And then you see these you see these dairies, you see these piles of fucking w cow shit that is like a hundred yards wide by like a mile deep and it's just shit.

Brandt Goodwin (49:57.340)
Tarped, trapping it on Tarped with tires, and they're just

Kevin Mooney (50:00.620)
You're just like, What is this nasty smell? Again, Oregon may do that, but there's just a little bit of that difference there. And so I think all of that contributes to that sort of feeling that you have when you cross the border. It really does come simple things. You can ride in the back of a truck legally in Oregon.

Brandt Goodwin (50:24.080)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (50:25.060)
California.

Brandt Goodwin (50:25.580)
No. Felony murder.

Kevin Mooney (50:27.220)
Felony murder, you're going to fucking prison.

Brandt Goodwin (50:29.580)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (50:29.900)
You're gonna get butt fucked by Bubba, you know. Here, they're like, all your seats are taken up. Yeah, throw them in the back.

Brandt Goodwin (50:37.160)
Next best thing.

Kevin Mooney (50:38.060)
Next best thing. No seat belts required.

Brandt Goodwin (50:40.000)
No. Nope.

Kevin Mooney (50:40.280)
You don't even need a seat.

Brandt Goodwin (50:41.520)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (50:41.900)
And so to me, that's freedom.

Brandt Goodwin (50:45.180)
Just don't let any of the beer cans fly up.

Kevin Mooney (50:47.120)
Right. But to me, that's freedom.

Brandt Goodwin (50:49.540)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (50:49.880)
Is to be able to just do it. Like, why can't I put some I don't put my kids in the back of the truck and drive down the highway to go get food.

Brandt Goodwin (50:57.560)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (50:57.960)
But there is something about having the ability to do that. And so there's this like. Regulation, deregulation kind of argument going on. And I don't know that there's so many restrictions in California that you kind of don't feel free at all. So you replace being able to ride in the back of a truck with the ability to go to an In N Out, a Tahoe Joe's, a cattleman's, a this and a that, and it's up to you what you like. Personally, I would much rather be able to get in my truck Go four minutes out of town, know that I am on BLM forest land. I can drive for a hundred miles if I want.

I can drink a six pack of beer. I can put everybody I want in the truck and go and do it. I can carry the gun. I can do all of the things that I want to do. That sounds more fun to me.

Brandt Goodwin (51:50.300)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (51:50.860)
But if you ask Barb, she'd be like I was hoping to go to the no the new Tahoe Joe's.

Brandt Goodwin (51:56.480)
Yes.

Kevin Mooney (51:57.260)
The new PF Chang's or the new Mongolia.

Brandt Goodwin (51:58.780)
I've never heard of that place. You know, like you

Kevin Mooney (52:01.540)
Know, let's go there. Let's do it.

Brandt Goodwin (52:03.320)
Let's just go to like, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (52:05.240)
So there I don't know if I answered your question, but that to me is the entire package that makes it feel different. I literally when I came back from Germany. And I flew into San Francisco and you know, stayed in college trip.

Brandt Goodwin (52:20.460)
Your college trip? Okay.

Constant Change vs. Putting Down Roots

Kevin Mooney (52:21.980)
Yeah. And when I when I came back, it I was so happy to be back. And I wanted to go to Carolinas and get a burrito and did all of that stuff. But stayed the stayed in Rocklin for a couple of days and then finally drove back up to Bend to like figure out what I was gonna do.

Brandt Goodwin (52:37.520)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (52:37.820)
On that drive was super emotional.

Brandt Goodwin (52:40.760)
Like, whoa.

Kevin Mooney (52:41.880)
It felt like the first time I moved back up to Bend where You're just like, this is vast. It's wide open. There's like possibilities. I don't know. It's a different feeling.

Brandt Goodwin (52:51.620)
I had I had that. I when I moved back to California, I had to take a second trip to come up here and get the rest of my stuff. And I think on that trip on the way down, wasn't like crying or anything, but there wasn't a kind of an emotional thing about like the last two years of being here. And when I crossed that border coming north up to here, there is always that like I almost was here. Mm-hmm. You know, there was probably a couple decisions that if that happened, I'd still be here. Mm-hmm. And it's somewhat I may I think a lot of it's pondering just what life would have been like if I was because I'd be on year eleven, which is crazy to think about.

Kevin Mooney (53:35.240)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (53:35.620)
2015. Yeah. Would have been crazy. But then I think about him.

Kevin Mooney (53:39.260)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (53:39.940)
And it's like I don't regret. Anything.

Kevin Mooney (53:42.660)
No, of course.

Brandt Goodwin (53:43.160)
It fell into place so nicely and I couldn't imagine being a every third weekend dad going down and back, having a kid and then just how this has developed and where we're at. It's I could never take it back. But I do sit there and think, wow, it's probably one big decision with the with the yard pros thing that holy shit, I could have made something here.

Kevin Mooney (54:11.080)
Yeah. I mean part of making it is just sticking it out. You know.

Brandt Goodwin (54:18.920)
Not my style. For sure, not your style. No.

Kevin Mooney (54:22.080)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (54:22.340)
Whether it's work, women, the gym or women, where I live.

Kevin Mooney (54:27.580)
Where you live.

Brandt Goodwin (54:28.240)
Yeah. God, I went I just did it the I swear to God, it's like twenty nine places that I've lived since moving out of the house at 18 years old. Yeah. And not like It doesn't feel too much like I need to make a change or maybe it's like the grass is greener. I just life naturally just happened that way.

Kevin Mooney (54:45.760)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (54:46.260)
You know, it's from this job and then well go to a bigger casino. So now you're down here and then the place you're living at, you got two roommates that are like twelve years old, like just out of high school. I feel like a old man at twenty-four. I'm like, nah, I gotta I need to move somewhere else that feels good. And then you buy a house because you think that's the best decision, which wasn't.

Kevin Mooney (55:06.000)
It never is.

Brandt Goodwin (55:07.160)
No. So it just it was all these like different things, you know, get back to the Bay Area and roommates weird. Let's go move in with Cody and swim in with c like Belmont, you know, and then there's a cockroach infestation, so you go to the next place. It just it what's crazy. I think Loomis with my brother was three years. That was the longest that I've ever stayed in one house at for a period of time.

Kevin Mooney (55:30.800)
I think about it all the time with you because Like A I've only had I've had four vehicles. Mm-hmm. Five including like a toy that I had, right? With Brett when we were building yeah. But I had the red Chevy from high school to A little bit out of high school. And then I bought that Tacoma. And then I drove that for twenty two years.

Brandt Goodwin (56:07.560)
Yeah. Crazy.

Kevin Mooney (56:08.280)
And then I bought a new Tacoma, but I only had that for like a year. And then kids came and then it was like, well, upsize. Yeah. And then in terms of living, I guess it's maybe a little bit more, but it's probably still on one hand.

Brandt Goodwin (56:24.820)
Especially up here. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (56:26.500)
Yeah. I mean we the first place we moved into, that town home, six hundred bucks a month. My god, like fucking great. And then we got that house.

Brandt Goodwin (56:35.480)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (56:36.020)
And we stayed there basically for I mean, all of us stayed there for like six, seven, eight years or something like that. Then it was out of Germany and then the Stanium. Stanium house.

Brandt Goodwin (56:48.420)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (56:48.780)
And then that was a couple of years and then And then I guess the apartment that I had.

Brandt Goodwin (56:54.620)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (56:54.860)
And then our house. So we're at I'm at like five I

Brandt Goodwin (57:00.440)
You were in that you were in that the rental the rental for a minute, yeah. But still five, six, whatever.

Kevin Mooney (57:05.920)
Like one hand, you know, in twenty something years. And to me it kind of feels like a lot. I can't imagine twenty nine moves and fourteen fucking cars.

Brandt Goodwin (57:16.200)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (57:16.200)
That's too much change. Too much fucking change for me.

Brandt Goodwin (57:19.860)
I don't know if that's chaos. I don't know if it's Needing a switch, I don't know, probably a lot of insecurity in there and just all the wiring stuff that's happened and everything. I just realized something recently. It was based off of a little dating situation that I just recently had and the phrase came out that it's the it was the present word again. We've talked about this before with like the personality stuff, but I think I've lived my life since about five years old about being perfect. And you know why. Mm-hmm. And this line was, you've been living, you know, this life of trying to be perfect, whether it's work, where you live, what you drive, women, and when things don't feel perfect, it must be time to change.

And I don't think I've rarely lived, I think, in the present. I think I can do it in specific. Parts of the day. You know, I think that when I was a dealer forever in that shift, I felt alive and present at that time. But once you got into the car to go home, five minutes down the road, all the other personal shit comes into play and it completely like kiboshes living in the present. So everything's based off the past. Everything about the future is nervous. Yeah. You know? But I can't live in the middle. It's either the past or the future.

Kevin Mooney (58:49.020)
I mean I c I catch myself and I catch our family doing the same stuff. I mean I think Marchelle has this she needs to be she needs to be busy all the time. She needs to be doing something. So maybe that includes a new home project, or maybe that includes going out in the world and doing something. But there's something ingrained in her. I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just noticing that She needs that constant movement. But it doesn't have to come in the shape of a new car or something like she's had her car for fifteen years or something. But whenever she feels stagnant, there's like this big push. We're going to New York.

Brandt Goodwin (59:37.340)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (59:37.580)
Like, whoa. Okay. I guess I'm gonna take a week off to go to New York.

Brandt Goodwin (59:43.460)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (59:43.720)
Okay. And you know Let's say I just want to sit down and watch TV. I just want to zone out and be present, be in the moment and just do whatever the thing is. Well, that to her is being still bored. And it's bored, and she's gotta she's gotta move. So we kind of constantly battle that stuff.

Brandt Goodwin (01:00:02.760)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:00:03.060)
You know, where we go out and we'll go to an Elks game and then we'll go to a concert and then we'll go out to dinner and then we'll go do that. And it's like every single day of the week, we did everything involving the kids. Plus our work, plus everything out in the world afterwards for fun. Saturdays here, I don't want to fucking do anything.

Brandt Goodwin (01:00:23.580)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:00:23.920)
I don't want to put the dishwasher in today. Like I wanna sit here and talk to you.

Brandt Goodwin (01:00:28.340)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:00:28.680)
Because at least in this moment, there's nothing else going on in my head. It this is the only thing that I'm doing.

Brandt Goodwin (01:00:34.920)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:00:35.220)
You know, I see this character right, you know, out of the corner of my eye, scrolling.

Brandt Goodwin (01:00:39.220)
Talk ticking.

Kevin Mooney (01:00:39.920)
Talk ticking.

Brandt Goodwin (01:00:40.880)
But not even here.

Kevin Mooney (01:00:42.340)
Like this is just yeah, he doesn't even hear it. He doesn't even know. Just staring, man.

Brandt Goodwin (01:00:48.040)
We should get him on.

Kevin Mooney (01:00:49.260)
I know. You want to get on, Weston?

Brandt Goodwin (01:00:54.660)
Huh? Huh?

Kevin Mooney (01:00:56.300)
There it is. Just a big huh. Yeah. But these are the things that I like to just do to be present. And it's an exercise in staying present where she can be present on the move doing all of those things.

Brandt Goodwin (01:01:12.140)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:01:12.440)
I can't. I if I'm doing something, I'm doing that thing. And to be fair, that is being present in that. But if I'm worried about something at work, but she's got us doing something else. I'm thinking about the thing at work.

Brandt Goodwin (01:01:30.500)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:01:30.840)
Where right now I'm not thinking about anything in terms of work or my responsibilities at home. And so it's probably just the way we're wired. It's how we were raised. I don't know. I can't say that Any of this stuff comes from my mom or my dad. I don't know. But I know for her, she lived in a constant state of house projects. Mac was constantly, because he was a contractor, doing stuff on the house. So she was like, our house was never, ever once complete. We never just lived in our house. We were always doing something.

Brandt Goodwin (01:02:08.640)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:02:08.920)
So now as an adult, she's doing the same exact thing. And it's not that I disagree or dislike it. I just like to kind of whew. Let's just

Brandt Goodwin (01:02:18.940)
Do you think let's

Kevin Mooney (01:02:20.060)
Just stop for a moment.

Brandt Goodwin (01:02:20.920)
Do you there's gotta be that little bit. You wanna be a little bit more her. Does she also want to be able to be a little bit like you where she can just park it for maybe a couple hours and watch a movie? Or is this just no, this is what works?

Kevin Mooney (01:02:34.620)
I think I don't think she wants to just park it.

Brandt Goodwin (01:02:38.280)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:02:40.060)
Like her idea of a great day. Is to just clean the house and just like do the laundry and the dishes and all yeah you could say that but I end up getting roped into the whole entire thing and like her project becomes my project. But that's like that's fun for her. I'm like I hate brushing my teeth, flossing, doing laundry, going to pick up personal products. Like if I'm out of deodorant, I'm like, I'm not going to the store to get more deodorant. I just like don't do it for like weeks. And then one day I go out, I'm like, all right, it's fucking finally time. I gotta I gotta get these other things anyways.

Brandt Goodwin (01:03:31.320)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:03:31.820)
It's so when I go and buy Q tips or deodorant or shaving cream. I ordered that shit from Amazon in pallets basically. So I don't have to go all the time. Under my under my bathroom sink is literally an eight less 12 boxes of a thousand q-tips and two twelve packs of like Barbasol shaving cream and 150 deodorant sticks. And I just do that because I hate that process. Her on the other hand, she's just like She's got a l a list, she's checking it twice. If she doesn't check everything off the list, she's like, I didn't complete my day. I'm not happy.

Brandt Goodwin (01:04:12.820)
Yeah. I've been like that. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:04:14.880)
I'm more like, it'll get done sometime. See you know, maybe next month I'll get to it. And I don't know. I think I'm I think I'm off in rambling zone. I don't remember what

Relationships, Perfectionism, and Being Present

Brandt Goodwin (01:04:26.500)
I got a I have a question for you.

Kevin Mooney (01:04:28.000)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:04:28.000)
It's pretty vague.

Kevin Mooney (01:04:29.900)
My favorite.

Brandt Goodwin (01:04:30.900)
Yeah. No, but there's context to this 'cause I have something about it. And it's two parts. Do you what's up? Keep going? Are you do you like are you in love and how do you know that you are? Like what is that what is that at what 35 when it started? Do you think it was different than before or

Kevin Mooney (01:04:56.060)
Wait, are you asking if I fell in love at 35?

Brandt Goodwin (01:04:58.460)
Like I just I don't okay.

Kevin Mooney (01:05:01.400)
This is a hard fucking question. I'm gonna stumble through it, but keep

Brandt Goodwin (01:05:05.600)
I'm not even gonna put it on you. The reason I'm asking is because I w I had a I talked to Michelle now for what seven years now or something, and we don't we've talked once a year the last couple. The last one that I was on there, I was telling her that like I don't know if I'm capable. I don't know what that means. To get to be at that level anymore, past what I thought it was when I was like nineteen years old or sixteen years old. And it circles back to this perfection and present thing where it specifically came up where like, Michelle, I don't know the last time that I've like hooked up with a girl s whether liked her or not, whatever the situation was, and then had some sort of close connection feeling with them and I some days I just sit here and think that it's either impossible, just never gonna happen. And I don't Well,

Kevin Mooney (01:06:04.440)
A question back to you is Yeah do you I'll I will answer your question. But do you think that it's hard to be in love or have those types of feelings for someone because you've been with so many people?

Brandt Goodwin (01:06:25.280)
That definitely plays into it. I think Because you become desensitized. Yeah, very desensitized.

Kevin Mooney (01:06:29.600)
The one the legend that we know who has been with debatably thousands of women. I mean, this is like what's the dude from KISS? The tongue guy, Jerry Simmons. Jeans Jean.

Brandt Goodwin (01:06:45.080)
Gene Simmons, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:06:46.560)
You know, he famously claimed to be with like tens of thousands of women, and I believe that because you're a rock star and you're crazy kiss, fire, and big tongues and makeups, and you're just banging roadies all the time.

Brandt Goodwin (01:06:59.240)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:07:00.520)
But the legend like just does it under the radar. Do you think that person is even in love with the partner? And I'm Only bringing that person into the conversation because of the volume of people that you're with. Does it just desensitize you? And you're just like, I don't know, it just

Brandt Goodwin (01:07:16.940)
It has to have something to do with it. But then I go back and I think, well, what did I think in love was at 19? In love at 19, there was other things going on up here. Stuff that I hadn't even this was the beginning of being an adult and seeing what all the stuff that happened in the beginning and how it was gonna affect me moving forward. Yeah. So being in love at 19. Was like high stimulation of negative insecurity. And I was crazy. I was a piece of shit to that girl. Yeah. That one right after high school. And so it's like that's my context of being in love on top of like there was none as a kid.

And so I think that's the hardest I think that's the better question for you is what does it mean to you? Because I like I don't think I've ever felt it. Not that I haven't loved things or even with these ones that have been better relationships and stuff. Of course I care about them and I love them and stuff, but I see couples walking the street and I've been doing it for my whole life now where I'm just like I want that, but I don't even know if I know what it means to be in it.

Kevin Mooney (01:08:23.520)
Yeah. I think that I mean, I often wonder the same question. I wonder if These people walking down the street holding hands or holding hips or whatever they do, you know, and giggling or not. I wonder, are they really in love or Are

Brandt Goodwin (01:08:42.100)
They doing the thing?

Kevin Mooney (01:08:42.820)
Are they doing the thing? Are they kind of going through the motion like this is the person I settled with? This is the person that I said I love you too. And so we're just gonna keep going and do this thing. I don't have the best words. I've never had the best words for what it means to be in love.

Brandt Goodwin (01:09:02.100)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:09:03.020)
To be fair, I don't know if anybody does have the right words. I think some people probably can put the put better words in front of it, but to me it's This is gonna sound shitty, but I don't know how else to say it. There's a level of like comfort that comes with it. And it doesn't mean for a second that if I slip up, that can't go away. Like it can go away if I fuck up. And so that's not what I'm saying. Comfort means. The comfort to me is more like you're just kind of in tune with the person. And when I was in the dating scene, all of the people that I dated, there was a couple that felt close.

Brandt Goodwin (01:09:50.560)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:09:50.860)
And I was like, I'm in love. My God, that's what that is. Because it just kinda happened and it just clicked where you could just show up this the greatest line from Pulp Fiction when they're sitting in the diner in the cars together and what's her name? Forget her name. Doesn't Mia. She just goes Isn't this strange? Like when two people can just shut the fuck up and enjoy the company of each other. Yeah. I remember watching that and being like, that's kind of the thing that I'm in search of. And It's not just like you don't have to talk. It's just to be there with somebody, be with somebody like a true friend.

Like you and I can just be around each other. I'm not saying I love you, by the way. I'm saying I probably do love you, right?

Brandt Goodwin (01:10:40.640)
I call.

Kevin Mooney (01:10:41.360)
Yeah, right. In that definition. I guess I'm just saying that like How often have you been with a gal that you can just sit and be comfortable and be a hundred percent yourself? You can just rip ass, hit your vape pen,

Brandt Goodwin (01:10:56.360)
Well there's you know, lay

Kevin Mooney (01:10:57.640)
On the couch.

Brandt Goodwin (01:10:58.260)
There's probably been a hand like there has been a handful.

Kevin Mooney (01:11:01.140)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:11:01.520)
And then there's ones where we go back to the perfection and the present thing. And I think you brought something up about comfort and it was When you look at the cars and you look at how many times I've moved and switched jobs or whatever, I have not been able to past the uncomfort threshold because it's not like you guys are fucking roses every day.

Kevin Mooney (01:11:24.860)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (01:11:25.200)
And when those moments have come up in the past, so much shit starts hitting in the brain. All these fucking things start going off. And one of those things is this is not comfortable.

Kevin Mooney (01:11:37.040)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:11:37.820)
And comfort is not safe. Uncomfortable is not safe in not even giving it a chance to let that person make you comfortable after bad moments. And now it's walking on eggshells and now it's this or that and

Kevin Mooney (01:11:52.560)
Well and that shit still happens.

Brandt Goodwin (01:11:54.340)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:11:56.680)
But part of part of the love process, at least from my perspective, is that ability to kind of heal that moment. Yeah. And to go back to that level of comfort with your partner. I don't know, the words that I'm using are so surface level, I think, right now, but there's somet like here's an example. It might have been the first night that I stayed with Marsh. She was like, when I went to bed, my nervous system just shut down. Yeah. Whereas before, I was in this heightened state of like, you know, whether it's alone or the old partner or life or work or business or kids or whatever. She was just like, my nervous system shut down. And I remember thinking just like after banging. No.

Brandt Goodwin (01:12:52.720)
Or just no in general. This just in general.

Kevin Mooney (01:12:55.980)
And I remember when she said that. I hadn't even thought of it, but I used to have to get high to go to bed. Yeah. I mean, I'd get off of work, I'd eat an edible on the way home. I'd get home, I'd pack the bong, I'd take a shower, the weed was starting to hit, I'd start cooking dinner and I would hit the bong again. I'd eat dinner and I'd eat another edible and I'd sit down and watch movies.

Brandt Goodwin (01:13:21.220)
And if you didn't do this

Kevin Mooney (01:13:22.460)
And if I didn't do it, I was I was not sleeping. Right. Well, as soon as I met her, I was like, I don't really want to be doing all of this right now.

Brandt Goodwin (01:13:31.440)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:13:31.780)
So I didn't do it, fell asleep.

Brandt Goodwin (01:13:34.120)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:13:34.840)
And so when she said that, I realized, shit, yeah. I've never felt like that with somebody. Like if I had a lady over, you know, if she passed out or something, I'd go out and hit the bong.

Brandt Goodwin (01:13:47.780)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:13:48.000)
You know, or I'd go you know, crush a beer or something like that and then get back into bed. It was like I just needed something to get me there. And when I met her and was when I was with her, it all just went away.

Brandt Goodwin (01:13:59.040)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:13:59.360)
And there was something so I tie all of those things into that comfort thing. So when you meet somebody and you're like, damn, I can just be myself. I don't know the first time I farted in front of her, but it was probably pretty early. Whereas before, like I did not fart in front of a gal.

Brandt Goodwin (01:14:19.700)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:14:20.020)
I made sure to go out. Like if I had to shit, I was holding that shit.

Brandt Goodwin (01:14:24.340)
The squeeze.

Kevin Mooney (01:14:24.940)
You're like, fuck. Yeah. You know, you're shaking and you're like, I gotta I gotta go

Brandt Goodwin (01:14:30.480)
And when you

Kevin Mooney (01:14:31.160)
Get something on When you get to

Brandt Goodwin (01:14:32.300)
Leave and you're driving home, you're just like, yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:14:35.980)
Yeah, that whole fucking thing. And it all that went away with her. And I'm not just saying that's like that's what love is. Because there's plenty of people that are very comfortable in their bodies and their skin to be able to just like fart in front of anybody, or take a dump next door or something. But for me, I knew that was like the sign.

Brandt Goodwin (01:14:59.320)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:14:59.600)
Where I could relax. And then what was funny is that she could relax. And then we relaxed together. And it was like, this is a really fucking nice thing. And then in terms of like fighting, you know, we still fight.

Brandt Goodwin (01:15:11.960)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:15:12.280)
And it is how quickly we can recover from that.

Brandt Goodwin (01:15:17.140)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:15:17.420)
To her credit, she's very she wants to recover very quick. I want to recover very quick, but I have some ego problems. I have some. Dude problems. I have some Joe problems. Yeah. Where I need to like, it's I have to bury that thing down and then just like fucking hold it down in my belly and go outside and just be mad and work in the yard or something. And so it takes a lot of work on my end. It takes a ton of work. And sometimes it takes a couple of days. Yeah. Like we just got into a fight, I don't know, a couple weeks ago.

And I said something fucked up and I shouldn't have said it. And when I said it and we were in the moment, I was like, yeah, fucking say that thing. You know, that was like kind of old Kev who just fucking blurts it out and says it. And then right, pretty much right immediately afterwards, I was like, man, something doesn't feel right about what I said. And it took me about a day maybe two days, or on the second night, or something like that. I was like, You're a fucking asshole.

Brandt Goodwin (01:16:26.520)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:16:26.940)
You fucked up. You said something wrong. You need to go apologize. And I went and I apologize. And you know, that helped kind of get past. I bet she would have wanted that to happen immediately.

Brandt Goodwin (01:16:38.400)
Right. I just went through that too.

Kevin Mooney (01:16:40.840)
But there's like part of part of like, I don't know, part of a dude's brain is not quite wired to just like Self-correct.

Brandt Goodwin (01:16:48.240)
Impulsively, like well we're all different too. Like I was that person, but it came out horribly.

Kevin Mooney (01:16:55.340)
Sure.

Brandt Goodwin (01:16:55.840)
So this whole, you know, adult life now of been working on like, no, you don't first off, you don't owe anybody anything.

Kevin Mooney (01:17:03.040)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:17:03.560)
Secondly, is that if I did say something right now, we might as well just continue the fight because I haven't got to sit down and process it. But what I just ran into was it took me like longer than she was comfortable sitting there going and using all the data points, which is a big thing for me right now. It's taken me so long. I'm so always late to the party with everything. But I realized that perfection thing, there's an analogy that I just learned where you get your brain working like a lawyer or a prosecutor where you have your side of the story and you need to prove that side of the story.

Where the judge or the jury listens to both sides and tries to collect all the data. And so that's what I've been working on where this thing happened, there was a disconnect. And before I respond, I'm going to go down my path of every single possible outcome. And probably does take too long. But and there's a little perfection in there too, because I want the perfect answer. I want perfect response. But just going back to what you said about I think She would've liked it little bit earlier, this chick would have liked it a little bit earlier too.

Kevin Mooney (01:18:09.380)
Well, I think the I'm not saying this is a hack or it's a trick, but kind of is. If we know that about ourselves When we're in the moment, we at least have to say

Brandt Goodwin (01:18:22.960)
I need to sit on

Kevin Mooney (01:18:25.580)
This. I need to sit on this. I n I don't know what just happened, but I have to go do whatever I have to do and process this thing and come back. That's probably unsettling for a lot of people. It but for them, yeah, they have a like, Right. He's thinking about this. He's not that person is not thinking. This person needs to go build an argument against

Brandt Goodwin (01:18:49.200)
What a simplistic thing too, you know. And I think But I think of that and it's I go back to this, you know, just every all the fucking shit and Even that comment, you know, in the world that we live in where we're like we're men, you know, you sit there and be like, Hey, I need to process this, you know, I need to think about it. Like, I'll get back to you. It's not you, it's me. And then it's like, you can't fucking say that.

Kevin Mooney (01:19:14.400)
Sure.

Brandt Goodwin (01:19:14.720)
Because that person could also be like, bitch.

Kevin Mooney (01:19:17.020)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:19:17.520)
You know, like, what you don't have an answer now, you don't have a solution. Right. You know, and it's like, no, you don't want mine now.

Kevin Mooney (01:19:22.520)
Yeah, no.

Brandt Goodwin (01:19:23.240)
It's not gonna be pretty what I what I wanna say.

Kevin Mooney (01:19:26.420)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:19:26.560)
So let me just bring it down a little bit and think about What's going on, and I can get back to you at a better time. And trust me, it'll be better for you or the situation.

Kevin Mooney (01:19:35.880)
Well, and me, right? Because I will have that opportunity to think through both sides and all the different plays and all the different arguments. And in my for myself, that process isn't to build an argument.

Brandt Goodwin (01:19:49.060)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:19:49.560)
It is to tell myself, you were wrong.

Brandt Goodwin (01:19:52.940)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:19:53.460)
Or no, you're right, but there's probably a better way to handle this thing. That's at least how I do it, right? And that's what the weed has always helped me in.

Brandt Goodwin (01:20:01.980)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:20:01.980)
In that process is because when you're high, you get insecure, right? And so well, maybe not everybody, but for me I get really insecure and I get really like anxious. And it's just my way of looking at all the angles. Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:20:18.020)
And really diving into it's still a good thing. The weed is still a good thing. Catalyst in improving my dis how to process things and yeah no I that's what I used it for like yeah let's see how high I can get and see how uncomfortable I can be right

Kevin Mooney (01:20:42.260)
And then how can

Brandt Goodwin (01:20:42.820)
I work my way out physically while thinking about the thing that's tough. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:20:46.760)
Yeah and then and then coming back off of that and then letting the correct answer surface itself.

Brandt Goodwin (01:20:55.400)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:20:56.200)
Instead of this that impulsive thing, because there's so much about us as humans that we just can't control.

Brandt Goodwin (01:21:02.480)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:21:03.800)
Your upbringing is one of them, your genetics is another thing. And then just being humans, like I mean, we don't know well, sure, consciousness is a whole fucking topic that I don't even know how to get into, but you know, we don't even know when humanity started.

Brandt Goodwin (01:21:22.820)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:21:23.320)
But there's however many years, hundreds of years, thousands of years that humans have been here and in whatever shape or form, whether there was an advanced civilization before us that we don't know about, you know, aliens and yeah, you know, whatever else. If there was a god, it doesn't really matter. The point is that like humans have always been in the fight or flight type of a thing, right? And the hunter-gatherer type of thing. And so There's just these natural reactions that happen in certain situations that you're gonna fight against. So if right now society says men needs need to take a moment to think about things and then come back to the thing.

Well, back in the day, if a fucking saber toothed tiger, you weren't gonna be like, pause. Let me see how this plays out. Like, no, you're gonna you're gonna fucking fight and attack or you're gonna run and climb a tree and try to get away from it. So we're constantly battling those things. And then if you look at the other side from the female side, there's the maternal instinct, right? Where it's just like protect and coddle and kind of do those things. And so you have those two powers that we can't fucking control. We don't even know where it comes from that we're constantly butting up against.

Brandt Goodwin (01:22:41.360)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:22:41.740)
You know, if you look at examples in the wild of the male and the female, let's take an elk for example. The elks come down and they bang all the chicks in the herd, and then they run away and they hide up in the mountains and they hang out with dudes for the rest of the year.

Life Inside the Casino Industry

Brandt Goodwin (01:22:59.200)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:22:59.540)
They come back once a year in September to bang.

Brandt Goodwin (01:23:02.560)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:23:03.080)
And then they leave the fucking kids. So I mean, and if you looked at some of the early, like, I don't know, the 1800s. When there was the migration across the United States and all of that. Like there was probably a lot of that shit too.

Brandt Goodwin (01:23:19.460)
Yeah. Wars. War.

Kevin Mooney (01:23:21.560)
And so there's all this stuff. Like I was I wasn't in a war.

Brandt Goodwin (01:23:24.520)
No. We'll probably never be in one. Most likely. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:23:27.900)
Hopefully. But yeah, most likely we're at above the age. But the point is that's still somewhere in the bloodline.

Brandt Goodwin (01:23:36.540)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:23:36.860)
Somewhere somebody in your family or my family was fighting for their life. They were attacking somebody. They were killing somebody. They were banging somebody and leaving.

Brandt Goodwin (01:23:46.140)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:23:46.560)
They were doing whatever. That's still somehow in us.

Brandt Goodwin (01:23:49.840)
Probably from the like industrial age or something, because even on the way up here, I think we were going through Crescent or Gilchrist. He's like, How do these fucking people get their groceries? And no, I was telling him about the going down eastern Oregon to go to re what is that, 31?

Kevin Mooney (01:24:04.100)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:24:04.500)
Yeah. And I said, God, you gotta remember that like there's still a vast majority of people that live out in this country that are away from a grocery store and they still kill birds and squirrels and deer and whatever they can get their hands on. I mean, they go to the store, but they're still self sufficient in that way. And I don't know. Going back to that You said the comfortable thing the first night you stayed at Marchelle's. And you know Do you think that the dating issues, experiences, trial and error, whatever you want to call it, up to Marchelle was more of a that battle thing you're talking about, male and female, or do you think it was more of an inner battle?

Cause I'm gonna say that I don't think the male-female discrepancy is that. Big of an issue with me, I think all of my issues were internal.

Kevin Mooney (01:24:58.800)
Yeah. Well, I think I was just describing the constant struggle inside of the love relationship.

Brandt Goodwin (01:25:09.340)
Okay.

Kevin Mooney (01:25:09.780)
Right. Not necessarily in like a dating scenario.

Brandt Goodwin (01:25:13.020)
Gotcha.

Kevin Mooney (01:25:13.920)
You know, you always put your nicest clothes on when you go out with a gal.

Brandt Goodwin (01:25:19.360)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:25:19.720)
You would shower, you put your

Brandt Goodwin (01:25:22.680)
Clean up the house just in case, all that kind of stuff.

Kevin Mooney (01:25:25.280)
Right. You're always putting your best foot

Brandt Goodwin (01:25:27.160)
Forward in those

Kevin Mooney (01:25:28.340)
Situations. I never went into a dating thing like, are we gonna fight? Am I gonna come off as an egomaniac? You know, is this male female like that was never in my mind. It was more like after being in a long term relationship And these struggles show up, then you're like,

Brandt Goodwin (01:25:51.340)
That's the real test.

Kevin Mooney (01:25:52.400)
This is the real test, and this is the real thing that is just somehow built into our DNA.

Brandt Goodwin (01:25:58.500)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:25:59.920)
But in the dating scene, I didn't. It was for me, it was more I don't know, the compatibility.

Brandt Goodwin (01:26:10.900)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:26:11.840)
I mean, I still fucking battle with this, not in a relationship. Finding friends. Or I've been on this networking kick recently, because I told you the AI algorithms and all that shit have kind of fucked up all business.

Brandt Goodwin (01:26:27.000)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:26:27.540)
It's all so weird now. And everyone's scrambling to figure out, you know, how do we get in front of new clients or customers or whatever. And so it's kind of this battle. My point is that. I know the answer, the solution is to go out and network. And we've heard this forever. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Right. So it's like, all right, I'm gonna make this effort, I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna meet people. And I had some false hope that I was gonna meet more people like my existing friends or people like me who thought like me. And I thought in the creative industry, that's who's there.

It's not. And I've met a whole bunch of people in the last, I don't know, three months. And I'm not gonna say there's not parts of people that I don't that I like.

Brandt Goodwin (01:27:23.560)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:27:23.920)
It's just overall, I'm like, man, this is kind of a grind. It's kind of a struggle. It's kind of a work. There's no just sit down and talk it out and then be like, that's the answer. You go do this, and I'll go do this. We'll come back together. Like there's none of there's none of that. Like I And maybe this is my own like perfectionism, kind of pairing that with the stuff that you're talking about in your life. But I can't find anyone better than you or Chris or somebody else that like can think the right way who can perform in one way, shape, or another, right?

There's a lot of people I've been talking to that they have they have a lot of things to say and they can talk the talk. Makes you think that they can do the things that they're talking about.

Brandt Goodwin (01:28:15.780)
Great first impression. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:28:17.100)
It's an amazing first impression. You're like, damn, this person because I know enough to be very dangerous in a lot of business or work situations. The difference is I kind of only talk about the stuff that I can do. Mm-hmm. The stuff that I can't do, I'm like Well, I know some things. I know this, that, but I don't know this, and I don't really know how it applies or how to execute it. My point is when somebody comes in and they start talking about all that stuff, they say a little bit more than what I know. I assume that they can do.

Brandt Goodwin (01:28:52.240)
Okay.

Kevin Mooney (01:28:53.240)
You put in the test, they can't fucking do it.

Brandt Goodwin (01:28:56.380)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:28:56.640)
You know, I go out on a video shoot and the person who is supposed to be like the camera expert picks up the camera and can't figure out how to turn the fucking camera on. I go, whoa, what is happening here?

Brandt Goodwin (01:29:10.880)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:29:11.200)
Like, I thought you were the camera guy. Or, you know, at least you're in the video world. You should be able to, you should be able to do that.

Brandt Goodwin (01:29:19.220)
This was your task. Yeah. Something that you didn't need to worry about.

Kevin Mooney (01:29:22.560)
Well, that was the whole thing. And so it's just to kind of like recap the scenario really fast. I was like, hey, I don't really know much about video. To be honest, I fucking do. That's the problem. Is I actually do know a lot about it. But it's not it's pretty far out of my wheelhouse where I have to like sit down and think and like study and I have to watch some videos and then I can get the camera settings correct. I'm looking for the person that just goes Doot, do, clicks all the buttons and goes, yeah, let's fucking go. We're ready to shoot.

Brandt Goodwin (01:29:53.940)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:29:54.220)
Because just like we walked into the studio today, did I have to watch a YouTube video on how to turn the RODECaster on and get my cameras turned on and the lights turned on? No, I just fucking did it. But if somebody says like I know the RODECaster inside and out. I know the Godox lights. And I know this the you're like, great. But then if you fumble through that process, and it's not fumbling through it in the way like I know this, but the s settings are slightly different than what I'm used to.

Brandt Goodwin (01:30:23.640)
It's like, no, you first time you've seen it.

Kevin Mooney (01:30:25.600)
It's like it feels like the first and so something like this just happened. Yeah. And I was like, dude, I just wasted like months talking to you trying to trying to get something produced. We are all through the creative concepts and the script writing and blah. And we're here on the day on location to shoot. And it's like, this. There's no where's the C stand? Like, these aren't my this isn't my gear. If it was my gear, I would I would be doing this a lot better. And you're like, so it's all talk.

Brandt Goodwin (01:31:00.300)
Right. What it could have been just changed with one comment in the conversation you guys were having the whole time, and that was I'm just I'm really good at this, not too sure unless it's this brand or whatever.

Kevin Mooney (01:31:11.060)
To be fair, this person was like, I'm a lighting expert. I know how to light things very well. But I'm also very versed. Versed in the cameras. And he was like, the cameras that you have, they're overkill. They're excellent for whatever we're trying to do, you know. But it's like he couldn't figure out how to turn the autofocus off. I'm like, well Dude, that's just a fucking setting in the camera. I don't I don't know where it is. There's the menus on these things have thirty-seven hundred fucking settings. But if you only shoot with Sony gear It shouldn't really matter if it's an FX three or an FX thirty or same titles. It's the same fucking snap. Like you should be able to know generally where to go.

Brandt Goodwin (01:31:59.940)
How do you get to the menu? Found it. Cool.

Kevin Mooney (01:32:01.520)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (01:32:02.220)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:32:02.540)
And so it was one of those situations, and I'm doing my best not to like totally shit on this person, but I'm I acknowledging that I have struggled finding people who are as good at doing as they are as talking. And that's been like the hardest thing because I don't need another talker around me. I mean I do in like a podcast scenario.

Brandt Goodwin (01:32:24.680)
I to talk.

Kevin Mooney (01:32:25.200)
That's the whole point of this thing. But if we're trying to execute on a client thing, I need someone who can show up and just turn the fucking cameras on and let's roll.

Brandt Goodwin (01:32:33.260)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:32:33.600)
And then the output of that thing is a good thing. Apply that to a photography session, a website. Project, a logo project, a campaign, whatever. Like I just should expect that you can do all of this stuff.

Brandt Goodwin (01:32:47.540)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:32:47.820)
Do you know how to speak the lingo of campaign talk? Yeah. Then okay, here's the concept. Go make it happen.

Brandt Goodwin (01:32:55.180)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:32:55.560)
If I have to do all of that, then I should just be doing it myself. Why am I paying you? Also to be fair, I wasn't paying this person anything.

Brandt Goodwin (01:33:03.260)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:33:03.700)
It was more in a testing phase of like

Brandt Goodwin (01:33:05.860)
Is he full of shit?

Kevin Mooney (01:33:07.640)
Are you full of shit? And the bullshit meter was up pretty quick. But I was like, he says all the right things. He's got deep, extensive knowledge about all of the things and how it should be shot and lit and the script. And I'm like, well, if you know that much, turning the camera on seems like the easiest part.

Brandt Goodwin (01:33:28.620)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:33:29.060)
And again, knowledge and operator, they're kind of two different things.

Brandt Goodwin (01:33:35.120)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:33:35.480)
Like a CEO doesn't have to know how to sell all payroll and do payroll and stuff. But in a small situation like this in a small agency and a very intimate relationship, like I'm looking for the people that can do it all. Yeah. Yeah. If you just tell me that you don't know how to do websites, great. I'll step in and do the website because I know how to do all of that stuff. But I If I told you I knew how to do a website and then I couldn't figure out how to open an editor or put your card information into the software, like you'd be like, this dude is fucking inept.

Brandt Goodwin (01:34:10.160)
Do you think we kind of go overboard with the expectations of people? Cause I looked, I hear that, and I just think about my life and my brain is so back to this perfection where performance where it's like, how do you not know that? Like why are you sitting here talking about video kind of like, yeah, easy. Yeah, you know. I got it. And then all of a sudden it's like you don't got it? Like, why can't you just be honest about it? Like, what are you are you trying to impress? You know, are you insecure? And then you when you're talking about like meeting new people, networking, and seeing if you can find another brand or a Chris or something like that, it's like so many things are just like, you talk like that or you don't talk like that? Like I just don't get it. Well, I guess I honestly don't get it.

Kevin Mooney (01:34:56.500)
You sent something interesting in there because in my mind I look at it like this. Is it them or is it me?

Brandt Goodwin (01:35:01.780)
Right. And like relax, Brandt.

Kevin Mooney (01:35:05.080)
That's the whole thing that I was trying to say when I said like I'm not trying to tear this person down.

Brandt Goodwin (01:35:09.980)
Yeah. Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:35:10.240)
Because I Was it my expectations based on the things that he were he was saying?

Brandt Goodwin (01:35:16.720)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:35:17.040)
Or is it him kind of inflating the truth and talking the talk and whatever. I don't know which one it is.

Brandt Goodwin (01:35:24.260)
Yeah. You heard something that you really liked. I don't have to take care of this. Cool. He said that he can do it. So maybe they were fabric your expectations were fabricated.

Kevin Mooney (01:35:33.460)
It could, it could be

Brandt Goodwin (01:35:34.360)
When he didn't he didn't sit here and say he was an expert, you know?

Kevin Mooney (01:35:37.200)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (01:35:37.640)
Not to say it wasn't that directly.

Kevin Mooney (01:35:39.320)
Yeah, right.

Brandt Goodwin (01:35:40.520)
You're smart enough to pick up tell.

Kevin Mooney (01:35:41.760)
Yeah. And to me, well, I don't know. I'm gonna go back to the expectations part of it for a minute just because I think I do have super high expectations.

Brandt Goodwin (01:36:00.720)
For people, it they probably start with yourself, right?

Kevin Mooney (01:36:03.980)
It does start for myself. I mean, that's we go back to the weed thing, like eating weed and smoking weed and doing all the weed stuff for so long and being so hard on myself. I mean, this also comes from probably my parents, right? Like Joe was hard on me in sports and I felt like I had to be great and a perfectionist there. And then you get later in life and you start eating the weed and you beat yourself up. And part of the weed experience for me is like, it's okay that you're not great, or it's okay that you're not perfect in these areas.

In fact, what it did was it told me, you are not as good as you think you are. And then my body said, just get better at it then. Just do better. Like it's okay that you're not there. You got to work a little bit harder to get there. But the expectations of people in general are pretty freaking high.

Brandt Goodwin (01:37:01.400)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:37:01.860)
Because you are working on yourself constantly and you are trying to be better and better at that

Brandt Goodwin (01:37:06.180)
Work and then

Kevin Mooney (01:37:07.080)
You go out in the world and you see these fucking people who are just like, okay, being mediocre as fuck. And you go, my God, I could have not done any of this work on myself. I could just be a fucking loser walking around, you know, picking my nose.

Brandt Goodwin (01:37:23.000)
Yeah, back to that bill. We've been bringing the Bill Burton just people walking around staring. At buildings in the way, in the way, cutting people off on the road. And there's, I think I would say, you know, recently five something years ago, it was like what it would be like to be that person.

Kevin Mooney (01:37:38.300)
I think it's just

Brandt Goodwin (01:37:39.280)
Sitting here constantly, performance, perfection, don't piss anybody off, don't say the wrong thing, and all this stuff. And circling all the way back to your comment about how many ladies that I've been with, you know, it plays into it, but also. I just realized this with the sex aspect of it is like I kind of like foreshadow or when I'm gonna have this feeling or how I reflect. I think I would say I reflect more where after the deed is done and you roll over that comfort word that you brought up 15 minutes ago, it's like it's not that I'm uncomfortable. I think I'm kind of fraudulently sitting there acting like I'm comfortable.

But in my head, it's like, did I perform? Did she like it? Is she gonna like it again? I need to remember to do this. I need to remember to do that. The whole part of present ride the side. The whole part of present is gone. There is no fucking present. It's all like what just happened and already jumping to what is it gonna be like next time? And so there is no just sit here, take a breath and really enjoy the person and enjoy the moment of what you actually just did. There's been a too many of them where it was like this was just business only, high five at the end, peace.

Professional Gamblers and Card Counting

Kevin Mooney (01:38:56.720)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:38:57.040)
But then there's the ones that I've been involved with and that I've really liked and I just

Kevin Mooney (01:39:01.780)
Beat yourself up about it.

Brandt Goodwin (01:39:03.640)
Well just thinking that like I don't remember the last time I rolled over from somebody that likes me. And I like them. And this is a thing right now where I roll over and just like, This is a relationship. I really like this. No, I am worried about the next thing that I can fuck up or the next thing that I need to do or not fuck up the situation. It's just it's unbearable. And it comes when you said Joe is sports, it was like, I wonder what it would have been like to have that parent really hard on you for sports. This was this was being a human.

Kevin Mooney (01:39:37.080)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:39:37.600)
This was every single little thing that you did when you were a kid starting at five years old. Everything had to be perfect.

Kevin Mooney (01:39:44.820)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (01:39:45.160)
And so no fucking wonder.

Kevin Mooney (01:39:46.840)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:39:47.300)
You know?

Kevin Mooney (01:39:48.040)
Yeah. I mean, that's serious fucking trauma. We've talked about that for years. That shit fucked you up.

Brandt Goodwin (01:39:55.860)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:39:57.720)
I'm not gonna say that I'm not fucked up. Mm-hmm. Because as hard as Joe was on me in the sports zone, there was a greater part of me that was like, I don't fucking care.

Brandt Goodwin (01:40:12.260)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:40:12.620)
And I don't I don't give a shit about it.

Brandt Goodwin (01:40:14.400)
You've been that way. And I've noticed that since we were kids too. There is that kind of like you were probably the kid, right? That when you were getting a spanking, it was like laughing and you're and like, do it again.

Kevin Mooney (01:40:25.680)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:40:25.860)
Do it again.

Kevin Mooney (01:40:26.520)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:40:26.740)
I was in fear of my fucking life.

Kevin Mooney (01:40:29.400)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:40:29.700)
You know, like such it's such a different thing. And There's the aspect too where interesting where it was dad, but mine was coming from a female.

Kevin Mooney (01:40:39.400)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (01:40:39.800)
So then what it how actu how ek I mean, I'm not gonna say extra, but I'm gonna default to how much extra shit is that?

Kevin Mooney (01:40:45.500)
Yeah, there's some fucked up stuff there. Cause it's almost like this goes back to like ancestral stuff, right? It's almost like, yeah, the dude was supposed to be jerk ass. Like that's just what happened. You flip that around and you make it mom.

Brandt Goodwin (01:41:01.120)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:41:01.640)
Whoa. What kind of shit happens in your head there?

Brandt Goodwin (01:41:04.900)
When dads were hard for so many years, there was always the maternal factor that the kids could run to.

Kevin Mooney (01:41:11.120)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (01:41:12.000)
Now the maternal person's doing that. And the paternal thing that like, I'm not saying that dad You know, he was very laid back and can we go can I go to Kevin's house? It was like, Yeah, there were those times ask your mom and you're like, fuck. And then when she said go ask your dad, it was like, automatic. Okay, cool. Don't even need to ask, right. But he's a

Kevin Mooney (01:41:32.100)
GT interceptor on my way, but

Brandt Goodwin (01:41:33.720)
He's had such a lack of depth that kind of not all guys are the same, but he's that classic baby boomer male that just and he's naturally reserved and chill and laid back. There was no like Not love, but like safety, yeah, protection. He was a nice guy. He said yes to go in Kevin's house, but there wasn't that like there was never a conversation about like, hey, you know, what mom did is not right and I'm gonna talk to her and all that stuff. Like, no, he just sat there and let it fucking happen. Which is crazy through all this, you know, therapy the last six or seven years was I don't hold it against him and I don't know a lot about my dad because he just doesn't talk, but He's not innocent in this either.

Kevin Mooney (01:42:19.300)
Well, I was just thinking about the same fucking thing. So it was opposite for me, not just in the parental part of it, but when Joe was giving me an ass whooping because I rounded third base the wrong way or I didn't get the ground ball fast enough or you know for one split second I was picking my ass on the field because my jock strap was itching my itching my ass or something and then I was late to react to the ball and whatever. I didn't get the out and he's just like berating me on the way home and I'm bawling and all of that stuff.

Barb would always jump in. She would always talk to her kids, what are you fucking Doing you making them feel like shit, you know, da. However, your parents are still together and mine aren't.

Brandt Goodwin (01:43:06.920)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (01:43:07.220)
And I'm wondering, this is all just like happening in my head at once. But it's like, did that contribute to their divorce? Because there was just like the way that my dad, I mean, my dad was beat with a fucking hammer when

Brandt Goodwin (01:43:20.620)
He was a kid.

Kevin Mooney (01:43:21.000)
Yeah. So whatever he did to me was not nearly as bad as what he got. Right. And so he's just he's got his ancestral side of things, the genetics, the DNA, all the things that it brought to this thing. But did I somehow contribute to that relationship falling apart just because I don't I'm sure I ran to my mom at some point in time and was like, Yo dad's yelling at me. But For her to jump in and defend her kids, well, their kids, right? Did that whole thing contribute to the divorce? I d I don't know. It's hard to say.

Brandt Goodwin (01:43:57.020)
Yeah, you just said did you have something to contribute to like I don't know what you meant. The fact that you cried, the fact that you asked mom or something, or well

Kevin Mooney (01:44:07.820)
The fact that I was just

Brandt Goodwin (01:44:08.540)
That you existed.

Kevin Mooney (01:44:09.260)
That I was a an involved party in that, right? Because if I wasn't there and sports maybe weren't a thing Would he be hard on me? Or would he be he just might have found

Brandt Goodwin (01:44:20.900)
Something else to be

Kevin Mooney (01:44:21.620)
Hard on me about? But it happened to be around sports and any sport that I played. It didn't fucking matter. If I wasn't huss he'll still to this day be like, I just saw the potential in you and I wanted to push you, and you know, that whole thing.

Brandt Goodwin (01:44:34.160)
I think Barb was look sorry, I think Barb was looking at it. This is a guess. Going back to what I just said five minutes ago about people and communication, where it's like, Joe, you got beat with a fucking hammer.

Kevin Mooney (01:44:46.380)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (01:44:46.820)
Like What are you doing?

Kevin Mooney (01:44:49.100)
Sure.

Brandt Goodwin (01:44:49.520)
Well it's not a hammer, you know, like he's hammering down on you like after a little league game, but that was the issue that I had with her, where it was like, I've heard the stories, I've heard what happened to you and all this stuff. Like I don't invalidate that at all, but where was the register? Which is why I have the resentment in the I've estranged from her for the last couple of years and I don't have any interest where he comes along and I remember this shit.

Kevin Mooney (01:45:17.940)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:45:18.420)
I remember that story of accidentally wetting the bed in like kindergarten and her absolutely unwailing on me at home, like at home, and then go get in the car to go to school. And you're in the back of the van just thinking your life is over. She throws a sign in the back and it says, You're wearing this around your neck when you're going into school. And it said, I wet the bed on it. And then you better not take it off and you better let everybody see. And then if you do it again, it'll be a diaper. And it's like Because like how did you not how are you not able to turn that off?

Kevin Mooney (01:45:51.180)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:45:51.520)
Like you don't you think that really you really helped? Cause when it came to this kid, it was like, I ain't doing that.

Kevin Mooney (01:45:59.180)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:45:59.600)
You know? And if there are moments, because there were a couple moments, very c only a couple moments, that things popped up with him and there was a reflection going on. And I talked to somebody about it and they were like, did he know that he couldn't do that? And I was like, there's an easy answer right there. If a kid does something for the first time and they don't know what the rule is, you don't put a sign around their neck to sh fucking public shame them. Yeah. Tell them, Hey, this is why I was upset this morning.

Kevin Mooney (01:46:27.500)
To be fair, you probably shouldn't public shame your fucking children.

Brandt Goodwin (01:46:32.120)
Yeah. Even the times that I've had a I got down on a knee. Depending on how old he was, how big he was, I either bent over, got down on a knee where there was something that I needed to tell him. Yeah. And it was in his ear. And it was from an adult point of view. Yeah. I don't care, you're four years old right now. You are a man to me right now. And I told him, Hey, this is why we don't do this thing. And I made sure there was a little part of it that's like, and this is the only time it's gonna happen.

Kevin Mooney (01:46:57.920)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (01:46:58.460)
But there was always that, thank you for listening to me. I love you. Like, let's go back to whatever we were doing and stuff where I don't know, dude.

Kevin Mooney (01:47:07.780)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:47:08.500)
I don't I don't know. Well all this sh I told you this on the phone a few weeks ago or the last couple of times where it was like there was a moment I was outside stone, I was having a cigarette, and I thought about just everything that I've going through, the stuff I'm going through now, and it was like, you know, it's all fucking worth it. Because I know that he's gonna be 18 here in like three years, and he's gonna have to go out into this world as an adult and I'm not saying it's gonna be perfect. I'm not saying he's not gonna have issues or his own story of, you know, insecurity, whatever he's got, but he is not going to start behind the eight ball like some of us had to because our parents were just pieces of shit.

Kevin Mooney (01:47:47.380)
Yeah. You know, that's I think there's so much I've done a lot of self-reflection, right? I mean, it started with the first love scenario, right? That was Kyla. I was I thought I was in love in that situation. And I lost the whole fucking train.

Brandt Goodwin (01:48:11.580)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:48:11.840)
It was about being behind the eight ball. God, it's so weird how my brain just goes this way to come back to center. But I think about it the self relax. Reflection part. It's I never thought of myself behind the eight ball because of the way that my parents were. Like I never I never thought that I never felt that.

Brandt Goodwin (01:48:36.560)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:48:36.840)
In the self-reflection part, starting from that first love heartbreak moment doing all the self-reflection, coming back to center now.

Brandt Goodwin (01:48:45.140)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:48:46.180)
I found only like a little bit of how do I say it? Resentment. Towards my parents. Yeah but ultimately it's more like because I'm completely different, especially from a personality standpoint from my parents. In fact, the entire family is a hundred percent opposite from me. Mom, dad, brother, sister completely different from me. I'm the redheaded stepchild in that way. And so In all that self-reflection time, I was like, no, it is more me, but where does me come from?

Brandt Goodwin (01:49:20.500)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:49:20.840)
You know, it is part my parents and then part of their families and their ancestors and all of that fun stuff. So never came up with an answer. But when we talk, I'm always like, I know exactly where your shit came from.

Brandt Goodwin (01:49:33.220)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:49:33.480)
Where her stuff came from, I don't I don't exactly know.

Brandt Goodwin (01:49:37.220)
I mean, it's it was a chain.

Kevin Mooney (01:49:39.080)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:49:39.600)
You know, and I broke that chain and part of the resentment is that it was fucking easy.

Kevin Mooney (01:49:44.340)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:49:44.800)
This was easy. You know how you felt when you were younger. And I know that you hear about like if you have parents that are addicts, you know, if you have two kids, pretty I think it's fifty split. One's gonna go with the addicts and the addiction. And the other one's gonna be like, never touch the stuff. I s I grew up with this shit. I don't wanna do it.

Kevin Mooney (01:50:04.860)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (01:50:05.060)
And so maybe it was just generation after generation after generation. And I just happen to be that thing, and which goes back to I can sit at rest and not regret anything and still struggle and see all the struggles and the roller coaster that I've been on as an adult and as a kid and just been like, it's all been worth it just because the chain has been broken. But this being behind the eight ball, I knew very early because there were times. I th there were there were specific sit c situations in life that you start going through and I saw the way I was acting.

I saw the way I was reacting and things that I would say and things that I would do. And I knew there was a correlation because what you just did or said was pretty outlandish, bro. But you know where it's coming from. The mistake, I guess, in hindsight that I made was that I thought that. You go through life and you kind of just get it. Cause most times with adults, unless there's addiction or something really bad going on, it does seem like when we were kids, teenagers, early 20s, your 40 and older crowd just seem to get it. You know, and eventually you'll go through life and you'll make mistakes and ups and downs, but eventually you're just gonna get it.

And I had no idea that I wasn't gonna get it until probably tens of thousands of dollars in therapy. Yeah. And not just once a week for an hour because that was never enough. There were times that I was going through something. It was two or three times a week for two to three hours at a hundred bucks an hour a pop. Right. So it's like, I don't know. It'd be nice to be able to go back and maybe start that process at like eighteen, even before any of this stuff happened, you know, but we're here now and what are you gonna fucking do about it except just do the best you can.

Kevin Mooney (01:51:51.840)
I don't know, it's a life is fucking weird, man. It's so crazy. Getting older is really fucking weird. And whether it shows up in your body and you're feeling those things, I can't run, I can't lift, I can't play softball, whatever the thing. Like that's one part of it. Also what we thought adults were when we were his age.

Brandt Goodwin (01:52:20.560)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:52:21.080)
And you know, he makes fun of the old folks

Brandt Goodwin (01:52:23.080)
At the Sublime Concert. Sublime concert, four years old

Kevin Mooney (01:52:26.220)
Getting high, you know. You know, what we saw when we were kids and they were this age, like it was different. Well, that isn't it's a it's a generational thing, it's also an economic thing.

Brandt Goodwin (01:52:40.340)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:52:40.740)
Like your dad, I don't know what he made at HP But he could have made eighty thousand dollars. And I always thought you your family had a lot of money.

Brandt Goodwin (01:52:49.040)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:52:49.380)
You know, Joe made forty-seven thousand dollars.

Brandt Goodwin (01:52:52.380)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:52:52.720)
And let's just say he made eighty and your house was nicer than mine. I looked at your parents like They

Brandt Goodwin (01:52:59.060)
Got it going on.

Kevin Mooney (01:52:59.680)
They got it going on. Everything's good and clean and clear over there. And I guess I'm just putting ourselves back in that position, looking at the adults at that time. And whether they did have it figured out or not, it was still a different time period and a generational thing.

Brandt Goodwin (01:53:14.940)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:53:15.240)
You fast forward now to where we're at and we're still trying to figure out these simple things. How do I resolve the dumbest fucking argument with my wife? Mm-hmm. And I don't know, did we just not see that when we were kids? Did they hide it better? Did it not exist? I don't know what it is

Brandt Goodwin (01:53:33.600)
I think there was there was no education behind it. Not that like maybe that's a Maybe that's a boundary that parents have with their kids. Like I'm sure Barb and Joe are going at it. And or maybe not. Mine was it was there, but it wasn't. And partly because my dad didn't say shit. Sure. Every once in a while you could you could hear it. But I don't know, f older people have always fascinated me. I've always contributed. The older people are, the just more they had it. And also came from these one liners you hear as a kid, you know, like just stay busy, right?

If you're going through something, just keep yourself busy. And that it's every at some point, like at twenty five years old, every year one of those started to click. Like, I get it now. Like obviously you know what keep busy is, but you don't know how to do it.

Kevin Mooney (01:54:24.440)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:54:24.800)
And I'm a person of wise, right? I don't need to know I don't feel good in my body, health wise. I don't need to know what to do. We all know what to do. Right. I wanna know why. Why am I not feeling good with my body right now? Why is that? What is like where's the cause of this?

Kevin Mooney (01:54:38.720)
And then I hate when they just tell you the thing that you already know.

Brandt Goodwin (01:54:42.160)
Yeah. That's gonna just go to the gym.

Kevin Mooney (01:54:43.740)
Go to the gym.

Brandt Goodwin (01:54:44.340)
You did it last night, you're like that's diet. No shit.

Kevin Mooney (01:54:47.680)
You're like, Yeah, I fucking I know what it is.

Brandt Goodwin (01:54:49.360)
Why can't I get the diet going? Like what goes on in your brain? Like what's Yeah, I'm so weird like that. No, it's I have to know the whys before I can move forward. And all of Not just two. I need to know all the hundred whys.

Kevin Mooney (01:55:03.540)
All the angles.

Brandt Goodwin (01:55:04.460)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:55:04.680)
Yeah, I'm the I'm the same exact way. But the parent thing is very fucking weird. Mm-hmm. And I haven't figured out I mean, I think there is like there's beauty in the idea that you're gonna spend your entire life trying to figure it out. And then when you're on your deathbed, you're like, I understand the point of my life now.

Brandt Goodwin (01:55:30.800)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:55:30.800)
Then you're like, but it's too late. I'm dead. I'm dying. Like, right, you know, I'm going down the river and all my friends are rooting for me. Go, bro, you got it, man. Let's fucking do this. Come to heaven. We're gonna listen to the Backstreet Boys, you know?

Brandt Goodwin (01:55:42.600)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:55:44.640)
So part of me is like. Just enjoy the ride. Like wherever you are, it doesn't fucking matter. All the other make believe stuff, the money, the pressures, the relationships, all of that shit, your parents, none of that stuff matters. But it is it is the journey and That's one of those broad answers and one of those broad statements where you're like, fuck you, hippie.

Brandt Goodwin (01:56:07.480)
What are you talking about?

Kevin Mooney (01:56:08.540)
But if you can kind of settle into that and go like, I'm just on this journey to kind of figure some things out.

Brandt Goodwin (01:56:14.300)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:56:14.560)
Because the reality is I don't know what humans are. I don't we've talked about this in the past where I get really existential and like I don't understand what this planet is. I don't understand how there's life on this planet and where we come from. And if I don't understand any of that, then what's the fucking point of going to your job and grinding and selling more and making more of this and installing more of those? Like If you think that's life, like that's not really life. That's just something that somehow humans were just

Brandt Goodwin (01:56:53.900)
Developed that we just developed to like

Kevin Mooney (01:56:55.800)
Make stuff and make stuff better and keep on fucking going. But my brain in the why department is like, why? And if you do boil that down to, well, our job is just to like learn as much as we can and experience as much as we can. It simplifies it. It makes your brain like somewhat disarm the ego just to be like, no, I am just gonna figure this thing out.

Brandt Goodwin (01:57:19.520)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (01:57:19.820)
And where you're at and what you're trying to figure out isn't ahead or behind of anybody. It's just your experience. You're working on your experience.

Brandt Goodwin (01:57:29.300)
I think a f easy frustration that comes up for probably most people is that you do get tired of working on it. You know and there's times where you think like, my god, I'm so past that. And I've had to retrain my wiring to things like you can't shut your thoughts off of things that might bother you. You can only control like the response to it. Yeah, I don't know. I just lost my train of thought.

Kevin Mooney (01:57:59.160)
Got to it. It's the fucking willies is kicking in, dude.

Brandt Goodwin (01:58:01.840)
I did hit in and I didn't smoke last night, but Do you like those? Yeah, it was good. It came on it came on quicker. No. No, I think it wouldn't be good. Do you want a beer? I'll take a beer. I need a pee.

Kevin Mooney (01:58:13.240)
Yeah. Let's pause.

Brandt Goodwin (01:58:14.640)
Take a break. We've never gone that route with when we were talking about towns and being blue and red and all that, we had never We had never explored that thing about Oregon and stuff. It's been kind of like, you know, I wouldn't say surface level, but it's been the same jargon in times that we bring it up. But yeah. I will always contribute huge growth from being up here. I was happy that I got here. Yeah. And it was that one situation that did get me here. And then it there was always something in the back of my head because of him. Where it's like, dude, are you are you that dad?

You know, but I also promised myself that, okay, every other weekend, Dad, what's every third weekend? And I went down more. And I stayed faithful to that. Probably went down more because of birthdays and events and stuff. But there was there was a growth that happened here. And I felt that when I went back to the card room when I moved back. And that was an understanding that I had about there was a little disconnect with the boss. I think and not nothing that she did wrong. I think it was me just being a dick where I didn't realize how hard it was to run a fucking company.

Kevin Mooney (01:59:25.280)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (01:59:26.280)
And even though I was just a little owner operator, most of the time I was by myself. I had an employee here or there and towards the end and stuff, but They're nowhere close to the regulation and the ducts that you have to have in a row to own a car room in California. So when I went back, I went with back with a respect for her that I should have had the whole time. Also a respect for, I think, just money and working hard. You know, I was one of those dealers all the my whole career, 90% of dealers, they're in the industry for a couple of years and then We called EO early out.

It's that there when you get into a these bigger casinos where you can actually do that, 90% of the dealers that come up when their shift starts and they go to the floor and they go and see what the rotation is. They're like, hey, put me on the EO list. And I kind of was that way, but going back after what I just felt and learned here, it I was never like that. And then it definitely improved my life in that.

Kevin Mooney (02:00:26.700)
Column of I wanna I think I wanna talk about some of the casino stuff because I think it's super fascinating but I wanna also say something first. I think this is a very generic statement, but I think getting the fuck out of your hometown does a ton for you. Yep. I think getting out of your home state does something for you.

Brandt Goodwin (02:00:50.040)
The Bay Area didn't count. Sorry. Yeah no but I went to the Bay for four years it didn't really count.

Kevin Mooney (02:00:54.180)
No. You I mean you have to move where it's a day of driving away. Yeah. At least to feel something. When you were talking about that feeling of coming into Oregon and I used to fly up to Montana all the time. Mm-hmm. Dated some gal up in Missoula for a minute. And my buddy Jeff had moved up there. So I was flying up there. I'd see him. I'd see her. I'd go fish and all the fun stuff. But This last trip to Montana we drove. And I've been over to eastern Oregon and Western Idaho a million times. That's where my parents' family is from. That's where my parents are from.

And so crossing over into Idaho, I had this other feeling. It wasn't sort of this enlightenment feeling like it is coming into Oregon. But on the flip side, leaving Idaho going into Montana, I had that same feeling all over again. I'm like, not only am I like finally I'm here, but there's the bigness, the vastness, the everything that happens when you get into a new place like that and you realize, whoa. Yep. People will have to drive three hours to go to the grocery store.

Brandt Goodwin (02:02:05.920)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:02:06.260)
Because it's just all fucking ranches out there. Tell you land in Bozeman and you're like, this is where all the fucking rich people live and bought their advice.

Brandt Goodwin (02:02:15.860)
We're in Bend again.

Kevin Mooney (02:02:16.460)
Yeah, we're back in a version of Bend that's pretty even more disgusting than this. But there was that there was that feeling, and I really enjoyed that trip just for that whole thing. Just to be like, man, we're going, we're going somewhere new, and I'm gonna ha I'm gonna experience this feeling. You put the boat on the river. And you're like, whoa, I'm on a fucking river that has no dams. There's no control of this water. Right. I don't look at you know the USB R and be like, yeah, the gates are open. It's running at 3200 CFS. It's gonna stay here for a week.

I don't have to worry about anything. You go to Montana, it's like I don't know. Snow melt happens and everything fucking floods, you know. And you better not be on or near the river when that thing happens. And then at the end of the season it's just low water because the snow melts already happen and it just is what it is. And to be floating a boat down a river. First, that you can't just turn around and go back. You have to go down. And knowing that it's undammed and then you know that the fish are super healthy because of that. It's like this whole wave of emotion, wave of feeling that you're just like, you don't get this trying to go down to the LA River, you know, some fuck I

Brandt Goodwin (02:03:34.960)
I got that just with seasons, you know, like we Where we're from got cold, sometimes cold enough to snow, but we just never got it. I liked being here because you just got everything.

Kevin Mooney (02:03:47.760)
The four seasons fucking happen.

Brandt Goodwin (02:03:49.820)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:03:50.680)
And a lot of people

Brandt Goodwin (02:03:51.080)
Half the people you tell about snow, I hate the snow. I hate it. It's like I love it.

Kevin Mooney (02:03:56.540)
I do too.

Brandt Goodwin (02:03:57.220)
And I love different aspects of it. I love the part of I was telling him I spun out on this roundabout when I first moved here. It was my first driving in snow ice. And I did a full three sixty. Luckily it was in the direction I still needed to go. So it was like Yeah. I planned it.

Kevin Mooney (02:04:13.660)
I do that.

Brandt Goodwin (02:04:15.540)
But that was just that was like a accomplishment in itself. But those days where it just snowed and everybody's inside because they don't want to be part of it. And you get you go outside and it's like you could hear a pin drop in fucking Portland. And it's so wild. It's like peaceful. I don't know.

Kevin Mooney (02:04:32.360)
I think that's the thing. So if you grow up in Missouri, go to California or New York or Maine or something. Like there's nothing that can replace being somewhere new and seeing another way of life.

Brandt Goodwin (02:04:49.040)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:04:49.360)
And that's kind of how I treated going to Europe and going to Germany and then traveling around those places. There's so much that I liked about it, so much that I hated about it. But I was completely changed from that experience. Like I came back and I was like, I don't even know my friends anymore. You know, I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. And there's just something about it. And I hear people who have stayed in their hometown just doing the same thing. Landscape business for fucking 30 years now, living damn near next to your parents where you grew up and went to high school.

It's How do you have any perspective on anything if that's just been your whole fucking life? To be fair, I don't have a ton of experience 20 years in Placer County and 20 years in Deschutes County. Like I it's I'm not saying I'm any better, but I am saying that Taking that chance to just go, even if it's a year or two somewhere, it does change you a hundred percent. Yeah. You might go back and do the same exact thing, but you there's something in your head that has changed, and then you can't you can't control that.

Brandt Goodwin (02:05:58.260)
I thought about this, I think, yesterday too, where it's like, Yeah, I mean you went to Germany, that was big, but then you're that's still shit. Like there's so many it reminds me of that ending of Benjamin Button. When he when he leaves his wife and his one year old after the birthday and then they're showing him in all these different places, he went, There are so many places to experience this different culture, to have some sort of almighty perspective on what things are different. And at the same time, that's what like works for them though. I get that part too of just staying.

Kevin Mooney (02:06:30.180)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (02:06:30.720)
It's comfort, you know. I don't really have any ambitions to see anything else because what I have here works. I don't think that they look at it that way, that they're missing out on life.

Entrepreneurship, Risk, and Decision Making

Kevin Mooney (02:06:40.160)
That's really interesting because I had just previously said in very cheap words that love was like comfort to me. And when you apply that to this situation They

Brandt Goodwin (02:06:55.880)
Love where they live.

Kevin Mooney (02:06:56.640)
They love where they live. And so who are you to say you must go out and has spent at least a year somewhere else? Because

Brandt Goodwin (02:07:03.940)
You don't know like

Kevin Mooney (02:07:04.620)
That sounds almost Retarded.

Brandt Goodwin (02:07:07.440)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:07:07.800)
It's like ironic. It's I don't know the exact word.

Brandt Goodwin (02:07:10.680)
Well we've we're forty something years old now, but we've been around I mean, it's come on more strong, you know, in the last five or ten years, but I can just binge for like eight hours and get stoned and see what it looks like to live in India.

Kevin Mooney (02:07:25.900)
Sure.

Brandt Goodwin (02:07:26.460)
You know? I don't really need to go there. I get it, you know. Back in the day you did need to go explore to get a perspective on things now. We just see way too much shit.

Kevin Mooney (02:07:35.040)
I think you still have to. I think that's part of what's wrong with like the digital world and the AI shit is cause you can just go there now.

Brandt Goodwin (02:07:42.000)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:07:42.240)
You can just go there on your computer and but there is nothing like boots on the ground in a place like that. Like when I went to fucking China, holy shit was that shocking.

Brandt Goodwin (02:07:52.860)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:07:53.220)
I knew I looked at all the images. I looked at kids shit.

Brandt Goodwin (02:07:56.960)
You've been to Chinatown and San Francisco.

Kevin Mooney (02:07:59.220)
Sure.

Brandt Goodwin (02:07:59.560)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:08:00.040)
And you're just like, there's nothing I can't handle. You show up and it's hotter than fuck. And it's 180% humidity.

Brandt Goodwin (02:08:09.000)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:08:09.620)
And you just shower, you walk out of the hotel lobby, and you hit that heat wave, and you see kids shitting in the like sewer canal right outside the door. You're like, whoa, I'm fucking I'm here. I'm in it right now. And you could see a photo of that and be like, that's horrible and tragic. But that is just the way of life. And until you walk next to that kid and you smell it, you're like, you don't you don't get it. Right. And I don't want to say that you're never gonna get anything if you only look at it on the internet or something.

But it is way different when you're there. That China experience was very fucking wild. And I feel so lucky to have a translator. But even things like I'm sure I've told you the story, but we went out with one of the suppliers and their whole shtick is if you do business with China, they get you drunk. They like take you out, they show you a good time, they're so warm and they're so welcoming and they just wanna like they just wanna give you everything. And it typically includes a lot of alcohol. Mm-hmm. But we went to this Really like Dirty street restaurant type of a place.

Just open air, right? One of those places that you see where the roll-up doors are up and there's like two pillars. You walk in and there's a bunch of like kids stools and you're sitting there and you know, baby stools and you're eating with chopsticks and all that stuff. You see on Anthony Bourdain. And they were like, do you want some baijiu? baijiu is like white liquor. And white liquor for them is probably made out of the sewer. Every place has their own baijiu and it tastes like straight gasoline.

Brandt Goodwin (02:10:03.160)
It is horrendous.

Kevin Mooney (02:10:05.500)
It's atrocious. It's the worst fucking liquor you've ever had. And I don't know what the potency is, but I know that like you took a shot and you were like, it burns down to my toes and I don't want any more, but then you're like, I can I have another one? And they were like, Don't you worry, I got a whole bottle here. And in fact, we have a closet full of these fucking bottles. And we sat there and we drank, I don't know, three or four bottles of that stuff just in the form of a shot. You can see that on Anthony Bourdain, you can see that on the travel channel, you can see it in a photo, but until you're four bottles deep of baijiu and you get that. You just crushed a bunch of Chinese street food.

Brandt Goodwin (02:10:48.420)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:10:48.760)
And then you fucking pour on four bottles of baijiu, the feeling that you have in your gut. You can't get that from this other experience.

Brandt Goodwin (02:10:56.280)
Being here.

Kevin Mooney (02:10:56.560)
You have to fucking go and do that thing.

Brandt Goodwin (02:10:58.840)
That's a good point.

Kevin Mooney (02:10:59.860)
And then on top of that, for whatever reason, the Chinese love Budweiser.

Brandt Goodwin (02:11:05.420)
Okay.

Kevin Mooney (02:11:06.460)
So they drink a shitload of Budweiser. And You remember what Budweiser tastes like.

Brandt Goodwin (02:11:12.040)
It's kinda is like buttery. Yeah. It's like kinda it's different than this.

Kevin Mooney (02:11:17.360)
It's a much different taste than this. But I don't know if you've heard the stories of like for instance Guinness. Mm-hmm. Guinness here doesn't taste like Guinness in Ireland. Mm-hmm. Budweiser in China does not taste like Budweiser in the United States.

Brandt Goodwin (02:11:33.900)
Okay.

Kevin Mooney (02:11:34.560)
So it's even worse.

Brandt Goodwin (02:11:36.020)
Do they purposely do that?

Kevin Mooney (02:11:37.720)
I don't know. I think it's just traveling on the boats and like you know longitude and latitude or something like that.

Brandt Goodwin (02:11:45.060)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:11:45.580)
But then on top of that, it's so fucking hot that you can't get anything really cold. So it is kind of like the cans. They don't like ice. Yeah, they don't like ice. So the cans are always dripping wet. And they're like kind of warm and it tastes like shit. And they expect you to like chug them. In fact, they one of the one of the younger guys challenged me to like a shotgun situation. And I was like, I just ate a bunch of I don't know what.

Brandt Goodwin (02:12:16.880)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:12:17.220)
Fucking pigs' hooves. You know, I just ate weird sh chicken feet and like some liver of some animal that I don't even know.

Brandt Goodwin (02:12:25.700)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:12:26.220)
And now you want and then four bottles of baijiu, and now you want me to butt jug fucking Budweiser with you? It was No. It was rough. I'll never not remember that experience and I'll never not appreciate that experience, but you can't get that from an article, you can't get it from a video, you can't get it from anything.

Brandt Goodwin (02:12:46.640)
I know this is random, but when I was working in the Bay, they all loved Heineken. It was all about Heineken when I was down there. I would go out when I started there was I was day shift and there was a lot of like Chinese moms and stuff that worked as dealers and they came usually from restaurants. And so they kinda took me under their wing and we would go to these Chinese restaurants or we would go to like karaoke bars, you know, where you get your individual room and these are the Chinese restaurants where it's a room for the family party. And you can like smoke cigarettes in there and same thing with the karaoke, but they loved Heineken. Everything was Heineken.

Kevin Mooney (02:13:25.100)
Yeah, we went to the karaoke bar. Mm-hmm. It was not just a karaoke bar.

Brandt Goodwin (02:13:30.700)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:13:31.280)
But yeah, same thing. Just chain smoking Chinese cigarettes. And a lot of them were like these little pinners, like real thin things that you just like you were just done with it.

Brandt Goodwin (02:13:42.740)
It was so weird.

Kevin Mooney (02:13:44.760)
But yeah, that was It's funny. I mean I'm stoked that they like bring that same culture here.

Brandt Goodwin (02:13:51.940)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:13:53.080)
I personally hate karaoke.

Brandt Goodwin (02:13:55.880)
I hate karaoke too. And those dinners and stuff, they would always be like, hey, Bakwai, because that's their like racist word for white people. They spoke Cantonese. They weren't Mandarin. Yeah. They would What do you want? Because that chicken feed and the whatever the stuff that they were eating and all that stuff, I couldn't I couldn't develop an appetite for it. So they made sure I got my fried rice and then made sure that they made fun of me for soy sauce. And it's funny what their the what they think the our culture is over here. Cause I when I was at that casino, it was Filipino based.

It was Filipino owned. So everybody was Filipino. And they had a restaurant in there, and it was all gals that were from the Philippines or Filipino, and you would order, like, you know, Brandt, what do you want tonight? And I'm like, I'm thinking breakfast. How about like some French toast? And they're like, okay. And so they bring me my French toast with like a bowl of ranch. And I'm like. Megonda. Like, what are you doing? Like, what's this for? He goes, You white people, you love your ranch. I'm like, there's nothing on this plate that represents dipping it in ranch. God, that was such an experience.

I loved that part of it too, because being from where we're from, when we lived in Citrus Heights, I thought that was like going to Bangladesh or something. And then I went from there to San Mateo. And that was kind of another shock thing. And then Once I get involved with these guys and then this guy tongue, he was a Vietnamese guy, he kinda took me under his wing and started to show me all these different cultural things. It was that was the coolest part. Teaching me some of the language in here, especially when it came to the dealing and being able to say things that were at least funny or rapport building. It helped me with, you know, making money and stuff. But yeah, just learning little words here and there and stuff.

Kevin Mooney (02:15:52.940)
It was Do you think that was like the hook? For the dealing career. Like I'm so fascinated with the culture and this people.

Brandt Goodwin (02:16:01.060)
And this happens

Kevin Mooney (02:16:01.520)
To be in this world and you just pair the two things

Brandt Goodwin (02:16:05.160)
No, because I was just I was just a and I don't want to say a gambler because I'm not a gambler. I've gambled, don't get me wrong, but I'm not a gambler, a gambler.

Kevin Mooney (02:16:16.880)
I remember you fucking gambling for like 24 hours at Montblanc.

Brandt Goodwin (02:16:20.680)
Yeah. I when I when I played poker, you know, and just like most of our parents, that my parents taught me, you know, the basics, you know, the draw, the stud, that kind of stuff. And there were chips, but they didn't represent anything. And then all of a sudden, like senior year of high school, something happened where people started playing. And then I was always a card guy. And then when we learned what Texas Hold'em was, it was it was a game and it's a competition. It's just like sports to me, where I want to get really good at this and now money's involved. So just to answer your question, and it didn't really have anything to do with the culture.

I think the culture was extra credit to it. But what I did learn, what I did learn, hardly after moving back was that it was a perfect job for me. It was a perfect job on so many things, even little things like I like the schedule. I'm a night person. I want to be at night. I want to be coming home on the roads when nobody else is on. I like when it's quiet. I like that peace. I don't like waking up to an alarm clock. So when you start at five PM in the evening, you get home at one in the morning, you do your decompression, you go to bed, and then I'm up at eleven AM.

I still have six hours before I have to go to work. The money part, the rapport part, our personalities, the banter that we can have that we've had for thirty something years, you can have that at a table. It wasn't really culture based.

Kevin Mooney (02:17:50.420)
It was well, I mean it was just the culture that's of the casino.

Brandt Goodwin (02:17:53.840)
But it wasn't it tied to the Philippines I always said this like really cliche line where it was like either poker dealing was made for Well not just poker dealing. Either dealing was made for me or I was made for dealing. Because it just works so well.

Kevin Mooney (02:18:07.780)
Yeah. Yeah, that shit is that's a whole world. I don't know why I never got into that.

Brandt Goodwin (02:18:18.220)
I don't know Good thing you didn't. It's good for a lot of people if they didn't.

Kevin Mooney (02:18:22.000)
Well, sure. But I mean Getting into it has a lot of layers to it.

Brandt Goodwin (02:18:27.440)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:18:27.560)
Because there's getting into it and being addicted to the thing.

Brandt Goodwin (02:18:31.100)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:18:31.460)
And then there's just like I enjoy the culture of the card stuff. Like I never got into watching Texas Hold'em on TV in the World Series of Poker. It was like I don't know what the fuck these guys are doing. It seems so dramatic. The amount of time it takes them to bet and they're just fucking playing with the chips and they're You know, they're bluffing about this and making him think and that stuff doesn't interest me.

Brandt Goodwin (02:18:57.640)
But

Kevin Mooney (02:18:58.280)
I get that is the interest for

Brandt Goodwin (02:18:59.980)
Yeah, a lot of the strategy behind it.

Kevin Mooney (02:19:02.680)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (02:19:02.940)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:19:03.460)
I did watch Daniel Negreanu's master class.

Brandt Goodwin (02:19:07.760)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:19:08.160)
And it was very fucking detailed. Mm-hmm. And I didn't understand it.

Brandt Goodwin (02:19:13.900)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:19:14.240)
I think I only got like three quarters of the way through it. I'm like, it's so deep in strategy that I don't even get it. And maybe it's just due to the nature of Texas holdem too. Mm-hmm. Because that there's so many layers. Like I think you get your cards first and then they put out three cards, but they don't turn those things over right away. And then you have to like place another fucking bet and then they flip those over. And then you have to make another bet and then they do the flop and then the turn and then the th and it's just like, whoa.

So there's all the strategies at each one of the phases. And I just remember being like, Well, this is too fucking much. I can't It was probably interesting.

Brandt Goodwin (02:19:52.240)
I mean, there's there was a big after high school, there was a big rush of the UFC, right? And there was a lot of guys that thought that was the cool thing to do. I think that I always had an attachment to cards and then learning the strategy behind it. You know, Cache Creek was the first place we would go and it was for blackjack. It wasn't even for poker. And I think it was we're eighteen years old. There's eighteen year old casinos now. That's what you do when you turn eighteen, so let's go. And yeah. I was raised playing blackjack. It was for fake chips and fake money, but I could do this. And then you go there and you just realize, this is a different world.

Kevin Mooney (02:20:27.300)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (02:20:28.460)
And then you start learning things and then I just thought that was the cool thing to do. And it touched what I was interested in. Yeah. And then I never really looked back. I learned early not to gamble. I lost more money before I became a dealer than I did when I became one because I very early on saw that. This wasn't in Auburn my first year. This was when I went to the Bay, where it's like, wait, so you just made $300 doing this. Your turn, you're you win. All right, bring him in. It's just the same thing over and over again. And you just made 300 bucks and now you're sitting up at the board getting on the six twelve limit game so you can give the three hundred back. Like what are you doing?

Kevin Mooney (02:21:09.720)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (02:21:11.620)
Yeah, I never got that. I never got some of one of the you said the addiction thing and it One of the coolest things later in my career, you always juggled that thing where you are like you are kind of involved in the demise of this person's life. There's some people that get through it. It's a smaller percentage, but people do get through it. Most people get to a threshold where they're like, I don't do this. And then there is the group of people where you see, you know, when they started coming in, let's just say blackjack when I was dealing with blackjack, you see that they can put out fucking a dime.

Every time that they come in. And then it's like you don't see them for a minute. And then they come in and they got 400. And they can and they do their whole session off of four hundred dollars. And then they eventually get to a point where it's like, Hey, I'm just stopping in real quick, crumpled ten dollar bill. And you're like, fuck. And so some nights I would come into work and my floor guy would be like, Hey, you know, so and so excluded. And I go, Thank God.

Kevin Mooney (02:22:10.960)
What is exclusion?

Brandt Goodwin (02:22:12.160)
Self exclusion. So in California There's a form that you can fill out that excludes you from going into a casino. And you can do it different ways. You can do just card rooms, you can do Indian casinos, you can do it for a year. I believe the I believe if you say lifetime, you can't reverse it. Whoa. So I think a lot of people do a year. And then, you know, people do ask, like, well, how do you know? It's like, well, we know because we're the size of cheers in like the build it's the size of this room. So we know everybody that comes in.

But your bigger casinos have The facial recognition and they have their black book and whatever. But there was there were certain players that you were so happy to hear that. And then there was a guilt that came up where you were like, Did I, did I contribute to that? It's the same thing that you hear sometimes when, well, if I wasn't selling drugs, somebody else would.

Kevin Mooney (02:23:05.200)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (02:23:05.860)
And it's kind of the same thing. It's not a drug that you take in your mouth and you get high. It's a high that's off of playing cards and winning and losing. But There were times where it was like, I think the way that I got around it a little bit was that because of where I worked and how blackjack was set up with the third-party banker, we were allowed to help the player. And the amount of time and hours that I spent behind that building where all of us would smoke on breaks with players and stuff, and they would come out and they'd be like, Brandt, dude, what am I doing?

What do I need to do? Like, how do you do this game and all this stuff? And I'm I would spent hours and hours with all sorts of types of players trying to tell them this is how you need to do it and this is how you need so

Kevin Mooney (02:23:50.640)
This game is built for you to lose.

Brandt Goodwin (02:23:53.240)
That well this is like so I mean if you have a hundred dollars the way and this is very generic if you have a hundred dollars to play with the way that you're playing right now you're gonna lose the hundred dollars in ten minutes. What I'm telling you right now is that you're gonna lose that hundred dollars in an hour. So at least you got to play longer. And if you're playing one of the side bets to get like one of the jackpot things, then the more hands you play, the more opportunity that you have to hit that jackpot bet, that buster bet or whatever.

So this just gave you an hour of play to try to get maybe that big dog so that you can get the fuck out of here. And so I tried to explain the whole every aspect of gambling to them too. This is not a guarantee to win. I don't know where people think that this is a guarantee to win. There's no guarantee to win. It's just how you can lose your money slower. Yeah. That's what I would that's what I would tell people.

Kevin Mooney (02:24:44.160)
But I mean, I but you and I have talked about it. I'm obsessed with watching these people gamble on

Brandt Goodwin (02:24:50.720)
With the slots and stuff like that. You've started showing me back, Jack, and Bach and all that.

Kevin Mooney (02:24:54.820)
Baccarat. You know, there's a guy, Vegas Matt. He's got a zillion followers, right? And this guy's putting twenty-five thousand dollars down on a hand of Baccarat, right? And he does this every Single day. Now, I understand that he has a YouTube channel and he's got a million and a half subscribers. People watch this thing. And so he's getting paid and he's just like, This is free money to gamble with.

Brandt Goodwin (02:25:23.040)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:25:23.340)
So when he does hit 125,000 on one of his hands, he's just like, Well, fucking super bonus.

Brandt Goodwin (02:25:28.480)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:25:28.800)
Otherwise, if I lose it, YouTube's giving me more money. I don't care. But I'm obsessed with watching it. For a couple of reasons. One, I love to see the big hands. I love to see the big wins. Love to see the big losses. I also enjoy the strategy that some of these people talk about.

Brandt Goodwin (02:25:48.080)
Whether

Kevin Mooney (02:25:48.360)
It's a real strategy

Brandt Goodwin (02:25:49.800)
Their system.

Kevin Mooney (02:25:50.380)
Their system.

Brandt Goodwin (02:25:51.140)
I got a system. How many times do you hear that? I got a system.

Kevin Mooney (02:25:53.480)
I watched these guys with Roulette. They're like Ninety eight percent win rate, you know, just stack on the first dozen, stack on the sec or the third dozen and put one on a number and then if you win, you double this and you do and I watch that shit all the time. That's why I sent you that one guy that breaks everyone's strategy down, runs it through a simulator, right? 3,000 times and it shows you exactly how much you're gonna lose. It's like every one of his breakdowns is a loss every time.

Brandt Goodwin (02:26:23.020)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:26:23.260)
Like it might spike up around, you know, 150 hands and then the rest is just all red. It's all down.

Brandt Goodwin (02:26:30.260)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:26:30.520)
But I'm obsessed with watching it. I don't know if it tricks my brain into thinking this is doable. You know, I all the people that I follow and watch I mean they almost I can't even say for sure. And it's you have to imagine this is just what they post. Fifty percent of its loss, fifty percent of its wins. The wins are giant. The losses are, you know, pretty standard, meaning they put a thousand bucks into the machine. Mm-hmm. And then they fast fucking tap it. They're like, lost a thousand bucks. Come back for me tomorrow to watch me lose another thousand dollars, whatever. But then s when they hit, they're up like eight thousand dollars.

And you're like, well, how many times did they have to do that to get here? And you know that they're getting YouTube money, you know they're getting Instagram money.

Brandt Goodwin (02:27:18.340)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:27:18.720)
But I still am fascinated in watching that thing, and then you watch something that is like a real strategy. And what you're talking about is real strategy, meaning that you can go from ten minutes to maybe an hour.

Brandt Goodwin (02:27:31.860)
Yeah. But you're still losing.

Kevin Mooney (02:27:33.040)
You're still losing your money. And in that hour, possibly you have an opportunity of hitting something decent.

Brandt Goodwin (02:27:40.080)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:27:40.440)
You know?

Brandt Goodwin (02:27:41.020)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:27:41.380)
I never I never I gambled a lot of money. Mm-hmm. I wouldn't say I was addicted. I was maybe addicted in a moment.

Brandt Goodwin (02:27:52.760)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:27:53.140)
You know, some

Brandt Goodwin (02:27:53.660)
Little drunk down a

Kevin Mooney (02:27:55.620)
West Side Tavern,

Brandt Goodwin (02:27:56.740)
Like, I'm gonna fucking

Kevin Mooney (02:27:57.280)
Hit this jackpot.

Brandt Goodwin (02:27:58.680)
Right. Put three hundred bucks in.

Kevin Mooney (02:28:00.140)
But wasn't really a level of addiction. It is more fun.

Brandt Goodwin (02:28:04.540)
And there's no strategy in that either, which I think especially in that.

Kevin Mooney (02:28:08.260)
But kinda can be the long the long short of it is when we would drive up to Tahoe and we would either stay in Reno or Tahoe. Yeah. I'd always end up at the roulette table drunk at three in the morning or something. And when I say every time, that was probably like four times. Yeah. Those like four times, I walked away with like eight hundred bucks. Like I woke up in the morning or Noon and I'd reach into my pocket and there would just be so much money in my hands. Yeah. And so I liked the table games. I did like the roulette games. I had no strategy.

Brandt Goodwin (02:28:50.020)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:28:50.560)
I just was like, it hit 13 last time. It's gonna be a bigger number this time.

Brandt Goodwin (02:28:56.020)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:28:56.380)
And then I would just like place stuff all over and I'd kind of work from the outside into the table. You know, so first bet on black. And then black would win. I'd be like, all right, it's gonna be black again, but it's gonna be in this dozen.

Brandt Goodwin (02:29:12.100)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:29:12.840)
And then I'd hit two and I'm like

Brandt Goodwin (02:29:15.520)
Thinking about it a little bit.

Kevin Mooney (02:29:16.680)
Thinking a little about it a little bit, but there's really no strategy. I was just like using my brain. But the point is I'd get to the point where I'm on I'm on black. I'm on one, two, or three of the dozens, and then I'm on one, two, and three of the columns, and then I'm placing numbers. So if it did hit black on a dozen, on a column and a number, you're up a lot on that fucking thing. Because the numbers eleven to one, the columns are three to one, the dozens are two to one, and the colors are one to one. And so if you hit that thing, you were up quite a bit.

Lessons From a Career at the Tables

Brandt Goodwin (02:29:57.400)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:29:57.620)
My point is I did this all the way up. Not all the way up. I did this in Tahoe and then I did it at Thunder Valley at one point. And I walked away with like four hundred bucks. And it was just fun because I spent hours.

Brandt Goodwin (02:30:12.680)
The game is so confusing. And I mean that in a way where there's nothing more than that pisses off a experienced advanced player that drunk person at three AM that comes into the blackjack table and is doing everything opposite that you are supposed to do, whether it's pretty much basic strategy in the book. Where they're just like this guy's, you know, in four hundo and this person comes in with forty bucks and then all of a sudden you see this like now they have four hundred dollars and they're having the time of their life and you can make eye contact over here and they're giving you that eye contact back, like Yeah. What the fuck is this game all about, man?

Kevin Mooney (02:30:56.800)
We went to I think it was Steve Matt. Me and neighbor Mike. We went to Kla-Mo-Ya or not Kla-Mo-Ya.

Brandt Goodwin (02:31:10.060)
Southern or Southern No the

Kevin Mooney (02:31:11.400)
The one out here in Warm Springs.

Brandt Goodwin (02:31:13.740)
Yeah. I think that's Warm Spring, isn't Maybe it's just Warm Springs.

Kevin Mooney (02:31:16.700)
Whatever. We went there and we're all sitting and I was in whatever seat. I think the last seat. And I didn't know how to play, I don't know the strategy. Yeah, you know, and so blackjack, yeah. Blackjack.

Brandt Goodwin (02:31:29.160)
Were you third base?

Kevin Mooney (02:31:30.320)
Whatever the base is, the very last one.

Brandt Goodwin (02:31:32.340)
Yeah, third base, right? Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:31:33.240)
And then the first base guy, whatever I did, he was like, you know, like, you took their 10 or something. I was like I was like, Well, I had a

Brandt Goodwin (02:31:45.100)
Here's the I had

Kevin Mooney (02:31:46.580)
A nine in here. So like I wanted the ten. Like, what the fuck? He's yeah, but the 10 would have made the dealer bus and we all would have got paid. I'm like, but I don't give a fuck if you get paid. I want to get fucking paid. And so there's this weird thing, but that's where the strategy goes into the whole table where they all get excited to kind of win.

Brandt Goodwin (02:32:02.960)
And what I found out later in my career, because I liked I still like the strategy part. I taught myself how to count cards a long time ago. And then I got so good at it I could count the cards while I was dealing and paying the bets and stuff. So I got into it with Really understanding the things. And one of those things was I s saw that time and time again, like, don't hit, don't hit. It got to the point where like if you had somebody in first base betting five hundred dollars and they're betting five dollars, this person would be Lynn, just stay, I'll give you twenty five dollars a stay.

And side note, people are so weird, and I forgot what the psychological term for it is, but they hear that and the fact that they are begging them. Just stay. I will pay you 25. Even if you lose, I'll give you 25. There's something that goes in there, but you could see it in real time where they're like, you're dependent on me right now. I'll hit. This is so gross. But I found out about that bad third bass player that when you simulate the hands over a million hands, Their percentages don't change. Right. And how you see that is that let's say you take that 10, which you would hit on nine anyway.

You can't stay on nine. But let's just say you took the 10 and it wouldn't have and it w in a and it would they would have made the dealer bust and this guy's all pissed. Well, when you take that 10 and then the dealer flips over where the 10 actually would have made 21, and then here comes two ace 10. I don't remember that guy ever here going, my God. Over there for taking that ten. No, they're only pissed off when the fucking hand loses.

Kevin Mooney (02:33:36.400)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (02:33:36.840)
They don't go and suck your dick when it actually helps the hand. You know what I mean? So it was such a weird dynamic with the styles of play and the styles of people that came into that card room.

Kevin Mooney (02:33:46.540)
Well, and that's like the stuff that I watch. Like so Vegas Matt, he does all of the stuff. It's the slots and then there's another guy, Bluff, who was actually a scooter writer. He was a professional scooter writer that I knew of when I had Delta. And like I didn't know him in person. I just knew of him as a pro writer. And then, you know, fast forward fifteen years later, I haven't had Delta forever and I'm just addicted to watching these people gamble. And I'm like, God, that guy looks familiar. He goes by Bluff and he says he's the world's best gambler. My point of all of this is they do all of the stuff.

They play all of the games. Yeah. And they're It's not necessarily a strategy, but the thing that they do, their strategies. They just show up and they're like five hundred on one hand. And then they're out. They probably played more hands, but it they're just kind of like big hands and they just expect

Brandt Goodwin (02:34:44.420)
That's the only part of the video? It's just that one bet.

Kevin Mooney (02:34:47.560)
Pretty much the one bet. Sometimes they'll do three or four hands. Like I got twenty five hundred bucks, I'm gonna blow it on blackjack today and see if I win. But other times it's just kind of like one hand at a time. And it's just like big bet, one hand, yeah, walk out of the casino. That's it, type of a deal. If Bluff ever hears this, he's gonna be like, No, you're crazy. I spend thirty thousand a day at the casino. But my point is that is some of the strategies. Vegas Matt will do the same type of thing. Here's twenty-five thousand on one hand.

Brandt Goodwin (02:35:16.900)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:35:17.540)
And that's it. And it's like, I'm curious from your perspective, is there better odds of nailing one hand than sitting at a table for an hour and playing a hundred hands?

Brandt Goodwin (02:35:29.740)
I have heard this before and I looked into it while I was while I was in that industry, and that is One of the things that's in every aspect of my life is math, and you can't argue math. Math has taken out the emotions of things, which is the point. When you go in there with $25,000 and you go, I'm gonna just play one hand. Now, where it gets interesting is what if there's a double? You know, so now you got to put the 25 extra thousand in. But let's just say you couldn't double, there's no splits, it was just straight up. There's no risk of getting emotions.

Into this, you know, you go in where it's like, you know, I got 16, you're supposed to hit. They're showing a nine, you're supposed to hit, you're supposed to hit unless you can surrender. But in your classic casino, you have to, you have to hit. You're getting big card, big card, big card. And so on the fifth time, they're like, stay. And then the dealer flips over 16, 5. And it's like, dude, you know, you got to stay consistent. And so the consistency of going in $25,000, I'm only playing one hand. If the game is 49 and a half. Fifty and a half or forty nine, fifty one, whatever the structure of the blackjack games are, because they are different, that you know if you play a hundred hands, just twenty five thousand one time in and out, you're gonna win forty-nine of them and you're gonna lose fifty one of them.

So it doesn't necessarily help you when it comes to making more winning it all goes back to streaks and circling back to the systems that people have, I'm always like, well, can your system beat thirteen losses in a row? Because I've dealt shoes where the people only won two hands out of a full shoe and they were the only one at the table. So they're probably getting forty hands in. And how many times I'm just laughing on the inside, depending on the player, and if they're an asshole, I'll laugh to their face. When they're just like, you can't lose eleven in a row. And you're like, really?

Yeah? Okay. Put it out there. And they're like, okay. And like, and then boom. You're like 11, 12, 13. I mean, I've seen some of longest run. I think 19. Nineteen losses in a row. So you tell me what system protects you from nineteen in a row. And everybody brings up Martingale. If they don't know anything about gambling, but they're just getting into it. Everybody talks about bet five. If you lose it, bet ten, bet twenty, bet forty.

Kevin Mooney (02:37:42.000)
It's just doubling your bet. Just doubling your bet after a lot until you win.

Brandt Goodwin (02:37:45.040)
Well, first off, you get to a point where you're putting a thousand dollars off to win your original five.

Kevin Mooney (02:37:49.640)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (02:37:49.920)
That's stupid percentage odds.

Kevin Mooney (02:37:51.540)
Sure.

Brandt Goodwin (02:37:51.820)
And two, eventually the cap of the table max bet you get to.

Kevin Mooney (02:37:56.200)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (02:37:56.580)
So eventually after like eight hands, you're already at the table max. You can't double it again. So then what do you do? You know?

Kevin Mooney (02:38:03.260)
I watch so much of the blackjack and I'm like This is just this sounds weird in my head, but if I'm anywhere from like 14 or maybe 15, I'm like, I'll just stay. Because like I'm gonna bet that the 10's gonna fucking

Brandt Goodwin (02:38:22.360)
There's a sis so there's systems, and I don't mean systems that are productive in any way, but there are people I think it was called twoplus2.com or something like that. This is a guy just like maybe Vegas Matt that you're talking about in that group. This guy many years ago started a website where you have every game and not just blackjack, you have every style of blackjack that you can find in this fucking country, depending on an Indian, Reno, Tahoe, cart California card rooms, anywhere, and goes through all these odds. And then there's also what if you never hit a hand that you can bust off?

So if you have 12, doesn't matter what the dealer's showing, you just don't hit. Well, you're a 10% dog now. So What used to be one and a half percent dog, now you're ten percent dog. Or taking insurance every time. There's all these other things where you hear it where it's like, I take insurance every time because of this, and this. And it's like, yeah, but have you read the fucking math? Because the math says you just gave yourself an extra two percent dog on it.

Kevin Mooney (02:39:27.300)
And when you say dog, like underdog, yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (02:39:29.760)
You're gonna lose two percent more now than you already were. And that two percent in a game like blackjack.

Kevin Mooney (02:39:34.540)
Where it's already tight, like you're Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (02:39:37.080)
What one and a half percent is like you've gambled before. You've seen people gamble before where I just can't fucking win tonight. And it's not tonight, it's like five sessions in a row. That's also a streak, but like, no, one and a half percent's bad enough. And now you're doing things at the table to give yourself a ten percent dog. Going back though, I did think of something on that twenty-five thousand dollar one-time bet, just go in once, hit or miss. The only thing that I've ever learned to give yourself An edge is counting cards.

Kevin Mooney (02:40:08.640)
Sure.

Brandt Goodwin (02:40:09.060)
The problem is that casinos very long time ago noticed this shit from the eye in the sky. They're seeing somebody post around behind the table watching the shoe. And then all of a sudden he's like, Hey, dealer, hold on one second. Twenty five thousand bet. They know because they'll run the tape back to the beginning of the shoe and they'll be like, yeah, it was plus twenty eight and there was two hands left in the shoe.

Kevin Mooney (02:40:33.380)
Right. So they knew So they're counting their own cards.

Brandt Goodwin (02:40:36.440)
When they when the dealer is supposed to notice something, then the floor person's supposed to notice something, then the pit boss is supposed to notice something. And when you see trends like this, they pick up on it and they wondering, hey, why is this guy betting five dollars every hand? And then all of a sudden he bets a dime.

Kevin Mooney (02:40:51.660)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (02:40:52.040)
Well they'll go and replay the tape. And they'll start counting from the shoe and they'll realize that like, this thing just got to a plus twenty five. That's why he shot the shot. And what happens is whether he wins or loses, the pit boss will come over and they'll say, Hey, we're not gonna give you action anymore. Or you can't do fluctuating bet betting. If whatever you start with at the beginning of the shoe, twenty five bucks a hand, that's all you can bet. You can't lower it, you can't go up, or we're just not gonna let you play. You know, we watched something together.

It was the there was a black back blackjack documentary. Not the holy not holy one that was like the church group. It was it was newer than that. And one of these guys was on a tour. His dad was a professional gambler, and then he ended up stopping at Thunder Valley. There was an issue where they wouldn't pay him out and he to get Placer County Sheriff's involved, and then they went back and he got his money. But a next level of strategy that doesn't even have to do with like hitting and staying and splitting and double down. It was those chip readers that these places have that see how much you bet for comps.

And he's putting a $10,000 chip on his knee and bringing it up to the table because the computer's gonna read that this guy's betting $10,000 a hand. So he's building up more money in perks than he is winning and losing. He hands and stuff.

Kevin Mooney (02:42:09.740)
Yeah, putting it on his knee.

Brandt Goodwin (02:42:11.540)
Yeah. He was talking about how the And

Kevin Mooney (02:42:13.340)
Then he puts his knee up just so a camera can see it.

Brandt Goodwin (02:42:17.300)
Well, it's a it's a sensor. So the sensor in the table is reading up. There's sensors in the chips that can see, this person's betting a hundred dollars, they're betting ten dollars, they're betting ten thousand dollars a hand. Well, if somebody's betting ten thousand dollars a hand, we want you to stay. That's when you get the free meals, the free concerts, the free rooms, and all that stuff. So I don't know how he maybe Transition that in money unless it was like, hey, I don't have to pay for a room tonight. That's off my expenses sheet. But what he would do is he'd sneak a chip down there because if it could read up, it could probably read down.

There's no camera. Yeah. So he's building up all these perks by doing that kind of thing. And then just playing the characters. You know, you go in there and it's like sometimes I had a little session where I before COVID happened, I went to Thunder Valley for 12 sessions and I turned. A thousand dollars into like twenty five hundred bucks. I was on a nice little run and seeing it in real time, that was kind of the not addiction, but that was like, my God, you're counting cards, you're getting to a specific count, you're doing the thing you're supposed to do and then it works out in your favor.

You're like, yes. But I also knew that it couldn't. But I had a nice little run there and then COVID happened and I wasn't interested. But I thought too like going in there, it's like, do I don't think I look like somebody who's that smart. I don't think I look like somebody who's sitting there counting cards. And then when these guys can have multiple personalities going on in conversations while they're fucking hammered, it's like just a it's a new level of skill set of being under the radar so they don't get backed off.

Kevin Mooney (02:43:47.760)
Yeah. I mean, so when you go to a table right now, I go down to the casino and I do this. Do they just kind of observe the behavior and then start putting in these rules like you can't have bet fluctuations or does some places just say, hey, that's just not how we roll. No bet fluctuations.

Brandt Goodwin (02:44:12.960)
No, because they'll they want the action. They're not they're probably not gonna do anything until there's a big bump. Now there could be something where wait, this like minimum bet table a hundred, but he's got ten thousand in front of him, but he's only betting a hundred. Like this might be shooting for something. And if they catch it soon enough, they might not even let you get to that big bet, which is good for you because then you didn't have a big bet loss either.

Kevin Mooney (02:44:36.260)
Well, sure.

Brandt Goodwin (02:44:37.960)
But you know, you're betting five dollars here and there and then you're big like when I did it, I think it was a minimum ten dollar bet. And then my system said that when the count is at a certain place in the shoe, I went to a hundred dollar bet. Like that's where I say I'm not a gambler. I'm not a big better guy. Like So that was my big bet. I just put it on three different spots. So 300 bucks. But there's some little factors in there that they might come to you a little bit sooner. And you think about Thunder Valley compared to Kla-Mo-Ya, right?

We passed Kla-Mo-Ya on the way up here and I look over and there's like 30 cars in the parking lot. Half of them are probably employees. I don't know who goes there, Klamath Falls people or something, or people passing through. I don't know. But They see some they spe a see a specific player come in. They can't afford a twenty-five thousand dollar loss that night. I don't know how much action they're getting for everything else. I'm just throwing numbers out there, but they're gonna be a lot more heads up when you walk in and see if there's some things weird going on at the table than like say Thunder Valley, when they have, I don't know.

8,000 slots and every slot makes them a hundred thousand dollars a year. I don't think they're really worried about the guy coming in and just staying quiet and counting the cards on their ten dollar bed and then hundred, like no, you're fucking out of here. Like they don't give a shit about six hundred bucks.

Kevin Mooney (02:45:59.100)
Right. Well, I was just thinking that same exact thing too. Like, let's just say the scenario is ten, three hundred.

Brandt Goodwin (02:46:07.740)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:46:09.200)
It's still at the end of the day for a casino is that's nothing. Right but it is a sign, okay, something's going on.

Brandt Goodwin (02:46:15.440)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:46:15.560)
And if then it goes three hundred, three hundred, three hundred, three hundred, three thousand, right. Then it's like, okay, guy, right. We don't want your action anymore. Yeah. So I guess I'm just trying to evaluate where because I can't count cards. I mean, I understand the concept. I've seen it and these numbers, they're plus and these are minus. And then you just, you know, you're one, two, one, zero, one, negative one, you know, negative four, whatever, all that stuff. So again, I get the concept, I'm not doing it, but I am so fascinated by the fucking what was the movie? Twenty one? Twenty one.

Brandt Goodwin (02:46:48.780)
Yeah, with Kevin Spacey. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:46:50.920)
Just like that whole thing.

Brandt Goodwin (02:46:52.420)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:46:52.740)
And also just knowing that like you can count the counter cards.

Brandt Goodwin (02:46:56.520)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:46:56.960)
It's and you can count the cards while you're fucking dealing and talking and having a conversation and exchanging the money and figuring out what the there was like that's a fucking lot to do.

Brandt Goodwin (02:47:06.640)
That little sessions and we didn't know COVID was gonna happen, but this was probably when I was in the most intrigued of blackjack practicing on my phone. There's basic strategy and then there's like the 19 deviations that you can do depending on certain situations that you need to memorize. But there was a little ego part of me that was like, you know, I'm not I'm never I'm never gonna win thousands of dollars from the casino because I don't gamble that hard. But there is a goal of being backed off. Sure. And trying to get it on video that like I could boast a little bit that like, hey, Thunder Valley, Thunder Valley backed me off.

Like I think that's probably the day that I would stop doing it because I ain't gonna drive two hours to play and I'm not addicted to gambling, but the fact that I was doing something right and I was doing it well, maybe not well on not getting caught, but I was doing what you were supposed to do and then they were like, Hey sir, we appreciate the business, but no thank you. And it's like, Okay. No fight, no bullshit, you know. Well right. They want an ID or whatever. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:48:09.840)
And you're not doing it for twenty thousand dollars. It's not how you make a living.

Brandt Goodwin (02:48:13.540)
I'm not gonna get caught because it never would have been twenty thousand, but you know who knows?

Kevin Mooney (02:48:17.560)
So When you do play, rarely, never. Sure.

Brandt Goodwin (02:48:26.020)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:48:26.400)
When you have played, yeah. What is your strategy? Like, are you counting every single time because you it's just so natural to you at this point? Better question.

Brandt Goodwin (02:48:36.020)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:48:36.520)
How long does it take to get up to sp up to the count? Do you walk in and they're half a shoe in?

Brandt Goodwin (02:48:43.360)
Never. You never do that. You only start counting at the beginning of a shoe.

Kevin Mooney (02:48:47.080)
So you would sit there and just play for The cheapest amount.

Brandt Goodwin (02:48:51.600)
Yeah. Essentially. You'd pick a t you'd pick a table that maybe you could tell was towards the last quarter of the shoe.

Kevin Mooney (02:48:56.660)
That doesn't make sense to me. That seems like the biggest tip. Tip off. This guy standing around looking at tables going. The shoe's getting changed. I'm sitting there.

Brandt Goodwin (02:49:08.240)
That's not the big deal. I mean, the amount of people that I've seen kind of procrastinate. Do I want to play at this table? Do I want to play at this seat? That's not it. It's somebody who's watching. And then all of a sudden it's like, hold on, dealer, two thousand. Sure. Like that's a that is obvious of what they're doing. Somebody s yeah, we called them rail birds. There's people like they're broke. We called them fleas. You know, like they would sit there and they'd just they just wanted to watch. And then they'd come and sit down at the table and they'd bring out this thing and they'd go down here and they'd be like $20.

You're like, my God. Like, we don't need to worry about this person. But no, I went in there with Anthony a couple of times and sure, I guess not to be obvious, but at the same time it was like, I feel weird. Just I'm in the business, railbirds, fleas, like who go away, shoo. Like are you playing or not? So I just go there and if it was still halfway through the shoe or quarter left of the shoe, minimum, play the side bet and all that stuff. And then once the new shoe started, then you start your that was it. I mean, you don't even want to start it if one hand. If you've missed one hand of the shoe, you don't want to start it. You start it at a fresh shoe.

Kevin Mooney (02:50:18.940)
So anytime that we see these movies or a documentary or whatever, they're they'll sit and play and not pay any attention, essentially play basic strategy until the shoe starts. And that's when the count starts. Nobody goes up and they probably

Brandt Goodwin (02:50:35.700)
I don't know this for sure, I'm guessing, but they probably also start their persona. So if they get to a table half the shoe is left, they're probably fluctuating their bets and they're probably saying all the shit that the fucking newbies say that don't know what they're talking about and they're sitting there like really thinking about a situation. They know exactly what to do, but they're putting up that persona that I don't know what I'm gonna do because once the new shoe starts, we're in business. Boom. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:51:01.320)
That's fucking yeah. So great. I love it. Okay. So back to w your strategy. Yeah. What is your strategy? You go to the table, you wait for the shoe, you start your count. So two questions to add into that things because I want to know the full strategy, but like you know, the count's gotta get to a certain number before you make a move. I want to know what that number is. I wanna know can it happen very quickly? Can it happen two hands in? Like I'm sure it depends on the amount of players and things like that. But just walk me through it because I'm so funny.

Brandt Goodwin (02:51:33.860)
The basics here, I'm gonna throw numbers out too, because I don't exactly remember. I'd have to get into it for like a week and then I would remember but The first thing that you do is you go in with, you know, what the minimum table bet is because you need enough time to play. Not every shoe is a home run. You might have to go through three or four shoes betting the minimum.

Kevin Mooney (02:51:52.460)
How long would one shoe play?

Brandt Goodwin (02:51:55.120)
It depends how many players are at the table. So if it's a full table, you're getting maybe twelve hands out or fifteen hands out. If it's just one player, it's forty minutes. The more players you have, the more thinking there is, the more discrepancies and stuff.

Kevin Mooney (02:52:07.960)
Like I'm sorry to keep interrupting.

Brandt Goodwin (02:52:10.200)
No, it's not a it's not really a time thing. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:52:12.740)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (02:52:14.140)
So it's depends on what your bankroll is. You know, you see people that are broke and they come in and they bet hundred dollar hands. You're like, what are you doing? So you pick you get to your table. You start counting what you have is a betting range. So it's not as easy as, the counts at plus ten. So you bet this so you go from ten dollars to three hundred dollars. When did it get to ten? Just like one of your questions. So if right off the bat, so many little cards come out. That you have a plus 10 count now. Well, there's a secondary measurement, and that is how many half decks.

So there's the count, the running count, and then there's something that you have as the true count. And that is taking the count that you're at, and then you have to divide it by how many half decks. Sometimes people do quarter decks because they want it really guaranteed. But so if you have a if two hands have come out, which is maybe half a deck, you still have Five and a half decks minus the I forget what they call it, the scrub or something. You know, the cut card that goes in the back so that they don't go through the whole shoe. That's another tactic by the casinos.

You know, side note, professional players look for dealers who get lazy where they're only doing it a half deck from the back instead of a deck and a half. That's what we were trained to do at dealing, was that when you cut your that thing in half and you bring it around, you take the cut card out, you put it about a deck and a half from the back. And so you look for dealers that get a little sloppy where there only half deck or a full deck is left. But anyways, if you're at, you know, let's just say it's a deck, we'll make it eas even.

So you're half deck in, the true the running count is ten, but you know there's still four decks left. That's only a plus two and a half. Two and a half plus two and a half doesn't even tell you to raise your bet. So, and there's a big difference with having a plus ten towards the end of the shoe because if there's only a half deck left, you're at a plus five. You would have to look at your betting structure to see even if you lift your bet at plus five. Wow. Yeah. So what I did, because I'm very conservative with my gambling, not only in bankroll and what my bet size is and also what that bet range is, depending on the true count, I would get to a point where I would say that if it was, if there was You could tell at the shoe that there's probably two hands left and something just happened with the last couple of hands where you're at like a plus fifteen or plus eighteen.

That's beaucoup to me. And so that's when I'm gonna pick my spot of three hands at a hundred, hoping that I'm getting doubles because you're the more likely gonna get a ten. So if you have an eleven and the tr the count's really high, you're gonna probably get a ten. So now you're making more money off of your doubles and your splits and doubles after splits and natural twenty ones and all that stuff too.

Kevin Mooney (02:55:03.960)
Damn.

Brandt Goodwin (02:55:05.640)
Yeah. So it just is it's that's you learn it, you know. And like you say, I've never counted cards, but honestly, I taught myself in a week on the floor my first apartment in Roseville, because I was a psycho about core cards at the time and I heard kind of like, that's kind of really it. I had no idea about betting structure and deviations and that stuff, but what's this plus one negative one stuff? And so you start and if you start with a deck, fifty two card deck, you should end at zero. So I just started practicing and then it got faster and then it got faster, then it got faster, and then it was like you start recognizing patterns, which is how my brain which where it lives.

Kevin Mooney (02:55:42.280)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (02:55:42.400)
So it ended up just being something that became kind of second nature.

Kevin Mooney (02:55:46.720)
Man, that shit is the amount of variables seems so endless that I don't when you start e extrapolating out from one deck to five decks to six decks to whatever the amount of cards are in a shoe, and then you then you talk about the placement. At where the count is inside of the assumed deck because or the shoe I should say.

Brandt Goodwin (02:56:09.480)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:56:09.480)
Because I don't know. I could look at a shoe and be like, I don't have a fucking clue how many cards are in this thing. I don't ha I know a deck is about, you know, yay big, so I don't know what's left. I don't know I could reasonably say we're halfway through.

Brandt Goodwin (02:56:24.480)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:56:24.920)
But I don't down to like, hey, we're at one and a half decks left. I would never be able to fucking know that.

Brandt Goodwin (02:56:30.660)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:56:30.960)
Well, I mean I would. With practice, but thinking about that, I go, fuck.

Brandt Goodwin (02:56:37.160)
And that strategy has to be good enough because these casinos, they start playing the game to where, okay, well, you now you can't see what's inside the shoe. It's blacked out.

Kevin Mooney (02:56:48.020)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (02:56:48.360)
So you don't even know where you're at in the fucking in the shoe. And then they came out with the revolving shoes, the self shu shuffling shoes, where once the once the hand's done, they collect all the cards, they put it right back in the machine. And then a new hand comes out. Now they still have six decks in there or eight decks, whatever the hell it is. But I mean, how do you counter that? Well, what countered it was that people weren't playing. Even though if you if you go to this, I forgot what stat it was, but even a revolving, self-shuffling one that you don't end the shoe and have to reshuffle by hand and all that.

The odds aren't that much worse. But to the professional gambler, they were, so they stopped playing. They stopped getting the big money bets. So then now they have to play this game of like, okay, well we'll sh we're still gonna have tables that are traditional. Like think of the last time that you saw a single deck blackjack. I don't think they do that anymore. I think the minimum they have now is double deck. So there's all these little things that have happened where they try it's all trial and error what these casinos do and in Introducing new things as far as the rules and seeing if it works or not, are people still gonna play or people still gonna play this side bet and all that stuff. I mean, it's a nice battle going on between the players and the casinos. That's trying to rip each other off.

Kevin Mooney (02:58:06.080)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (02:58:06.520)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (02:58:06.920)
It is. I never thought of it like that because I guess my assumption is there's just drunk people going in and losing all their money. Right.

Brandt Goodwin (02:58:15.920)
There's enough of those people, you know, to keep the casinos big.

Kevin Mooney (02:58:19.620)
And then there's the professional players and it's like how long do we let the professional players play?

Brandt Goodwin (02:58:26.280)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:58:26.440)
Not just in length of time, but how much do we let them play with their not a legal strategies, but the hack strategies or whatever you want call them, right? Until we tell them that we will no longer take your action.

Brandt Goodwin (02:58:39.440)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:58:39.840)
And it's not only a time, it's a money factor and it's a technique str structure.

Brandt Goodwin (02:58:45.060)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:58:46.080)
And so we're gonna hide the fucking deck so that you can't see it, but if that deters the people away, then it's like, okay, we'll open that back up

Brandt Goodwin (02:58:52.280)
And then

Kevin Mooney (02:58:52.560)
We'll keep a close eye on and there's the eye in the sky and there's all this

Brandt Goodwin (02:58:55.540)
There's also the professional players that like I don't know, I was thinking like how you've got smaller casinos where these professionals when w watching that documentary from like five years ago, that he was running his sessions and some of those sessions were like down twenty three grand. And some of these smaller casinos could use that. Just because they're a professional player does not mean they can go on horrible runs where they're losing hundred, two hundred thousand before they start battling it back up. And I'm sure all these casinos want that action. But these bigger casinos, they have so much action, they don't need any professional players in there.

They can ban all the professional players. They have enough drunk people coming in on their weekends and with their free forty dollar vouchers and shit that end up getting back into their pocket.

Kevin Mooney (02:59:41.600)
So basically Vegas is like that. They're just so big.

Brandt Goodwin (02:59:46.080)
They're so big.

Kevin Mooney (02:59:46.760)
The tourist attraction stuff. They're gonna have so many people come in and lose their money, they're not worried about it.

Brandt Goodwin (02:59:52.180)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (02:59:52.720)
Do you think that Vegas is harder on the professional player, or you think the smaller ones are?

Brandt Goodwin (03:00:00.140)
I think the smaller ones are easier to recognize because there's not as much commotion going on in the disguises that these guys do, they get really good. So how do you recog when thousands of people come into your casino every single night and there's twenty-five of them on a block by block rate, I mean, how do you know? And they try to talk to each other like, hey, so-and-so's in town. You know, these guys connect with each other, the casinos do. So they'll probably have s you know, something looking out. But I don't know, you know, you also hear this, you know, these millionaire billionaire guys that go into Vegas for a fight or something and They set up the game where they're like, Hey, I'm gonna bring a million.

I only wanna be the one the only one at the table. I want my drink over here. I want this color card deck and all that stuff. And those people, I mean, they're probably good gamblers, but they make a rule with each other that kind of protects them from them playing professionally, but also th that casino can get burned for five million too from that one player.

Kevin Mooney (03:00:58.940)
Do you think somebody like Dana White? Are you familiar with that?

Brandt Goodwin (03:01:04.060)
Yeah, I've heard a little bit that he's a big gambler, right?

Kevin Mooney (03:01:06.280)
Big gambler. Yeah. I mean million dollar hands, half million dollar hands, things like that. And I think he's either only allowed to gamble at one place or only chooses to gamble at one place. It's one of the two. I'm not sure what it is, but big gambler. And I'm not gonna say he only wins, right? Because that's not Possible.

Brandt Goodwin (03:01:32.800)
Never.

Kevin Mooney (03:01:33.160)
But he's in it for the thrill of the whole thing. He loves the big hand. He's like, I love a million dollars on the line.

Brandt Goodwin (03:01:42.380)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (03:01:42.640)
You know. But I'm just curious about what like where he stands, not where he stands, where the casino stands on him.

Brandt Goodwin (03:01:51.320)
Yeah, I just the first thing is a

Kevin Mooney (03:01:52.520)
Professional player, does he count the fucking cards to see? Get the private room.

Brandt Goodwin (03:01:56.620)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (03:01:56.960)
He's just like in it for the thrill. He's willing to lose the three million, but he's also Stoked when he wins the fucking twenty million.

Brandt Goodwin (03:02:02.980)
Yeah. You

Kevin Mooney (03:02:04.020)
Know, I d I don't know

Brandt Goodwin (03:02:05.020)
How big the numbers are, but I'm sure they're running the numbers on if Dana White's coming in and there's a UFC that night and everybody knows he's a big gambler. So what c what if people know what casino he goes to, then who's that gonna bring in for the play to counter if he has a winning session? Do they comp his room? Probably maybe they do. Maybe they comp his room and give him the suite and all that stuff because they know they're gonna get so much extra play. From bad players that at the end of the day they get their one and a half percent.

Gaming Regulation and Industry Realities

Kevin Mooney (03:02:35.720)
Sure.

Brandt Goodwin (03:02:36.260)
You know, when you get into millions and millions of dollars bet every single night, you only need one and a half percent right.

Kevin Mooney (03:02:43.220)
Three hundred and sixty five

Brandt Goodwin (03:02:44.220)
Days a year.

Kevin Mooney (03:02:48.440)
Yeah. That's a crazy fucking.

Brandt Goodwin (03:02:50.780)
I miss it a lot. And I still have like that just glimmer of hope that maybe the state will give me my damn badge back. But you know, the last thing I got was another extension letter and to think too that if I keep getting these, eventually I'll get to that ten year mark that they said I was banned because my charge was The charge was twenty, the conviction was twenty one. And so they said, Hey, you gotta wait ten years and to think that just passed in April of this year. I'm already five years into this ten year, you know, period. So maybe that's what they're doing. I don't know. I have some other theories on it also that I've heard through the grapevine that but I'd l I'd So

Kevin Mooney (03:03:35.380)
So let me ask you a question though. After ten years, does that mean that you're eligible to receive your badge again?

Brandt Goodwin (03:03:42.940)
Or I don't is the ten year Like what is the 10 year thing? I don't really know because you still have to apply, right? So, you know, and if bad things happen in those ten years, then they can say no. I don't know if it's as easy as like, okay, this guy has a record of being involved in the business for X amount of year or for 17 years, and then he did this thing and he got caught, and we didn't like that. So we gave him a 10-year little hiatus from it, and now he's reapplying. The ten years is over. Give him the damn badge.

I mean, from what I've heard these days, they're just regulations and they're becoming Nazis on like who they give badges to, which is fine, rightfully so. It's not my company, but I don't know if it's that simple, you know. I don't know if I'd be in the same, I don't know, hot water that I am now. I can imagine that they'd still want me to come up in front of the board and explain like, hey, ten years ago you did this thing, you know, is how are things going? And then I have a little Time that I can give them a little speech in front of all these people and it's like okay, and like, all right, well, we're gonna we're gonna give it to The reality is

Kevin Mooney (03:04:43.620)
It's fucking one dude or one woman in a fucking room.

Brandt Goodwin (03:04:47.000)
It's well, there's five commissioners.

Kevin Mooney (03:04:49.160)
Sure. And I guess it's like

Brandt Goodwin (03:04:50.600)
They have to vote on it, like hey or nay.

Kevin Mooney (03:04:53.380)
Well, I guess in my experience dealing with like boards, yeah, is like the entire board doesn't want to fucking show up for that stuff. They send one representative and you sit in a fucking closet room and you tell the story to that one person, and then they're like, I'll go talk to the board. And then they go behind closed doors and they make the decision. It just fucking happened with my client.

Brandt Goodwin (03:05:13.020)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (03:05:13.460)
Like I was supposed to go pitch the board last minute. They were like, We're gonna just put you in front of one person. I pitched the one person and they were like, I'm not even gonna take this to the board. You know, and well cool. I'm fucking super stoked I went through all of that energy and effort to right prepare for this meeting and like create the pitch.

Brandt Goodwin (03:05:34.320)
Because if they really liked you, then they would have brought it and it's just based on what no, this was this is like a court atmosphere. There's five commissioners, they're all up in their panels, almost like a Senate hearing and there's like the Pledge of Allegiance and this. And so they'll just run through

Kevin Mooney (03:05:48.920)
I pledge to Now you have to stand up in the Pledge of Allegiance like

Brandt Goodwin (03:05:51.400)
You do in court or whatever. I don't know. And so they start just going down the itinerary and eventually they're just like, Goodwin, and I'm so I come up and I'm you're at this podium and there you've got this like a courtroom. You've got the gallery behind you and they're just like, Hey, so this happened when I moved this is when I had moved back from the Bay Area. I had to get my badge for I guess the place I was at. I think it's but kind of by county, but it's still through the state. And I remember they told me, hey, you gotta come down and do this in person thing.

And so they call me up there and then I get up and I'm just curious this whole time, like, what's the issue? I've been in this business for five years, never done this before. And they wanted to talk about my speeding tickets that I got. Cause I had like a few speeding tickets in a short amount of time driving from Roseville down the Bay Area when I bought the Roseville house. And so right there and then I was like, okay, speeding tickets, I get it. But then at the other at the other half of me is going, Who gives a fuck?

Kevin Mooney (03:06:48.180)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (03:06:48.520)
This is a speeding ticket and they I just felt like a kid, like they were you just need to remember that like driving's a privilege and if you keep, you know, up with this path, like you know, this could affect getting your badge and you're like, What's the fucking correlation?

Kevin Mooney (03:07:03.780)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (03:07:04.320)
You know, so I just, you know, you do the all right, yeah, it sounds great, thank you. And then I was, you know, on my way for the next juvenile court. Yeah, you're like, Yeah, okay.

Kevin Mooney (03:07:13.780)
I can't play football. Ooh.

Brandt Goodwin (03:07:15.260)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (03:07:15.920)
Okay. Joe's gonna be pissed.

Brandt Goodwin (03:07:17.880)
Yeah, you know. And then it was you know, ten years later, I go through that weed thing and I go to renew when we COVID we opened back up after COVID and I was up for a renewal and it took a little I was getting close to the deadline before it my origin like my existing badge canceled. I thought this can't be good. And I get that letter that's like, we need to look a little bit more into this. And it was like, no, because of the weed stuff.

Kevin Mooney (03:07:43.260)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (03:07:43.400)
And then because of COVID, everything took forever, and then 18 months later. They're like, we're gonna have an evidentiary hearing, which was at that time on Zoom because of COVID, but it was all five commissioners, and it was set against the Department of Justice. And we had opening arguments. I didn't have one because I'm okay. They didn't actually have one either. We just went right into the QA. And so every commissioner just asked, like, what was the deal? What was the issue? What was going on? How did it work? La-da. And then I closing arguments, I was able to give my spiel. And it kind of went back to the speeding ticket thing.

It's like, look, I made a mistake. It had no correlation to the casino. We were shut down because of COVID. I didn't ask to be shut down. Also, it didn't make sense. Our casino 13 players come in. Right. And we were in the same tier as like Arco Arena or whatever, Golden One Arena where 50,000 people come in. Like, how are we at the same tier level of this. I didn't ask for this. I needed to come up with something that I had just bought a house, needed to pay the mortgage. I got him. Like I needed to come up with something that I could float me until we opened back up.

Kevin Mooney (03:08:52.620)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (03:08:52.900)
And there's no correlation between that and this. And it was like, you guys think I'm Pablo Escobar or something? It was like my first time ever growing. And it just it was weird. And there's like nope, it's a crime of moral turpitude. And that's an automatic DQ. And I'm like, well, what happens now? Like, can I ever get my badge back? And they're like, Yeah, ten years. And so March twelfth of twenty three was my last day. And it was like, damn.

Kevin Mooney (03:09:19.060)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (03:09:19.780)
Sucks.

Kevin Mooney (03:09:20.300)
Dude, it's weird. I'm gonna tie this together. I'm so tired of the industry that I'm in, and I'm looking at starting something different, like start a different business. Yeah. When I say different, like the creative industry, the marketing, the advertising, the websites, like just a guy behind a computer doing wizardry for cer for people. And so I'm like, well, what if I just started a business, a plumbing company, fucking a bar, a restaurant, a coffee shop, whatever. And then I did the marketing and the creative for myself. And I started looking into it. This is I want to make this very clear that I it's not stopping me from continuing down that path.

But very quickly I realized, fuck, this is a new this is a new world that I've never been in before. Because I just do online stuff. I'll fly to China and buy some dildos, go get some scooters, make something up. Everything I do is make-believe. If you want to start a real business and you want to do something really fun and really creative, the fire marshal has to be involved, the city planner has to be involved, an investor has to be involved, whatever. So I go down this path and I start reaching out to these people and no one takes my phone call.

Brandt Goodwin (03:10:46.380)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (03:10:46.700)
Nobody's there when I show up

Brandt Goodwin (03:10:48.620)
At the fucking office building.

Kevin Mooney (03:10:49.360)
I you're just fighting against all of these regulatory systems and organizations, and you're like, that's what that could and I haven't felt that.

Brandt Goodwin (03:11:00.940)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (03:11:01.300)
I built a website and I said, Hey, I this is what I do. And then people hired me. And I've had like a luxury in that department. What you were just talking about reminds me of it. Five dudes on some fucking panel that says this is a moral issue. Yeah. Like you are a bad person because you grew weed.

Brandt Goodwin (03:11:19.300)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (03:11:19.680)
Like, fuck man. If anyone finds out what I've done in my life, right, you know, just 'cause I want to start a coffee shop that has a I don't know, an open fire pit or something. Or yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (03:11:30.280)
Alcohol.

Kevin Mooney (03:11:31.060)
They're going to be they're going to be like, well this guy This guy believes that you should ride in the back of a truck. I heard him on his podcast saying that he used weed to help us.

Brandt Goodwin (03:11:40.880)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (03:11:41.020)
Like, what the fuck? I got five suit dudes, fucking suit dicks over here telling me I can't do something fun and cool and creative that everybody would really enjoy.

Brandt Goodwin (03:11:50.920)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (03:11:51.340)
And they don't want to give me the permit or they don't want to give me the funding or they don't want to approve my whatever. I've never had to fucking deal with that.

Brandt Goodwin (03:11:58.240)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (03:11:58.520)
I turn on the fucking RODECaster, hit record, I can say whatever the fuck I want. That is crazy to me. And so you losing your career, sh sure, it was a mistake that you did the thing and you own it and whatever. But to lose the career and then have a time limit put on that's fucking wild. It doesn't feel like the United States. Like that's kind of a big broad step.

Brandt Goodwin (03:12:24.980)
No, I get it. It's like Yeah. What are why can't the owner of the card room decide who their employee is? Why do you have this backdoor regulatory thing? And like, look, I get there's bad people out there that are fraudulent and they're running schemes and it's maybe it's a front because the b you gotta have some regulatory, but there's so many people that I've worked with in that industry for the 17 years that I did that it's like, but he's a fucking dealer? Like, are you kidding me? Maybe the problem is that I got caught, you know.

Kevin Mooney (03:12:55.820)
Well, sure.

Brandt Goodwin (03:12:56.600)
But yeah. Just no grace. And you and then you start thinking this is bureaucratic. This is like you've got the power to decide who in this. And I'm kind of being vulnerable that like I made a mistake, you know. Like I j I think I ended it with like, I just want to be a dealer. Yeah. All I ever wanted to do was just be a dealer and get back to dealing. And so that's all I want to do. And I thought that I was being like forthcoming and transparent and I didn't deny anything and told them the truth about all of it. And I thought that was do it, because that's what we're told.

Kevin Mooney (03:13:24.480)
Well sure.

Brandt Goodwin (03:13:25.060)
Tell the truth, everything's good. I mean, side note here, your thing about no board, just one person. I applied at Thunder Valley, what was that, six months ago, late last year or something. And it got to a point where I did my interview after a lengthy application that's asking you all your history shit. And I was told by just be honest, just be honest. Like being a police officer or correctional, just be honest. Tell them everything. I'm like, yeah, I have nothing to hide. Well, I guess I like forgot to say something on the application, but in the one-on-one interview with the person who is going to decide whether you work here or not, I brought up something that actually like is against myself, but showing that I was honest.

And I get a phone call, like in this waiting period where it's like Unfortunately, we're not gonna go through with it. And like, can I ask you why? Well, you told us this thing in the interview or me in the interview, this thing, and then but you didn't put on your application. And it was like that wasn't on purpose. You know, I might have I going you're going through a 30 page application and I might have read it wrong. Sometimes I do that where I'm like, I have not I mean I told you in person, isn't that good enough? Isn't that stronger to just do it right in person? Like, no, it's deviant.

Kevin Mooney (03:14:42.420)
That's the fucked up thing about rules and regulatory systems and all of that stuff, because you can word an application in a way that doesn't trigger the thing in your brain. Right. And then somebody in person says a similar question in a different way. And you go, Well, actually, I mean, in that context, yeah, this happened.

Brandt Goodwin (03:15:04.160)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (03:15:04.640)
You know? And then they're like, up, You're a liar. You didn't put that here on the Well, it didn't ask that fucking question. It asked question.

Brandt Goodwin (03:15:13.240)
That's a great point because I know what it was that you did not convey to us that you got fired. I've never been fired from a job except for one. But when you go back to the application, it's like reason for leaving, right? And I know people might listen to this and be like, Well, duh. Well, I looked at it like I, you know, I had just had a kid and I wanted to move back to this or that. I didn't look at it like were you fired or not? But in the interview It's like, you know, how did you go or how did you leave or something?

The wording was different where it was like, actually I got fired. You know, they caught me smoking weed on a break in the employee parking lot and they said it was, you know, that's a DQ. And so I said, Hey, sorry about that. And they were bummed that I did that because they really liked me, but that was the rules. And so I, you know, I was fired. Well then that was used on you didn't disclose it on your thing. It's like there was no place on there. Have you ever been fired from a job or this or that? So that's what I'm telling that's where the verbiage could have been like.

And then just to think about how honest and transparent I am as a person, as a human being. And that's gonna that's gonna now set the tone on who you think that I am. And that I've never done anything in a casino that you would ever be concerned about. Like if you go back to my whole history and looked at the camera, I've never done anything in a casino that was wrong.

Final Reflections

Kevin Mooney (03:16:28.980)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (03:16:29.360)
I made enough money to where you didn't have to do that. And so it's like K put me on probation. Right. If I ever do anything in the cargo on the wrist. No, cut my hand off.

Kevin Mooney (03:16:39.360)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (03:16:39.620)
I'll put that much on the line.

Kevin Mooney (03:16:41.120)
Sure.

Brandt Goodwin (03:16:41.460)
You know, that I will never do anything in this casino because I'm here to do a job and I love it. There's no reason to steal. There's no reason to loan shark. There's reason to be a bookie. I've seen all this stuff. I don't really want to be involved. I'm have fun coming in here, seeing the same nine players every fucking night, getting to banter, like locker room talk and You can talk to these people and stuff and make fucking great cash. You don't have to put it on the books and that's you take your hat off and you don't you don't worry about the card room when you leave.

Right. It's not like owning a business or yeah, having a meeting tomorrow. You're fucking spinning cards in the air, like big fucking deal. Give me my job back.

Kevin Mooney (03:17:19.140)
That's a that's a fucking wild industry. Yeah. To be to be in, to be a part of, to think about. You know, I don't think anybody really pays that much attention to it when they go to a casino. No. They're not like, What is you know, who's this dealer? What's their past? You're just like, I don't know, you're dealing the cards, the cards are the cards. Like the numbers are the numbers. You're just a person, you know, there's not anything back there and I don't give a fuck if you're high. I don't I don't care what you're doing, you know, just

Brandt Goodwin (03:17:52.000)
If they only knew that part. I mean, I'd have these fucking Rasta guys come in and they're bringing in like fifty milligram gummies that they made at home. Who knows how much there really was in there? It could have been less or more. But, you know, they're getting there and they're like, hey, you want one? And it's like Yeah. And it was kind of a place that we worked at, you know, and you'd get ripped.

Kevin Mooney (03:18:12.140)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (03:18:12.680)
And you had just two hours of the best session of dealing cards to the some of the most entertaining, fun guys that you could ever and it's like Yeah, I'm stoned and I can do this. I actually I got high so many times dealing cards at this place. And not like it was a have to, but being in that industry and being up the hill where that's a very predominant industry alongside with it, there were times I was ripped at the table and it would get to a point where if there wasn't a lot of stimulation going, you want to talk about the most technical snap in the cards, almost like that ASMR stuff.

Like if you had just no talking and just heard me deal. And put the chips and all that stuff. It w I it was so professional.

Kevin Mooney (03:18:55.600)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (03:18:56.260)
More professional than when I wasn't high.

Kevin Mooney (03:18:58.160)
Right. Yeah. Could you probably more annoyed when you're not high in that?

Brandt Goodwin (03:19:01.640)
It depended, right. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (03:19:03.840)
It depends on the player, right? Johnny fucking two hands comes in and you're like, this is gonna be great. I gotta get high for Exactly.

Brandt Goodwin (03:19:10.360)
And then you're like, Daryl's here, like here we go. Five dollar bets for the next six hours in this Yeah, just completely putting any worker on tilt the rest of the night. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (03:19:21.680)
Did you make more money? Well, you made more money on tips than anything. But did anyone tip you out if like they were a loser? You know, did they ever just have their budget and when their budget was gone, they were gone, or were they like, Hey man, thanks. Here's a hundred bucks.

Brandt Goodwin (03:19:40.900)
No, not to that extent. Now there were times where people would come in with X amount of money and it was smaller, you know, it could be in the hundred, two hundred range. And they would play and maybe they got a couple beers and maybe they liked me because I was a great rapport builder and it was very entertaining to be at my table. And they would get down to where it's like, I mean, they're bet let's just say they're betting twenty bucks every hand, and they're getting down to the end and they know that like, I'm done with my beers. I'm gonna I'm gonna once I lose this money, I'm gonna leave anyways. And they would throw me a red bird or a couple ten bucks or something, nothing like a hundred.

Kevin Mooney (03:20:12.680)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (03:20:13.080)
You know.

Kevin Mooney (03:20:13.640)
They only tipped out big when they were winning, when they were Absolutely.

Brandt Goodwin (03:20:16.980)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (03:20:18.060)
What was your biggest tip?

Brandt Goodwin (03:20:21.080)
Like in one hand or over a night?

Kevin Mooney (03:20:24.180)
I'd say from like one player.

Brandt Goodwin (03:20:26.540)
One player? It's it I couldn't calculate it because they all come in so many different hands.

Kevin Mooney (03:20:32.440)
So they're tipping out per hand. They're not like Thanks for the great session.

Brandt Goodwin (03:20:37.300)
Well, are you talking also poker or blackjack? Because those are two different tip styles. I've been tip I've been tipped a five I thought

Kevin Mooney (03:20:43.820)
You only had done Blackjack is as far as dealing up there.

Brandt Goodwin (03:20:46.880)
In Grass Valley?

Kevin Mooney (03:20:48.440)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (03:20:48.740)
No, it's hybrid. I was poker half the time and blackjack half the time. Poker, when you had the bigger game going, I bet there was a couple hands where somebody would give me a couple blacks, you know, hundred, two hundred dollars because it was thousands of doll map tens of thousands of dollars hand that was one. Blackjack is just bits, crumbs, and you accumulate it over the night. There was a middler, weed middler that came in from Sacramento and he definitely was a player. And he was our max at that time was I think a thousand dollars. And so it was very easy. When they pull out the old bank envelope with cash in it, like you know that they're gonna bet big.

And so he's betting five hundred, seven fifty, a thousand dollars a hand. His tips to w was pretty it was a hundred dollars. And he's playing the Buster Bet, which was twenty-five dollar max, but he's twenty putting twenty-five up for you too. And that can make you a lot of money. So we go on this run where let's just say he gets a double. So he puts 500 out more for himself, but then he puts another blackout for you. So now you have 200 out there. Yeah. Let's just say the buster bet doesn't exist. You win the double. So I pay him out the thousand that he won.

So he has two thousand in front of you. You won a thousand. Well, that two hundred was free for me. And then we won the double. There's a four hundred dollars that just went into my tray. Yeah. And over the course of that one night with this guy, I gave twenty percent to the floor at the end of the night and I walked with I think forty two hundred. Jeez. Meaning that I was probably above five thousand dollars. I think I handed something over to the banker, the blackjack Banker for the night. I think I gave him I maybe 800, 1000, but I was probably in the 6,000 range for a small little card room.

That was the craziest money moment of my career was the two months that we got to open towards the I think it was September 18th to November 18th of 2020, like right in the meat of the beginning of COVID. And there was this week where I had that guy come in. I make $4,200 that night. And then two nights later, I had a regular who came in and he bet big and he bet long. And I ended up walking with like thirty six hundred that night. And that was a for all the shifts, it was a ten thousand dollar week and ended up being about a seventeen thousand dollar month.

And between both of those months that we were open, I took home with my minimum wage paychecks too, because we got one of those every two weeks, over twenty seven thousand dollars take home.

Kevin Mooney (03:23:25.660)
Damn dude.

Brandt Goodwin (03:23:26.880)
Being a blackjack poker dealer up in Grass Valley, California.

Kevin Mooney (03:23:30.480)
Do you think that the Vegas dealers make no they don't?

Brandt Goodwin (03:23:35.140)
They may they might if they're niche. Like I know when I was in the Bay Area, that was a big that was a big bigger card room, California card room. Tiles, it's your like pai gow, but it's with tiles that you pretty much have to speak Chinese if you're gonna deal it, because that's only people that play. I think they made great money for that place, but your average poker dealer, it doesn't really matter where it's kinda like a bartender. You get a you get a dollar tip from every drink that you make. You know, and most people give a buck. That dollar is the same in Bend as it is in Bumville, fucking Kentucky.

Yeah. You know, it just depends on how many drinks you make. So poker dealing there's definitely a cap, you know. Maybe I've heard the real money is if you're a good dealer, people like you from the card room, they start doing home games and they start inviting you to deal their home games. And so you know, now there's no drop and there's, you know, you're the only dealer because you rotate, right? You do you're doing your downs, whether they're 30 minutes or 40 minutes, depending on what you're at. So you don't get to stay at the table very long. And so when you're doing a whole of like, hey, we're gonna start at six, and then they end at two AM and you had a couple Bathroom breaks and a dinner break and a couple smoke breaks, like you're probably leaving that night with over a thousand dollars, which is better than any other night that you would work eight hours shift at a shard room.

Kevin Mooney (03:24:59.220)
So there I mean, so I don't know, maybe I'm maybe I'm a little bit lost, but you're in you're in Vegas and you're running a blackjack table and there's thousands of people coming in.

Brandt Goodwin (03:25:17.120)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (03:25:17.340)
And they're all tipping the dollar, like the beer thing.

Brandt Goodwin (03:25:19.520)
No, that's see that's not how blackjack works.

Kevin Mooney (03:25:22.040)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (03:25:22.040)
Cause if they lose twenty hands in a row, what dollar? Well they're not giving you shit.

Kevin Mooney (03:25:26.300)
They're not doing it per hand.

Brandt Goodwin (03:25:27.240)
And they can also win tw I there's stiffs.

Kevin Mooney (03:25:29.540)
Yeah.

Brandt Goodwin (03:25:30.100)
People can come in.

Kevin Mooney (03:25:30.960)
So they get a little bit more tight when they're in the bigger environment. I guess I guess the volume game doesn't equate like a bartender does.

Brandt Goodwin (03:25:37.980)
No, you only are dealing so many hands per your hours of shift.

Kevin Mooney (03:25:41.500)
So you have to get lucky. Somebody is winning.

Brandt Goodwin (03:25:46.180)
The right player comes in at the right time. You know, the thing too about Vegas is that you're chopping. So it's a collected pot. So even if some guy comes in and loves me and tips me five grand at the end of the night, I gotta go put it in the little and then it's all split up by how many shifts there were, how many hours there were, how many dealers there are, and then everybody makes the same amount of fucking money. Yeah. Not only did I work at a place where we kept our own blackjack tips, so it was the only situation where usually the better looking women dealers are the ones making all the money.

But when I threw my experience and my pizzazz and technique and then my rapport. I made more than the females there. But also too, there's a another little thing.

Kevin Mooney (03:26:29.960)
It's that girlish figure you've got.

Brandt Goodwin (03:26:31.620)
It's this, it's my money maker face. Something that was unique to where I worked at too was that in your typical fashion, doesn't matter where you are in the fucking world, if somebody puts up a five dollar chip on top of their hand, so if they win the hand, you win the five dollars, you take the $10, thank you very much, and you put it in your cup or whatever you have. At our place, we were allowed to do whatever we wanted with that $10. So if you wanted to parlay it, you could parlay it onto two different hands. If you wanted to press it, you could take that $10 and put the $10 on one hand.

So and if you went on this run where that five was $10 and now it's 20, now it's 40, now it's 80, and now you're splitting it between the hand and the buster bet and all of a sudden six card bust, you just took what should have been $10 into your cup. And just turned it into $240.

Kevin Mooney (03:27:24.800)
Wait, meaning like you're playing?

Brandt Goodwin (03:27:26.740)
You're kind of playing with them.

Kevin Mooney (03:27:29.460)
How does that how does that work? I'm convinced.

Brandt Goodwin (03:27:31.640)
It's still a tip. So I'm not making a decision on the hand or anything like that.

Kevin Mooney (03:27:35.060)
So you're parlaying it on their hand.

Brandt Goodwin (03:27:37.020)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (03:27:37.860)
So you're like, hey, thanks for the five dollar tip. I'm gonna put it back on the buster, which is like essentially the tip.

Brandt Goodwin (03:27:44.340)
One of the common things was this player was horrible. And it's like, hey, thank you. And they put some they put five dollars up on their hand. But they play horribly and you're nice. You don't tell them this, but you win the 10 bucks and you're like, well, you're playing horrible. I put five in my tray, but hey, you know what? I'm gonna play again. Let's let it ride. Yeah, let's let it ride. But I switch it to the buster because they have nothing to do with the buster bet, because they play so shitty on the main hand. And just because they lose the main hand, The Buster Bet's still live. I still have to play out my hand.

Kevin Mooney (03:28:13.780)
And the Buster Bet again is what?

Brandt Goodwin (03:28:15.760)
If I bust my hand, depending on how many cards I bust with. You're

Kevin Mooney (03:28:19.280)
Sitting there counting so you know the fucking It

Brandt Goodwin (03:28:22.660)
Didn't get into it into that. It that would be great. The ratios happen though, because most busts are three or four. And so but and the highest was an eight card bust or more. It never I've never did a nine card bust. I did eight card busts, but it paid What did it pay? 25 would be 5,000. So it what's that math? Like 200 to one, I think.

Kevin Mooney (03:28:46.300)
Jesus.

Brandt Goodwin (03:28:46.800)
So 200 to one. And so if heaven forbid, you know, they put a tip out there for you. You win, you're like, I got two five dollar chips. I want to kind of play two, because that's why I'm here. I want to make money. But they suck at playing the regular hand. So I'll put five in and I'll keep the five bucks so that I make something tonight. But I'll put that five bucks over here on the buster bet. And then all of a sudden the next hand, you're just bang for six card bus, which was fifteen to one. That five dollars is now seventy-five dollars.

In two hands, I have eighty bucks. Jeez. Now I may I mean, what's that an hour? I mean, I might as well be a doctor or a lawyer.

Kevin Mooney (03:29:21.500)
That's fucking incredible.

Brandt Goodwin (03:29:22.420)
Yeah, it didn't happen all the time, but like, yeah, what there was this guy that I worked with, great guy to work with, funny as fuck, great but it he didn't have to do anything, which was nice because I gave him twenty percent of my money every night. But he'd come over at like eleven. And the rule that we had, because we were so small, is that if there was no player at midnight, we shut the doors, we do our cleanup duties, we go home. As long as there was a player playing, we had to stay open. But if nobody was there, it'd get to like 1115.

You know, and I'd look at my tray and I had some poker that night. I had a little bit of blackjack and I'm looking down at like $115 or something, right? By the end of the tipping the him out, I'm I walk with 90 bucks. But I also had a different mentality and I'd seen it so much and I wasn't emotional about this shit. It only took one fucking player. And there were a dozen players that could come in. David Dreds could come in. Dave could come in. This all these players came in where it's just like, fuck yeah. Corvette Dan would come in. We had nicknames for all these people. Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (03:30:21.220)
Corvette Dan's great.

Brandt Goodwin (03:30:22.260)
Corvette Dan would come in and it's and these guys, you like them, they were nice to you. They were very generous to you, but they would come in at like 1145. And they might stay past that midnight mark, but that one fifteen that he's bitching about like we have a mini night. It's like you're so fucking stupid.

Kevin Mooney (03:30:40.800)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (03:30:41.200)
Because how many times we have to see that Corvette Dan comes in, goes on a little bit of a run, and now I'm at three eighty.

Kevin Mooney (03:30:48.040)
Right.

Brandt Goodwin (03:30:48.040)
Forty five minutes later, and now we're closing up. We only had to work forty five minutes past midnight, and I'm giving you know, seventy six dollars or whatever it is, and I'm walking out with three hundred. Right. And I did it all in the last forty five minutes of my shift practically.

Kevin Mooney (03:31:01.140)
It's fucking Crazy man. God damn. So well dude, wrap it up?

Brandt Goodwin (03:31:08.040)
I bet that kid's hungry, dude.

Kevin Mooney (03:31:09.340)
I think he's hungry. Whereas fucking three and a half hours.

Brandt Goodwin (03:31:12.400)
Yeah.

Kevin Mooney (03:31:12.640)
Yeah, he's gonna be like, fuck, we're again even more.

Brandt Goodwin (03:31:14.800)
Right.

Kevin Mooney (03:31:14.940)
Well, dude, thank you.

Brandt Goodwin (03:31:16.520)
Yeah. We'll come up again. Do it again.

Kevin Mooney (03:31:20.080)
Make it happen. All right, cue the music.

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