Yeah, welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Community Matters. When you talk about creating your own world today, on the notion that you can be happy, on your lifelong journey, that's no small thing. And for this, we're gonna talk to Charles Tuftoy. He's retired Army, retired academic. And let's see what else we got. A little bit in the corporate world. And he spent some time in the corporate. Welcome to the show, Charles. Nice to have you back. Yeah, thanks, Jay. I was looking forward to it. Always good to see you. Well, you've written books, and now you're working on something called Create Your Own World. And I wanna know more about that because you do that because many things in the world cause you and us to become depressed, disappointed and stressed. And some of these are misinformation, disinformation, problems with cybersecurity, gun control, political divisiveness. We talk about that all the time. Climate change, we worry about that all the time. And racism, among other things. So tell me, Charles, do these things affect you? Are they high priority? Are you depressed? I'm not depressed because I created my own world, Jay, which is what I'm gonna explain today. And basically, I got this idea from people. So I ran a discussion group and I've given a couple of talks on it where it's a good crowd and I make it sort of rather than a presentation type of thing that we're used to, I draw them into it. In other words, what depressed is you? And I copy all that down and I have a list of things from those groups. Here's the big picture and you hit on it already. The world is unstable and complex. That's a given.  And here are some of the things that the people have been bringing up. Oh, by the way, the reason I tackled this is I noticed, like you said, people are anxious, depressed and that leads to stress. They can't sleep at night and that kind of thing and that's why I took off on this. But they came up with a number of things and you hit on misinformation and disinformation. And of course, disinformation is where it's intentional. They intentionally give you wrong facts and everything else. And misinformation is just not back-gathered that are correct necessarily anybody's fault. And so I'll tell you what, I began after working on this for a while and the feedback has been tremendous on this. That's why I've continued it and I'll develop it into a book now because of the people basically. And but misinformation and disinformation to me are sort of up at the top of this list. I'm gonna give you that the people that I got from the people are because, gosh, what can we believe on TV? What can we believe in the newspaper when you read something? Did that really happen? Is this guy that they're writing about? Did he really do those things? He might not have done anything, but you know, and then of course some of the foreign countries get into this. They hack in and they come up with, hey, this guy's no good, vote for Jim. You don't want Frank. I mean, Frank's done all these things. Actually, Frank hadn't done any of those things. So and of course, Russia's one of them that really is big time in it and some of the other countries. So that was one of them. And just quickly to save time, a political divide. People are very upset that the Congress is divided. You know, there's a division there and that it's red against blue. And I mean, that should never happen. And it never happened when I was young. I want to talk about that, Charles, because I feel the same way you do. And a lot of my friends who were roughly my age feel that way. And we lived in a better time. We lived in a time, I'll even include the time of Vietnam when people didn't have these problems. When if you asked them to list what was bothering them, these things would not be on that list. It was a better world, at least in the United States at that time. And now you and I are at a time and we can look back down the road and we can make the comparison for the way it was when we were younger and look at what's happening today. And it is very troubling what's happening today. And I assume you agree with that, but I wonder if you could tell me why all these things have popped up to make us so depressed, disappointed and stressed. I think it's the quality of people in Congress. Now, there's some wonderful people in Congress, so I'm sure maybe one or two Congressmen are listening to this. I might not mean you, but we don't really have the statesmen or stateswomen anymore. Like, you know, we had, whether you liked them or not, we had Stassen and we had Humphrey. You know, I can remember not to drag this out, but I can remember walking down Massachusetts Avenue and I looked in the window of this restaurant right against the glass was Humphrey and Stassen talking together, Democrat and Republican. And I'm sure they were talking about issues, but what's missing, you ask for that is compromise, genuine compromise. It almost seems like if I'm a Democrat and I have a bill that I present and it's really good.  You know what I mean? We didn't have that before in our day to get to your point. We had a leveling of interest and we would compromise. If I liked your bill better than whatever the Democrats put up, I would vote for it. And vice versa, now no can do, you know? And that's very naive, it's very unprofessional and ethics get into here too. And we really didn't have that. We had some solid people there that if they were alive today, we wouldn't be where we are. You know, they wouldn't have some of these people elected, you know, they'd put it down, snuff it out in their own way. But so they kind of, the people in the interviews and discussions that I've been based with call it political divide. They don't like the political divide. It drives them crazy and they think about it and they think that their vote doesn't count, Jay. I agree with them in the sense that they're disturbed by all this, and I appreciate the fact that you've done sort of a personal serving on it. But what's the subset of people you're talking to? Are they in Arlington, Virginia? Are they in the East Coast, West Coast, in the South, in the North? Where do you make contact and ask people how they feel about these things? Well, this is a good question, this is a Washington DC metro area that I'm dealing with, but the group discussions are a very diverse group of various races, various career fields. So there's a good diversity there, which of course in any, it's not really a survey, it's more of groups discussions, but the more the mix you have, the better it is. Otherwise, it's just stereotype, you know, and so political divide, gun violence comes up, Jay, up there on the top of the list, they're really upset. Now, when I was in Vietnam as a US Army Ranger, I mean, I carried AR-15 and an M2 carbine. Finally, I got rid of them and used the AK-47, which is the Chinese-made weapon. And of course, there's a few reasons for that, but I don't wanna get in any war stories, but it has a great accuracy and great knockdown punch. And also when you fire that, the enemy doesn't realize that it's like from an American because of the sound, but AR-15 has a sound, M2 carbine. They know, oh, that's Americans, let's go get them. But when an AK-47 goes off, we don't need people having AK-47s in this country walking around and automatic weapons. So if I was president, one of the first things I do is I would ban assault weapons. You don't need an assault weapon to bring a deer down, you know, so we don't need that. And if you look at some of these crimes, like schools, which is very upsetting, you know, that your kid's going to school and a little bit afraid to go to school. And even teachers, you know, that how, who would have we know here might have a gun with them? You know, Jay, so we got first step is we've got to get rid of assault weapons. There's no need for them. Maybe if you're a soldier and the infantry like I was, you needed one, well, you sure did. We don't need it here. Got to calm things down and got to have terms for that. I don't mean to get off here, but... So let me give you a couple of reactions from what you've said so far. Number one, and we talk about this on Think Tech a lot, is that over the past few decades, we have learned not to care about each other. We have learned not to care about the country. You know, I grew up in the notion that the government is us and we are the government. It's all connected. And I was actually sad to see this draft terminated. I thought the drafts was an important connection between the country and the military, but hey, they had their political reasons. The other reaction I want to mention to you was that if you say create your own world, and let's say, and I think this is pretty close on, that I agree with all the points you've made so far, and that means probably all the points you will make on what and what is of concern here in this country now. Yeah. And so you say create your own world, but the problem is, and COVID has certainly influenced this, is that we are more isolated than we have really been in our lifetimes from others. And I appreciate you coming on the show and talking about it. I appreciate having this conversation with you, but the reality is a lot of us don't have this conversation and do not connect up with other people, and we are in silos and personal silos. So when you talk about create your own world, I hope Charles, that you're not talking about maintaining a silo. I hope you're talking about connecting.  I don't mean that in create, but do we wanna skip some of these other things that bothers the people and go to what I'm talking about, create your own world? No, let's hear the rest of them and then we'll talk about create your own world. Yeah, I'll just whip down and then I'll go to, then because of these problems that are causing you, the people, to not sleep at night and get depressed and not be happy. See, 19% of these people in the country, our country, are unhappy, okay? That, you know, they're unhappy people and it's actually greater than that because 77% of women fake being happy, and let's see, what percentage of 86%, excuse me, of women's fate being happy, 77% of men fake it. So you got 19% unhappy in this country and then others just may be saying, yes, I'm happy, but I'm really not, but I have to tell you I'm happy. So it's a kind of a fake thing. Problem is, and the reason to create your own world is you wanna be happy, Jay. I mean, we wanna be happy in this world no matter what we're doing and I don't mean that you develop a cocoon like you're leading to and forget the main, mainstay, mainstream. I'm not saying you go over here, create your own world and forget about the mainstream America. I, well, let's run down some of these other things to bother the people and then what led me to create your own world. And then I'll tell you a suggestion is to create your own world and be happy. And so your wife or spouse or friends are happy because you're happy. People are only happy if they get with you and they see you're happy, it spills off on them and we need that more the spilling effect of our self-confidence, which it gives you when you're happy, you're self-confident. And when you're happy, you have more faith in yourself and that leads to hope, which we all need today. We need to believe in hope. Okay, we talked about gun violence, racism, cyber attack. One comment that I have to make there because each one of these is gonna be a chapter. You know, each one of these topics we're talking about now are gonna be a chapter, but what we need to do in cyber, by the way, cyber attack can shut us down. You've seen some movies that like M5, well, no, M5, did you see that TV series? No. Check it out, that's what can really happen. There's a lot of truths in that one.  But what we need to do, Jay, just like we gotta get rid of assault guns, it's basic. It's 101 again. We need to build a firewall that's invincible in this country so that we're not shut down because they're getting so good. And I'm not talking about spam at hackers getting in there, but it's getting worse. The artificial intelligence, which is another topic they came up with, immigration control, drugs, human trafficking, healthcare, economy, COVID pandemic, foreign relations, crimes local. That bothers them, there's so many local crime. Poor customer service. And here's a good one that I'll never forget this guy in the audience. He said, I worry about understandability using up resources. We are, we're, see, what is it? We're 34 trillion in debt, this country is. Did you know that? I mean, a lot of that Ukraine, and that's some of these other things, which I remember a person mentioning in the discussion group, she was worried that where our money goes, that you hear about $3 billion missing somewhere, and it was supposed to go to X, but it didn't go to X country for whatever. And then Gaza and the Ukraine war, that's the bother. Okay, this is the complex world, Jay. When you meet with these people, Charles, what's the good news? Do they ever stand up at these meetings and say, you know, I'm really happy about this phenomenon or this series of events, or is it all just, I'm unhappy and I have a gripe about all these things? On this sheet, it says, at the end, I give them time, please list several things that upset you, causing anxiety, possible depression, stress, then list things that make you happy. And so then they fill this out. And it's interesting, but the creating your own world, and I have to make it really clear because sometimes people don't understand it. I don't mean what, like you were alluding to for, which was a good question, what I was talking about not getting in a cocoon and forgetting about everything else. What I'm saying is, do what you love to do and that you have a passion for because life is short, Jay. We've got to be happy. I mean, if we're not happy, I don't know what we're doing then. So some of the things that we've come up with, the things that you're passionate about and you love, that's what you need to be doing. When you're not knowing your main job, if you're retired, then you can do this 100% of the time. Reading nature, gardening, travel, church, eating out at the restaurant, family and friends at it. Like I've got two Yorkshire Arteriors.  They keep you happy. Music, whatever your favorite music is, hiking, writing, which I love to do. See what else have we got here? Okay, hobbies, reading and then, you know, any games, Sudoku, Crossroad Puzzles, those kind of things. So I guess what we're talking about there is that you create your own world in the things that you love the most and spend your time there when you're not doing the main strain. I don't- But Charles, let me push back on that. Yeah. You have identified, and your groups have identified a significant list of troubles here, some of which are going to get us. They're going to affect us. They're going to destroy our civil society if we don't watch out. And of course, it's up to everyone to do his or her part to try to prevent that kind of destruction.  Don't participate in the correction of these problems. Don't participate in the discourse which calls these problems out and tries to correct them. Where does that come? You know, we start out with the premise of all these problems that people worry about, but your solution doesn't include dealing with them. Explain. No, no, Steve, that's good point. That's exactly what I'm saying, that if you are worried about, I mean, we have an energy problem. So if you want to get with an energy group or consult with them or do volunteer work, do that because that makes you happy because you want the energy, that's your big thing, let's say. Sure, go ahead and do that. That's part of your creating your own world. That's part of it. I don't mean that you get away from mainstream.  When I get into my car now, there's only music on, Shay. There's not, this is seven on your side, here's the world who's breaking it anymore. I don't get the Washington Post anymore. And as a kid around here, I used to deliver 750 Washington Post every morning because I don't want to see all that stuff. So it takes self-discipline, but boy, you feel real good about it. But if I'm, if I want to be a member of an organization that's out to help wildlife, save the elephants for something, I might give to that cause to make use, taking that one out of the blue. And then I might have an elephant sticker on my car. I don't, but I'm just using that one.  I'm helping at the pets, I'm helping at the pet refuge place where these dogs need care. So it doesn't mean you get out from the mainstream of life. I mean, even though I get a summary every morning, five paragraphs of the main things going on worldly that I need to know about, whether it's political or military or whatever. And when I take the world quiz of 10 questions on Friday, the end of the week, I usually get eight, nine or 10 out of 10. And so it does, so I'm in my own world. I've created the world. My wife was talking about this morning that she really likes that. Because she even said, I'm supposed to go to this function and I don't want to go. I said, well, don't go. She said, okay, I'm doing your, create your own world then. So it's just, you gotta be happy, Jay. And so if you are happy to do the things you just said, cause that's a great point where I have to keep reminding people, I don't mean you turn your back on everything and that I got my little world, gardening, my pets, cause you know, the things you really love to do. Maja with some of the women play here, they got five women, they get together three times a week. Fine, that's great, that's part of it. Cause they're happy when they're doing that. Well, let me, let me sort of connect some of the dots. You talked about the media and it's hard to avoid misinformation and disinformation, you know, not only in the US, but around the world. And it's hard to know what's true. And here we are in the middle of, what's going to be a 10 month election cycle with campaign candidates trying to influence us, get them to send us to send money, get us to vote for them and so forth. And it's cacophony, I'm sure you will agree. It's cacophony and it's very disturbing and you really hate it in many ways. I'm sure that if you talk to your constituents out there, they would say, I really hate it. I don't want to be part of that. I wish it would go away already. We spend much too much time on it. But the reality is we have an obligation to vote. We have the right to vote. It's threatened in some places in some ways, but we really have to do that to preserve the democracy. So the elephant in the room here is Trump versus Biden. And they're on two sides of a divide for sure. And we all have, really all of us have strong feelings, except maybe some of the independence. And but how do you deal with that when you are building your own world? Are you turning that off? Are you listening to them? Are you listening to the media that reports about them?  Are you voting to exercise your right and your obligation? How does all of this fit in an election cycle which is more troubling than any I can remember in my lifetime? Well, you have to, like I said, turn that TV off. People are struggling to sleep these days. That's a big thing now. And the reason is, is they watch the news. You shouldn't watch news after eight o'clock at night. And, you know, I don't watch the news anymore on TV. I used to, I was on it all the time, getting in my car, the news, no more of that. But, you know, and I'm happy. You can't be happy if, and here's my big point in my amazing fireside talk book, which gets to a lot of this too. If you can't make an impact on something, it's a waste of your energy to spend time on it. So why should I hear these people yapping about how people feel about Trump or Biden and all that kind of stuff? I think it's a waste of your time because it's on your mind and it's driving you nuts. Don't let it drive you nuts. Just turn it all off. And like I said, it takes self-discipline to do that. Because like a lot of people, Jay, I used to walk in my car and boom, the news was right on, you know. Also, it's a little distracting when you're driving as opposed to my car, when you get in there, it's escape, spa or the 50s music, one of those three, and that's it. Well, ultimately, you do want to go into the polling place and stand in the election and pull the right levers, you and 340 million others.  And the other one, not, the other one will try to do the right thing. And so the effect of that election is huge on all of us. And I'm not sure that we can fully appreciate it. I mean, I can and you can, I won't ask you your persuasion, but I think a lot of people need to be fully informed and they are not fully informed. And if you let them go into that booth without being fully informed, we're all asking for trouble. Yeah, I'm with you 100% there. And when you say fully informed, it is some of that information misinformation or disinformation too, that's one of the problem. But you and I really talk straight and we talk turkey to each other. So I wasn't gonna get into this, but Colin Powell was my ranger buddy in the army. And so we've known each other a long time. And so let's try not to have Trump on my mind. I'm kind of down the middle. My wife always says, whether it's a local vote or national vote, state vote, who should we vote for? I said, just vote for the best or the worst. And you know, we, but Colin Powell told me, I said, what do you think of Trump? And I usually never ask questions like that because I try to get out of the political party.  That's all he said. So he got to ask yourself, whether you're Republican or Democrat, you got to forget that and think of the country and all the people that died in this country for freedom and democracy. All those people died, civil war, the First World War, Second World War, Vietnam, Korea, all those other going all the way back in the history of this country. They're six feet under. They fought for freedom and democracy. I don't know if you want to have an authoritarian type of government and not have a democracy anymore. And that's what you get on the one side. And on the other side, you're safe. Anyway, do you really want allies to leave us because of who the new president is and wind up in the splendid isolation like Great Britain found themselves years ago will be isolated. And you know, usually that leads to self-destruction.  I can give you a lot of examples. You can probably give me more of countries that went under because of the despot, you know. Well, to try to bring it together because we didn't have much time left, is it seems to me I would go back to my earlier comment about caring. I think the people have to care. And a part of no part of happiness, part of love is caring. So if I'm caring, not only about my neighbor, my family, a guy down the block, human beings in general, Americans, Americans. And I use that term in the fullest possible sense in the sense of World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Normandy, Normandy, the cemetery, you know, all your experience in a career in the Army. And I was in the service too, so I understand that. You've got to care about everybody. Not sure you're gonna disagree, but you're gonna disagree in a civilized fashion. But you're gonna care about the entity, the country, the people, the principles and all that. And I think, I don't wanna tell you what to put in your book, Charles. I just wrote it down, caring. You just gave me a good lead. But if I care about people and I feel they care about me, I'm in a better place and I'm much happier. Yeah.  Wasn't like there's no excuse for the Bible. When you come right down to it, there's no excuse for the Ukraine or Russia war. No excuse for that. Yeah. I think maybe our diplomats were, maybe we exhausted our diplomacy power, but they're sleeping at the switch or something, but we needed to keep that from happening. I mean, what is Russia doing? They're bombing building. Is there not bombing military targets? They're destroying the infrastructure, the women, grandmothers, babies. I mean, my gosh, it's, there should be when that thing is over, something like the Nuremberg trials because they're at war criminals, you know. Well, it's something you said a little while ago.    Caring. And so I think it's infectious what you're talking about. And I think that if the United States wants to be the city on the hill and be the beacon for the world as it was after World War II, then we have to set a standard, set a model, set an example. And that would be caring because caring and happiness are all the same. And if you showed the people of Russia, for example, that it's better to care about their fellow citizen, it's better to care about their neighbors and the world, maybe they'll change, but we have to set the example. But we only have a minute left, Charles. And I wanna offer you the opportunity to summarize this and give whatever wisdom you want to our viewers. Well, I took some notes there on your caring. So maybe this needs to be changed to create your own caring world. But I guess the bottom line in this whole thing is the general picture is that the world's unstable, certainly, unfortunately, our country's unstable, but it's very complex, but you can't let it worry you. You've gotta put that over here and have your world, but keep a tab on it. Like you were saying, don't create your own caring world. I hope you let me use that now. Of course. I'm gonna use caring throughout this book now. Well, I always feel that our best shows, we get a Homer, that's a homerun. So I always feel that our best shows. The bottom line comes out of the amazing fireside talk book, which was two books ago. And that was the self-help book. And in there again, just as a repeat, but don't spend your time and worry about things that you cannot impact or as a waste of your energy. It really is. People think it's just, I see them where they're almost shaking about this political scene, whether they're one side or the other. We need to vote and people have fought for us to be able to vote today. They died fighting for freedom and democracy. Charles, we've gotta go, we're out of time. Thank you very much. Charles Taftai, a man with three careers behind him, a man who really appreciates and talks with the community and who is spending his time doing what he loves to do, writing, thinking, reading, and appearing on Think Tech. Thank you so much, Charles. Thank you, Jay. I salute you for all you do. I salute you back. Charles Taftai. Aloha. Aloha.


Slippery morning. It's plus one outside. So it's above the freezing point of zero Celsius For those of you who don't use Celsius. It is warm for January. Everything's melting and Then freezing to the road. So it's very slick very icy. It's greasy But it's gonna be a good day It's gonna be a slippery good day So much for my clean truck So hard to keep a vehicle clean in wintertime a little ridiculous already That's okay That's okay. I'll accept the warm weather even though it makes my truck dirty, okay?  Are you excited? It's another day. I'm I'm told The Sun is gonna rise And that always makes it a good day a year seems to be so different than the last weather wise Like I remember as a kid getting tons and tons of snow Now we have hardly any snow and then in my young adult years We wouldn't have a lot of snow, but we have there's that I was talking about the pole So different every year point two meters high Which is the Mac private trainer right also working at Pepsi at the time and they were training me how to drive as well And then I just had to pay for my license test, which was a hundred and forty bucks. I think oh my past and The rest is history here. We are living the dream. I Think that's what it was There might be a few a few other fees that I had to pay along the way But there was no way it was even 500 bucks way below 500 bucks Because it's a huge deterrent if you've gotten your license your class one or whatever you call it Wherever you are way easier than the new trucks. You could probably you probably noticed unlike the new trucks They almost sound electric. Why are they taking all the good parts out of the truck? You want that nice? Throaty diesel engine sound right? At least I do warm weather like this. It's followed by a 2020. It's gonna start raining cats and dogs I wouldn't be surprised. Oh, look at that. Just another crazy thing in 2020 2021. Nothing seems to make sense anymore It's like we got knocked out of reality got knocked into a new dimension or something one last stop yet We need some fuel So that we can start each day off with a full tank of fuel. Oh, it makes sense to me It'd be a real pain to show up in the morning and not be ready to go have to go and waste time fueling then, right? So we feel at the end of the day It's always good to leave the truck with full tanks of fuel anyway, especially in the winter time So my hair is getting a little bit thin, isn't it? You're not the only one who's noticed believe me. It's time to shave it. What do you think shave my whole head? Ball trucker Josh It's gonna happen before summer. I have to do it before I start tanning otherwise, I'll have a bright white head and Brown or olive skin? That would look ridiculous So, uh, what do you think when should I do it? It's not a question of should I do it? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no I am going to do it. I am shaving I'm gonna see what I look like. Okay, if I look completely ridiculous If I'd look better with a bowling alley on my head, okay We'll go with the bowling alley, but I'm pretty sure my wife wouldn't she would prefer the bald head to the bowling I don't know. I don't know. Who knows what the future has in store for us, right?  Okay, if you laugh you lose Good luck. I'm gonna be laughing.  It's gonna be something to get used to Yeah, let's get my fuel cards out here Let's get this thing fueled up and let's head her home To home I go doesn't have the same ring to it doesn't Got the honey to do list already. I haven't gotten home yet Being sent out for frozen broccoli and coffee cream. I'm not gonna disappoint Fresh blanket of snow Wipers are noisy today. I'm not sure how much we're expecting tonight yet I thought we were gonna get rain. I would rather have snow than rain at this time of year Rain just messes everything up and causes lots of insurance claims like a rock star rock star welcome. Shall we? Hey boys It's me. It's me. What's up commander?  Oh, no, don't do that.  All right. We're all showered up and ready to Enjoy the evening. Hey boys Hey boys. Oh dog filled All right, who's that? Who's that? Diesel who's there? You're following for it bang There's somebody right there you hear him. Hello Well, but it's pretty tired. She doesn't want to be on the vlog today We'll just have to include her double on the weekend. Maybe I'll even get her to hold the camera and vlog herself Maybe maybe I'll get you to do some vlogging on the weekend yourself With you holding the camera and everything how many of you remember the days of Brits beat when she used to post videos herself The good old days Yeah Hey YouTube wasn't really her thing. It's sort of like my hobby. It's what I really enjoy doing and not everybody Enjoys doing this so wasn't really her thing. She's got a bunch of other hobbies though She's the greatest mother to these guys, right? Hey diesel say something to the good people We have to end this vlog. Did you fart? Was it you someone stanks? Is it me? It's not me man. You can't blame this one on wiener this time He's not in here There's a little tail wagon back there. It was you Stinker all right Chevy Diesel we gotta say goodbye. Thanks for watching today. Tomorrow's another video. We've got another day this week yet And then the weekend I have weekends now


YouTube team keeping clean. What's going on is engraving here with another video and towards the night before the Sunday night football game against the Kansas City Chiefs. And that's a game that a lot of people feel so many different ways on, but for us to get an outsider's perspective, a Chiefs fans perspective, we have a special guest courtesy of our guy, Garnett West, to come on the show and join us to let us know how he thinks the Ravens are gonna be against the Kansas City Chiefs. Yeah, this feels like a dream. The team keeping clean. What's going on is engraving here with another video and in this video, we got a very, very special guest. We have Mello here to talk with us. One last conversation that we have to have before this Ravens and Chiefs game that we have coming up. So Mello, go ahead and introduce yourself. Where can they find you at? What do you do and how in tune are you with these Kansas City Chiefs? Yeah, I'm pretty in tune with them. I fall asleep, but you can see on Twitter, it's app, M-E-L-L-O on Twitter. I'm the host of the Mic'd Up podcast. So you can check that out too. It's a daily sports podcast. We do talk a lot about the Chiefs, but it's also just, it's all football, all the time, pretty much. And we'll try to dive into other topics, but I know where my bread is buttered and that's with football topics. All right, I appreciate it. And thank you for coming on too and shout out to our guy, Garnett, for making this happen. So just to dive straight into it, the Chiefs, they are obviously a powerhouse, had a lot of drama last week with the Cleveland Browns. What were some things that you feel went wrong in that game against the Browns, especially early on? I think with the Chiefs, man, sometimes honestly, they just overlook some of these opponents. I had last year, making that playoff run, I really felt like they became complacent where they just knew, like, all right, we have Mahomes, he's gonna bail us out on any of these situations. And even, thankfully for me as a Chief fan, sometimes they're right on that one, but I did look at that defense, it's still questioning it. Now they had Frank Clark out, they had Tyrone Matthew out, sounds like both those guys are gonna be back for this week. So that will help out a lot, but also, this is a different offense than the Cleveland Browns. With Lamar Jackson out there, he can burn you anytime from anywhere on the field. Right, right, yeah, that's true. So with the Cleveland, excuse me, not the Cleveland defense, with the Chiefs defense, my apologies. What are some of the biggest strengths on defense? You know, hopefully it's that pass rush. Like I said, Frank Clark was out last week, it sounds like he's gonna play this week, but I also was very impressed with Chris Jones. And if you're gonna beat Lamar Jackson, I think you have to put him in situations where he does feel a little bit of pressure. And I think the Chiefs can do that, but it's wielding. And you know, if Ronnie Stanley's out there for the Ravens, that's gonna make things very tough for them. But I do think that getting after him, but with Lamar Jackson, it's such a unique situation where getting after him might not be enough. Or sometimes you do get after him, and you just force him to run the ball, which can be me even more than him throwing the ball. And thankfully for your Ravens fans, those Chiefs corners are not good. The even Legerius Thied, he was the guy I was really excited about this year. I thought he struggled, and he struggled against the Browns in Baker Mayfield. So going up against the Ravens this week, he could be a lot of points scored on Sunday. And you did bring up the Ravens offensive line. And that's been a big cause of concern for us as Ravens fans, because even before the season started, we were worried about our offensive line. So then we go out there in the Raiders game and they struggled literally all game long. And now Ronnie Stanley, he's out. We don't know how long he's going to be out for. We lost our starting left guard, Terry Phillips, he's on short-term injury reserve. So we don't know how long he's going to be out for, but it's going to be at least three games. Ali Hondro via Nueva, he's expected to move from the right tackle to left tackle, but he struggled big time. So our offensive line may be a bit of a makeshift, but this happened last year too. And it ended up being the Achilles Hill of the Ravens long-term. So that leads me to something, a trade that I just really, I wish it wouldn't have happened because I would have rather the Ravens had kept him than gotten rid of him. Because I just felt like, and I knew the Ravens weren't going to re-sign them long-term because they're not going to pay two left tackles. They're not going to pay tackle money to two of them. But with Orlando Brown, Jr., Orlando Brown, Jr. was somebody that I was hoping that the Ravens would just keep. I know he wanted to get traded because he said he wanted to play left tackle. So I know he wanted to make some money. No problem with that. But I was hoping that they would keep him in just worst case scenario, franchise tag and trade him after that. But they traded him to the Kansas City Chiefs. And it ended up sort of being a win-win for both teams. Of course, the Chiefs, they got it left tackle because last year, the offensive line was just, it was a mess. And they made it all the way through the playoffs and whatnot and got to the Super Bowl, but then the Super Bowl just, it exposed everything because you can't do anything no matter how great your quarterback is. Without an offensive line, everything is that much harder. But Orlando Brown, Jr., how would you say he looked last week overall? You know, I was pretty impressed with him. That was a guy for me. I was excited about the trade because you're bringing in a new left tackle, but I also kind of questioned it. That move from right tackle to left tackle is not always the easiest transition for guys. But I mean, he's handled it very well. And with that week one matchup, I mean, he definitely got tested with Miles Garrett out there and to Davion Clowney. And I thought he handled himself very well. And the rest of the offense line, it's a little bit of a question as well. But with Orlando Brown, I'm starting to come around to it. I'm a little bit more confident, but with the Ravens, they're going to drop things to create pressure. They might not have the Miles Garrett type pass rusher, but they'll find ways to get after and pressure them homes. And I think with the left side, you can look at Orlando Brown and be like, all right, that's okay, we're good there. But I do worry about that right side with all those rookies. I mean, the Chiefs are starting three rookies, essentially with Lucas Nying sitting out last year. So I do have a little bit of pause still with them and what's going to happen over there on that side. They look good in week one, but after week one, things get exposed. Defensive coordinators go back, they start looking at tape and they find your weaknesses that maybe that other team wasn't able to expose in week one. So that makes me really nervous for the Ravens facing them specifically, but that left side looks pretty good with Orlando Brown Jr. Okay. And I didn't realize that the Chiefs had that much inexperience along the offensive line. I knew that offensive line was like, literally brand new from left to right, but I didn't realize that they had that much inexperience, especially on the right side. Yeah, center, right guard and right tackle, all rookies. Experienced rookies, but definitely rookies. Oh wow, okay, yeah, that's good to know. But at the same time, last week, the Raiders offensive line, they didn't have that much experience and the Ravens weren't able to get pressure on their car consistently. And speaking of the Ravens pressure, now of course, with the Orlando Brown trade, they were able to use one of those picks that one of those first round picks to select the Duffield way. And last week, he looked good, but there's another pass rusher that the Ravens recently picked up a little bit before the season started who used to be a Kansas City Chief and that will be Justin Houston. At this point in his career, he's obviously on the back end, so to speak, but what do you feel like he can really bring to this matchup as a veteran pass rusher? Yeah, as a veteran pass rusher, you still have to worry about him. I don't think he's an every down player. Like you said, at this point in his career, those days are just probably passed.  So I do think that Justin Houston can play a lot of snaps against Kansas City. You don't have to worry about him in the run game. I know a lot of my Chief fans are excited about Clyde Edwards' lair, but they just really haven't utilized him much. They did a lot at the beginning of last season, but then they went away from it. He wasn't very involved last week. So I do think a guy like Justin Houston, you can put him opposite. And he's that big power rusher to the speed rusher on the other side. And that does, that makes me nervous. And he's such a technician. Like I said, with that right side of the Chiefs offensive line, you get Justin Houston working some of these guys using some pass rush moves. They're not used to seeing it. And it could be a scary day for them. And you know, Justin Houston could eat.  He's ready to go every week. He doesn't need that extra motivation, but he's gonna get it this week. I do think that this is almost like a proven game for Justin Houston.  He was still good with the Colts last season. So I do think that he wants to put it to the Chiefs a little bit this week. And speaking of proven games, there's another guy on the opposite side of the ball on offense who obviously had a lot of success with the Kansas City Chiefs. But one thing that had been a problem throughout the entirety of his career was not his production when he was on the field, but just his lack of being on the field. And that was Sammy Watkins. Sammy Watkins in his debut for the Ravens last week. He did his thing. He did have a couple of drops now, but he certainly made up for it with a couple of big plays. He got a nice play where he got a lot of yards after the catch and of course caught the deep ball from Lamar, the little over the shoulder deep ball. And he made his impact be known right away. So Sammy Watkins, I can't even say at this stage in his career because usually that's a phrase that's used for older veteran players and whatnot. But it just seems like with Sammy Watkins, it seems like he's been around a lot longer than he has, but he's only like 28 years old. So with Sammy Watkins, how do you feel about, cause obviously he was with the Chiefs for the past couple of years. And what he brings to the Ravens is somebody that's literally played one in every single type of game and lost in every single type of game. Won a Super Bowl with you guys a couple of years ago, lost a Super Bowl with you guys last year. But how does he benefit this Ravens offense? I think with him, anytime he's out there, he's probably gonna be good. And that seems to be the case with him. That's what I learned in his time at Kansas City that if Sammy Watkins is healthy, you have to worry about him. And especially with this Ravens offense, I think he got a little bit lost in the shuffle with Tyree Kill and Travis Kelsey over the last couple of years. But I think with the Ravens, I don't know if he's the number one receiver, but he's definitely that veteran receiver in that locker room that can help guys like Hollywood Brown. So you definitely have to worry about him anytime he's out there.  I don't see, I didn't even make that correlation of how many guys had played for both teams until you started throwing a couple of them at me. But it's definitely a redemption game. It's almost like a little bit of a many rivalry. I think that it's starting to get to that point. But with Sammy Watkins, he definitely wants to have a proven game as well. And he's so good with Lamar that he can hit the deeper out. He's still got the speed. He's not old. He's been in the league for forever, but he's still pretty young. He's not even 30 years old yet, but he's also really good underneath and in the middle. You know, not a lot of receivers in the league are comfortable going over the middle and making those hard contests to catches. Sammy Watkins is still one of those dudes that can do it though. Right, right, right. And you mentioned how this could be sort of a budding rivalry. For me, I just, I don't feel like it's a rivalry yet. We play the Chiefs seems like every year, but for me, a rivalry is something that goes back and forth. And just for this game against the Chiefs, it's just been going all back. And it's been a struggle, obviously. And two people that have been a huge part of that struggle, well, mine is Patrick Mahon, but he is obviously a part of it. But Tariq Hill and Travis Kels, those two are just, they are headaches, man. But it's like these guys are literally always just one play away from a big play. If for somehow some way, I don't think it's really possible to do it to both of them. Maybe the one, and maybe if you even do it to one only for so long, but if somehow some way, Tariq Hill and Travis Kels were taken out the game by Ravens defense, and that would take a lot of adjustments. It would take just a lot of everything. But who do you feel would be the players that a lot of us Ravens fans may not know about or may not be too familiar with that could possibly step up to the plate just in case those two are on doing anything. Man, that's a worst case scenario for Chiefs fans right there. And it is, it's tough to do, but if those two aren't getting the ball, I think somebody does have to emerge and kind of step up and be that number three target. It used to be Sammy Watkins. A lot of the Chiefs fans are waiting for McCull Harman to have that situation where he does step up. And if you can't find a way to take away Tariq Hill, I would hope that he could step up and take those touches or those targets away, but it's just not something that we've seen yet. I'm looking for a Noah Gray type guy, the rookie tight end. I'd love to see him get some more action and develop into a number two tight end. With Travis Kelsey and what he's able to do, you can play both those guys on the field at the same time. You can put Travis out in the slot. You can do a lot of creative things with him, but if the Ravens can find a way to take away Tariq and Travis Kelsey, or even in just play-by-play, if they're able to cover those guys, I think they're still gonna eat. They're gonna get their production, but if you can take them away, you really need a McCull Harman to step up. Or Demarcus Robinson is a receiver who's been really good. He's very athletic, but he'll have those situational drops where Mahomes will turn to him on a third down and he makes a drop, or an easy catch that he should have turns into a drop. He'll make some amazing ones, but it's just that inconsistency. So I think that looking at some of these guys that could step up, chief fans are looking for a guy that could step up too. And Clyde Edwards Alair is another one that when he was drafted, a lot of us chief fans thought, okay, this is a Brian Westbrook. This is what we're getting. He really hasn't been as involved as, I think a lot of us thought he would be. Okay. And with all that being said, talked about a lot of the matchups. How do you feel like this game is gonna go? Sunday night football, the world is watching, Raven versus Chiefs, of course, a lot of people like to put it as more Jackson versus Patrick Mahomes. It's not typically, it's not technically that, but it's fun to say, but how do you feel like this game is gonna go? I feel pretty confident as a Chiefs fan. I don't wanna come across as like a Homer, but I do, I feel pretty confident in what they're gonna do. It's just gonna be so hard for the Ravens to score with the Kansas City Chiefs because of the injuries, because of the inexperience at receiver.  So I feel pretty confident as a Chiefs fan that they're gonna be able to handle business. And I know it sucks for your Ravens listeners, but I just honestly, unless Lamar pulls some magic out of his hat, man, I don't know how they can beat the Chiefs. And I do like the Ravens. I should probably say that, like I'm a Chiefs fan, but I respect the Ravens. I love the way that they've built that organization, but it's gonna be Lamar. He's gonna have to do something very special, but he's also capable of it. You might take away all his passing options and he just roasts you for 200 yards on the ground. And that's enough.  I know a lot of people like to question it, but the dude was the MVP and he's been very good. And he's just gonna have to do it kind of on his own on Sunday. Okay. All right, well, I appreciate you coming on and joining us to talk some Ravens and Chiefs. And we'll see how this thing goes come Sunday Night Football. So just one more time, let everybody know where they can find you at. Yeah, it's Mellow. You can find me mainly on Twitter. It's at Mellow, M-E-L-L-O. And also I'm the host of the Mic'd Up podcast. Have a daily sports podcast and it's football season. So we're really diving in hard to all the football takes, even some of them that are not accurate, but we'll go some more. All right, I appreciate you coming on, man. Thanks again. All right, thank you. All right, thank you. Shout out to Raven.


What's up guys ruckson 34 back here with another video in today's video I'm gonna start off at the green screen. Hopefully I'll be very big on the screen and then I'll get smaller So that's how we're gonna do it. Let me know if you guys like this or the old You know weird angle one. I kind of like that one too, but at the same time makes it a little weird to edit But yeah, so I want to remind you guys to like the video subscribe hit the notification bell and we've got some really epic mail today, so Let's just get right into it. So, uh, I don't have much else to say besides. I'm ready to get in this mail So here we go. Let's start off with this one. It's a pretty big one This is what I said there's eBay mail so training I'm like I've been almost burping this entire time. I'm like But this is from eBay, so we're gonna see if this is what I bought Yeah, you're always gonna be careful. This guy had zero feedback. So That is okay. I'm trying not to cut anything Zero feedback.  There we go. Yeah All right, that should work zero feedback But they had what seemed to be an epic deal In a pretty cool box, so Let's find out if what they said was true.  All right, what's in here? All right, let's put that down like that. Oh Yeah, this will give you a nice hint of what this is Yeah, you're gonna probably think that this is your sealed packs We're not sealed packs, but that would be pretty cool. But this is a pretty cool item I've never seen before well I've never seen like in my presence at least a duelist pack Kaiba first edition So those pack Kaiba is been has been reprinted a million times and unlimited. It's everywhere You know, you can get it super easily now But the first edition packs are really like really expensive like this is like a seven or eight hundred dollar box If you bought it sealed So yeah, it's not it's not cheap. So basically What this lot was it appeared to be a Duelist pack Kaiba first edition box was opened and then somebody just took the cards and like kind of set them aside Or something like that. I don't know exactly what they did But yeah, so They opened a box and then just kind of put the cards aside and then sold them as a lot But I don't know how I mean, I don't know how long ago that was but These look to be like they're Pretty fresh. So they sent the box. They sent the commons sent the rares You know, they have them in sleeves. They have them in top loader. So it's very promising and If you know anything about Duelist pack Kaiba first edition you get two oldies per box So there were two oldies pulled and obviously this is a very tiny set you pull a lot of the same stuff So the rares aren't really that valuable But hopefully in here we will have what they showed me which was the oldies in the hollow poles From the box. So here are looks like tip cards more commons So if you guys are interested in any of those commons or rares, let me know because I'll have a lot of them There's multiples But yeah, let's see what's in here First of all the blue eyes white dragon Duelist pack Kaiba super rare and it looks to be pretty good So I'm not gonna check all these but I'm gonna check See what the condition looks like. Oh my goodness That is pretty clean that looks like it was pulled out of a pack So that's a good start I paid I'll tell you what I paid after we check this out and see if it was a really good deal. All right, so we got to Here we go blue eyes ultimate dragon Epic so these are these top floors are a little bit. So I'm happy here comes a big boy Duelist pack Kaiba first edition chaos Emperor dragon ultimate rare Let's check this out. Oh my goodness So it looks like Maybe that corner is not nicked but almost just like It's just like barely barely like, you know barely pressed but like oh My goodness that is a really nice conditioned Chaos Emperor dragon like I think they actually pulled it just put in that top loader Okay, why don't I have a little? First edition ultimate rare chaos Emperor dragon. Oh my goodness So that is pretty nice The second ultimate rare ring of destruction Ultimate rare first edition duelist pack Kaiba. Let's check the condition on this one. Oh My goodness, this one looks even better The center is pretty good on This one should be a PSA 10. I think that the chaos Emperor is probably a nine because that corner But either way like that's gonna be really nice What is that? Is that like part of the art? I don't know. I can't tell okay Or ring of destruction ultimate. So those are the two ultimates that came in this box Pretty epic. All right, let's see what the rest of the hollow pulls are Okay, we got a malefic blue-eyes white dragon might have been the first time I was printed fiend sanctuary dragon master dragon master knight XYZ dragon two of them white seven of legend two of those out more also I mean, it's a lot of hollows and then more rare. So yeah, you get a rare in every pack So there's like 36 packs in this box. So there's so many rears, but oh my goodness. So this was an epic pickup This actually only cost $200 Which is an absolute steal for what these are so That's really exciting. I'm really excited about the ultimate rares especially But my goodness, okay, let's get these rares out of the way So we're gonna have to submit those ultimates maybe some of these ultras as well Probably the blue eyes even though it is a little off-center. So maybe not All right, so I'm gonna set that in there these we're gonna push back and let's move on to the next thing Yeah, those only those only one thing. So it's pretty insane like a really really good pickup. I'm really excited about that Hopefully we can grade nines or tens on those ultimate rares. That'd be insane. So yeah, here we go Here is the next package Let's see. Okay this This I'm not even really sure what this is Yeah, I was a I was a big dummy on this one. I actually bought something that I thought was something else and Yeah, so it's kind of wasted a lot of money, but not a lot, but so I got a Pokemon emerald, uh, you know What is this called a little booklet? I thought it came with the box, too But it was just the booklet and then some other like posters and stuff So I paid 25 bucks. I thought it was a box and the manual But it is the manual so I just kind of wasted some money there I mean, it's probably not worth 25 bucks, but whatever pretty cool and let's get the next thing that one It's not as exciting this one. Oh, whoops This one is from The one and only cool trainer Ryan Always does great job packaging always sends a lot of cool stuff. He gave me a pretty cool deal. This is a Suzanne epic card. I bought is a PSA 10. So What could it be? What do you guys think it is? What did I buy? It's a PSA 10? All right, he really went all out with this thing. All right Yeah, it seems like it's a lot nicer than it is with how the packaging is But pretty cool card a card that I've wanted for a while. So Let's see what we can get Okay, let's get back This okay, here we go. Oh, it looks like he sent us a pack. That's pretty epic box. We got the classic Little pick he draws. There's cool trainer Ryan. Make sure you guys check him out on Instagram He has a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon stuff. So get an ancient prophecy packet through and forth So that's really cool. And then what we actually bought so Let's go ahead and Open this ancient prophecy pack. Maybe we'll pull a ghost rare extra pack go straight That would be interesting that kind of take over the show there. All right, we got a little a little crease there So let's see we can get pixie ring sunny pixie quacky meteor a hydro barrier quacky Miro Boulder Solidarity and psychic soul fossil dig Flambeville counter and cyborg doctors. So nothing in the extra pack. Unfortunately, it's an extra pack So thank you again for that pretty cool Let's get into what we bought Here we go What do you guys think it is PSA 10 I'm gonna give you guys a few hints. I'm gonna let you guys try and figure out what it is It is an original ultra rare and it's from dark crisis All right, you got your guesses. It's a ritual Shenado King of a higher plane first edition PSA 10. So I've been wanting this one for a while Basically one of the best dark crisis cards I think in my opinion and I wanted to pick one up for a while and he sold it to me for $200. So pretty good pickup a Great price. I think he ended up for a little bit more money except in my offer So pretty cool. Glad to pick that up and let's get into the last item. So so far. We've gotten Enrolled book. We've got a PSA 10 Shenado We've got ultimate rares and haul basically an entire box of duals pack Kaiba for 200 bucks. So Insane, so that's really cool Finally, we have a box from the one and only If you guys don't know this guy, then you're missing out It's not necessarily a Yu-Gi-Oh guy, but he's a little bit in the Yu-Gi-Oh Pokemon revolution. So this guy is really awesome. One of the nicest guys I Deal with ever Just a really cool guy. He he does he's on YouTube now He's got like 3000 subs already because he's I mean everybody just as soon as he started this channel Everybody's promoting like crazy. Like, oh, yeah, everybody go sub to Pokemon Revolution because he's the man And he really is a man. So make sure you guys check out his channel if you haven't He does stuff. That's not just Pokemon related. Even though he's a big Pokemon guy He talks about like investment investing and then he does sales and then he does, you know what he's bought So he has a very interesting TCG channel, so make sure you guys check it out and let's see what he sold us If you guys already subscribed him, you know what I bought because he showed it in one of his videos And said that I bought it But if you have in which I know a lot of you guys are Yu-Gi-Oh, so why not? Let's see whoops Let's see what extra pack he gave us. Oh absolute power force What is this official Konami card card game player Konami ID? What is this he threw this in because he knows I like Yu-Gi-Oh What in the world official Konami card game player? I'm putting this in my wallet. Yeah, you best believe it Alright, so thanks Pokemon Revolution or Nick. He also goes by, you know, his name. That's what he goes by All right, so yeah, we got a call didn't put on airplane mode big rookie mistake never Never record without putting on airplane mode. Okay, here we go. Oh No, now it's now it's going crazy on my computer. This is not good. All right. Let's open this pack I should probably should not open this back one second All right, okay, I think we're good. I think we're good. So let's open this absolute power force pack Maybe he's sent us a an epic ghost rare. Oh What are the chances? Let's see if he's better than Ryan Ryan sent us a rare Sheen King 3000 BC unicycler Ritual of destruction forgotten temple of the deep look out these cut our cut They're destroyed power pickaxe. Oh, it looks like they're equally non-hollow-ish so thank you Pokemon Revolution for the extra pack. Oh, I missed what he said. I meant I missed this But don't worry. We got it. May the pools be with you. So we get it. I wonder if he's a Star Wars fan I'm not sure but I mean if you're not a Star Wars fan. Well old star original six Star Wars Let's let's keep it real. Okay. Here we go final thing that we bought. Look at that. Ooh shaped like a booster box What could it be? It's not sealed but It is first edition. Oh My gosh, how do we how do we open this? There we go. Oh Man, look at that purple. You know what that means purple booster box that brinth of nightmare first edition So yeah, I've never opened a 24 pack first edition box. So this is technically not sealed So I'm technically have an open one still but Check it out 24 packs inside. So I believe he got this when he got a spot out of store So the chances are pretty high that these are unweight and I trust that I know he didn't scale them. So We're gonna be openings of On a video soon So I hope you guys are ready for some labyrinth of nightmare first edition possibly a gym and I elf possibly a massive restrict You know, maybe a necro fear even though we already have that but still be amazing Mass beast already have that still amazing pull the last warrior, but it hasn't graded 10 yet So maybe we might need another one. So still a lot of epic stuff to pull and yeah That's and just an insane mail day so much good stuff and I'm really happy with how everything turned out USPS actually Said they delivered this but they didn't till two days later. So that was scary So this showed up that was nice this these were actually in good shape Which was surprising and then finally of course we got 24 live through nightmare packs So yeah, thank you to everyone who sold me stuff And if you guys are ready to see these openings hit the like button Subscribe and turn on the notifications and I'll see you guys later. Peace