So, as many of you know, protests have been taking place in Kenosha, Wisconsin and around the country because we need them. I mean, George Floyd was murdered and there's been months of protests and we still are seeing videos of police officers assaulting and attempting to murder unarmed black Americans. As many of you know, Jacob Blake was shot in the back by a police officer in Kenosha seven times. Thankfully, he survived, but he's going to be paralyzed from the waist down, possibly for the rest of his life. It'll be a miracle if he walks again. So, I mean, that shows you why we need these protests. I don't know how you can watch that video and not be outraged. Like, this should speak to everyone's core human instinct, right? How can you not see why this anger exists? So, the protests have been taking place and of course, as we've seen across the country, vigilantes are getting involved. People with guns who are going there to defend the police or according to them, defend businesses. And it got a little out of hand to say the least because a 17-year-old named Kyle Rittenhouse drove from Illinois to Wisconsin to protect property with an illegal gun, something that he obtained illegally, he's 17, and he ended up performing an act of terrorism. He murdered two people and injured a third. Now there were reports on the Kenosha Guard Facebook page that this group was inciting violence against these protesters, but Facebook did nothing. Facebook did not alert the authorities and as a result, a 17-year-old vigilante right-wing terrorist went there and murdered people. Now that alone is outrageous, right? But the story gets worse when we learn the extent to which the Kenosha Police Department was actually coordinating with these vigilantes. So as the Daily Beast reports, Kyle Rittenhouse, a rifle-toting teenage Blue Lives Matter fan suspected of fatally shooting at least two people and injuring another during protests in Kenosha, over the shooting of Jacob Blake, has been charged with murder. Rittenhouse 17 was arrested in Illinois and faces charges of first-degree intentional homicide according to Lake County Illinois Clerk of Court's Public Records. So far he is labeled a fugitive from justice in the complaint, which states that the teenager fled the state of Wisconsin with intent to avoid prosecution for that offense. He's been assigned a public defender and was scheduled to appear at an extradition hearing on August 28th, according to court records. Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinnis said that the two victims were a 26-year-old silver-like resident and a 36-year-old from Kenosha. The injured person was a 26-year-old from West Alice. A gunman shot one person in the head and another in the chest around 11.45 p.m. Tuesday, amid another night of violent unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Videos circulating on social media showed an armed man tripping over, then firing at people who seemed to be making an attempt to disarm him. In one video, a young man fires several shots at protesters before getting up and walking toward police vehicles. With his rifle still on display, the suspected gunman appears to have his hands over his head as he approaches police in an apparent surrender. In another video, a man with similar clothing can be seen running and holding his rifle. He's heard apparently uttering into his phone, I just killed somebody as he continues to run. He had his hands up and they told him to get out of there, even though everyone was yelling that he was the shooter. Brent Ford, a 24-year-old photographer who witnessed the shooting, told Vice News. The police didn't seem to hear or care what the crowd was saying. Now before this right-wing terrorist murdered two people, he was interviewed by the Daily Caller and he said that he was there to protect businesses. So he was prepared to do violence. That's what that means because if you bring a gun with you to protect businesses, then you are prepared to take a life if you feel as if that business is threatened. And he did exactly what he intended to do. You don't go there with a gun unless you are intending or prepared to do violence. And he did it just that, murdered people. Now there is a video of what maybe an officer asking the vigilantes to stop pointing guns at protesters. We don't know if this is an officer who's telling them that, but there's another video of this terrorist walking side-by-side with a police officer. They're giving him water and telling the vigilantes how much they appreciate what they're doing. That's what started most of it. Now we're all the way back by the gas station again. Hey, thank you guys. Do you need water? Seriously. That's where I'm right. Do you need water? Do you need water? We'll throw you one. Thank you. Alright, come on guys. Let's get out of here. You're all right. We'll give you a couple. We'll give you a couple. Thank you. We'll give you a couple. We'll give you a couple. We'll give you a couple. We appreciate you guys. We really do. Thank you. We appreciate you guys. We appreciate you guys. I need a step. I'm sure they have a lot of bottles of water. I'm going. Nice truck. Nice truck. Nice truck. Nice truck. You're going to have to get out of there. You're just left flight. You're lost. This is the last warning. You will disperse. So these people who are not police officers, they don't have the training to deal with protests on this scale or riots. The police are like, oh sure, we appreciate the fact that you're helping us.  Definitely not going to be a disaster because you don't know what you're doing.  But you know, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Here's some water. Need anything else from us? Insane. Now after he murdered two people, he was walking towards police and it seemed as if he wanted to surrender, but he ended up not surrendering and they caught him in Illinois. But he had some sort of hand signal that he issued to the cops. We don't know what this was about necessarily, but take a look. Now the video to me is disturbing not necessarily because of the hand signal because I'm not going to try to decipher what that meant. He was clearly signaling something to the cops. But what's astonishing to me about that video is that he just murdered two people. Almost killed a third person, injured someone. And he's just walking casually with a gun on his chest. Imagine if one of the protesters armed themselves to protect protesters and not buildings. Do you think that they'd be able to just walk away flippantly like that? Especially after they just murdered people? I mean the story is insane, but it gets worse because apparently police officers in Kenosha drove protesters out of a park that they were in and pushed them towards the vigilantes. Now there are multiple reports that this is what happened. And one of the vigilantes actually confirms that police told them they would be pushing them towards the vigilantes so they can deal with them. So let's just take a moment and try to digest what this presumed vigilante just told us. The cops told him that they would be driving the protesters out of one area and into the arms of vigilantes. So the vigilantes could be the ones to deal with the protesters and after the police officers pushed protesters into that area, one of the vigilantes ended up murdering two people. Do you understand why there are calls to defund and abolish the police? The police is supposed to be protecting people from vigilantes, gunmen, but they pushed them towards these violent thugs who were there and people got murdered. Now the police chief put out a statement and what he says here is infuriating. Like I was trembling with anger after I heard him speak. The persons were shot. Everybody involved was out after the curfew. I'm not going to make a great deal of that, but the point is the curfew is in place to protect. Had persons not been involved in violation of that, perhaps the situation that unfolded would not have happened. So the last night, a 17-year-old individual from Antioch, Illinois was involved in the use of firearms to resolve whatever conflict was in place. The result of it was two people are dead. So first of all, let's just point out the fact that he didn't describe what happened as a murder or even a killing. He just said that people were involved in a shooting. And the most outrageous part to me was the fact that he says, well, these people, if they weren't violating this curfew in the first place, they'd probably still be alive. But the 17-year-old terrorist, he wasn't violating the curfew. According to the police chief of Kenosha, he was there to resolve whatever conflict was in place. So understand what he's saying here. He's tacitly admitting that the curfew that they imposed didn't apply to the armed vigilantes. It only applied to the protesters. Now, this curfew is unconstitutional in the first place. You don't get to just unilaterally criminalize protests that you don't like. You don't get to override the First Amendment by declaring these curfews. But if you are going to issue these curfews, which I think are unconstitutional, then why do they not apply to the vigilantes? Why wasn't the 17-year-old terrorist subject to the same curfew?  What is wrong with you? Do you understand why people of color don't trust the police?  You are coordinating with vigilantes. What do you think is going to happen? Of course people are going to get killed. Of course. So the blood is on your hands. The blood is on the hands of the police officers who allow these people to do what they believe is a vigilante justice. The cops are okay with that. They're not the bad guys, the vigilantes with guns. They're not the problems. It's the protesters. Maybe if you cared half as much about property damage as you did about human life, you'd see it from a logical perspective.   These vigilantes get to be the judge, the jury, and the executioner in this case. If they see someone doing property damage, spray painting, a building, looting, they get to unilaterally decide whether or not that individual lives or dies. That's justice in America. That's justice according to the Kenosha Police Department. Un-fucking-real. This entire police department needs to be disbanded immediately. Fire everyone. Get the police chief to step down. How can you allow this to happen? Your police officers are working with vigilantes as young as 17, maybe younger. And then you're shocked when they're murdered. Actually, it doesn't really seem that shocked. So I won't say that, but this story is absolutely insane. And this is why people are in the streets protesting, why they haven't left the streets since George Floyd was murdered. Because this continues to happen, and it will continue to happen unless action is taken, unless we defund the police. So I don't understand how you can even make a defense of Kyle Rittenhouse. Some people online are trying to make that defense for him. You know, he didn't mean to do it. He's so young. If you show up to a protest with a gun, and you claim you're there to protect businesses, you are prepared to murder someone. If they do something that you deem objectionable and worthy of death.  This story is infuriating. This is why these Black Lives Matter protests are so important. And if you can't see it by now, then you need to do some solid work. Then you need to do some soul searching, because something is wrong with you. Your sense of outrage is broken. This is disturbing, to say the least.


What's up guys we're back with an insane video today. We're opening something that I've never opened before a Tournament pack one Box, I don't know if you call it a booster box. It's just a box. It has 20 packs inside We can't even be a hundred percent sure it's tournament pack one until we open it because they didn't market There's just in these really weird white boxes So all the tournament pack one through six I believe came in these and then seven and eight had a hundred pack boxes The guy who sold me this had opened some before like from the same like group I guess I don't know and they were turned impact one So we're pretty sure these are tournament pack one we'll find out soon But inside you can get the mechanical chaser which sold at one point in PSA 10 for $15,000 I think there was another sale the next one was less was like 12,000 But still a very expensive card and I'm gonna show you guys a few cards that I need for my TP set in tournament pack There's only one ultra and four supers for the first few sets So here are the cards you can get besides I'm missing one of them. So here's the mechanical chaser It is a former PSA 7 so it is faded which is unusual, which was really cool about it It was also a PSA 7 so I cracked it and then these are the three supers This one is not near meant. This is probably the best super in the set This one's like more like mod play, but I picked it up a while back So these are four of the five foils you can get so I need a white hole would be the fifth one So that'd be a good nice one to pull. Obviously I need this because it's an ultra rare I don't have this one in PSA 10 and I have completed six out of the eight Ultra rares from tournament pack in PSA 10. So we have morphing jar, which is TP 2 So I don't have number one, which is mech chaser and I don't have number three, which is I almost said needle fiber needle needle worm then I have roll decree luminous soldier tournament pack six tune cannon soldier We've got the DD warrior and the magic arm ship. So I have six out of eight right now I need the tournament pack one mech chaser PSA 10 So if we pull it and it is great of all that would be insane Then I could have seven out of eight needle worm is really impossible to get you guys have heard me talk about this before But after all that we have the giveaway We have these three cards, but they're all original print cards All you have to do is like this video be subscribed and let me know what you want to see out of this tournament pack one box so this set of belief has 30 cards in it the Tournament packs after tournament pack two went down to like 20 cards. So this has a lot more They're actually all the original printings of all these cards in here once you get to TP3 and had a bunch of reprints So this one's really really cool Let's just go ahead and open it up guys. I by the way, I spent four thousand five hundred dollars on this box So about two hundred and twenty five dollars a pack never do math while on video. So I'm probably wrong But here we go The moment of truth will it be TP one or will it be TP five the one that's actually really bad No one always ends up getting not bad, but it's the worst one. Okay. Here we go broke the seal Here we go Tournament pack first season. There it is We have the first season which by the way the tournament pack first season came out in December of 2002 So the very first year of Yu-Gi-Oh the very first tournament pack, okay This is one of the rarest tournament packs could be considered possibly the rarest I think TP2 is usually considered the rarest TP1 also did have like European printings and stuff So that might be kind of the reason people don't think it's as rare But it's probably arguably one of the rarest, but still really cool tournament pack first edition and I first did first season So let's go. Let's go ahead and open this. I know it's been a while. We've been talking for a while But it's a big video. I've always wanted to open this up. So here we go for the ratios You usually get one super every 18 packs You usually get one super a box and then the ultra rare was in the Mac chaser one out of 108 packs We have a small chance to pull this The guy I bought this from said he opened four boxes and never got the ultra So I don't know if they're all like from the same place or not Maybe that gives us a better chance probably not though I feel a little bit bad though because he did okay I think the I think the rare is gonna be at the front. We'll find out in this first one I think That I don't know what I was saying. I can't remember. I'm totally locked in on this. Here we go Let's open this up. This is gonna be a little bit cringy, but I want to make sure we know where the rare is first. Oh Let's open it up so we can't spoil it the first time. Oh Never mind. It's backwards. Okay, perfect. So we don't know there's not a rare in every pack It's one every three packs has a rare and some of these commons are worth like 20 30 bucks And some of the rares are worth like $200. So it's kind of crazy. I think elf slide is the highest We've got the bean soldier the legend the bean himself. That's awesome. Oh This is a nice rare a steel shell So let's see if this is gonna be greatable Some of these are very low-pop and I know a lot of people not a lot But a few people collect these our rares in PSA 10 the sinnery Is kind of off so that's not really good a good sign for our rares That looks like it might not be able to grade a 10 because of the sinnery So our first pack had a rare. So that's a good start I got to keep these cards really nice because even the commons are worth quite a bit Okay, next pack so we can open it normally because the cards are pointed the other way. So that's nice It's really nice.   There you go and Shining friendship. I think this one's worth quite a bit too a lot of these cards are worth a lot because This is our first printing and tons of them didn't get reprinted So they just have like one random printing That's just kind of weird for tournament pack commons sometimes and then they just have a ton of value because there's just no other cards of They're kind of unique All right, third pack here. We go. We got the statue of the Easter Island If that doesn't remind you of night at the museum, I don't know what what will the judgment hand here We go.  Look at it. Oh my goodness Mechanical chaser ultra rare pulled from tournament pack one Unbelievable that is like an eight sintering though. That is so epic. Look at the back This is like some of the worst sintering ever seen it might be able to get a 90c if this thing's nice Wow, okay, that's totally worth it. Even though the thing is like ridiculously off-centered This totally makes us opening worth it. I feel really bad for the seller Because he told me he went 0 for 4 on boxes. He did buy him like six years ago I think so he probably spent like I probably covered all the costs of all of his boxes times like three But still that does stink that he opened all those and you can get it Unbelievable that sintering is absolutely awful You know, what's so weird? Okay, we got to set this back here. You know, what's so weird about tournament pack one I think job or Old-school expert and now me have all opened this one box and everyone's pulled neck chaser I don't know if anyone's not pulled it on YouTube because it hasn't been opened very often But when it is opened People pull my chaser. It's really weird because it's like the chances are tiny It's just like we happening at the right box. Man, that sintering is so bad. What an epic pull I'm still hyped about it though So now we're thinking do will we get a super as well because I think old-school expert got an axe raider and a mech chaser and Jobber got just a mech chaser. So it's possible. We can get another one. We could not all right This is the according to TCG, which is kind of random with these old cards. This is the most expensive common We have a wean dragon guarding the fortress number two Giant flea And a beast king the swamp, I don't think this one's very good because it was reprinted in TV five So it's not that unique or whatever because it's actually kind of a decent card at the time probably because it's the fusion Support or whatever some of the other ones are just like really bad at rares that would never be used So there's they didn't bother reprinting it is what I'm thinking. That's probably what happened. I Can't believe you pulled an ultra rare guys one in 108 packs. That's pretty awesome Okay, we have cool. We got to a Cyber soldier of dark world and Another cockroach night, okay So will we get the whole set out here besides the supers obviously and probably not all the rares So but all the comments I figure we'll get out of 20 packs tournament pack first season Wow, I can't believe it. Okay, I can't leave those in there. I Did not expect to pull it We've got an Oslo hero and it came it It was in there quickly. Yeah, I was gonna say something else that sounded weird We got the wow warrior the the world of Warcraft warrior We got the wode on the resident of the forest and you just look at that guy Increased his cards attacked by 100 for every plant type monster that's face up on the field So this guy could get up to 1300 attack. What a stud. What a stud. I'm sure you're playing that in your plant decks That is amazing Wow This is fun This is fun to pull something good guys So it's nice because we opened an FC. We got nothing basically. I mean we got some stuff But when we're good cybernetic revolution nothing so It's nice to get some good. Okay. We got a Hercules beetle. There we go. Oh A gust fan. Okay. See like this is the kind of thing I'm talking about There's no reason to reprint this a wind monster equipped with this increased attack by 400 and decrease the defense by 200 It's like why would you ever reprint that you wouldn't that's why it's That's why it's a unique Okay Wow, what was that like the third or fourth pack we pulled it Now I really want an actuator. I really want to get mech chaser actuator box That'd be crazy and then of course white hole. I've never owned a white hole. It's the only one I don't own Bean soldiers got He's got some stuff on him. What in the world? Look at that.  Okay the cockroach night. We have seen him several times already. Okay. What do we have left three? Six we're not even halfway through right now What have we got two of our rares? We do want to hit the blue medicine So that is one that I know Gezi needs to be Get a PSA 10 in and Gezi is the one who collects every single thing in PSA 10 possible So if I get one and get a 10 or it can get a 10 I'm sure he'll want it statue these dry land and the judgment hand. I don't know. That's kind of cool. It's kind of a cool card judgment hand Wow, we got the 1850 mechanical chaser was an absolute legend at the time because 1850 was the highest four-star Telerious 108 packs just for a vanilla beater. It's really funny wing dragon guardian of the fortress. We got a giant flea Rimey that's a cool one. Okay. This center on the on the rares is a lot has gotten a lot better since the first one This one seems pretty decent Rimey we can inflict 300 damage to our opponent. Not bad. Not quite sparks. It's pretty good. All right next pack Turn the pack first season. Here we go What are we about halfway through now? We've got an ultra rare We have shining friendship make sure you guys subscribe for more epic openings in the future because we have more cool stuff like this Coming up. It's gonna be crazy. I Was plugging the likes right when we pulled it. That was kind of funny It was like no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't even need likes.  Okay So we should get what six rares of a thing based on the ratio six to seven right now We've gotten three I think wing dragon guardian the fortress Giant flea. Oh, there's the blue medicine. How's the centering on it? Centering is Not perfect. It's it's borderline Probably would get a nine though based on recent PSA being pretty strict, but we can always try that Let's check the back for Gezi. The back looks pretty good. Maybe like a little bit of stuff in there But not too bad. All right, three six seven eight packs left. Here we go Eight packs. I don't know when you guys are gonna see this maybe tomorrow I just got it in and I was like, we're gonna open this thing like right away. I'm hyped. All right we got to a Cyber soldier of dark roll got a little nick up there and the Oslo hero himself The 1250 beater. Yeah, you better watch out. There's some strong cards in here There's some absolutely strong cards. Okay Should have done a tournament pack sealed battle opened up tournament pack one and duel with the cards Okay, wow warrior. That would be very um a bad idea. First of all and not interesting Oslo hero number two Okay, that's cool six packs. We've open 14 out of the 20. We have six packs left. Will we get another super rare? Or another foil. Let me know in the comments right now Do you believe in another foil? Will we go two out of one box? Which is really good Hercules beetle? I think think no actually vintage Yu-Gi-Oh opened a box and he got two Super so he didn't get the Metchaser. There's somebody There's a burning spear another rare Slightly OC on that one. Yeah, it looks about the same as the blue medicine It's a nice card Yeah, but I think he got like the best two supers. I think I think well He got an actuator and then he got maybe a patrol Robo, which is probably not a best one, but It's probably I mean the other three are probably tied All right, we've got crowding shark. Let's see what we can get guys cockroach night. Let's get the actuator Shining friendship. Okay, not quite an actuator a little ball of friendship, but you know You know, I guess Here we go Can we get a super rare? We got the wild warrior another world of warcraft warrior the statue of the 9th museum and the judgment hand Okay Three packs left Will we get another rare? Will we get another super rare? Will we get another ultra rare? I don't think that's even possible. If that happens. I'm just gonna lose it I'm gonna lose it All right wing dragon We've got the flea. Oh, I miss a little flea And it got us with third eye Yeah, this isn't a good one either because this one was also reprinted in TP5 that might be our last rare I'm not sure though. We'll see. We'll see we have two packs left two more chances. I Turn him pack one Super rare here we go hit the like button for luck guys Kuwagata alpha. I was saying a I guess it's alpha technically we got a cyber soldier of dark world And the also low hero again. All right final pack final pack last chance at a foil guys Can I have a good feeling? I don't know about you guys got a good feeling about this opening Maybe we maybe the good feeling will pay off. We'll see Maybe it won't it's already kind of paid off with the mech chaser. Okay. This isn't all the way open Come on get out of there All right. Hard to get out. You know that you know what they say about that wow world of warcraft We've got the wode on and final card of the tournament pack one 2002 box opening Here we go guys Awesome hero number two the classic. He should be in there at the end. Okay, so we just got a single foil But it's the best card in the set and it's Way, oh, see However, that is still amazing and absolutely awesome opening. I can't believe we just pulled an ultra out of TP That is so cool. I'll kind of have a Somewhat guess of what we pulled value out of here We definitely didn't make our 4500 back because even with if we grade this thing I think it's gonna get an 8 maybe if it got a 9-0 C then I would have good value I don't know if it at 4500, but we'd get a lot closer. We'll see we'll probably still grade it Just so we can have one. I don't know. Maybe we won't who knows. Let me know should be greater or not What do you guys think and that's it for this video? I hope you guys have enjoyed it if you want to support my channel click the TCG player in eBay if they Links below and that's it for this video. See you guys later Peace Dark bright I've got I've got something flying around here. What in the world, you know go away


Welcome, folks. This is Tom O'Brien of TFNN. We go five days a week. We go seven and a half hours a day. We go 24 hours a day on the Internet at TFNN.com. Always remember, folks, whatever you think about, you bring about whatever you focus on, grow so big when it's happening. Great day, safe day. Let's make it a great week, folks. Always do your best. Surrender and let go of the past. Whatever life takes away from you, let it go. When you surrender and let go of the past, you'll have yourself to be fully alive in a moment. Letting go of the past means that you can enjoy the dream that is happening right here, right now. Make it a rise. Let's take a look at it out here. We have the Dow Industries up $367. NASDAQ up $95. S&P up $42. Gold contract at $9.00 and $0.60 trading at $17.26 an ounce. You got Silver up $0.04, $0.15, $0.31 an ounce. Light Sweet Crew down $388. $13.00, $0.05, a barrel, notes and bonds. We get the 10-year, down $15 ticks right now. Trading $138.20. The 30-year off a point-and-a-half at $185.00 and $Kingdala down $318.00. Ticks trading $100.06. The Euro is at $108.00. The yen is out here at $107.00 and the British pound is at $124.00 or one the U.S. dollar. Phone number is<PHONE_NUMBER>. Give us a call, folks. Want to know what's going on in your world. Let's go over to our man, Mr. Dave Mazza, as we do each and every Monday at the top of the hour, folks. Each and every other Monday at the top of the hour. Dave is the Managing Director and Head of Product at Direction.com. And real easy to get to as you're on our website, folks. Just hit that banner and direction spell, D-I-R-E-X-I-O-N. Dave Mazza, what's going on? Dave, happy back, Tom. How are you? Going good, thank you. I guess we're all still locked down here a little. A little more time, right? I think we're going to be a little more time here. Markets are certainly a positive note today, though. Certainly, especially seeing some of the laggers, like small caps, really rallying. There's no doubt. When we take a look at these small caps, too, whether it's the TNA folks or the TZA, I know folks like to trade both of them. And this small cap, man, that has been lagging for so long, Dave. So it is intriguing, you know, because fundamentalists for the last year, year and a half have been saying, hey, this is where you should be going, because of the value trap, right? Not trap, but in general. But it is intriguing, because when these things move, I mean, they really move, right? Yeah, from a fundamental perspective, you're absolutely right. Small caps have been on a favor, not just for the last year, maybe 5, 10. Small caps are supposed to outperform large caps over large periods of time, especially in economic booms, like we had been in. Yes. Now, many people are looking for signs of small cap life really to lead the rally higher as a true sign that maybe the bottom that we saw on March 23rd is going to be in place. What we've seen with TNZ and TNA is many people are just focusing on the S&P 500. So looking at XPXL and XPSS, but now TNA and TZA are seeing a lot more activity again, not just today, but as people are looking to judge whether small caps are going to be able to continue to lead higher from here. Yeah, I know. And we've seen it in our trading room, too. It's intriguing. Hey, can we talk a little bit about, you know, we had the financials last week, and so when we're talking about the FAZ or the FAS, I mean, this is so much different than the last time in 2008, because of course that was the banks that were in trouble, the banks, to get money out to the public now. So a whole different trade. Yeah, exactly, exactly right. So the last crisis was really a financial led crisis. You know, this is a health crisis. It's very different. Right. So many, you know, whether you're looking at Wall Street Strategists or other folks, I think the playbook that historically we've used in crises certainly appears different, right? We just talked about small caps. Financials last week, you know, really, really weak earnings, energy, weak earnings. You have some big energy names coming out this week with Exxon and Chevron. So in our opinion, the bellwether names, as they always matter in earnings, are going to matter even more from here, which is I think one of the reasons why we're starting to see big moves in FAS, FAZ, in the energy space, of course, ERX and ERY to play bull and bear and energy. Those are two names that we've continued to see increased activity in and expect to see that going forward. Now, this is great. Let's talk about this a little, because there's been a huge amount of confusion not with any of your ETF structures, but the USO, meaning this past week and a half, okay? And what I want you to get, folks, because I've been talking about Exxon, Mobile and Chevron quite a bit, because it's pretty amazing that these guys are off the bottom and oil was still negative, right? And so, folks, when we're talking about the ERX, so the bull one or the bear one, the bottom line is that you want to understand that you really do have the energy select that's part of the holdings and then you got some cash in there, right? That's what's inside those holdings, right? Yeah, that's exactly right. So it's important to separate a product like USO, which is futures-based, tracking the actual commodity. So in that case, well, there's been some changes, but effectively, it's West Texas Intermediate. Yes. In the case of ERX and ERY, the focus here is on energy companies, right? So those are your names, like Chevron and Exxon, that would be in that particular basket. Yeah, which is pretty cool, because what we have had is that when you get these turns in the marketplace, it's pretty neat when some of these are coming off lows, like, well, if we can just switch to bonds for a second, because I know I actually have the TBT and we went from one to ten last week, right? Yeah, so that's another space exactly where we've seen massive moves in the treasury bonds, treasury note space. We most recently had some share splits, actually, in that particular, in some of those particular funds. And what's amazing about the bonds, Dave, is that, I mean, they went sideways. They haven't done anything yet, but this is the first time I've embarrassed a bond to like ten years, man. So we'll see what happens. I mean, it's like a close one, man, you know, because it's like, okay, we know we're in trouble. It's going to be intriguing watching this whole thing shake out, no doubt. Well, I think what's interesting, bonds in particular, and I even say in asset class like gold, if you look at the trailing one year returns, they've really front run some of this. So a lot of those gains were baked in, which is one of the reasons why, again, if you look at that playbook, it's not behaving exactly as you might expect it to be. Doesn't mean we're not going to see any changes or retesting of lows from here. But again, this is a different type of crisis. We're going to learn a lot. This is the busiest week of earnings, right? 40% of the S&P 500 reporting this week. Yes.  No doubt. Well, listen, we always appreciate the education, Dave. You have a great one. Safe one. Look forward to speaking in two weeks from today. Thank you. Stay well and stay safe. Thanks so much. You also stay right there. Folks, come right back down. This is up 391,000, except 100. S&Ps are up 44. We'll come right back.


Before getting into my paper, I would like to thank the organizers for giving me the chance to take part in this cool session on rock and ritual. As osmotic membranes where the supernatural could be encountered, but also as powerful liminal thresholds of transition and transformation, caves were used as ritual escapes by the proto-historic and Roman population of Hispania Celtica, from the 4th century BC to the 3rd century AD. Archaeological, textual and iconographical records of a diversity of ritual activities are found in caves of Celtic Rome and Spain. But despite its potential, these dark-eyed places and its rituality remind to be under study due to avias in previous scholarship. For instance, prehistoriens usually do not bother about the remains of late Iron Age and Roman times. Classical epigraphies usually have focus on the text rather than on the context, so we no concern for the ritual landscape or for the religious experiences and emotions of the individuals who wrote the descriptions. And regarding ancient historians, they usually do not work into the muddy topographies of darkness. However, a multiplicity of ritual activities are way to be studied. On the basis of my fieldwork in progress, here I would like to explore and discuss some issues of the Celtic Roman cave rituality in Spain. A main theme is the centrality of darkness in the ceremonies helped it inside the cave. Science most of the artifacts and texts were intentionally placed in the darkest areas, farthest from entrances and daylight. A useful theoretical framework within to play these rituals is that put forward by Mojiz, sacred darkness, and by Dawn and Hensie in the archeology of darkness. Where they explore how darkness itself must be understood as an integral part of underground religion and not an incidental one. What? What should I do? Okay, okay, thanks. The phenomenological and emotional insights from Tilly, Lewis, Williams, Bradley, or Tarlos works can be useful as well to understand the significant role placed by darkness in removing the explorers from the everyday world on the surface and in shaping the emotions and ritual experiences. Moreover, we know that in Roman antiquity, darkness and underground places work both in terms of sensory emotional experience and in terms of symbolism with complex metaphoric meanings such as death, thrilling of evil powers, other world, fertility, shelter, etc. But in the past, the caves also were thought and lived as liminal thresholds to be close to enter in a different extraordinary escape. Actually, working into and through the dark cave has effects on senses and emotions, disorientation, lack of time reference, isolation, sensory deprivation. In the vacuum of darkness, self-experience is intensified, promoting then religious sensitiveness. In these rock-smotic membranes where the supernatural could be felt and faith. In fact, Groenen has spoken of the fearsome presence of unseen powers lurking in the dark of the caves, who can appear, blur and disappear in a reality continually in flux. Since the light sources available to Celtic Roman explorers mainly tortoises were constantly moving and creating dynamic interplays of light, shadows and darkness. Therefore, darkness itself is the landscape context of the ritual and is per se an integral part of the religious activity that took place in Spanish caves. In fact, although these caves vary in shape and size, and in the nature of the rituals carried out there, there is a consistent ritual use of the darkest chambers of the caves. This location implies that the participant took a difficult journey into the dark to encounter the supernatural powers. But apart from the centrality of darkness, these Spanish caves sow a multiplicity of rituals in late Iron Age and Roman times. Not being possible to go into further detail of every cave of Spain where Celtic Roman rituality is recorded, I want to discuss a list several of the ritual practices attested there. Celtic variant and Latin descriptions were carved in the walls and floors of the caves by people moving through them from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD. Who used them to remark and memorialize their individual and collective identities. For instance, the majority of the Latin texts from the cave of La Griega are not theonyms of ritual formulae but personal names. Son of 10 were carved in different zones of the caves, but it is difficult to know if they were made by the same person in a single journey or in several trips or by individuals with the same name at different times. Due to they are located in cool places, we assume that all these texts had a religious meaning. But Son of 10 could be rather the testimony of adventurous people from local communities exploring the cave, who wrote their names as a record of their bravery as documented by medieval and modern graffiti in the same caves. In any case, Celtic variant and Latin religious descriptions were certainly produced in caves of Hispania as part of ritual processes. And they become themselves part of the reality of the sanctuary and its visual dynamics. Regarding the date it is related to these caves, we know that several vernacular gods were worshiped at La Griega. Nemedus Augustus Ayuncus, the watery goddess Deva, Monius and perhaps also the god Doeoerus. Some graffiti are traditional religious Latin formulae such as Cantienus Botun Solvus. Others attest ritual practices carried out by male couples, probably delegated from local communities or even ritual specialists. That rituality by couples is attested as well in other caves of Hispania such as Cueva Negra de Fortuna, In Murcia, Sala del Jurat as Mario has explained earlier, and the cave of Roman in Clunia. However, we don't know the precise nature of the rituals carried out underground by these male couples. Celtic Roman religious recycling of prehistoric rock art is attested in Spanish caves. For instance, in the cave of San Garcia where a Celtivarian text was carved close to bronze 8 carvings and at La Griega, where the Latin writers incorporated the Paleolithic horses into the ritual activity and medical discourse, perhaps identifying the figures as signs from the gods or using them as symbolic animal sacrifice. And so there are possibilities. This ritual recycling is also documented at other rock places in Hispania, the rock shelter of Roca de los Moros, Cuevul, where Iberian and Latin texts were located near Neolithic paintings. Regarding underground rights of Pashach, a scholarly tradition has associated with the caves. The sensory and emotional experiences of individuals moving through the dark will have served to still a feeling of changing personhood, of personal transformation. Indeed, the participants could have experienced themselves death and renewal. Entering to the cave was experienced as going into the other world to re-emerge from there as a new person. Reborn from the Earth's uterus. But as attested by a Latin text from Cueva del Puente, here, where its author declares himself as a timence fearful, the emotion of fear could have been intentionally provoked by ritual specialists in these caves as part of rituals of terror using Harvey Whitehouse expression, which is related with the imagistic model of religiosity, so on before. According to that, several scholars have related the 3rd century AD Latin escapistons carved on the walls of Cueva del Puente to rituals to grain bribery performed by young teenagers following pre-roman traditions. However, this text rather seemed to document a cave exploration by a military group from close badass. A male skeleton legend on the floor of the gallery of Villaseca in Ojovareña has been identified as a 4th century busy young man who got lost in his journey through the darkness. Nevertheless, there are no clues about his reasons to go into the cave. Was he as an explorer? Was he performing a ritual activity that perhaps included the collection of water from a closed dam? Did he die in situ or was he intentionally buried here by his contemporaries? There is another possibility that this skeleton actually belonged to a prehistoric burial and that the 4th century busy Fibula and Belph found near the bones were Iron Age offerings. This ritual manipulation of prehistoric skeletons in caves is also attested in Cofercenedo cave, where late Iron Age weapons were located close to a bronze age skeleton. Another example of the diversity of rituals carried out in dialogue escapes of Celtic Roman Spain is the performance of ritual activities inside mines. Dealing with the harsh experience of digging under constant threat, miners addressed it to local ectonic deities in order to placate them and to ensure their protection through ritual practices, which included offering of tools, pottery, metallic items, coins and altars, such as this one thrown at Los Ocedo or this altar from the cave of Elvalle. The Latin escapions, carvings and figurines found at the cave of Roman are part of the rituals performed under the Roman city of Clunia from the 1st to the 2nd century AD. Several texts document math, therapy or male genitals and perhaps on eyes and feet too. And the clay heads and penises could be anatomical vota related to this healing sanctuary, but there is not clear evidence about the ritual processes. Although identified as a pre-apic sanctuary, the carving published data makes it impossible to understand its dynamic or even identify the gods worshiped there. Although they have left no trace, other religious practices could have been carried out in this underground context according to ancient and ethnographical parallels, such as lightening of candles, playing of music, magical practices, incubation, modification of spilotherms, and ritual performances that could have included gods epiphanies and manipulation of darkness. According to my own anthropological experience as participant observer in the artistic venues celebrated inside Spanish-sold mines by the artistic group Charutan, strong emotional and almost spiritual responses can be provoked in participants with music and theatrical apparatuses that leave no archaeological trace. Therefore, the possibility that gods epiphanies are to place in our case by actor or ritual specialists should not be dismissed. And luckily, the surviving record makes it difficult to understand the complex meanings and dynamics of the cave rituality attested in Celtic Roman Spain and even the frequency with which they were visited and performed. We do not know how regular or irregular such rituals were or the different ways of moving through the cave, for example, or even if these caves were for a celled view. While physically open to taboo or religious restrictions, don't provoke the gods of the underworld. Sorry, we don't know if these caves were for a celled view or physically open to taboo or religious restrictions related to age, gender, social status, religious wisdom or specific ritual functions may have meant they were off-limits for the majority of the population. Actually, the low presence of women epigraphically attested in this case is stunning. Only three women among almost 200 tests by mail. Was this gender bias related to religious taboos or to a minor level of literacy? Another unsolved issue is the chronology of the ritual uses of these caves and its dynamic transformation. Anyway, all these examples show that in caves of the Celtic Roman Spain, polyvalent ritual practices were performed by different agents with different identities and goals. However, more fieldwork, modern theoretical approaches and new lectures of descriptions are compulsory if we want to enlighten the potential of these drug escapes and its rituals for understanding Celtic Roman religions. Meanwhile, I'm afraid that this cave rituality is still framed by the darkness. Thanks a lot.


You don't necessarily have to put out records professionally in order to be a musician or to make money from music in the music business. There are a thousand different ways that you could do it. Meditating music, wake up music, inspirational music, office music, elevator music, man. They still play elevator music in elevators. You walk in Waffle House at three o'clock in the morning and they'll do everything in touch tunes but get the information to get your music in touch tunes. And I'm supposed to feel sorry for you, bozo? No, I don't. What's up, what's up, what's up? It's Brayman, Sean. And I'm Cory. And we are back with another episode of No Labels, Necessary Podcast. You can catch us every Tuesday, every Thursday on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, whatever you check for your podcast here at the intersection of creativity and currency. I'm ready for another creative conversation. We have yet another person who represents the No Labels necessary way of thinking. Key word, necessary. You can use them but they're not necessary in the way you move. Today we have the rap juggernaut, AKA Kingpin, a man of many positions but primarily a marketer and sounds like, just from our short conversation, a great man to have in your corner. Thank you, I appreciate that. I would love to hear more and learn more about you. Thank you first and foremost though for hopping on. Thank you for the hospitality. Thank you for the opportunity, man. It's always great to connect with like-minded individuals that are trying to push the boundaries of creation and entrepreneurship. So anything that I could do to participate in that and help our community grow in the city of Atlanta and beyond because I'm sure you guys have listeners all over the globe. So hello to everybody who's listening and to everybody watching on the video, but up though. Appreciate that, appreciate that man. I would love to just start here. You've done quite a bit and supported a lot of infrastructure around, especially Atlanta for a minute, but how did you get into the music industry specifically? I was working at a warehouse. My younger brother was living with me and one of his friends had came home after school one day and was like, hey man, I want you to look at this contract. I want to be a rapper. I didn't know anything about rapper contracts. I'd always talked about opening a club one day when I got out of prison and stuff like that, but it was always dreams and talks. And I told them, I said, I don't think you should sign that. I mean, it's really blank and they want you to fill in your name and stuff, don't do it. So the next day I was having a conversation with one of my coworkers at work. We were joking about it. Like, man, could you believe this kid? He was going to get signed. So another one of the guys walks in and he's like, man, you know about the music business. And I was like, no, I don't know anything about it, but I know a bad contract when I see one. So we got the, you know, we got the politician and come to find out. He had a recording studio, maybe four or five blocks away from my house. So that night we worked the night shift. So that night when we got off of work, I went to the studio and I didn't get out till the next day in the afternoon. Here I am. That's never, I quit my job. I never looked back. I, you know, I had it, I did it. And when I started to ask for time off to go to my first music conference and stuff and they were like, you know, hey man, we need somebody that's going to be here. And, you know, of all the jobs of all the things I've done in my life, I've always gambled on myself. And I believed in my ability to provide enough for myself and my family at the time that I would be able to survive and ultimately succeed. So it was, you know, I've spoke about this in the past. I've been blessed that I came from a long line of entrepreneurs, you know, my father, my mother, my uncles, everybody owned their own business. Everybody that I've known, all the people that I grew up with in some way, shape or form, they either worked for themselves or was a boss and worked with somebody. Very few people in my life ever worked for anybody. And I'm saying that there's anything wrong with that, but that was the example that I was given. So it really wasn't that much of a gamble for me to, you know what, I'm out of here. And I did it and I didn't look back.  There was a lot of times where I had to try to find myself, question myself. And that's kind of why I do what I do now, because if somebody would have bothered to share with me some of the things that I learned along the way that may have helped me arrive at the position or at the place where I could help others sooner, then maybe we could have changed the culture. Maybe we could have pivoted somewhere. Maybe we could have helped somebody else. And then by definition, we could have changed the life or even ultimately saved the life, you know what I mean? So, you know, with the way the entertainment industry is set up and the way that we consume content, if you don't own it, if you don't establish ownership at the origin, if you don't know what you're looking at when you open the hood, you put yourself at a gross disadvantage to where you'll accept whatever is being offered. And that comes with knowing value and value only comes with ownership. And ownership means that it allows you the opportunity to measure what it is that you're attempting to grow because make no mistake, what is not measured will never grow. Make sense? It makes all the sense in the world. You mentioned the conference, right? Your first ever music conference. And you said that you believe conferences are worth it. What was your mentality going into that first conference? And let's, you know, talk about how you flipped it. I wanted to get to the city a day early because I wanted to see the lay of the land and I still do that in most cases. You know, if I get to a city that I haven't been to or if I get somewhere that I'm unfamiliar with, I want to get there as much in advance as possible if I can get there a day early, cool. And when I got to the event, the event started at 12, I wanted to get there at night in the morning because I wanted to set up. I wanted to go and I wanted to meet the people that were going to be opening the doors and putting the keys in. And I learned early in my entertainment industry that if you act like you're supposed to be there, very few people are going to stop you. And I would show up with a camera and that was my thing. You know, I was, I was published in ozone magazine before I ever did anything else, you know, shot at the Julia Beverly. And I was able to use that camera and I would go to red carpets and as I would see people or DJs walk by with no red camera, I would jump out screaming their name and turn the camera on that light and walk my way into a room. And then when I got into the room, it was off to the races. It was all about networking. So, you know, I finessed my way into a thousand and 400 conferences. I finessed my entire team into a thousand and 400 conferences. I've paid to be a part of a thousand and 400 conferences. It's, I wanted to do it. You know what I mean? So I found the way to do it. And when I got to those cities, yeah, I would have loved to have had the extra money to go shopping or go to a club and buy a bottle and make a spectacle. I was lucky if I had enough money to feed my whole team. And we were out there promoting for the artist and every song that you put on us, how much money they got and their diamonds and blings. But the street team got a bust down 99 cent meals. Like that's real. I did that. I've walked in the room. I biggest walked into rooms where it's been 12 people in a two-bedroom room during Memorial weekend with 10,000 CDs stacked up to the ceiling. And biggest walked in there while we're taking shifts. People sleeping, people working and people stuffing CDs. Cause how do you pass out 10,000 CDs hand to hand in three days? You see what I'm saying to you? So a lot of those campaigns we had to learn and we had to get and we had to build those relationships. So now where I had to get out into the trenches and learn cities and learn a lot of these artists aren't that burden isn't on them. They can now switch it digitally. But because they've gone digital, they've gotten lazy and they haven't really used all of the tools to their advantage. Here's one, if you're going to a music conference, right? Google Earth.  So if I'm going to a venue, if I'm going to the, I'm going to the Core DJ's music conference in Miami July 21st through July 24th of the year 2020 this year rolling loud weekend and I want to know what I could do. I'm going to Google the Intercontinental Miami where the host hotel is and I'm going to pull up the street view, ask me why I want the street view because I want to know, do I need a stapler to hang these posters on poles? Are they wooden poles or are they concrete poles? Hmm, how many poles, how many poles will tell me how many posters I need to put up? How many posters I need to put up will tell me, well, if there's poles, then I'm not going to be the only one in doing this. What time does it start at 12? I got to get there at nine. Now I've got a schedule, I've got an itinerary. Now when I put them up an hour and a half later, I got to come back and replenish. Whatever I got taken down, got to get put back up. I could use Google Maps to my advantage. I could use events in the city. Now I'm going to go down to check the Miami Herald. I'm going to see what events are happening that weekend because the events are going to have the DJ on the flyer and if the DJ is on the flyer, he's got his Instagram online and if he's got his Instagram online, he's got his email address in his bio and maybe just maybe he replied to my email and say he likes my record and is willing to play it. I don't know. I don't know if I don't try. And because I'm lazy, because I think that the internet is more than just, it's supposed to make me a star by just dropping music. It scares me that these kids don't open the emails like I did today that tells me Luminate's new data says that 41% of the records that are available online, that's over 67 million, have 10 or less streams. You started to touch on something that I was actually going to ask you, but I feel like we can go even deeper in that. The old street team way of doing things, which still does apply, it's just now more avenues to get to people. What are some of those things that you feel like translate those small nuggets that you had to learn in those trenches that you feel, feel like can either translate online or have use online to empower. I think most people fail to put a call to action on their promotional items.   There's no, it's just a picture on a trash can. So when it comes to marketing, whatever it is street marketing, digital marketing, the call to action, is it educating? Is it informing? Is it empowering? What is it doing? And I think as creatives, we get so caught up trying to create. Well, people are gonna laugh and if I can make them laugh, they're gonna love me. So I'm gonna wear a wig or I'm gonna start doing funny skits or I'm gonna start acting crazy. I'm gonna start doing all these things that are against who I really am because I feel that attention equals retention. And you may pass by and look at a crash, but when was the last time you saw a crash that you loved so much you had to stop and stare at it? Park, come back. Let me go get in traffic again and keep coming back and look at it. Never. You'll see the accident, look at it. Man, that's messed up and keep it pushing. That's what some of these things are. They're accidents, good or bad.   It makes the difference in the bad they offer you. It makes the difference in the stipulations of that contract, in the limitations and what they're trying to tie their money into. You now walk into it with leverage. That's all we're saying. We're not saying that if you do these things, you will become a star. We're saying that if you do these things, you're establishing ownership so that in the event, in the event, because it's hitting the lottery, 100,000 songs a day, 36 and a half million records a year, 67 million records as of today have only streamed 10 or less. That's every record for the last two years, statistically speaking. Those are the reality of what we're talking about.  What do you know? You're lost. You don't know, old man. Prove me wrong. If what I'm saying is wrong, then do it the right way and prove me wrong. That's my call to action. If you have enough energy to debate with me in the comments, you should have enough energy to go find the truth. If what I'm giving you is incorrect or as you feel is moved you to the point of where you wanna debate, then go seek the truth. That's what I want. That's what the cheat code is. I've said it in one of our lives. You wanna know what the cheat code is? Do the work. There is no other shortcut. Success only comes before work in the dictionary. No other place on earth does success come before work except for in the Oxford Dictionary. That's it, brother. You spoke about attention believing.  We all here know that's not true. Right. So community. When you think about building a community and what it takes, what does that look like to you? It takes consistency.  It takes understanding who you are and how you package that to the world whether it's your brand, whether it's your podcast, whether it's your music, whether it's your music videos. It's understanding how to present that to the consumer and then start to use the different avenues and platforms that you have to find who your target consumer is. The bullseye on a dartboard is really, really small. And the more information that we get, our bullseye gets bigger. So if each time we drop a video or each time we drop a song or each time we drop a t-shirt and we're studying metrics and we're learning colors and we're learning color schemes and we're learning times a day and we're learning usage and we're learning census statistics because all of these things factor in because these are the people that are most likely to engage with this platform and this type of content at this particular time in this particular region. That matters. That's more of a calculated guest than a blind than just going into it blind. It's more calculated. And that's what I want these young brothers and sisters to understand that building a community requires you to know how you're going to provide for that community. Is it gonna be content? How are you gonna provide the content? Is it gonna be content that's gonna nourish them? Is it gonna call them to action?   What are you gonna do for them?  And in order to lead, then there has to be people that are willing to follow. Nobody's willing to follow somebody that doesn't know how to lead. So those are some of the things that I think as entrepreneurs, as independent business owners, this is where there ain't no hope for the youth, right? This is where that comes in because the people that know don't wanna waste time on the youth because they feel the youth don't need to know, they're not worried about that right now. And I'm the complete opposite. I hold the young more accountable than I do an adult because an adult has the ability to decide to wake up and be lazy. A child is only gonna do what he or she is programmed to do. And that's why they catch you early when you make these mistakes and they put you in these boot camp programs. I know I was a product of one of them. I got direct filed at 13. I was sentenced as an adult before I was old enough to drive a car. What do you mean boot camp? What did you, that you were a part of? There's a, and in the state of Florida, there's the extended day program. So anybody that goes to prison under the age of 25, it's like a boot camp. So you're not allowed to touch your bed. You wake up in the morning, do calisthenics, march everywhere, yes or no, sir. Your socks gotta smile, underwear gotta be folded up.  Everything has to be folded up organization. I never thought, or for a million years of my life, thought that anything I learned in prison would carry me to in the free world where it would help me. I never thought that sitting in class and learning how to rationalize or how to make statistics or how to separate things and make lists, something as small as that has helped me in my adult life more than you can ever imagine because I go into things looking at them differently. I don't go into things looking at a problem. I go into things looking for solutions. And I think that's what one of the things that separates individuals like you guys from the rest of the people in the world that made putting a podcast together is that you guys found the solution and this is the vehicle to deliver the solution to the people that need it because there are people that need it and want it and seek it. And it's our job as being ambassadors of the culture as much as it is being representatives of the culture and living it and being a part of the culture. It's our job to kind of keep it going and pass it on to that generation of up and coming executive, up and coming podcasters, up and coming journalists, up and coming artists. Those are the ones that need the game the most because we are the generation that got fed up. We're so fed up. We're telling you what not to do. Please be the generation that listens. Feel like people listen? No, no, I don't. I feel like people hear us.   Look at it, you may not like the word but that's exactly what you are, a goofy. A goofy is a person who does silly things. That's the definition of it.  So they like it when I do that. They don't respect when you give it to them the truth because the truth sometimes has to be delivered by hand. Can't put it in a mail. You gotta give it to them. You gotta hand deliver it to them like a little Caesar's knock on the door. Here it is in your face. What you're gonna do now?  That's fine, punch me in my mouth.   Thank you, that's engagement. Let's argue, come to my post and tell me how silly I am, tell me how wrong I am. The other 437 posts are gonna disagree with you and all you're gonna do is land us on the explorer page of somebody who needs to hear that message, who may be lost or who may be in the shadow that your son is shining on them, casting on them. They need to be brought to the light. And I think that's what we do with the cheat code. Wendy Day is a pioneer.  Ferrari Simmons, he's in the music business.  Me? I'm a violent, habitual offender. I should not be outside of a cage, let alone on this side of the earth. And I am, so I wake up every day with a burning desire to get it done and I go to bed every day with a burning desire to wake up and get it done. That's my goal in life, to let my kids see everything that I want them to understand you have to be to be successful in life. Determine, focus, relentless, those are the things it requires. Do not get praise. There's no glory. You finish first place, so what? You gotta finish first place again in order for me to respect it. You finished again, so what? You gotta finish in first again for me to be in awe. You finished in first again, so what? Now every time you don't finish in first, you fell off. That's the reality. That's how it works. That's the reality. That was deep. That was real. That's the reality. There are 1,000 Division I schools that will field a collegiate football team. That's 55,000 kids are gonna play college football this year. Only 250, 260 are gonna go into the draft. Only 60 of those drafts that are gonna make the actual team. Only 20 of those 60 are gonna make the roster. Only five are gonna start. Only one will be rookie of the year. You know how long it took that young man to be rookie of the year? 15 years.  Hey, Jack. The race ain't for the swift. It's for those that can endure. That's what I feel like people messed up looking at fields like sports because they're young and successful but they've been in it their whole life by the time they hit the ground. It's misleading, yeah. It takes them 10 years to become an overnight sensation, you know?   And this is somebody that I borrowed from. Miami, they won their first two championships on my birthday, June 20th. I got the tattoo here. I love, these are my guys. So when they lost, I cried, I hurt. And then the next morning I wake up and I'm watching the parade and I'm hating and then I look up and I see ESPN flashes and LeBron James is in the gym working out, watching the parade. What? I'm worried about the wrong thing. Losing is a part of winning. What you do with the loss, there's a blessing there or a lesson. Which one we get first? That all determines on how we act after. Is it a blessing or is it a lesson? There's no losing in life. In the minute we change the words that we use and how we use them, we start to adapt to that killer, that mama mentality. The mama mentality was more. It wasn't, I have to be the best in it. I am the best. And in order to be the best, it requires commitment and it requires work. You don't have to outplay anybody. You gotta outplay yourself. That's it, that's the key. When I'm worried about outplaying you, you beat me because now my mind is off of my game and my mind is now on what I gotta do to beat in your game. I can't do that. I have too many other things to worry about right now. My game is paramount. And as long as I stay on the top of my game, it doesn't matter what I'm judged by anybody else. I know what I'm capable of and I know what all of us are capable of and that's why we do the cheat code. Because if there's 10 people that can do it right, that's awesome. But if we can get 100 people to do it right, then that's change. I love that you said that, man. I was literally just talking with somebody about that earlier today, about not letting the enemy, whatever. If you define yourself as the anti to something else, that means that something else always controls you. Amen. So I love that idea of being self led and self guided. And obviously the journey of an artist is ups and downs. We hear about it often. We talk to a lot of artists who speak on that often. You're more on the executive side, right? Or the music entrepreneur side, however you wanna look at your personal career. Can you speak on some of those ups and downs personally that you've been through? You know, I've lost everything I've ever loved behind the music business. I've lost everybody I've ever loved. I still sacrifice my health.  Find any study and it's gonna tell you that one hour of social media day is poisonous to your mental health. And I have to consume it at least an hour a day. You know, and it's, I don't wanna do this every day. You know, but that's discipline. That's doing what has to get done when you don't wanna do it. That's what character is. They taught me that when I was in prison. Character is who you are when you think nobody's looking.  That's really who you are when you think nobody's looking. That's really who you are. Do you get up in the morning and pursue greatness at all costs? I chose to be the person to wake up and pursue greatness. So I wake up with that attitude. I'm not upset when I wake up in the morning. I'm happy. I don't care what's going on wrong. I'm happy. Three o'clock in the morning, I'm excited. Oh my God. I got another chance to get it right. Let's go. I've got six hours before anybody else even walks into a building. And if we're talking California time, I got nine hours. I got a whole work day before the people on the West Coast even think about getting to the building and plugging up their smart car. You see what I'm saying? Because right now, there's somebody 12 hours, there's somebody nine and a half hours ahead of us, 12 hours ahead of us. So I'm up against the eight ball, just like all of us are. And my thing is constant growth. It's constant evolution. And if we're not studying, if we're not measuring, if we're not learning, if we're not involved, then we fall behind. We have to move at the speed of the culture, ladies and gentlemen, all of us. If you don't wanna do that, then it's okay. Do this as a hobby.  Get out of the way. Go do it with the hobbyist, you know? Go stand in front of the martyr station and open your guitar case and do it for pennies. If you wanna do it for the love of it, bro. Go volunteer to school, go teach at a school. There are a thousand schools that need music instructors. There are music therapists right now. You don't necessarily have to put out records professionally in order to be a musician or to make money from music in the music business. There are a thousand different ways that you could do it. I tell producers all the time, you're not putting out beat albums. There's just a thousand different ways that all of these guys meditating music, wake up music, go to bed music, inspirational music, office music, elevator music. Man, they still play elevator music in elevators. You see what I'm saying to you? So when was the last time you walked into Waffle House and looked at the touch tunes and took a picture of the phone number on the front of it and the website address so you can find out how you can get your music in touch tunes. Well, you walk in Waffle House at three o'clock in the morning and they'll do everything at touch tunes but get the information to get your music in touch tunes. And I'm supposed to feel sorry for you, bozo? No, I don't because I've sacrificed everything I have and love to learn that and you don't? So I'm supposed to give it to you for free. I do. Once a week on Wednesdays. Other than that, pay for it. You talked about the speed of culture, consuming social media and music in general, right? Right, moves of culture. The internet has fed up culture. Hip hop has always been the cutting edge so that combination has made things move faster and faster and faster, especially if you're a hip hop. The speed that you have to move is ridiculous in comparison to the rest of the world. Today, we're still yet halfway through the year, no number one hip hop song on the charts. That news came out probably maybe a week or so now, a go now. What do you feel about that? Why should there be? Taylor Swift is on tour. Beyoncé is on tour. The legends are on tour. Why does there have to be what, again, it's not mood music. It's not genre music anymore. It hasn't been genre music in three, four years. It's mood music. People are tired of the death and destruction, man. You can't push it. You can't market it.  It's no longer artistic expression. It is now a declaration, a warning. And how long do you think you can keep warning and taunting your consumer, your fan base?  Less than 1% of the world's population are criminals. Less than one. Nobody wants to hear that no more, bro. They wanna dance. They wanna have a good time. They wanna party. They wanna be in love. They wanna be heard again. They wanna, they want emotions and that's what's coming back into play and that's why AI to me doesn't threaten me at all. At all. At all. Because the people have to program it. Have you been around the people in the music business? They're clowns. You could tap dance around them in a square circle. They're not threatening anybody and the people in power, they don't threaten nobody either because they signed the checks to the bozos. So we're good, bro. We don't have to worry about somebody taking, but again, protect yourself so that you can be a part of the revolution, man. Because as an artist, you're going to, you're going to have to sacrifice your free time. You're going to have to sacrifice everything. Listen, if it weren't for hip hop, my kids wouldn't be on a roll students because they are. Thanks to what I can provide for them with hip hop. If it weren't for hip hop, I wouldn't have met my beautiful wife. I wouldn't have been able to get married. Hip hop did all of that. I don't have no silver spoon. I don't drive Uber. I don't finesse people out of checks. I don't run scams. I haven't gotten a PPP loan. I don't do government, nothing. Hip hop did all of this that I've done for myself. Hip hop does that for me. So I love this culture.  And I put on clothes because of the money that I make off of this culture. So I can never take from this culture.  And I think that's the sacrifice that you have to make. If you want, I said it on the podcast, right? I want, you guys watch movies? I'm a movie buff, right? I watched Troy, you ever watched Troy? Troy the movie Troy? I love the concept of the movie Troy because your boy wanted immortality. He knew he was going to die. He knew he was going to die. Everybody dies. But if he knew if he did what nobody else was willing to do, his name would live forever.  All of us are. When it's all said and done, they won't remember the Titans because we are the Titans. We're still here. We're putting in the work. We're going to change the culture. No labels, necessary podcast, the cheat code. We're going to change the culture. We're going to change the way people consume. We're going to change the way people create. We're going to change the way they put it out. And by that way, we're going to make our own lane and we're going to provide for ourselves and our families and make a way so that these up-and-coming your brothers and sisters can provide for their families. And only the strong will survive. Everybody won't make it, bro. Everybody isn't meant to make it. Some of y'all aren't special. Some of y'all are special ed. It's okay. Be you. Everybody else is taken. If you be you, you will be a lot happier in life. That's my number one piece of advice, man. Ups and downs, you're going to lose it all. Money gone. You can't make it fast enough. I can't charge you enough money for what it is that I do for you. Where do I put that on an invoice, Sean? Where do I tell somebody I'm charging you 1,500 to do what you don't know how to do? Where do I put on the invoice? I'm charging you an extra $2,000 for the 20 years worth of relationships that you'll never have because I'm the one that the husband threw a DM-ing broads on because he got caught cheating. And it was kingpin' because he handles the social media. Where do I put that on an invoice, Sean? That this guy owes me favors because I had to drive from Florida when he caught his wife sleeping with another man. I had to drive overnight to come to the city to talk him out of doing something to her. So he's indebted to me for life. Where do I put that on an invoice? I can't. So I just work, bro. I work. And I hope that people give me exactly what I demand. I don't want nothing more than I'm due. I work for everything I want. My praise comes from, my blessings come from God, brother, ain't nothing a man can do for me on earth. Nothing. Pat me on the back, high five, it's cool. I don't need it for validation. I made it happen, my validation. I go home happy. I give 12 hours, 14 hours, 16 hours. It's done. I go home satisfied. I'll tell her, I got a lot accomplished today. I feel good about myself. If I didn't get a lot accomplished, I'll tell her, I didn't get a lot accomplished today. I gotta get up early tomorrow. And I do. And I wake up every day at three o'clock so imagine what early is. It's what it takes. It's what's required. 100% is what's required. 120 is what you give to succeed. 80%, you didn't even do the bare minimum what required, 100% is required. If you don't do that, what are we talking about? So how can I take you serious if you don't know how to use email? Man, I'm glad you said it. That sounds so simple for anybody listening. I've spoken, we've spoken with multiple people who, Oh really? Don't know how to use something like an email. And these will be young people who act like I can't figure out technology and basic stuff. They don't want to read. They don't want to read. If you want to, when you day wrote a book called how to get a rap deal, how to get a record deal. And they'll still ask questions. They'll tune into the cheat code every week and watch it like she didn't write a book about this. If you ever want to know a secret book, put it in a book. That's why we had to do the cheat code. People weren't even going to go look for the knowledge that's already available to them so we got to find somebody to bring it to them. They love and they trust and they respect Wendy. She's like mom to them. Cause she holds them, she embraces them. Come here, you messed up your budget, you did wrong. You went to jail, come on. And that's Wendy. When are you going to cut her, you know? She's going to give you a stern. Don't do it again, but we got it. You know, that's mom, you know? And Rory, Rory is like, hey, come on, bro. You know, you got it. Positivity, you know what I'm saying? Look at what we've done. We can move around. Young guy, you know what I mean? That Rory's full of vigor right now. And I'm that person that I just want to do because I know what all that talking, the high five and the hugging do. I know it don't mean nothing. I know what you want from this business nobody can give you. Nobody on earth can give you because what you want is to feel like you've made it. I can't help you what you feel, bro. What you feel is the darkest place on earth. That's why I don't tell you to drop the music you feel is hot. Who cares what you feel?  If you want to know when you're ready to drop music, call the person you love the most and the person that loves you the most in this world. And as soon as they answer the phone, ask them, what are you waiting on? What you talking about? No, what are you waiting on? Man, would you tell me what you calling me for? I need to know what are you waiting on? And if they don't say your music ain't nobody waiting for it, bro. That's a fact. If the person you love most on earth and that loves you the most on earth, what you waiting on? And they can't answer it out. They, nobody's waiting on it.  And you got everything you need because once this comes out of the oven, you're gonna feed that community that you've been building.  One shot. 100,000 songs a day. You kidding me? One shot, that's like a sperm. It's 100,000 a day, buddy. You know the odds that all of us beat to get here? We're still fighting them every day when we drop music. That's the crazy part. Amen. We're all fighting for this for the, we're all fighting for that bar. You know what I mean? To me, music is a kid, bro.  You know, man, I'm gonna drop it on the third. Where's the cover? I ain't got no cover yet. So I don't know, are you pregnant? Where's the sonogram? I wanna see the baby.  Nah, I don't believe all that, bro. Let me see the baby. Let me see what it look like. Okay, it's a boy. Cool, win the baby shower. When you go see the specialist. You know who the specialists are? The producer, the mixing mastering engineer, your lawyer, photographer. That's the doctor, Lamar's class, the specialist, the nutritionist. Then you have a baby shower. That's your listening party, huh? You see what I'm saying to you, bro?  You got more, anybody here have more than one kid? You got kids, no, no? Two kids, okay. Got five kids. Two kids. Listen, does any one kid get more than the other? They both need food, shelter, love, and attention. But one of your two kids may be more athletic than the other one. So that one's gotta go to the park. The other one may be more computer or technologically savvy. So they may need more tablets than the other one does. So if this child starts to excel, you're not gonna feed this child no more? You go in the room, I forgot about you. You don't make no noise, you don't talk, you're not throwing the football far enough. This child over here, excelling. A-rolls, you get food, you get nothing. Every time you drop a record, it has a birth date. It says so at the bottom of your song. Don't take my word for it, go to Google right now.  Look at the bottom of your page. It has the month, day, and year your song was born. You're gonna have a hard time convincing me eight months later that you got a hot record. And all you got is 64 streams in Australia. You're in the wrong country, mate. You need to take it down under.  Your fan base is in New Zealand. Do you know what language they speak in Italy? Italian. That's why your music does you real good as the top 25 in Italy. Really, really good. Maybe Google the percentage of the demographic of Italian population that speaks English. And you'll be disgusted to learn that it's maybe 20, 30% of 50 year olds. How many 50 year old Italian men or women do you envision walking around listening to some of the music that is number one in Italy according to some of these kids' collective efforts? I'm glad you brought it up because I feel like when artists think about the international marketing or campaigns, they just think about the numbers right. Not them as actual people. And like you said, like, where's the cultural things that's kind of going on there and how does it play into what you're doing? Do you make sense for these 50 years? Most of these artists don't even have their global collections set up. You'd think that if you're impacting Italian Italy that you'd want your bio in Italian, you'd want to make some post in Italian from your social media platform. If your Apple artist says you just got 50 plays in Italy. Ciao, amigo! Hey, boy!  I need to know. Do I need to get a passport ready? There's an American military base. There are soldiers there. There are people who speak English.  I'm telling you, what good does it do when you bring your analytics to a platform, to a program director in Atlanta? And he looks at it and says, New Zealand, Green Bay, Australia, Russia. What does it do for the program director in Atlanta? What does it do for the program director in St. Louis, in Richmond, Virginia, in Detroit, Michigan, in Flint, Michigan? What does it do for the guy in Little Rock, Arkansas, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Rocky Point, North Carolina? What does it do for those guys? That you have streams in Australia where they should take a gamble on you? Take a gamble on you. Are you kidding me? Beyonce got the concert. The tickets, the people are calling in. I don't wanna listen to you. People are calling in right now. People have things to do. I don't have to worry about you. And that's what these artists, and they need to figure that out. You make people worry about you, because nobody cares. A lot of what you're saying, man, about artists is needing to figure it out, find yourself, can't rely on anyone else, and building yourself up, right? And obviously what you wanna represent. What was that for you? Because you even talked about earlier on, you alluded to finding yourself. You had to find yourself. How did you become the confident, clear on what your path is? I need to wake up and do person that you are today. I've always never really cared what anybody thought about me, per se. So I've always been cool with beating, moving to the beat of my own drum. I've just always been mindful of having a very boisterous voice, and I'm a bigger guy. So I know I come into some situations and it's intimidating, you know what I mean? Bigger guys sound loud, aggressive, talking to people looking into their face. So it had to come from, I knew all of that, and I still couldn't get people to cooperate. So then I had to learn how to talk to people. I had to learn how to speak with confidence. I had to learn how to tell people what it is that I needed from them, more so than what I wanted from them. And then I had to learn how to tell them why it would work so that they would be like, oh, okay, that's why I'm gonna do it. And I understood that whenever somebody talked to me in that manner, that got me to do it. I needed to do it for them. I just never learned that language. I never learned how to communicate effectively. And I started to talk to myself. Not in the, I'm crazy gonna answer it, but on some, like you need to get up and do this. And believe it or not, more often than not, I'm saying that to myself in the shower, in the morning time, like I pep talk myself all day. I get myself organized, even if it's mumbling it out a lot of guys, what are we gonna do?  I'm gonna get myself a game plan in my head that I'm gonna try to execute. And throughout my day, if anything happens or anything pops up, I'm managing the exception. It's only because I have that schedule in my mind, or I have the, I can show you guys my calendar schedule. My calendar schedule is set to 2025. I know where I'm gonna be at the next, I'm gonna know where I'm gonna be at in March of next year, today. So we just add to the calendar dates and we add to some of those things.  No matter how many celebrity friends I had, no matter how many successful people I knew, no matter how many artists we got to the promised land, nobody stood in front of a microphone and said, man, thank Kingpin, brother, for doing all the hard work. I never got a phone call when we dropped mixed tapes that went trending worldwide. Nobody called me, nobody texted me and thanked me. So I learned not to need that to feel validated. I look at my kids and my kids need to eat. And when my kids look at me and they see me working on the computer, they see me out in the street, or they see me on the cheat code, or they see me doing something, they see me doing something positive, setting an example for them. They see me working towards them and I'm always, I never shy away from telling them what it is that I'm doing or what it is I'm trying to accomplish, because that would be to defeat and to cheat them. So, I don't know, man, there's no timetable that I could say when the switch happened, but, you know, three hours after my daughter was born, my oldest daughter was born, I was on my way to Jacksonville to go to work, at the Diamond Awards, for bigger. I wouldn't have gone, we wouldn't have been able to pull it off.  And if it wouldn't be for my wife and if it wouldn't be for my kids and if it wouldn't be for my core, my core system, the people that hold me up, I wouldn't be able to bear the burden of what's expected, of what's demanded of me. Every day. By my clients, by my team, by my family, and more importantly, by myself. So, I take that pressure and instead of using it to remind me of how unbearable it is, I use it to remind me that it takes pressure to make a diamond. In order for a diamond to come out, it has to go through extreme pressure and it has to go through extreme fire and then it has to be cut. And then it becomes one of the most priceless things in the world.  Maybe that's what I've used to convince myself to keep doing this. And sometimes I debate with myself like, man, are you really like, but you know, I'm cool. I'm cool, beautiful. I love being the fool that I am. That there is a way for us to change the world. There's a way for us to make money. There's a way for us to empower each other. And there's a way for us to do what it is that we love doing every single day, whatever that may be. Making music, working at the kids' hospital, landscaper, golfer, cartoonist, novelist, journalist, dentist, orthodontist, paralegal, lawyer, judge. There's enough want for everybody in the world. And if we start by impacting our immediate circle, then the ripple will move outward. And we may not be able to change the world, but we could change our own immediate world. And that's what I want right now, more than anything. Have you ever managed an artist? Yeah. I mean, you know, for lack of a better term, it's what we do now. You know, until you have something going on where somebody has to make phone calls for you, you don't need to manage it, bro. You need assistance, you need a team, you need a coach. You know, this is the coach's job to take you to the gym, bro. The coach is already at the gym when you get there. The coach don't buy you clothes.  The coach don't feed you.  I'm your coach. I don't want to be your buddy. I want to be a champion.  I want to buddy with winners. I don't want to buddy with losers. Go buddy with somebody else, man. You go over there, go, go, go, go, go. That's why Jim is working. You know what I mean? We stay here, we work, we put it in, and if it doesn't work, then cool. We keep working. And we don't cry when things don't happen. We overcome, we adapt and we overcome. And that's got to be the mentality with everything that we do. Enough of the excuses, enough of the whining. Some of us need more prayer. Some of us need to pray more and vent less because we need more strength than we do sympathy. That's a way better delivery of my brash way of saying that. I'm gonna borrow that because people don't respond well to what I said. Good, absolutely. Please, by all means, man. Listen, these gems are meant for us to leave a field of gems for the ones that wanted to pick up and succeed. Yeah, man. What is your personal goal at this point in your career? I want to be the prescription.  And everything in this music business. If you want to get it done right, you got to come see me. That's my goal. That's what I'm after. I want to live forever. Man, listen, no label necessary. What an amazing experience, man. Talking with you guys was so refreshing. I was able to do it and we're in like, can I tell them where we are? Church, this thing is phenomenal, bro. So you know what? I didn't cuss one time, you'd be proud of me. And YouTubers, you guys would be very proud of me.  And I was able to contain myself and still convey that passion. So it was the godly feeling, man. It was the surroundings, it was the environment, it was the energy. Thank you guys for the amazing hospitality, man, for the opportunity to sit on the love seat. I don't know if this is the love seat or if this is the Ottoman or something, to sit on the couch with you guys, man. And chop it up a little bit about entrepreneurship and about what it is that I do. And anytime that I can get somebody interested to hear about the nerd stuff in the music business, I get excited, man, because there's a potential that somebody that's gonna listen to this podcast will grab one of the gems that we put down and we'll put it in their crown and we'll start to build their village, man. And that's the most rewarding thing about this is that we get to pay it forward. So every time somebody listens to this podcast, we're gonna be able to do that, pay it forward, man. So thank you guys for the awesome opportunity and for allowing me and my business partners, the platform to get out here and talk to you guys. And hopefully you guys will see you guys July 8th at the cheat code live. We're gonna do the cheat code lives on a Rome Lennox. So hopefully you guys can come down if anybody listening. If you missed it, don't worry about it. Now you know and no one's half the battle, brother. So July 8th, Rome Lennox, 12 o'clock, we're doing a cheat code live followed by a live Q&A. So we're gonna do our 20 minute episode and then whatever's left at the time we're in the building, we're opening it up to the people because we want people to come in and we want them to get the answers. And it's at a nice spot in Buckhead. It's really exclusive and stuff. So we're not gonna be able to do all the kick in the bobo and the smoking and doing all the hooting and carrying on that I wanna do. I was very disappointed in that. Like I gotta smoke and stuff like that, right? I'm chief, but anyways. So I'm gonna have to contain myself for a couple hours and so I'm gonna take it out on the work. Money makes it happen, but anger gets it done. And that day I'm showing up ready to get it done because I know that there's people that are gonna use their money to get there. And it's because they were tired of being lied to that's gonna drive them to get there. And we wanna give them the truth. So July 8th, 12, 30 noon, Rome Lennox. We're cranking up 12 o'clock noon. I'm sorry, 12 o'clock noon, we're cranking up. And if not, you know the cheat code premieres every Wednesday at 3.30. We're gonna start doing some different things. We got the remixer brand getting ready to come to Atlanta in a couple months. I'm gonna fill you guys in on that because that's gonna be something that I know you guys wanna be a part of. If not, I definitely want you guys to be a part of. So hopefully we can talk about that. We got the Core DJ's retreat in Miami rolling line weekend June 21st through the 24th. So man, there are just so many things on the table. So many things we're involved in which is it beats the alternative. So I'm blessed. And today was just another one of those monumental stops along my journey to where I'm ultimately trying to go. And I wanna thank you guys for providing me this awesome opportunity, man. Thank y'all so very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, man. As he said, man, he got that calendar planned out. We got to, man.  And that's perfect way to end it. This is yet another episode of No Labels Necessary podcast. I'm Brandon Shawn. I'm Cory. I'm Rap Juggernaut. And we out. Peace.


This phenomenon is referred to as ambiguity. The discussion of the types of ambiguity and their linguistic triggers constitutes the goal of this unit. In the virtual session we will first define ambiguity and will then discuss and exemplify its different manifestations ranging from lexical to pragmatic ambiguity. In the question sheet you find the respective hyperlinks and video links for guidance. The mastery worksheet is an identification task where you have to examine randomly chosen ambiguity types. This should be easy to pass after going through the virtual session. And the practical, as usual, provides you with data, words, sentences and utterances all to illustrate the various types of ambiguity. So after this unit you should know everything about ambiguity you need.