Latest / Frap Rap with GDogggggggg / Ep 12: Brian Johnson (JohnBr1978)

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Ep 12: Brian Johnson (JohnBr1978) · Frap Rap with GDogggggggg

• The Mediaocean Podcast Network: Welcome to Frap Rap. I'm your host, Aaron Goldman, aka G and the artist formerly known on AOL Instant Messenger as G-Dog with 8Gs. Yes, one through seven were taken. Twenty-five years ago, I was an AE at an ad network called L90, and my biggest client was StarCom IP. Every Thursday, I'd invite everyone in Chicago at 35 West Wacker to meet me at the Cozy across the street for coffee. And for each person that came, I'd do a freestyle rap about them. Hence the name, Frap Rap. Each episode I track down another OGI peer to reminisce about the good old days and see what they're up to now. And today I've got a mystery guest here in studio. Mystery guest, will you please take off your Groucho Mark glasses? Yes, it's Brian Johnson, ladies and gentlemen. Brojo, welcome to FrapRap. Great to be here. In studio, this is exciting. ⁓ last guest I had in studio was the original ⁓ guest, Jeff Marshall. We've worked out a lot of kinks on the pod now. We've got our own fancy website. ⁓ and so ⁓ I'd like to think now that this is gonna be pretty straightforward, but who knows? I hope we actually personally I hope we go off the rails. But you get a look now at like the magic behind the camera. Most people only see the perfectly manicured background. You get to see the mess. It's it's it's beautifully it's beautifully done. ⁓ well it's great to have you here. ⁓ it works out well. We're ⁓ not quite neighbors, but close enough. ⁓ we're we're suburban adjacent here. and we'll definitely spend some time catching up on life and family and all that. But let's start by teleporting back to the IP days. ⁓ so when did you start and what was your role at the time? So I started in July of two thousand. I was an associate and I worked on the Nintendo and Miller Brewing accounts and Philip Morris actually. July of two thousand. Okay, so that's right when I started at L ninety. ⁓ I've told the story on on previous episodes. I actually had an offer for Starcom coming out of school. My offers were L ninety and StarCom, same amount of money. ⁓ but with StarCom, I would have had to gone through Pit, right? Was that what it's called? It and then get place. And I was like gung ho digital. I was like, I know this internet's gonna be a thing. I wanted to get into it and they couldn't guarantee it. So I went to L ninety. How did you end up ⁓ getting that job? Yeah. So, ⁓ And why and why did they pick you over me? Yeah, I you know what? It was it's it was ⁓ just a lot of good fortune, to be honest with you. ⁓ I went to Indiana University and I happened to meet a guy named Tim Harris. Heard of him. ⁓ he might be here, I'm assuming, at some point in the future. Yes. And ⁓ so Tim and I met and he was like, Hey, don't worry about interviewing through the StarCon process at Indiana, just come up to Chicago. And so I met with him, Steve Governorly, ⁓ Becky Bohanan and ⁓ after a couple of rounds of interviews, ⁓ they were like, Hey, come join I P. Incredible. ⁓ yeah. So that was definitely a a pipeline. ⁓ the the Bloomington Trail ⁓ led all the way to thirty five West Whacker. ⁓ did you have like did you have a sense of what you were getting into? ⁓ and when you actually like started and doing the work, like what did what did you think of it? Yeah. I had no idea what I was getting into. ⁓ when Tim described the job, he was like, You are gonna help Miller and Nintendo sell products, but you're not actually gonna sell those products via the internet. Right. And so it was like, Okay. And so I started and and I was a marketing major, but I didn't do a whole lot of work in advertising. So the idea of media and all of that was a little bit new. ⁓ but the the environment, the people, it was like an amazing team to join and you know, to this day feel very fortunate that that's where I ended up. Yeah. And I know ⁓ you've you're still in touch with a lot of the folks. We'll we'll unpack all that. ⁓ and to your point, like e by the way, even if you had so I was an advertising major. Yeah. And it still didn't prepare me a lick for anything. You know, just the the certainly with with digital, like that was a whole new frontier. So there was no like playbook or or course book or curriculum that that could have put you through for that. That was really just learn as you go. ⁓ but even still the ⁓ kind of the The state of the art at the you know, everything was ⁓ put y you know, you do your audience insights, you put together your plan, you run the program, and then like a year later you get your measurement and see ⁓ you know what worked, and then you tweak it, you know, for the upfront for the next year. Yeah. That whole model just got flipped ⁓ once we were doing this internet thing. Now, to your point, the accounts you worked on weren't e-commerce. ⁓ by the way, I bear I I don't know if two thousand ⁓ maybe there was some e-commerce, but most most brands were just using websites as like a online version of, you know, ⁓ Print like a brochure. Right. ⁓ do you remember like some of the types of campaigns ⁓ that you worked on? I'm sure for like for Miller, it was a lot of like sports sponsorship type stuff. Yeah. With Miller was a lot of sports, ⁓ sponsorships, a lot of entertainment. ⁓ I worked mainly on some of the niche brands that Miller, so like the launch of Sky Blue. ⁓ that product didn't last very long, but ⁓ it was fun to work on it. ⁓ and then I actually spent most of my time on Nintendo. ⁓ helping them launch all their various ⁓ software titles. And that was a lot of fun, but it was like a st like they were always launching new titles every single quarter. ⁓ and it was a lot of fun because the software sold the hardware. Yeah. And so And was this what ⁓ what was aro what was out then? Was it just NES or did they have was Game Boy? Game Boy Game Boy came out, ⁓ the GameCube ⁓ came came out. ⁓ and it was, you know, there were Tons of Mario games. ⁓ this was well before like DS where you could, you know, where there was like an online component, right? This was just console stuff. Yeah. This was all console. You had to go to the store and grab the actual cartridge. And it was it was it was old school. But it was a it was a ton of fun. It was like, you know, some games were for mature audiences, some games for younger kids. ⁓ you spent a lot of time with, you know. Folks like yourself, the Cartoon Networks and the Nickelodeons of the world, ⁓ figuring out how to get kids to be excited about Nintendo games. Yeah. Well, that was the great part about working for an ad network, is we had, you know, a ton of inventory, you know, whether it was kids, adults, mature. you know, for Miller, of course, we needed 21 plus ⁓ comp. And so we'd get these like RFPs from you. Yeah. ⁓ which I don't do they come in like Excel. I feel like you might have sent them in Excel and we just filled in some cells. I think we we There were so many of them that we would do every quarter that we I don't we didn't certainly didn't automate it, but like it was kind of like, All right, here's the stuff, get it back to us in three days and like go. It was it was churn and burn. Yeah. ⁓ and then I remember there'd be like a little bit of a brief, right? So you'd tell us, okay, here's who if it's Nintendo, this title is is targeting and ⁓ here's some of the unique as and then for us we'd come back, we we had a pretty broad portfolio. So everything from like Star Wars dot com, which you know, definitely had a hardcore gaming crowd, to ⁓ a ⁓ like women's forum if you're trying to target the parents, ⁓ to Alfie if you wanted to target the kids. Alfie was like this crazy kid island ⁓ that in in ⁓ hindsight it's probably like Roblox ⁓ zero point zero one. ⁓ so it was, you know, it started brand safe until you got too deep into the island. ⁓ but luckily, ⁓ yeah, luckily we never had any ⁓ no issue issues there. This was before the time of ⁓ double verify and and IAS and yes and things like that. Wild, wild west. ⁓ all right, so take us through your progression ⁓ at Starcom. How long were you there? What other accounts did you work on? And then when did you end up leaving and why? Yeah. So ⁓ basically I worked on those three accounts the entire time. So I was an associate for probably the first eighteen months or so. And then they, you know, they promoted me to be a supervisor, which is a crazy idea at the time because I didn't know how to manage myself much less anybody else. ⁓ but I got to do that. ⁓ and I stayed at Starcom for three years. So I left in 2003. ⁓ and I left to go to Yahoo. And I'll tell I'll tell a funny story. I still remember I was interviewing and the guys at Yahoo were nervous about hiring me. ⁓ and they were nervous because they didn't want to make Rashad and and Marshall, PJ, ext Harris ⁓ upset about stealing their talent. ⁓ so they called Rashad beforehand and said, Hey, like, you know, we're gonna take somebody and Rashad was like, Fine, just tell that person to come talk to me. ⁓ and so I had the opportunity, I caught Rashad in his in his office and was like, Hey Rashad and he he looked at me, he goes, ⁓ you and ⁓ you can go, it's okay. Yeah, no, he was like But no, he was and he was ⁓ he was great about it. He's like he's like, I think This is a great move for you. And he's like, you know what? He's like, the one thing I'll ask of you is you take everything that you've learned here in the three years and you take it to that company. And at that point in time, Yahoo was probably one of the biggest partners that StarCon IP had. He's like, if you can make them like a more effective partner for us, he's like, you'll make me proud. So it was, it was, it was really like sage perspective of like, you know, and again, I was a manager. It w like losing me was not gonna, you know, ⁓ make anything bad go on in StarCon IP. Give yourself some credit. Yeah. You were important. But ⁓ but it was it w it was great. And so it made the move, like the people at Yahoo were happy. And I actually got to work on the StarCon business, which was ⁓ an exception to the norm, but something that my managers at Yahoo and and Rashad said, like, yeah, it's fine. Probably 'cause the way they handle it and the fact that, you know, they had the conversation up front and and you went in and taught like I I think that probab 'cause was it There was an well if it was unwritten or a written rule, but there was something that said like if you leave to go to the sell side, you couldn't call on Sarcom IP for the year, right? Yeah. So it was it was a ⁓ I think it was an exception. ⁓ and I think it was because of how they manage it. And and for me, I was just excited about going and seeing kind of like how the sausage was made, right? After three years of getting all these proposals from all these different companies, seeing like the good reps from the ones that maybe weren't so good, I was like, it was just a good opportunity to go see like is that Is that site interesting? And ⁓ inevitably I haven't looked back. Yeah. So this is not me fishing for compliments, but I want to unpack what you know the difference between like a good rep and a not so good rep. I mean there there was we were talking about like trading RFPs over Excel. Like there was, you know, I'm sure there's things like responsiveness and and attention to like, all right, this is what you're actually looking for. Let me not just come in with the standard stuff. Of course there's the entertainment, you know, taking people to cozy. Actually, we didn't actually show. We've replicated our own ⁓ version of the the cozy strips that you would get when you walk in, the the little ends ⁓ that they would cut off and put into you. Brian walked in today, ⁓ it's Friday. I was telling him that ⁓ every Friday my my mom who who lives close by here ⁓ bakes me a hala ⁓ for the Jewish Sabbath. And so we get to ⁓ enjoy our hala together. We've got of course our our versions of the fraps and our mugs here. Let's hold these up so people can see for if you're on audio. Mine just says dad. ⁓ Brojo says it's not a dad bod. It's a father figure. There you go. And I did pick that one out for him as as he walked in. ⁓ so cheers. And we'll get to the ⁓ harder stuff ⁓ for the apartment crawl round later. Yeah. No, just kidding. It's nine AM. ⁓ four o'clock somewhere. ⁓ but any rate, so ⁓ so there you know, there was like the relationship building, entertaining, of course, the making sure that you got what you were looking for in your plans and your proposals. But like yeah, how else would you characterize like what made a good rep? And of course you you then had to embody that once you went to the rep side. That's right. ⁓ Yeah, you know, responsiveness, creativity, attention to detail. ⁓ and just like I think like trust, like people you could depend on. Like like in that point in time, we were all of us were kind of figuring it out. And so it's kind of like figuring out with people that you trust and you know, like, you know, you know what, it might be bumpy, but we'll what we'll get the job done and we'll get what needs to be done for the client. I think that was, you know, and that could be different for everybody, but I think you kind of ⁓ you To me, the trust is a big piece of it. Yeah. Well, and and ⁓ of course you had trusted relationships with the people that you had worked with. ⁓ I'm sure that carried over. you know, we talked about like when we were talking to ⁓ Schreiber when she was on, ⁓ you know, she moved into real estate, but but kept you know, those relationships kind of carried through. Now here we are, I don't want to fast forward too much, we'll we'll go through the rest of the career progression, but but just kind of jump into the end where you are now, like that I I I imagine and I see it because ⁓ I I've been fortunate to stay close to you as well. In your circle, you still have sort of that trusted circle that's kind of carried through the entire career. And I'm sure there's still people that you can count on or lean on when you need something business or or personal related. ⁓ do you ⁓ so so when you were Yahoo, ⁓ how long you you ended up at ESPN, right? Yeah. So how long were you at Yahoo? And then what was the move there? I worked at Yahoo for about four years. ⁓ And again, it was great. I was an account manager for the first year, got to see like how the company worked and you know, Yahoo's a huge company today and certainly was then. And I just got to like learn and got to spend time with clients and apply the things that I saw at StarCon. And then after By the way, sorry, d did you overlap with Zeman at all? Because he was on the last show and he to he was saying he went over in this sort of like audience strategist role. I think he said it was like ⁓ six. So it would have been pretty I think I left just before him. Okay, 'cause you know he's coming probably. ⁓ 'Cause he had said, ⁓ yeah, actually it might have been ⁓ even ⁓ seven because he had said right media had already been bought. So you this was like you were like original Yahoo where you were selling like big, you know, portal type stuff, right? It was like Yahoo two point ⁓ right? Like the the d boom had happened, the stock had collapsed and like but Yahoo was still like the most probably one of the more dominant kind of ⁓ portals, I guess, at that point in time. This is the Carol Barts era? ⁓ before this would have been ⁓ Terry Semmel. ⁓ yeah, okay, okay. So entertainment driven. Yeah, okay. And it was and it was a blast. It was ⁓ in the in the company like surged and grew and it was ⁓ an a an amazing place. And like if you look at the world today, a lot of the people that are kind of running big companies all worked at Yahoo way back when. At some point it's in their in their careers. So I learned a lot. All right, then ESPN. Yep. So then I spn so I I was at Yahoo for four years, ⁓ and it was like gosh. I love sports. Sports is amazing. I was like, if I you know, the idea of going to Bristol, Connecticut and hanging out on the set, I was like, I'm done. So went to ESPN, ⁓ spent four years there. Who brought you over there? Was it Shu? ⁓ no, it was ⁓ again named Blaze DeSilva. Okay, ⁓ Sarah Torville, Tim Headstrom. ⁓ and what was really cool about that is I got to work in the digital space, but got to see how a company with TV assets, magazine, ⁓ radio, like how it all brought it together. ⁓ and then the other big pivot at Yahoo, I was kind of like the young buck. And so I got to work on, you know, all the really small accounts that were hard to work with and didn't really want to spend money on the internet. I went to ESPN, I got to work with, you know, General Motors and Miller and Allstate and all of that. So that was a big step in my career. And ⁓ and to be honest, like I look back at it now and it's like I'm kind of surprised I ever left there. ⁓ and still have great friends that have been there for twenty years. But it was ⁓ it was an amazing place. Well, and then ⁓ Surprised that you left, but probably not regretting that you left. Because the next move, if I'm not mistaken, was to Facebook. That's right. And you got in, was that pre IPL? Yeah, that was it was really September of 2009. ⁓ and that was an experience unlike any other. Tell us about it. You know, it was ⁓ I will I'll say a couple things. It was ⁓ we're literally like building the plane and flying at the same time, the the the use user growth like through the charts. ⁓ and then like the expectations and on revenue were through the charts. And but like it was an amazing product. And like, you know, I don't think it people really knew like how powerful that was gonna all be. And in some ways that power has been really good, in other ways, maybe not so good. ⁓ but the the people I worked with, the talent, it was the smartest people I ever worked with. I worked with at that company. Like it was amazing. And ⁓ So fa so at the time so so that was a pretty big risk for you, right? Going from established ESPN who who was, you know, a staple on the media plan. Yeah. ⁓ Facebook still emerging, you know, social was you know, like it we're coming out of like the MySpace era. Yeah. ⁓ so not totally proven. What gave you the conviction to make that move? Like what did you see maybe that that others didn't? So the first thing was I was like, you know what, if this goes bad. I can probably always go back and get my SPM job or to work somewhere else. Yeah. So that was the first part. And then and then the second part was just this idea of of of this these social connections. And you could see like how powerful that was in like giving people voice and then being able to connect to brands. Like, you know, back then it was all about like liking brands and getting organic distribution that was then supplemented by paid ads. It just it like it felt like there was something there. Right is like you could look at it and at the time there were probably two hundred million users. So, you know, fast forward today, there's three billion. ⁓ but those numbers grew. And one of the more interesting things to look back at now is how nervous people were to put ads in the newsfeed. Right. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. We talked about brand safety. Like you had no control over what you're where you were going to appear next or what what content you'd be adjacent to and so like brands were at first like nervous about it, but then Facebook was super nervous about it too, because like what if they ruined the experience and then people stopped coming? ⁓ obviously they figured that out. Yeah. And by the way, j again, jump into the end here. Now here we are with like ⁓ open AI, Chat GPT, rolling out ads. I think they just said they pr they surpassed a billion dollar run rate. And you know, there's all this conversation around, ⁓ is it gonna kill the experience? Are people still gonna trust the answers you get from AI if there's advertising in the system? And you know, we we've seen this pattern many times and inevitably everybody gets over it and frankly the money wins out. That's right. You'll they'll figure it out. Yeah. It ⁓ there's there's there's ways to get it done. Yeah. ⁓ and so you had a long run at Facebook. Yeah. How how long was it? ⁓ five years. Okay. ⁓ and and ⁓ were you was it different like ⁓ did you have vertical roles or were you focused on specific accounts? So when I first got there it was ⁓ it was kinda like they gave me a list of like fifty accounts spanning all categories, ⁓ which was actually a ton of fun. ⁓ and then basically like as you made headway, you'd keep ten accounts and then pass the other forty to the next rep that was hired and then kind of the story would continue. Probably for the first like three years. Pyramid scheme, but not a pyramid scheme. Right. For the first three years it was it was ⁓ non verticalized and then eventually it became verticalized. I focused on restaurants and got to work with McDonald's for the most part, a local company here in Chicago, and it it was a blast. ⁓ Like we literally helped them figure out the latitude longitude for all of their stores. They didn't know what it was. Yeah. And so as like location came to be a thing, like we helped them along the way. It was pretty interesting. ⁓ was that the Peter Sterling era? Yes. Okay. Yeah. I remember I can't remember if I told the story on on the pod or not. ⁓ so I'll do the abbreviated version. But I remember being in front of Peter at this point I was resolution, which had got bought by Omnicom. And ⁓ so ⁓ I think OMD was doing the media and we were pr pr trying to pitch search. Yeah. And I got in a room in front of Peter. And ⁓ kind of, you know, did a little bit of like razzle dazzle in the pitch theater where I show like we can get McDonald's from down here and I showed like a ⁓ on a ⁓ a board, the bottom of the page all the way up to the top. Yeah. For when people search hamburger. And he's like, Why on earth would anybody search on Google for a hamburger? And I thought about it for a minute. I was like, Maybe 'cause they're hungry? Yeah. ⁓ but point, you know, point. Yeah, well, it got a laugh, but it didn't get the deal. Yeah. ⁓ You know, the the ⁓ sa same in like so you know, why like all right, so there's, you know, people connecting with people, it's this social network, like what you know, what's the role for McDonald's there? And had to like, you know, create that story. Yeah. ⁓ when you were at Facebook by that point, I think I was for C. And so we were doing a lot of ⁓ so we were partners with with Facebook and and ⁓ the other social platforms. And a lot of it was just like selling ⁓ ahead of of market readiness. And in some ways that's been the story of your whole career. ⁓ maybe with the exception of ESPN, where there was already a pretty good product market fit, people knew what they were buying. You've had to kind of be one step ahead and convince and bring people along for the ride, which brings us probably to Pinterest. ⁓ at what point did you how big was Pinterest when you started and and how much of that did you feel like was a leap of faith versus all right, they're pretty well established. I I know what I'm getting into. Yeah. So after five years of working at Facebook, it was kind of like, you know, but The business was starting to do really well. And in some ways, I probably should have stayed there. but this thing like Pinterest came up and I went and had a beer with a guy and and like the fit between what users were coming to get and what companies want to market their products was like perfectly aligned, right? Like, like fate or Pinterest didn't have to say, like, all I'm gonna show the baby picture or an ad or like a piece of blog content. Like Atlanta was it was like all commercial. And so I was like, you know what? Let's go. Build this again. There were probably like 40 million users. Right. And so today there's a little over 600 million. So not billions and billions, but like enough to matter. ⁓ how many people in the Chicago office? Do you remember when you started? There were six. ⁓ wow. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it was it was super small and like it was the same type of thing. Like we started in ⁓ in a I don't know, it wasn't a WeWork, it was a Regis? Is that what it was in Industrious. Okay. And so we had like a one office and like all of us crammed into this office and then after like three months we added a second one and then a third one and then a fourth one and then eventually they gave us a full floor and it was very by the way, we're not only neighbors in the suburbs, but of course we share a building on South Riverside, ⁓ between Media Ocean and Pinterest. So we get to ⁓ s well, we probably sp probably don't go in there as much as since we spent our hanging around here. ⁓ But at any rate, ⁓ to your point, yeah, Pinterest was like this perfect blend of of search and social. I remember that being kind of the early pitch, right? So you have the ⁓ the the social graph connecting people ⁓ on this platform, but they're not connecting around, you know, what I'm doing in a p look at this picture of my, you know, beautiful ⁓ chocolate donut. ⁓ it's you know, it was around it was intri it had the interest and intent of ⁓ of search. And and you knew what people were looking for. And so that it was that kind of perfect hybrid. The question always was, what will that scale? Yeah. And now sure enough, ⁓ you know, yeah, here you are all are and ⁓ I guess w for ⁓ so what's the current role now for you at Pinterest? Yeah. So ⁓ managing director, I oversee our ⁓ household products and beverage businesses as part of the CPG team. Okay. ⁓ we've got probably a hundred and twenty so people on the CPG team and it's and it's been a blast. I've been there for over twelve years now. ⁓ we've had some highs, we've had some lows. ⁓ but it's been really fun and it I think it of all the jobs, it's the one that where I feel like I've made the most meaningful contribution, which is really cool looking back at it. And you know, twelve years is a long time to be at any of the kinds of companies, like and you obviously you've been at with your company now for a long time. It's it's it's ⁓ I don't know, something to be kind of proud of. Well, cheers to that. We'll switch over to the solo cup and cheers to ⁓ twelve more. Thank you. ⁓ these are empty. We'll show the listeners we're not drinking at nine AM. ⁓ but at any rate, this is of course reminiscent of the apartment crawls that we used to do back in the day. Yep. So before we get into it, this is our speed round. ⁓ before we get into that, ⁓ any fun apartment crawl stories? Did you ever host one or anything? I think I had one stop on one. Okay. ⁓ but I was a frequent participant. like to me the apartment crawl was just like such a good idea. ⁓ and and and and it was just a great time. And it was, you know, I don't know how many of them we did, but there were at least Seven, eight, ten. ⁓ it was a blast. And like in like the stories coming out of the apartment crawls, like the following days and the next week at work, were we're always ⁓ quite hilarious. Yeah, probably not for sharing ⁓ on the pod. ⁓ so we'll go and reminisce on that once we ⁓ stop recording. Yeah. ⁓ but all right, let's get into it here. So ⁓ this is gonna be quick answers. Sure. ⁓ the first one I've asked everybody, this of course becomes the name of ⁓ the episode. And I actually I'm gonna try. So I've always known you ⁓ or your nickname is Brojo, but was that just your nickname or was that also your AOL instead of nothing handle? So that was my nickname that Sneal gave me. My handle was nothing fancy, John BR1978. John Br1978. I think that was my Starcom login. So like I I got really creative. Nice. first boss at IP? Becky Bohanan. Favorite client? Nintendo. ⁓ if you could have worked on any other account then other than the ones you were on, what would it be? Network Solutions. ⁓ my gosh. Said no one ever. Yeah, it looked like fun. They had a lot of fun. I mean, they spent a lot of money, but I'd I'd say so that one, ⁓ or maybe like Hallmark Flowers or one of those. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Something different than what I did. Nice. ⁓ present company excluded. Who was her favorite vendor? Maddie May. Nice. ⁓ she'll love to hear that. She's a loyal listener. ⁓ and I'm actually catching up with her. We're gonna have lunch. ⁓ and then season two, we're gonna get all the reps on the pod to ⁓ come back at you all the other. Interesting. The the the reps can dish on the IPers. Exactly right. ⁓ all right, family, ⁓ ki kids, pets. Yes. married twenty one years. You've got ⁓ Gavin, a senior in high school, Jocelyn a sophomore in high school, and Lily, a seventh grader at Springman Middle School. Incredible. You think one pet duke the dog. Think any of them ⁓ end up in advertising? I think there's a chance. Okay. I think there's a chance. ⁓ we're we're looking at business schools for Gavin, so who knows? All right, nice. ⁓ and what are you most looking forward to in the coming year? I've got a golf trip next September heading to ⁓ heading to the United Kingdom. ⁓ so that on the personal front, son's graduation. And then on the work front, ⁓ it just kind of like interested to see how this AI stuff pans out. Yeah. Amen to that, aren't we all? ⁓ well ⁓ thank you for playing along on the apartment crawl round. We can pour these out. Well there was never anything in them. Put ⁓ down, smash them. I think we would have done it better in the day and then moved on to the next house and the poor host would have to clean up in the morning. ⁓ those had to be some ugly some ugly cleanup. All right. So now it's time ⁓ for the frap wrap. So this is, of course, ⁓ paying homage to back in the day at Cozy, where ⁓ everyone who would come would ⁓ get a f a wrap for me. And it would be usually like incorporating what they were wearing or what they were working on, the last RFP ⁓ they had sent me. We got an opportunity here in the studio, I think, to do things a little bit differently. ⁓ as you can see, but viewers can't. There's a whole smorgasborg of stuff in front of you here. We've got like old relics from the back in the early days. I think the pets.com sock puppets over there. I got a bunch of fidgets that kind of keep me occupied on my Zoom calls. ⁓ so why don't you just like grab a few things and we'll work ⁓ into the wrap. ⁓ and while you're selecting, our producer Rob will kick up the beat here in the background. I'm not gonna look. That's part of the fun of this is you know being truly off the dome with the freestyle. You never know what you're gonna get. And when you're ready, I'm just gonna look at the screen. So now we'll we'll go to screen mode here. Just ⁓ hold it up in frame. All right. I'm gonna give you one verbally. Okay. You gotta work super Mario into this. And then we've got this thing. In this guy. ⁓ my word. All right. So we got it's like a Rubik's Q and then Funko, is that what they call it? Yeah. Dennis Rodman. That's Dennis Rodman. All ⁓ here we go, here we go, I'll slip into the flow. I gotta let him know I used to work on Nintendo. Hey ⁓ hey ⁓ super Mario, no it ain't Luigi. You don't have to squeeze me, you just gotta get down on your knees with a squeegee and clean that mess off the friggin' floor. And I got a little more, cause I gotta go off and go off with a little cuff. Raise your hands in the air, hold your holla up. Cause I just don't care. Making some noise. We shootin' hoops. We got Dennis Rodman. You know we gotta do the hoop style. Pass me the ball, bro Joe. We goin' long, we gonna do it up with the freestyle. If I make this, the people on the screen won't know. Just let ⁓ out, shout. When it ⁓ hey, we did it! We got a little more, one more word to work in before I cut the door. I gotta get out, I gotta stop and shout. I gotta tell you all what it's all about. Yo, I don't even know it's a Rubik's Cube. It moves and it moves and I do it on YouTube. This video's going viral and I'm starting to spiral, so I better get out because I turn off the dial with Brojo Yo yo. ⁓ boy. All right. Well that was fun. Thank you for playing along. Great to see you. Great catching up. Much love. ⁓ hope to have more people in the studio. Tune in next week for another Frap Rap. I think we'll be going back virtual. And thank you all for watching or listening. See ya. You're listening to the Media Ocean Podcast Network. For more of our shows, visit www.mediaocean.com/slash podcasts.