Latest / Tigs Bits Podcast / 30A Founder Reflects on Travel, Business, and Big Adventures

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30A Founder Reflects on Travel, Business, and Big Adventures · Tigs Bits Podcast

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Joining us from the other side of the earth over in, in, in
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good old Bangkok, we have the founder of 30 A When I talk
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about 38, I'm talking this brand right here, 30, a brand from
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years ago. He is an explorer, he's an
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entrepreneur. He, he, he does it all.
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I mean, he is kind of a reason why some people say pimpin's
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pimpin ain't dead. That's because of this guy right
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here. Mr. Mike Ragsdale, welcome into
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TIGS Bits. Thanks for joining us today.
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Thank you for having me. I'm still.
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Here. Yeah, man, Yeah.
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This was so cool. When I connected with you, I was
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like, I can't wait because we've been doing so.
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So, Mike, I'll tell you, we've been doing the show.
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Like I said, there's three of us.
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One of them, Tigs, who started the show by himself, and he told
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me he was going to start a show. It's called Tigs Bits.
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And Tigs is his nickname and he wanted to do little small
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segments and so he did it really, I think this cup even
0:59
has it still on here kind of pixelated.
1:01
That was the whole idea, right? Little bits and segments and do
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little 12 minute pieces and, you know, talking about maybe
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cooking or talking about food or vacationing, whatever.
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And he asked me to come on and I was like, sure, I'll come on.
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And it was fun. We had a blast.
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And about two weeks later he needed a guest again.
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He was like, hey man, I don't have any guest.
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You might coming on again. And I was like, sure, why not?
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That was fun. So it grew and evolved where I
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started joining him on the show and then our third Co host who
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I'm still hoping might be able to join us here, he's now he is
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everywhere. And look at there, right on cue,
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right? On Sorry, gentlemen.
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Our third you're fine on right on cue, our third Co host there
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he is is Mr. none other than Jr. the handler.
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He is a worldwide he's kind of like yourself.
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He's more nationwide, I should say, but he yeah, he is he.
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So he's a tour manager in the in the country music industry.
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He's worked for all kind of people at John party currently
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with Justin Moore. So he travels a lot.
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He's always in and out. You know, we make get him flying
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and landing come coming in. Maybe he's on a tour bus.
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So we've started doing this together and we just like to
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find cool, interesting people like yourself, man, to bring him
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in and talk and just pick their brains and there's really no
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rules or rights And and and and and just have a good time.
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So welcome in. Yeah.
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This is my buddy JRJR. This is Mike Bronsdale.
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I'm very good, Sir. Nice to meet you.
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Thank you for taking some time to talk with us today.
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Absolutely. I'm honored.
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I hear you're coming to us from the other side of this blue blue
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round sphere we all live on. I, I tell people that I don't
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know where you guys are right now, but if you're in central
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time zone, we're exactly 12 hours ahead.
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And so, you know, I'm literally, I can't get any further away
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without getting closer. You know, if I go another hour,
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I'm on my way back. So, you know, it's not
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intentional. It's just happens to be where
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we've settled. And I try to tell my kids, it's
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not like I'm trying to get literally as far away as
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possible. But for me to get further away,
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Elon really needs to get this Mars thing going.
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That's the only way I'm going to get any further away than.
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I love it. Yeah, my brother, actually.
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I've never been that far away from the US, but my brother was
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there several years ago and his intent was to in fact go as far
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away from his house in Clearwater Beach, FL and he was,
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it was Thailand. So that's where he ended up over
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there. We we, we, we really love it
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here and we're just having a great time and it's, you know, I
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don't nothing is forever, as they say.
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I didn't know how long we would when we moved to the beach.
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I'm kind of one of those guys that periodically I just, yeah,
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change everything, you know, and I, and I don't know whether
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that's beyond, I don't know what it is, but periodically I just
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do something radically different.
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And I think that post number one, this has always been part
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of our plan. You know, we have four children.
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They're finally out of the nest. And we always said when we were
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Angel and I started our family as youngsters.
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And so ironically, our fourth child was the only planned
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child. Angel was like, you know, if we
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want anymore, I, I want to be done by 30 so that by the time
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we're 50, you know, we can, we never had an opportunity to
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quote UN quote date and, and just we were instant family from
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day one. So now that we're empty nesters
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and all of our children have found their own path, we just
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decided to pick up and go and see what it's like.
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And here we are, you know, so and we're, and we're enjoying
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every minute of it. Honest.
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That's awesome. We've got about 45 minutes with
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him today. And so I mean, we could talk as
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you keep digging into you like the dive just goes deeper and
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deeper and deeper. And I'm like, you know what, we
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need 45 hours if we want to cover this.
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So unfortunately, we're going to have to kind of hit on some
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highlights of this and allow and then tell people how to get in
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there so they can do the deep dive and really dive in to see
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what's going on because there's so much here, so much to unpack.
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But the first thing that I want to talk about and then we'll
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get, I'm going to get into the World Travel stuff, which is
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absolutely amazing. But is the fact that you are the
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founder of, you know, and we talked about earlier the, the 30
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a brand. I mean, to, to me, this is, I
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mean, this is synonymous with this area and which is South
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Walton County and and Florida and along the beaches, one of
5:09
the most beautiful areas that there is.
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Listeners out there have never been here.
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There's I think it's what a nine mile stretch that runs along the
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coast off of 98. You have this County Road,
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Highway 30A, and there's so many different cool communities
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through there that are all connected with beautiful beaches
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and, you know, great restaurants and different parks.
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And you've got, you know, land that's that's preserved and
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you've got these coastal dune lakes.
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You've got this beautiful water. And then we're and don't forget
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world class accommodations and beach houses and condominiums.
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And resorts and absolutely. And it is.
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And chefs and food and music. It's the whole culture of this
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whole area, which is so cool and so laid back and so fun.
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And this right here, it's like this is synonymous with the NFL.
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When you see the NFL logo or you see, you know, anything else,
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you know, with with Nike and the swish, to me, this really
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represents I'm just saying that because you're on the show.
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But you know that Mike, that's kind of what you created here.
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So talking about that, how did this actually like where did
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this start? Like where was the idea?
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You know, what, what was the inception?
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And then how did you get from here to let me create a sticker?
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Let me get it out there. You know, it's funny, it was
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exactly another moment like this where we were living in
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Birmingham, AL and I had had a very successful early business
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in my career. I mean, not right out of the
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gate, but you know, seven years of building it and sold it a
6:31
good time and then got literally into businesses.
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I had no business being in, you know, did all the dumb things,
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bought the restaurant, started some fitness.
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I mean, I just might as well flushing my money down the
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toilet, you know, And so took some hard lessons as an
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entrepreneur, you know, because my first company was kind of
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like hitting a home run at your first at bat.
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And it was like, wow, that was easy.
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Let's just keep doing that. And then you know, it, it makes
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you humble when all of a sudden you're like, oh, I'm not so
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smart. You know, it brings you back
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down to, you know, brings you back down to reality.
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And I and I tell people that all the time.
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And I'm not a huge sports guy necessarily, but you know, if
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you're hitting 300, you're crushing it, you know, and that
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still means you're striking out a lot.
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And so at all of your, you're at bats, if you Jack one out of the
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park on the first hit, you know it, it sends you the wrong
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message. And then you've got to, you got
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to have a lot of strikeouts before you get back to that
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moment. So I had my share of strikeouts.
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And honestly, I just reached a point where I was burned out.
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I was tired of losing. I was tired of failing and my
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wife and I just kind of said, you know, why don't we just pick
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up and go somewhere? And so we started looking at the
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world and we really intended we we would have loved to have
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moved outside the country. You know, that was always
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something we talked about. But with four different children
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at four different age groups at that point, we literally had
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primary school, middle school, high school and one about to go
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to college at that time. So we couldn't wrap our heads
8:01
around moving everybody. And I mean, virtual learning
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wasn't really a thing yet, you know, So we that just wasn't in
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the cards. But we knew we didn't want to
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get colder. So latitudinally we just said,
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OK, we're not going north of where we are, we're going to go
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South. And we've always dreamed of of
8:18
living at the beach as well. So we looked, you know, if you
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latitudinally, it's like, OK, Southern California, too many
8:24
social issues. You know, you've got the the
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beaches of of Texas or Louisiana or Mississippi.
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And, you know, we actually started looking at Savannah.
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You know, we really like the European vibe.
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We like that it had a coastal vibe and, and we started
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gravitating toward that. When someone heard that we were
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moving, we're thinking about it. And he said, you know, I've got
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a house down on the Bay and this little area.
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And we had been there before to the area or grew up going to
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Destin or Panama City, specifically that area as much,
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but we were familiar enough with it.
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And so we, we just within about 60 days of making the decision,
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we were living down at the beach and started literally just kind
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of like this just started brand new.
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I didn't know what I was going to do to pay the bills.
9:11
I had some savings, but I started doing consulting and I
9:16
was consulting for at the time of a brand new town called Alice
9:19
Beach. I was doing some public
9:20
relations and marketing consulting for them.
9:22
They'd just broken ground. And I was also doing some
9:26
consulting for a couple of other clients.
9:28
But that's when I thought, you know, people now call the area
9:33
30A, but no one called it 30 A back then.
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The road was there, but it was most people called it Destin,
9:39
even though Destin is in the next county, or they called it
9:43
by Seaside or Watercolor, whatever community they were
9:46
staying in. I just looked at the road and I
9:49
thought, you know, I thought I wanted to be a writer as my next
9:52
career, whether it was a novel or a screenplay or whatever it
9:56
was going to be. And I thought, you know, in
9:57
order to Polish those creative skills, I need to start.
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I didn't know what blogging really was, but I'm like, I need
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to start writing. So I bought the URL again.
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It wasn't difficult to get because nobody really referred
10:10
to the area as that. And I just started writing about
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our life and our move to the beach and our family's
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experiences with the dolphins swimming by outside the window
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every day. And what year is this, Mike?
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What year is the 90s? Somewhere in the 90s, right?
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No, no, 2005, 2006, you know, back when we moved, it's about
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20 years ago, almost, well, 18 years ago.
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And so I just started a vlog, or not vlog, A blog about our
10:36
family moving to the beach and our favorite places to go, our
10:39
favorite places to watch the sunset, our favorite, you know,
10:42
beach bars. And people just gradually
10:45
started following it. And that's I kept pouring.
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It was just a hobby. It was a passion project.
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It was never intended to be a business.
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I hired someone to design the logo and obviously they crushed
10:57
it and I knew they were good. And then I just kept building.
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And then after about three years of doing it as a hobby, I lost
11:06
all my consulting gigs and rapid fire succession.
11:09
So I was penniless, no income coming in.
11:12
And I just thought, you know, this thing seems to be getting
11:15
some traction, so I'm going to double down on it.
11:17
And so I ran it as a solo preneur for, you know, maybe
11:22
seven years and then in 2015 or so brought in a couple partners
11:27
and, you know, they helped grow the e-commerce side of the
11:31
business and some of the retail side, which is not my calling.
11:35
I'm more of a community building and branding type person.
11:39
So really that was that was how it started.
11:42
And it turned into a, you know, a pretty, pretty interesting
11:45
lifestyle brand after that. And I'm still, I'm still
11:50
involved, but not on a daily basis.
11:52
I now serve in a board and advisory capacity and we have a
11:55
new CEO while we're doing our travels.
11:57
So he's the CEO and partner running the operation along with
12:02
my other partners and, and team members.
12:04
And so I'm really kind of hands off at this point and letting
12:07
them, letting them run the ship. No, that's, that's, that's
12:10
awesome. And, and what's cool is to watch
12:12
this thing evolve over the years where there's so many strategic
12:15
partnerships that you have as well in place where you know,
12:18
whether it be with, you know, the 38 blonde, you know, which
12:20
has become just the staple beer as well down here.
12:23
If you go to any restaurant, everybody that comes in from out
12:26
of town, I'd listen to everybody's give me a 30, give
12:28
me the 38 blonde, you know, and it's so cool to like to see that
12:31
brand and what and, and what's associated with and, and even
12:36
with community functions in this area, you know, like every time
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there's something going on, the community, you don't have to
12:41
look very far and you're going to see this logo somewhere
12:43
involved in that. So it's, it's so cool, man.
12:45
It's, it's, it's been fun to fun to watch that whole evolution as
12:49
it, as it's kind of taking place.
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And I know Jr., even being over there, you, you've seen this,
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you know, it's been. Everywhere.
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And you know, actually I think the first time I ever saw a 38
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sticker was in Nashville when I was still living in Nashville
12:59
around that time. You know around though that that
13:02
era and because like, like you said, Mike, before that we
13:06
called it going to Grayton or a lot of times it was just South
13:10
of South of Destin, between Destin and Panama City.
13:12
You didn't, you know, you, you unless you knew somebody from
13:15
there, there weren't hotels necessarily.
13:18
Most people knew it from our age because Chad and I went to Troy
13:21
State University together in the 90s, early 2000s four, I was on
13:26
my way out. You just knew it as where the
13:28
red bar is. Basically that was that was a
13:30
big that way you you go down that road to get the red bar,
13:33
but everybody. Knew and the red bar went even
13:34
there until 95 and growing up as a kid in high school had.
13:37
A buddy of mine had a house in Seagrove Beach and the only
13:39
thing there was the wheelhouse restaurant.
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We'd get up in the morning to go eat the wheelhouse.
13:43
Other than. That and and I can and I know
13:45
even in probably well, when whatever age, whatever year
13:49
would have been Chad, you'll know this Gabe Taylor would have
13:52
been as he would have been coming through as a as a new guy
13:55
in college. He his grandparents had a place
13:58
down there and it had to be all 3 1/2 acres on the water.
14:01
Big Bay. We I mean, you could walk out on
14:03
the big sandbar out there. It was beautiful.
14:06
And that was right before the explosion out there.
14:08
You know, with with every with it going like it.
14:10
It has. But I remember even then you
14:13
just knew it as Grayton, you know, or the community.
14:16
But now it was officially 38 and you hear that in in from
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television, movies, magazines, you know, like Chad said, I
14:24
travel around the country a good bit and it's certainly a
14:26
southern thing all over the South.
14:29
I'm in Gulf Shores now and I half the people here think we're
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part of 30 A so that because you see the stickers, it's local
14:37
with the AL or, or it's 30 or Bama sticker, you know, but it's
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definitely a great thing to to put all them together and shine
14:46
the light on it And what it's become is is fantastic And, and
14:49
it's just really interesting on how that all went down.
14:52
It's it's a. Heck of a story.
14:54
Well, you know, I've, I followed the great beach Master.
14:57
I, I looked at Margaritaville and I, I found it really
15:00
interesting what Jimmy Buffett did, you know, he created this
15:02
ecosystem around his music. And you know, he doesn't, I
15:08
mean, obviously he's no longer with us, but he didn't own
15:11
casinos or burger joints or anything.
15:13
All that's licensing. And so I really, our company's
15:15
kind of two sides. There's the media side, which is
15:18
where I worked, which is more of the community building and the
15:21
mobile apps and the radio station and the, the, the
15:24
videos. And then there's the licensing
15:27
side, which is the Beach Happy Cafe and the, the 38 beach
15:31
Blonde Ale and all of the different partnerships.
15:33
And so we really kind of looked at that model and it made a lot
15:36
of sense, you know, to kind of build passion around a brand,
15:41
find your audience and then partner with people who make
15:44
amazing products and lend your logo to that.
15:47
And that basically becomes their marketing budget.
15:49
You know, So yes, they may have to pay royalties, but they don't
15:52
have to market as hard because when people see that iconic blue
15:56
dot, they know that that's been, you know, kind of sanctioned by
16:00
the tribe. It's.
16:01
Like the blue check mark? This is maybe the coolest thing
16:04
ever. I'd just gotten a new license
16:07
plate and I've always got just a standard operating license
16:09
plate, right? And I walked in and I was like,
16:11
you know what? I saw that Don't tread on me.
16:13
I was like, I want to get the don't tread on me and I got it.
16:15
It is a good one. It's great.
16:17
And I've got it on my car and everything.
16:18
Literally within a week later, I'm pulling out of Publix and
16:21
there's this car in front of me and I see this license plate and
16:25
I'm like, dude, they just took a 38 sticker and stuck it on their
16:28
license plate. I was like, they're going to get
16:30
in trouble. Like I was sitting there looking
16:31
at like, you can't do that. No, they didn't do that.
16:35
Like in Florida right now, you can get, I mean, there it is.
16:39
That is the sample license plate.
16:41
You can get a 30 a license plate which actually supports, you
16:45
know, Scenic Walton. How pimp is that official?
16:48
I don't know any other private company on earth that has their
16:52
logo on a on a on a license plate.
16:55
It took almost 10 years to pull that off.
16:57
And you know, 100% of the proceeds go to Scenic Walton,
17:01
which is the organization that works on beautification projects
17:04
and improvements for like bike paths and undergrounding
17:08
utilities. So they keep 100% of the money.
17:11
So essentially it's one of those things where it's kind of a win
17:13
for everybody because our, our company who really sponsored it
17:17
and got behind it and promoted it, we get of course, the
17:21
branding, they get 100% of the money and the money goes to the
17:26
community, which improves the community.
17:28
So it's kind of what I love win, win, win type situations where
17:32
if you find something where everybody gets something, you
17:34
know, it's it's, it's, it's a nice, it was a nice partnership
17:38
and continues to be. And critical to critical to
17:40
keeping what what made it makes it so special to be down here on
17:43
the Gulf Coast. It's still there for generations
17:46
to come, you know. Well, that's that's right.
17:50
And that's that's I get too much credit.
17:53
I appreciate it. But the reality is the wave of
17:56
development was coming. I mean, you don't have it's not
17:59
like they were going to get to the Walton County state line and
18:02
just say, well, I guess we can't go any further.
18:04
But Destin in Panama City, it was coming and Walton County was
18:08
just the last developed. You know, I think we get
18:13
credited or blamed with the explosion of of of development,
18:18
but that was already happening. I mean, Alice Beach was there,
18:20
Rosemary Beach was there, Watercolor was there, Sand
18:22
Dustin was there, Seaside was there.
18:24
All of those communities were there, all of the lots were
18:28
being built on, etcetera. We just arrived at a point in
18:31
time where there was no brand for the area.
18:33
It was inevitable that it was going to become overdeveloped or
18:38
developed. What I'd like to think we did is
18:41
we tried to be the voice for how our community wanted to be
18:46
perceived. And so instead of, you know,
18:49
Porsches and Lamborghinis, a South Beach type vibe, we wanted
18:52
like old Broncos and, you know, cut the top off your beach
18:56
truck. We wanted it to be about
18:57
bicycling. We wanted it to be about nature
19:00
trails and kayaking and paddle boarding, not about bungee
19:03
jumping and banana boat rides. And you know, the, there's
19:06
nothing wrong with that, but the other communities offer that.
19:09
So we wanted to position 30 a the.
19:11
Jam band. The jam band of the outfit, you
19:15
know what I mean? Exactly, exactly.
19:18
And return to nature and a return to to, you know, hanging
19:23
out on the beach and finding a cool beach bar and eating great
19:25
food, but not in a pretentious way.
19:28
You know, we wanted to be a place where you could pretty
19:30
much eat great food, but you could do it in flip flops and
19:33
shorts and A and AT shirt. And I think that's what we
19:36
wanted to be was the the voice to say, Hey, this is the 30 a
19:40
vibe. This is what's accepted here and
19:42
what's not. And I don't mean legally, but I
19:44
just mean at some point you became you felt like it.
19:50
It seemed inappropriate to drive a Maserati or something along
19:53
38. You know it's much better to
19:55
have a beat up old Jeep. Well, like you said.
19:57
You knew that. You knew they were coming, so
19:59
you wanted to set the Preston. You want to set the dress code
20:01
at the door? You're like, this is how we're
20:04
rolling around here. Come on, get with it.
20:05
You can do whatever you want. But just a heads up, this is how
20:08
we're going to roll. And everybody followed suit
20:10
because everybody that goes down there, it seems like as soon as
20:13
they crossed the the county line, they go to jam band mode.
20:16
You know what I mean? The shoes come off, the, you
20:18
know, the the shades are on. It's relax.
20:20
Relax. Yeah, that's awesome.
20:23
That's a great. That's a great way to look at it
20:25
too. I've never really thought about
20:26
it until till this conversation, but that's a beautiful way to
20:28
look at it. And, you know, like you said,
20:30
it's coming either way. It just needed, it's better to
20:33
caress and form it as it's coming than just let it hit you
20:36
right in the face, you know, and I've seen that down here and
20:38
I've said that for years. I live in, I lived in Nashville,
20:42
left there about the time it was started its explosion then in
20:46
Gulf Shores have seen exponential growth in the past
20:49
decade and being in Gulf Shores. So.
20:51
But you know, it's coming. I mean, I knew that in Nashville
20:54
all those years when I lived there.
20:55
I was thinking, man, yeah, it's a great place.
20:57
It's like Atlanta, but no traffic.
20:59
And it's in these hills that are green and there's land you could
21:03
buy a house for normal price. And then same when I got out of
21:06
there to come here, it was. But you knew it's coming because
21:09
it's it's just inevitable. It's just it's going to happen.
21:12
And there's only so much water and only so much coastline and
21:14
people are going to continue to flock to those areas, wherever
21:17
that is, you know, so and, and, and from an infrastructure
21:20
standpoint, what Walton County did a long time ago, which was
21:23
fantastic, is that height restriction.
21:24
And that helped actually to drive what you were trying to
21:27
drive and the initiative to like to set the certain field because
21:30
it starts with we don't have giant.
21:33
There are two two big things that really differentiate the
21:35
area. 1 is that, you know you cannot build over 50 feet or 40
21:39
feet, so basically four stories tall, as high as you can build
21:42
in the county. So you're not going to have
21:44
those high rises just block the water.
21:48
The second though, is that 40 oh man, yeah, absolutely.
21:52
We owe a lot to the people who were The Pioneers and, and also
21:56
40% of the land between Choctahatchee Bay and the Gulf
21:59
is protected, preserved. So we've got 5 state parks and
22:02
we've got point Washington State forest.
22:04
So all of that land is undevelopable.
22:07
And so you between the height restrictions and the 40% of land
22:12
being forested and it's it, that's what's going to help
22:16
ensure it maintains its integrity even though there's
22:19
going to be development that's going to really do a lot to keep
22:22
the personality of the area indeed.
22:24
And it'll and it'll keep that vibe there.
22:26
You know, we have, we have, we don't have that here,
22:28
unfortunately. Gulf Shores in Orange Beach have
22:30
have mega condos now. I still feel like it's under
22:34
control for the moment. We'll see how it goes in another
22:36
decade, But but the, the being able to manage both and have the
22:43
other, like here we have Gulf State Park, same thing.
22:46
And it's, it's a huge piece of, of land there that'll never be
22:48
developed. So having that is, is crucial.
22:51
Having the 40%, the same deal, that's amazing.
22:54
Mike, I'm going to close out on this and I want to move over
22:56
just for a few minutes. I got to get into some of these
22:59
like stories I've read on your World Travel.
23:01
But before we do that, I want to poke fun at myself a little bit
23:05
and talk about how much you've knocked it out of the park and
23:07
how I hit a big miss. So Jay Brindley, Jay who you?
23:11
I think you grew up with Jay, right?
23:13
Yeah, high school and grade school.
23:14
Yeah, Jay, he's an amazing. Guy, absolutely and he's my
23:18
former brother-in-law and still a good friend to this day but we
23:21
started a company in 1999. We looked at VRBO as they were
23:26
just coming out. We said, you know what, I think
23:27
there's a niche within this. We're going to start beach
23:29
rentalcompany.com and we're just going to focus on coastal
23:32
properties only. And we went and spent all this
23:34
money. We developed a website, we
23:35
created a cool logo. We I mean, we, we were getting
23:40
businesses. They were, I mean, different,
23:42
you know, people who had properties to advertise with us.
23:45
We were advertising and then suddenly thatwhole.com implosion
23:50
happened and I don't know why I like shook in that moment, but
23:55
we both thought like, oh, it's this is this is going to just
23:58
die away and never be again. So we kind of lost our focus on
24:01
what we should be doing, which is just kept hedging forward,
24:03
which was foolish. And so we end up selling that
24:06
thing off and moving on and like what a big, what a big miss,
24:10
what a big mistake, you know, So that was my connection to doing
24:14
something early on and it and it didn't happen.
24:16
It's I remember, I think Steve Jobs, you know, said that he
24:20
thought the difference between success and failure like that
24:24
90% of its persistence or something to that effect.
24:28
And and I think he's right. You know, there, there are just
24:30
some thick headed people who just no matter how many times
24:34
they take one to the head, you know, they keep going.
24:36
And that doesn't mean you should risk everything.
24:39
And, and sometimes we all look back and think, oh, I wish I'd
24:41
bought property or I wish I'd done this.
24:43
And that's inevitable. But at the end of the day, you
24:46
do find that people who are just so thick headed, they don't
24:49
they're not smart enough to stop, you know, that actually,
24:52
they end up like trudging through, you know, and, and
24:55
another one of my favorite quotes.
24:58
I don't know whether it was one of the the conquerors, you know,
25:02
the Europeans who came to Central and South America and
25:06
dominate everything. I think he's famous for
25:09
essentially when they landed, they burned the boats.
25:13
You know, he ordered all the ships be burned and he and he
25:16
said it's amazing what you can accomplish when going back isn't
25:18
an option. And so there are, you know, it's
25:21
like once your sailors see that you burn the ships, guys, we got
25:24
to make this work now, you know, we, we we're we're here.
25:28
So I think that once going back isn't an option, that's also,
25:32
you know, a fuel and fodder for success is It's an interesting
25:39
life lesson, no doubt. What I did take from that was
25:42
the fact that I became more the hedgehog after that.
25:44
You know, it's like I'm not going to be so easily shaking
25:47
and moving by all these little things that happen around me.
25:51
I'm just, I'm going to, you know, keep the ship heading
25:53
forward. So everything's worked out
25:55
pretty decent. But like that, that was a little
25:57
bit of a big miss, unlike your giant home run.
26:00
So but now I do want to get into your World Travel stuff, man.
26:03
So this is like, honestly, this is the most amazing thing we can
26:06
do. A whole Hey, Blasey, before you,
26:07
before you go there, Mike, I got to know where where did you grow
26:09
up, Mike? What area did you grow up in?
26:10
I grew up in Cullman, AL with the Birmingham about Yeah.
26:14
And, and actually my brother, you mentioned Orange Beach.
26:17
My brother just moved to Orange Beach full time about a year ago
26:21
and is loving it. But we grew up in Cullman.
26:24
My mother's still there and Jay Brindley is.
26:27
That's where we went to school and then went to Auburn and
26:30
Alabama, so I can play either. Side move, move.
26:33
Good move. If you got to be shaking hands
26:35
with with everybody, you know what I mean.
26:38
Went the boat and then lived in Tuscaloosa where I met my wife
26:42
Angela and then we moved to Birmingham.
26:45
That's amazing. That's amazing.
26:47
Yeah. I love the Coleman area.
26:48
My my assistant tour manager that I travel and work with on
26:51
the road. It's it lives in Coleman.
26:54
He's he's been in Coleman his whole life.
26:55
I love that area. It's a great little town, really
26:59
is a great little. Town.
27:00
We'll make sure. We'll have to make sure after
27:01
the show. Blasey, make sure he's got my
27:03
number. Get it to your brother, if he
27:04
ever needs anything while he's down here, let me know anything.
27:08
I'd love to meet him at some point, but interesting just
27:10
won't. Just was wondering that because
27:12
we were talking about how far you're as far away as you go
27:15
from central time zone in America right now.
27:17
Had to know where this whole journey started.
27:19
So OK, I've got a better understanding now.
27:21
Cullman, AL is exactly where it started.
27:23
Yeah, I. Was 22 before I ever stepped
27:26
foot on a plane. You know, our family, our
27:28
vacations were essentially a three hour if we had vacations.
27:32
But I mean, you know, you were going to Guntersville to fish or
27:34
you were going to Lookout Mountain or you were going to
27:37
maybe chat with Choo Choo or something, you know.
27:40
But that was the, I don't think I didn't see the beach until I
27:43
was maybe 8th grade, you know, so it the late bloomer when it
27:48
came to travel. But then something when I just
27:50
took that first big trip, I mean, just something clicked.
27:52
And then after that, I've just been wanting.
27:54
To go nonsense yeah, I get it I'm I'm the same I you know
27:58
growing up in a small town and moving around you know I get it
28:02
totally and because I'm from eclectic AL I grew up on Lake
28:05
Martin so I grew up there same thing I went to my grandmother's
28:08
in Mississippi. I went to my we went to we did
28:10
go to the beach some because Destin and and Panama City were
28:13
three hours South so so we never came to Gulf Shores, Orange
28:16
Beach much until I was in my teens.
28:19
But then to Troy, then to Tuscaloosa, then to Nashville,
28:22
then to Houma, LA where my wifes from then back here about five
28:27
years ago. So I totally get it.
28:29
Getting once I finally did get to get out, I made a little
28:32
loop. You know, I didn't go very far,
28:34
but I made a little loop work. Work gets me all over the
28:37
states. I've done all 50 in Canada and
28:39
Japan and I mean Mexico. Never done any international
28:42
travel, but I get enough airline time in so I'm I'm good for a
28:46
minute. They we were going to do a show
28:48
this coming year, or was it this past year in Australia and it
28:52
didn't work out. And I was looking at the travel
28:54
and I was thinking to my guys who normally a long flight for
28:57
us is four or five hours Max, you know, going to Alaska or
29:00
Hawaii or something. And I was going to tell him,
29:02
y'all, it's going to be 18 hours.
29:03
I mean it's, it's going to be a long ways.
29:05
It's. A commitment.
29:08
It's a commitment to get here. Anyway, all right, well, so you
29:10
made it there. You've made it from Cullman, AL
29:13
to across the world and, and I mean, you got the bug obviously
29:17
you said because you were pin up.
29:19
Where was the 1st place that you went to and thought, man, this
29:22
is really cool. I'm doing this.
29:23
So the first trip I really took as a young person outside of the
29:28
USI worked in Yellowstone after I graduated for a little bit.
29:33
So we did kind of a bunch of cross country Rd. trips, you
29:35
know, backpacking type stuff. But then a friend of mine who's
29:40
still my best friend, he went to teach English in Czechoslovakia
29:44
right after college. And so he, you know, talk about
29:49
a brave guy, like basically moving behind the wall.
29:52
I mean, now the wall had come down, but only a couple years
29:55
before that. And this was in say 90 or so
29:58
9192. And we went to visit him and
30:02
Bratislava, Czech Republic, Slovakia, actually
30:05
Czechoslovakia split the two countries that year.
30:08
And so a friend and I, you know, for also from Coleman, you know,
30:11
picked up and, and flew over there and met him and we just
30:15
had the most amazing, you know, we're, we're in Budapest and
30:19
Prague and all these place we're staying in $5 a night, you know,
30:22
apartments in Prague in this there's the snow is 6 feet deep
30:25
on the ground. And it was just surreal.
30:28
And it was one of the things that that really just opened my
30:30
eyes to how much of the world was out there and, and that it's
30:34
not a scary place. And, you know, once you get
30:37
there, everybody's the same. We all want the same things.
30:40
We all want to to be happy and for our children to be happy and
30:44
to live good lives. And the sketchy places often end
30:48
up being my favorite because they dispel myths that, you
30:52
know, our media tells us and, you know, people talk about
30:55
Thailand. They're like, oh, you're,
30:56
they're going to take your, you know, you're going to wake up in
30:58
a tub of ice when missing a kidney or you're going to do
31:01
that, you know, or whatever. You know, people say, oh, don't
31:04
wear your wedding rings, don't wear jewelry.
31:06
And it's like, you get over here.
31:07
And there's more wealth and affluence here than we ever
31:09
thought about having. There's more Lamborghinis
31:11
driving by my front door or any morning here than I ever saw in
31:15
the United States. And the wealth here is on a
31:19
different level. I mean, 50% of the world's
31:21
billionaires live in in Asia. And so there's a lot of amazing
31:29
things here, but you can also get the old stuff.
31:32
So I, I tell people all the time, Bangkok is one of those
31:35
places where if you turn left, you go 80 years in the past.
31:38
If you turn right, you go 10 years in the future.
31:41
And it really is like that, that you're, you, you feel like
31:44
you're an avatar when you go to some of these places, the
31:46
technology and the, I mean, you go to restaurants and they're
31:49
robots bringing your order instead of people, you know, I
31:52
mean, like there, it's just, there's crazy stuff.
31:54
But you can also go out and eat lunch, you know, for $2.00 at a
31:58
street food place or $1.50 or a dollar and get an amazing lunch
32:04
or breakfast. We eat street food every morning
32:06
for breakfast. We've got our dog here with us.
32:07
We flew here with our dog and our dog is a celebrity.
32:10
We walk down the streets and every, every local knows him and
32:14
has to stop and talk to him. They have no idea who we are,
32:17
but they stop talking to our dog every morning.
32:19
And it's just, it's really a different way of life and it's
32:22
just fun to feel. You feel like you're on an
32:24
adventure every day. You know when you wake up.
32:26
I bet so. I mean, that's it's just
32:29
amazing. I mean, like we we talked
32:30
earlier Jr. before you hopped in.
32:32
I mean, I think you visit at least what minimum over 60
32:35
countries around the world that you've been to like, even like
32:38
you said with your kids to begin with.
32:40
And then even now posts, you guys still travel from Bangkok.
32:43
It's kind of your hub. I mean, what's what's like
32:46
probably the craziest adventure? Like, I don't know, you got a
32:50
bunch of them probably right. But like what?
32:52
What comes to the top of your mind of like one of the craziest
32:54
adventures you've ever had, you know?
32:57
While traveling, you know, there's, there's like Myanmar
33:00
was amazing. We've been there a couple times,
33:02
right? We went there with our kids in
33:04
2010. And Myanmar has been controlled
33:07
by the military for, you know, 100 years, 80 years.
33:11
And, and when we were there in 2010, no diplomat, no American
33:17
had been there as a, an official capacity in 80 years, you know,
33:20
so it was very close society. But when we got there, we went
33:24
through a lot of culture shock right at first, but we were
33:27
there with our two youngest children and we did it and we
33:31
powered through and, and it just was one of the most rewarding
33:34
things we've ever done because, you know, we're in this country
33:37
where, you know, you're, you feel like you're being followed
33:41
sometimes and it, you probably are.
33:44
And it's definitely kind of, but the people are just so
33:46
unbelievably friendly. And it was one of the best
33:49
experience of our life. We were there for about 3 weeks
33:52
and just had so many amazing stories.
33:56
I mean, even transferring money, you kind of had to do it on the
33:58
black market, you know. And so the largest denomination
34:01
they had was worth at the time 90 American cents.
34:04
So and you couldn't, there were no ATMs, there were no credit
34:08
cards, you couldn't do any of that.
34:09
So you're bringing 100% cash. So I had about $2000 I brought
34:14
with me to pay for that three weeks and the the bills had to
34:18
be pristine, $100 bills. They couldn't have a, a stray
34:22
mark, they couldn't be bent, they couldn't have a tear,
34:24
nothing, or they would be rejected.
34:27
But I remember exchanging the money on the black market.
34:31
I had someone come to the room and they were taking this $2000
34:36
in cash, which is the entire salary of an average person in
34:42
Myanmar for a year. And wow, they brought back that
34:47
night about 11:00 at night, they bring back a Hefty bag and it
34:50
was just full of rolls of cash. And so I had to empty my
34:53
backpack and everybody else had to carry my stuff because my
34:55
backpack had nothing but rolls of cash, you know, you know, so
35:01
that that those types of stories are memorable.
35:04
One time we were in Bali living, We lived there for about 3
35:07
months and there was, we didn't know it.
35:10
They, they in the Airbnb, it said there was a jail next door.
35:13
We didn't think anything about it, but it was actually
35:15
Kurobicon prison, which is one of the most infamous prisons in
35:18
the world, which we didn't know at the time.
35:20
But while we were there, while we were there one night Angel
35:24
and I had been out and the kids were at home by themselves.
35:27
I mean, we had a security guard, but he was about 87 and
35:30
barefoot. So I don't know what kind of
35:32
security he was really offering, but we were out with friends and
35:36
we came back. And Long story short,
35:40
essentially there was a riot in the prison.
35:42
And we come around the corner at 1:00 in the morning to get to
35:45
our home and all the streets are blocked and there's hundreds of
35:49
deployed troops all around, you know, including our street,
35:53
which was a cul-de-sac along the prison wall.
35:56
So I had to put on a motorcycle helmet because they were
35:58
throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks and stuff over the prison
36:01
wall and I had to run down the street in my flip flops and a
36:05
motorcycle helmet, you know, And then when I got to my house,
36:08
there were people standing out in front of it and some guy had
36:10
blood on his face and I'm like, what the heck is going on?
36:12
You know, because I we were freaking out, of course, because
36:14
of our kids. See, they were at home by.
36:16
The. And we got in.
36:21
I mean, we're running along the street, Angel's in the cocktail
36:24
dress and, and high heels and I'm, I'm running like I'm
36:28
thinking there's, well, I mean, the, the towers are on fire and
36:30
there's people yelling from the prison wall and stuff, you know,
36:33
and they're yelling, negotiating back and forth.
36:35
You're just like I got to get to my.
36:37
Kids, you know, I was, I was like Angel, get down, get down,
36:40
you know, like, like there could be snipers.
36:42
I mean, they're all pointing, they're in riot gear and
36:44
pointing guns and they're telling us to get off the street
36:46
and get down. And Angel's like, Mike, you can
36:48
stay here if you want, but I'm going to go get the kids.
36:50
I mean, you talk about feeling emasculated when your wife dress
36:54
starts running down the street. And I'm, like, hiding behind a
36:57
telephone pole worried about getting sniped.
37:00
And. But anyway, it it ended up being
37:02
fine, of course. And I got to the house and the
37:04
kids were oblivious. They were playing their Halo and
37:07
video games and whatever else they're playing.
37:08
Oblivious. But yeah, so we had to wait
37:11
there a night until the military evacuated us the next day.
37:14
But it was that that that's one of the more heroin.
37:18
But for the most part, it's not as exciting as that, you know,
37:22
generally speaking. What about?
37:23
Wow, wow. I mean, that's that's something
37:25
though, you know what I mean? That is that's insane.
37:27
That's something most of us don't ever experience.
37:29
Thank God, you know, like that's, that's what I'm saying.
37:33
There's also, we were in Laos a couple weeks ago and you know,
37:37
Angela didn't tell me. I'm not a, I'm not a, we're not
37:40
extreme sports people. I'm not like a bungee jump off a
37:43
bridge type guy. That's not my thing.
37:45
Now, you know, in Laos, they had this hot air balloon company and
37:50
I didn't even know, you know, we've been in a hot air balloon
37:53
once before in Myanmar, but this time we're in Laos.
37:55
And I have to say, it was a little sketchy.
37:58
You know, we're it's it's you're out there in the middle of
38:00
nowhere. And the first time they even
38:02
talked to us, we were already in the air, you know, so they were
38:05
like the safety briefings on the one we had.
38:07
Myanmar was pretty thorough. And you had all these like,
38:10
here's here's what to do in this situation.
38:12
I mean, first time anybody even talked to us in this one, we're
38:15
already in the air, you know, and he's kind of saying don't
38:17
jump out of the basket, don't drop your phone.
38:19
I mean like. Important.
38:21
We should have discussed this before we got up.
38:24
I'm glad you said that because I was about to hop out, you know,
38:29
Yeah. So it was a little sketchy.
38:31
But but for the most part, we don't, we're not doing, we're
38:34
not taking huge risks. Generally speaking, we're we're
38:38
not extreme sports people. We're going to Nepal in a couple
38:41
of weeks and we'll do some hiking, but we're not ascending
38:45
to base camp or anything like that.
38:46
We're going to do some hiking around the base of the base.
38:49
We're not. We're not doing anything where
38:50
we're you're not going to see my dead body sliding down the
38:54
mouth, I've said. That before too.
38:56
I hope anyway. Knock on, knock on wood, that's.
38:58
You got to manage these risks. I've.
39:00
Said that same thing. Is it some extreme, something I
39:03
did not plan? I did not say yes to doing that
39:05
because I'm not. I'm no, I don't even snow
39:07
skiing. I don't know, I'm more of AI
39:10
want to go see things, but so I'm not, I don't want to put
39:14
myself in unnecessary race, but I but I, but I, I do love that
39:19
there's a group of people in the world called the explorers Club
39:23
and it's essentially a Country Club for people who go to the
39:26
moon. Literally all the astronauts are
39:28
members of it, people who, you know, explore certain remote
39:32
regions of the Amazon jungle or the Gobi desert.
39:35
And so it's a Country Club and they have, they have one in New
39:37
York, they have one in Hong Kong.
39:39
So once you're a member of this club.
39:40
Answer, answer A quick question. Mike, are you a member?
39:44
I've been invited, but I'm not. I just knew you were.
39:47
Involved so I had to ask that well.
39:49
But a friend of mine is involved and he invited me and I just
39:53
haven't done it yet. But that said, they have their
39:56
slogan is their their their mission is to clear Dragons off
40:00
the map. And I love that because in old
40:03
maps, if you didn't know what. There was it was scary.
40:07
You know, you put a dragon basically out to the side that
40:09
says like, this is a danger, this is an unknown danger.
40:13
And their mission is to kind of clear Dragons off the map and
40:16
say, oh, you don't have to worry about that.
40:18
That's actually an amazing place.
40:19
You shouldn't be afraid of that. And I and I love doing that.
40:21
I love going to places like Myanmar, Bhutan or Mongolia and
40:26
just saying, you know, there's nothing like, it's the opposite
40:29
of what you think. You, you're scared to go there
40:31
because you're worried you're going to wake up in a nice bath
40:33
missing a kidney. It's actually the opposite.
40:36
It's the most incredible, amazing, friendly place.
40:39
You could walk. Angela could walk by herself
40:41
down any dark alley at 1:00 AM. We've never had any issue.
40:47
I mean, crazy can happen anywhere, but we've never Even
40:49
so much has gotten a stink eye from anybody here.
40:51
You know, it's like just the opposite.
40:53
It's so friendly, so inviting, so safe.
40:57
Say I could name at least five cities within driving distance
41:00
of my house that I would not encourage anyone to walk down a
41:02
dark alley at 1:00 AM. I'll tell you, I've often told
41:07
people that this is no joke. If gun to my head, somebody said
41:11
you can send your 15 year old daughter, if you had a 15 year
41:15
old daughter or you have a choice, any major American city
41:18
for one night, 24 hours with no money or Thailand for a month
41:23
with no money, which do you pick?
41:26
She's going to Thailand, Not even a quake.
41:28
Like, I mean, like before I would send her to New Orleans or
41:31
Atlanta or Baltimore, Detroit or Nashville or anywhere.
41:34
I would send them to Thailand for a month without even
41:37
thinking about that because they're going to be in a much
41:40
better position than being without money in New Orleans for
41:44
a night. I mean, you know it.
41:47
It's it's a profound difference. That's a that, yeah, that,
41:50
that's a big, that's a big statement there.
41:52
Cuz I, cuz I can't even attest to it cuz I've never been there.
41:55
And I'm talking to people who've been there.
41:57
And I, there was a guy I used to know in Fort Walton Beach.
42:01
His name is Richard. I think he owned Bangkok
42:02
Cleaners. And I used to go talk to
42:03
Richard. He used to go over there, spend
42:05
a lot of time there, Man, He was a cool guy.
42:06
He would tell me all these stories, and I just felt like I
42:09
was talking to somebody, like traveling to a different planet,
42:12
you know? It's like, wow, everything he
42:14
describes is just so different than here, you know, like, so
42:17
I've heard all about it. Sounds great, are you
42:19
multilingual? There, I'll play.
42:21
I'll play Georgia, you know? I'm in, I'm in we.
42:26
Took we took language lessons, but Thai language is very
42:31
difficult and that I'm lazy. But also like, so a word has
42:38
five different meanings depending on how the inflection.
42:41
So a single word, if it goes up or down or mid tone or down, up
42:47
or up, down, the same word has five radically different
42:50
meanings. So it's kind of like meat and
42:52
meat has two different meanings even though it sounds the same
42:56
to us. But every single word has five
42:58
different meanings and it's all about inflection.
43:01
And that's very difficult for my brain to work with.
43:05
So fortunately, most people here speak English.
43:09
It's it's in really in a lot of the world, you're in pretty good
43:12
shape if you speak English, quite frankly.
43:14
But here in Thailand, most people speak English and it's
43:17
not a challenging these days with the technology, with Google
43:20
Translate, everything else we can, if we go into a restaurant
43:23
and the menu is just all Thai, we can use Google Translate,
43:26
take a picture of it. Cell service all over the world.
43:29
Pretty good. That's it.
43:32
It's better here than it is in the states, better here than it
43:35
is on 30 AI mean I've got my Internet.
43:37
My phone plan is 5G unlimited everything for $10 a month.
43:42
OK, not bad compared to the $100 a month that was spending back
43:45
home for her phone. And the Internet plan is my
43:48
Internet is 800 gigabytes up, down, you know, for 20 bucks a
43:53
month, you know, it's just. Beautiful Well, you, you you
43:57
meant that is being the founder of 30 eights.
44:00
We automatically assume and and should know that the number one
44:04
most beautiful beaches in the world are right there on 38.
44:07
Well, who's number? Who's number two and three?
44:11
It's interesting you you should say that because I remember
44:13
before we went to Bali, my friend Jeff Archer, who founded
44:16
the Yolo board brand. He, he told me he lived in Bali
44:22
for a number of years and actually his buddy from LSU is
44:25
still lives there and they were business partners.
44:28
So they would import teak furniture to the 30 a area from
44:31
Bali and basically it would go into a lot of these high end
44:34
homes. And he told me, you know, go
44:37
ahead and get it out of your head that the beaches are going
44:39
to be amazing because he said you already live on the best
44:42
beach in the world on 30A. And but he said you're going to
44:48
love Bali. Just get it out of your head
44:50
that the beaches are going to be dramatically better.
44:53
And he was right. I mean, you can find in the
44:56
Caribbean or other places, you can find pockets of paradise
44:59
where there truly is an epic beach, but it's difficult to
45:03
find one that's livable. You know, I mean, you can find
45:06
one that you can be ferried out to and spend a few hours.
45:09
But in terms of finding a place where you are on that sugar
45:13
white sand in the crystal Clearwater like you have in
45:16
Orange Beach and Gulf Shores as well, it's really difficult to
45:19
find that. Now I will say that we recently
45:23
Chad mentioned that we took a trip down to the islands here in
45:26
Thailand and there are some amazing places.
45:28
But we did find a place called Comac.
45:31
And Comac is an island that's pretty small.
45:34
We also went to the neighboring island called Kokud.
45:36
And I will tell you that in all of our travels, it's as close to
45:41
the tropical paradise as we've ever found, you know, in terms
45:45
of true, you know, like you've got everything.
45:49
You've got the palm trees, you've got the beach bars,
45:51
you've got the laid back vibe, you know, you're in the jungle.
45:54
It's it's, it just, it's, it feels like that tropical
45:59
paradise that you've always thought existed but haven't
46:01
found. And when you do find what was a
46:03
tropical paradise, it's overrun with tourism and it's over, over
46:08
touristed. This is the opposite.
46:09
So if you're, if you're looking for that paradise, when you come
46:12
here, there's a place called Comac or Cocud.
46:15
It's an hour flight away and it's it's as close as we've ever
46:19
found in all of our travels to that picture postcard perfect
46:23
beach. And our room was beachfront NSA
46:26
room. It's a bungalow.
46:27
So it's a stand alone building, 2 stories.
46:29
I mean it's got a upstairs deck, beachfront, like 20 steps to the
46:35
water, perfectly calm water and all in including tax and
46:40
breakfast was about $108.00 a night.
46:43
Are you kidding me? No.
46:44
And that includes your paddle boards and your kayaks.
46:46
And that includes if you want a scooter, a motorbike for the day
46:51
at $3 a day, 24 hours, you know, so you just rent a scooter and
46:55
drive all through the jungle and the mountains and it's.
46:59
And how far is that is a from a? So did you drive there?
47:03
Was you fly there? How'd you get there so.
47:05
You can. It's about a probably a four
47:08
hour, 5 hour drive, but then you take a one hour ferry.
47:11
But we flew, so it's a 45 minute flight and then we took the
47:15
ferry that's again a little bit less than an hour to the island.
47:18
And once you're on the island, the island is very small.
47:20
You can cross the whole thing in 20 minutes on a motorbike, you
47:23
know, So it's not a huge island, but the beaches are just.
47:27
We were the only people there. I mean, it just felt like it's
47:30
offseason because it's the rainy season here.
47:33
But there was just nobody there. There were a couple other guests
47:35
that we saw, but we pretty much had the whole resort to
47:38
ourselves and. Wow, wow.
47:41
So you know in. Mexico, Mexico at one point was
47:46
that way. You know, it's just like you
47:47
said, it's the the the corruption and, and the things
47:50
that going on in their country. And you know, there's some
47:53
pockets like that. Man, that's good.
47:55
That's encouraging to all. I'm sure everyone watching or
47:57
listening that there are some pockets out there of the real
48:01
paradise that haven't been overpopulated and over touristed
48:05
yet. So that'd be that's interesting
48:07
to know. Yeah, you got to go check it
48:10
out. Hey, Mike, I've got to ask you
48:12
about this. I was reading some extra stuff
48:14
on you because I've known you for years and what you've done
48:16
and everything. But I was digging in a little
48:18
bit more and I learned so much more.
48:20
There's one thing that really jumped off the page, and I've
48:22
got to bring this up. I mean, looks like you and Hugh
48:25
Hefner used to hang out a little bit.
48:27
Like, can you give me a little luck?
48:29
And I know we're up against it. We're actually probably over,
48:31
but I got, I mean, I got to fit this in.
48:33
Somehow I got nowhere to be an all day to get there so.
48:36
Sounds good. So in when I graduated college,
48:40
I couldn't get a job. I mean, I was floating resume.
48:42
I graduated with a master's degree in advertising, and the
48:46
only reason I got my master's degree is because I couldn't get
48:48
a job with my undergraduate degree.
48:49
So I was floating resumes, I was doing interviews and nobody
48:53
would hire me. So I really became an
48:55
entrepreneur out of necessity. I started doing consulting work
48:58
for a professor who was more of an entrepreneur than a
49:01
professor. He always had side hustles going
49:03
on. So I just started doing survey
49:06
tabulation, anything you needed done, you know, basic graphic
49:09
design. And then I started doing more
49:10
and more jobs like that. Well, one of the things I did
49:14
was took out a small business loan to buy a computer because I
49:17
didn't, I'd never owned a computer.
49:19
And I needed one to kind of do some of these consulting things.
49:23
And it came with this little thing called an AOL disk.
49:26
And an AOL disk for our listeners or viewers who don't
49:29
remember it was basically the, the embryonic stages of the
49:32
Internet. And this is before the web
49:33
existed, but I plugged this thing in and you got 10 free
49:37
hours. And you guys remember, think
49:38
about for anybody who's who's younger than this, you know, you
49:41
would pay 395 an hour to be on the Internet.
49:44
And the Internet was so slow that it might take you 10
49:47
minutes to download a single photo, you know, much less there
49:51
was no videos or anything like that.
49:53
So I started using this thing called the Internet and was
49:57
really mesmerized by it and blown away by it.
49:59
And I pitched AOL on an idea. And much to my surprise, two
50:03
months later, I got a call from somebody saying, Hey, we, we
50:07
want you to come up to DC and tell us a little bit about what
50:09
you're thinking. So a couple of friends and I
50:13
drove up on a whim. I mean, we had no money.
50:15
We, we drove straight through. I mean, it was about a 20 hour
50:19
drive and we stayed together in a Comfort Inn room near their
50:23
offices. And we went in and our JC Penney
50:26
finest Sunday suits and basically look like a bunch of
50:29
idiots. I mean, we bombed.
50:31
I mean, totally, totally, totally did not impress them.
50:33
The idea impressed them. But the three rednecks, you
50:36
know, showing up in, in trying to pretend that we were
50:40
businessmen was not impressive to them.
50:43
And. We.
50:45
But we knew the idea was great. In fact, we found a quote in the
50:49
Washington Post or Washington Times, I don't know which one,
50:52
but where one of the top guys at AOL was bragging about our idea,
50:56
you know, before we'd even. So we knew that they loved the
51:00
idea. They just didn't have confidence
51:01
that we were sad enough to deliver.
51:05
And one of my friends was in law school at Chapel Hill at the
51:07
time, so he was going to have to quit law school.
51:09
There were all sorts of complications.
51:11
But Long story short, we pitched them again.
51:14
We came back about a month later and this time we came in like
51:17
rock stars with blue jeans and T-shirts and just more of an
51:21
attitude, which is what they were looking for.
51:23
They were looking for people to shake up the industry.
51:25
So we came in and we launched the world's first humor site on
51:30
AOL. This again before the web.
51:32
We launched one of the world's largest.
51:35
It became the number one humor site on the Internet.
51:38
Then we launched a video game site, so we were.
51:41
The only 395 type stuff, right? This was in 95, yeah, 95 was
51:45
when we really launched and the web came out in 96, but it was
51:50
still took a few years for the web to become anything usable.
51:53
It was just very sketchy at the time.
51:56
But somebody, you know, I wish I could say that we were really
51:59
smart and we wanted to get in the video game space.
52:01
It was the opposite. Somebody at AOL mentioned, you
52:03
know, yeah, if you guys reviewed video games, people would send
52:05
you video games all the time. We're like, really?
52:07
And so we went and started a video game site and sure enough,
52:09
next thing you know, we got 10 games a day coming in for Sega
52:12
Genesis or Nintendo or whatever. So our, our day was making South
52:17
Park like humor and Monty Python like humor and also playing and
52:21
reviewing video games, you know, so we ended up creating this
52:24
dream Gen. X fantasy for 25 year old kids.
52:29
And we built the company to about 70 employees.
52:33
And you know, we were a content studio in, in Tuscaloosa, AL of
52:37
all places, but then moved to Birmingham at some point to be
52:40
closer to the airport. And we were doing a lot of
52:41
traveling. And at some point we got
52:45
approached by somebody at Playboy who knew of our
52:47
reputation at AOL. We had become the number one
52:50
content studio on AOL and they were trying to become, they were
52:56
trying to become more than just what Playboy is known for
52:59
historically in terms of the the the nude stuff, but they were
53:03
trying to become the brand for men who sports scores, video
53:07
games, stocks, whatever it was that men were interested in.
53:10
They wanted to become a hub for that.
53:12
So they hired us to provide humor content, video game
53:16
content, sci-fi, you know, fantasy content, all the geeky
53:19
guy stuff. And so, you know, one thing led
53:23
to another. Next thing you know, we're we're
53:25
at doing Playboy Mansion parties and we're doing, you know, we're
53:28
covering things and we had like they threw a party for our
53:31
company there one time that was catering to the video game
53:34
industry. So we had all these studio
53:37
executives from video game companies.
53:39
They're just kind of schmoozing them.
53:41
So we hung out at the mansion a few times over the years and
53:44
and, you know, got to Christy. Christy was running the company,
53:50
his daughter was running the company at the time and, you
53:52
know, got to know her well and, you know, had a few meetings and
53:56
dinners here and there with some some big wigs.
53:58
So it was, it was a very unique period of time, that's for sure.
54:01
That was the late 90s. One of those things.
54:03
Wow. As as that is probably a.
54:05
Teenager. You never, you're never what,
54:07
even a dream of yours to one day hang out there and think that
54:10
would ever be anything. It might have been a dream, but
54:15
it was not right. But you know, it, it, it really
54:20
was, it was cool to be able to. I knew that when he died, that
54:26
was the end of an era, you know? And it was cool because
54:30
Playboy's kind of had, it's like all brands, they all go through
54:33
peaks and valleys and they had had their heyday, but then they
54:36
had really gone into hibernation.
54:39
And it wasn't until the Girls Next Door or whatever that TV
54:43
show that came out that there was a resurged interest in the
54:47
brand. And all of a sudden it was less
54:49
about the pinups and it was more about the, the, the reality TV
54:54
stuff. And, you know, we were kind of
54:58
in that era where the the brand had been resuscitated, had been
55:03
brought back to life and was actually kind of on top of its
55:06
game again. And I think it slipped away
55:08
again, you know, after his passing, of course.
55:10
But in in general, it was just a very magical time because it was
55:15
the golden era of the I mean, this was when you we were making
55:19
the rules. Nobody knew what the Internet
55:21
was. And so, you know, when we came
55:22
along all on AOL, companies only updated their content once a
55:26
month, you know, so the new Time magazine came out, they posted
55:30
the new Time articles. But why would you pay 395 an
55:34
hour to sit there and read an article that doesn't even have
55:36
photos or videos? So we were actually the first
55:39
people to come along and do not just daily content, but hourly
55:42
content, you know, and we always had something we, we felt of our
55:46
brands more of as a place than as a magazine, right?
55:50
I mean, it's more of like a place to hang out and play games
55:52
and chat and and joke around and so you.
55:56
Know really so far in front of everything y'all we're so far in
55:59
front of everything with this like we were what you're saying
56:02
is something today, but but but you did that that was even like
56:05
almost pre Internet. It was pre Internet and the
56:07
Internet came along, the World Wide Web came along and like you
56:10
guys were already had these ideas.
56:12
That's amazing like. But also got to catch.
56:15
The chapter and the old it really as well.
56:17
In that era, you know you got to catch the.
56:19
Yes, that's right. Well, in fact, it's great.
56:22
We, we there's a great, I don't remember which magazine it was.
56:26
It was either Wired or New York Times or something.
56:28
But the after we had made the partnership with AOL, we had the
56:33
most successful launch in AO LS history up to that time.
56:37
And I remember him speaking to the media Time Time Warner,
56:43
which ended up getting acquired by AOL.
56:45
Ironically, at some point Time Warner got upset with AOL
56:49
because of us. And they specifically mentioned
56:51
us and they said, you know, we're tired of companies like
56:55
Hecklers, which was the name of our company Hecklers getting
56:58
more attention. And, and Ted Lee owns this, who
57:00
is the head of AOL at the time. He basically said, why would I
57:04
pay Time Warner $10 million a year, you know, to be on our
57:08
service when I can give the hecklers $100,000 and they
57:11
quadruple your traffic, you know, their first week.
57:14
So the point is, is, you know, we really were a disruptor.
57:19
We were just a bunch of idiot kids who really didn't know what
57:22
we were doing, but we were successful.
57:25
Because we didn't. Know the rules, right?
57:27
They all ought 2 dimensionally. And we were thinking about it
57:31
just we were making stuff up. We didn't know how any of it
57:34
worked, but basically they left and went to CompuServe.
57:38
They took all their content off AOL because of us.
57:41
They went to CompuServe, which ended up getting devoured, and
57:43
then AOL ended up acquiring Time Warner at some point or they
57:46
merged and AOL. So it was kind of ironic that,
57:50
you know, again, we were in this a bunch of bunch of good old
57:53
boys from Alabama. We're in.
57:55
That's a success. Story if I've ever heard.
57:57
It we had our logo on the door out in just a catchy little
58:03
office in the downtown area. Back then there was nobody
58:05
downtown and somebody knocked on our door 1 morning came in our
58:10
office and they're like, is this like a is this like a satellite
58:13
office or like a white? I'm like, no, this is it.
58:15
But they knew our brand and somehow we're walking along the
58:18
street in Tuscaloosa and saw like, but they didn't realize
58:21
everything that was being done online was being done in this
58:24
dingy little office in Tuscaloosa, AL.
58:27
But that was the beauty of the Internet.
58:28
It was. There was no brick and mortar.
58:30
That brick and mortar was gone. That's right.
58:32
That's right. Everything changed man, man
58:36
that's I tell you what we could keep going and going and I could
58:39
keep going and going, but like I I do want to actually let you go
58:42
because I want to bring you back on at some point and like
58:45
there's there's so much more to dig into here at some point.
58:47
So I mean, Mike, I super appreciate you coming on and
58:51
join us tonight. This is this is this has been
58:52
great. Like I could have gone like I
58:54
said, we could keep going. There's so many more rabbit
58:56
holes to dive off into and all the things that you've seen and
58:59
done, the people you've hung out with.
59:00
We didn't get to Richard Branson yet.
59:02
You know what I mean? Like that's a so we'll save that
59:04
for the next episode, right? So and.
59:08
We do have a, we don't really, you know, we're not trying to
59:12
start a new business or brand or anything, but if you go to, on
59:15
YouTube to around the world we go or if you go to
59:18
aroundtheworldwego.com, we do post videos from our travels and
59:23
we've got Laos episodes coming up and we've got Nepal coming
59:27
up. But we've, we, it's not
59:29
something we've done over the decades.
59:31
It's just something we started a couple years ago.
59:33
So it, you know, I missed a lot of great stories along the way,
59:36
but we are trying to do it and it really has nothing to do with
59:38
starting another brand. It has to do with, frankly, I
59:41
enjoy watching these things as I get older and go, man, I forgot,
59:45
I forgot we did that. Like, how cool is that?
59:48
And there's so many memories that have been lost to time now
59:51
that I didn't document as well and say 2005 or 2014.
59:57
We are trying to make a conscious effort really for our
59:59
own family. But that said, people do enjoy
1:00:03
the video. So if you go to
1:00:04
aroundtheworldwego.com, it'll take you to our YouTube page
1:00:07
where we do post some of our travels.
1:00:10
Absolutely. And we'll definitely do that.
1:00:12
And and guys out there in Tigsbits land, don't forget go
1:00:15
to tigsbits.com. We've got new merchandise, we've
1:00:17
got new hats. Here they are the handlers got a
1:00:20
hat on. I got a hat on.
1:00:22
Maybe I need to send you one over there if you'll.
1:00:24
You're going to have to personally deliver it, guys.
1:00:26
That's the only way I accept. You know, you have to you have
1:00:28
to bring it in your your carry on.
1:00:30
I. Hold you to.
1:00:31
That it. Warms.
1:00:32
It warms my heart. You know, a good old boy from
1:00:34
Cullman, AL has been rocking and accomplished.
1:00:37
And as an inspiration, you've inspired me today in this last
1:00:40
hour, we've had to talk to you. Been a pleasure to meet you.
1:00:43
Like I said, I hope make sure to get my number from Blasey.
1:00:46
So pastor, your brother, I'd love to meet him as well.
1:00:49
Thank you for your time. It was wonderful conversation.
1:00:51
I really do hope we have you back in the future.
1:00:53
And I know all of our listeners and watchers are going to really
1:00:55
enjoy this episode because I, I, I sincerely, it's one of the
1:00:58
best ones I've ever done and, and I've thoroughly enjoyed
1:01:01
hearing you talk today for sure. You're generous to say that and
1:01:06
it's an honor to be here, so thank you guys.