#116. Charles Zeng: Recipe For Survival
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- What's up everybody? Welcome back to The Honest Drink. I'm Justin. If you've been enjoying the show, go ahead, rate, comment, and subscribe.

All right. We have a very special return guest today. Our good friend Charles from Charlie's Burger. He's back on the show. And this was a really fun and crazy Chinese New Year episode. Yeah, it's the first time we got back together in a long time, let alone hang out with a good friend Charles. And you know every single time he comes on the show, he's like,

goes off the rails in a good way. In a very good way. We had a few too many drinks, also in a good way. And this one was really fun. Again, really crazy and hilarious all at the same time. I really enjoyed this one. So, without further ado, please give it up for Charles Zeng. Zeng? Zeng? Zeng. Zeng, right? Zeng. Charles Zeng. So please give it up for Charles Zeng. Hello, my little Zeng.

It's been a while. I think it's been a month at least. Yeah, so that's one thing I'm really kind of looking forward to for this new year. Oh, by the way, happy Chinese New Year. Yeah, happy Chinese New Year. Happy Chinese New Year. Cheers. So that's one thing I'm really looking forward to in 2023 is...

Getting this podcast back on track a little bit because like obviously 2022 like fucked everything up. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would love to kind of go back and talk a little bit about some of that kind of stuff. Yeah. I don't know. Do you want to rehash all that stuff? Okay. I don't think people want to listen to it anymore. I think like it's been over so people don't really care about it anymore. I feel. Because we didn't speak that much last year.

No, no. Like we're all dealing with our own shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just very quickly, we don't have to like linger on it. Update us on like what was 2022 in a nutshell like for you as a business owner, restaurant business owner? It was fucking terrible, man. Yeah, I mean, obviously. I mean.

Give us the highlights. But you survived. But you survived through it. Most people didn't. Did I tell you guys I almost starved to death? Wait, what? I told you guys about it. We talked about this because, no, this was very early on during the lockdown. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we called it like a fake starving to death because you just refused to join your community. No, no. It was not I refused. It was, all right. All right. So what happened was I did refuse in the beginning.

But no, it was not even refused. I just did not even think I needed it. Me, you know, I was cocky, right? Of course. I mean, I have so many fucking restaurants, right? Charlie's. No, no. I mean, I have Cantonese restaurants too, right? So I'm like, all right, fuck. Then I have all my suppliers too, right? Even if I get fucked, I'm like, my suppliers definitely cannot be fucked.

Everybody got fucked. Right? So I only had like, I really had five day worth of food, you know? And no, we didn't have group bites until mid-April. Yeah, mid-April. Like, you know, 10, I like... Yeah, mid-April. A couple weeks in. Yeah. For me, it was like two weeks in. So it was not I refused.

Like there was not really a group buy. Like, you know, I didn't create a group buy, of course, you know, like I didn't think we needed one. But so anyway, like on the 5th, I didn't have like, I had leftover shit and started eating it.

So you didn't, so from the beginning, you didn't stock anything. I stocked five days worth of food. Only five days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't stock too much. Because you believed it was going to be five days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I didn't want to, and also I didn't have, I don't know, like, I feel like normally people just don't have huge fridges. I did not have a huge fridge right at home. Like, you guys maybe have bigger fridge. But now when I'm moving to my new apartment, so I'm renovating my new place.

Before, I picked a fridge, right? But recently, I decided to change to a much bigger fridge. You never know. I'm like, telling the designer, I'm like, no, make the fridge space bigger. What you need is those big freezer chests. I'm also getting one, too. But, you know, they have the standing ones now. That looks like a fridge. So, yeah, I was fucking starving, man. Government did not give me anything until the 9th.

I think that was when Changning had... Oh, that's pretty quick already, 9th. Yeah, but... Like, you know, that's four days of, like, fucking almost nothing to eat, man. So you...

I was really not prepped well. Because I did not think I needed it. Like, as a restaurant owner, you think food is plentiful. Because you didn't think the logistics would also shut down in order to get the food. Yeah, exactly. I think even if I can't go out, delivery must happen. My restaurant will happen. Yo, like, all my suppliers, man, like, fuck. Like, a lot of people lost a shit ton of money because...

Their food just went bad. Like, you know, like all the seafood suppliers, they just died, right? Like the fresh seafood, they fucking just died in the market. Then even the frozen fucking bitches. Oh, shit, my bad. Whose phone is it? We're always doing this. We haven't pinpointed whose phone it is yet. Not mine. No, it's not mine. I don't know. I don't know. All right, anyway. I'm going to throw it over there. Okay, go on.

Yo, it's fucking crazy, man. I have suppliers where like... So they have their like frozen warehouses. Warehouses for frozen goods. You need the huge blaster fridges, right? Some of them like the whole factory lost electricity. So the blaster fridge just turned off. Millions of inventory just rotted. Oh, I'd hate to be the one cleaning that. Or like another one of my suppliers...

The blaster fridge, the blaster, it's not a fridge. It's like a walk-in warehouse, right? It's huge. The shit broke and like the security guard, right, was good. So he told, actually told him like, oh, your shit broke. If you don't fix it, all your crap is going to go bad. And we're talking about like tens of millions of shit.

And no, there was nothing you can do. You cannot send a repairman. Nobody can leave their fucking xiaoqu. And shit just rotted away. We're talking about like a fucking walk-in... Like a warehouse full of stuff. Warehouse full of frozen stuff. Just went bad. God, the fucking smell. Yeah, it's crazy, man. But anyway, so yeah, from 5th to the 9th, I was living off like a pot of fucking...

spoiled fucking curry man like it was and rice it was it was bad it was bad it was like a low point in my life low point in my life then i remember on the 9th when the government gave me some like fucking chong ning we had like taiyuan shit but like yo i'll tell you like my ooyah like knocked on my door gave me this fucking box i i literally ran to the door to like you know

To get it. To get the food, you know. And I fucking was like squatting on the floor. You know, once I brought the box in, I was squatting on the floor and like checking out my food. I'm like, fuck, man. Just like 10 days ago, I was like...

restaurant owner right like yo this food in my restaurant i would not even glance at that shit right but like now i'm like squatting down like like fucking counting my food i think i told you but like you know sometimes watch movies and shit like you know how fast people can change so people can like just the rags to riches riches the rags kind of feel or like just in wartime right how like you see movies where like people one day he's like a successful businessman or like successful person in general right and next day he's like

Begging for money, shit like that. It's possible, man. I think people are conditioned extremely quick. We're not as sophisticated as we imagine. We fucking become animals super fast. Oh, of course. I believe that 100%. I believe society is hanging on a thread that we're just kind of oblivious to. And it doesn't take much for everything to just unravel. Yeah. It doesn't take much.

Yeah. We'll fucking like, you know, like how people start killing each other or, you know, like our Japanese movies, right? Like where like they did just make student kill each other. Right. Like you think it's like Battle Royale. Yeah. Battle Royale. You're going there. No, no, but it's true. Like, you know, like you think people like Squid Game or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. People can turn very fast. When survival is on the line.

of course, everything goes out the window. Yeah. Right? It's survival. Because if you're not going to survive, that there's nothing else, manners, that goes out the window. No. And it's not even that, but your mentality, I feel like, changes super fast. Just nine days is enough to starve my ass to start fucking squatting on the floor. Give me two more days, I'll probably beg for food. So I think the situation... You should suck some dick for food. I think the situation that you're in...

Maybe four more days for that. I'm not going to put it past you. But I feel like that situation you're in,

It's funny because you are a restaurateur, right? So that's part of the reason why it's ironic that you were put in that situation and you felt the way you felt. But I'm sure there's a lot of people that also have gone through many of those kind of situations, right? Yeah. But what about the business itself? I mean, did you ever... When did you actually get to a point where you started thinking, oh, shit, what about my restaurants? Yeah, fuck. I mean, I started thinking about that like...

In March, man. Because we fucking started locking down in March. So how did you survive? Because like, okay, now we're sitting here in 2023. Obviously, the situation here in China, and particularly in Shanghai, has completely changed, right? It's like, you know, things, it's kind of like behind us now, thankfully. Yeah.

And so like, you're still here, you still got your restaurants, you know, I think you've closed some down, but you've opened some new ones. Yeah. Right. You got some big plans. Like how, how would you say you got through all that? I think it's just hard work and luck, you know, like it's all, it's all success, right? Like all success is a combination of hard work and luck. If I didn't have luck, no hard work to help you. Right. But if you just have luck,

have like work hard but no luck you're fucked too right no no it's true i'll tell you like how how i survived during the worst of it right is is so one of my staff that she applied for like the bao gong

in March. I did not think it was going to be as extreme as we had it. But, you know, we kind of surmised that some places will still be locked down, right? Like, okay, let's try to apply for a 保供单位证, right? So not a lot of people applied, actually. What is the 保供单位证? You know, 保供 is actually how we got our 团购. Everything with 团购, you needed that 证.

Any company without that... Like essential worker certificate or what? Kind of. It's like you're essential to the government. Kind of shit like that, you know? You're an essential worker. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of. But it's a company. It's a zheng to the company. But I can tell you more about it because it's fucked up anyway. But anyway. So you get this...

certificate for your company right it says like Charlie's is can operate can operate during the lockdown but anyway like we we we applied now I so I got it and that's luck right like if I didn't prove out I would have yeah I remember you started putting out flyers for like like like set meals right just to send to people and I remember people put posting on their moments

You know, getting your food and like enjoying your burgers. Fuck, the whole thing is fucked up though. Anyway, so that's luck. Anyway, and it was hard work, you know, like we worked hard. It was very hard to do bao gong actually, to do like tuan gong. Because people were bitching, you know, like a lot of customers actually like got mad. About what? Because in the beginning we didn't have burger buns. So I made patty melts.

Right? Oh, with like toast? Yeah, with toast. And people were complaining. Still complaining? Yeah, man. They're fucking complaining. You wanted to say something else, but I get you.

That's fucked up, man. But they don't understand how hard... Yeah, you're working so hard to try to feed people who need food and they're still complaining. And I did not raise prices. Because you didn't have burger buns? Yeah, I did not even raise prices. I remember. I'll tell you guys, man. People don't know how hard it was, okay? Yo, I'll tell you. So let's say you're my vendor and you sell me beef.

But you cannot enter your own warehouse because there's a fucking security guard that's, unless you have a fucking zhen, you cannot get in the fucking warehouse, right? And you cannot leave your house either, right? Because most people cannot fucking leave their house. So me, I like, you know, normally suppliers send the inventory to the restaurant. During that time, I had to like drive to your warehouse at night,

Climb through the fucking back door Yeah, yeah, I have to steal fucking your inventory But with your approval with your permission with your approval, but you had to like sneak in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was fucking a bitch man Like you were like all black like no, no, like you know, I mean in China you do it different, you know You give the guy some fucking cigarettes But but you still cannot enter through the front because they're cameras and

The guy got to do his job. If there's cameras, there's cars passing, he's fucked. So he'll pretend not to see you, but your car cannot fucking drive in. So this is all unofficial, but you just speak to the owner of your vendor. It's unofficial, but it's the official way of doing it. So it's not just you. It was the way. There was no other way. Everyone who was operating were stealing shit out of

where people knew we were stealing shit, but it was not really stealing because you're charging me for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's already a great story. But I had to steal it. I had to like fucking throw it out the wall with someone fucking out there catching. You know, like that was how we did it. You literally were throwing like beef out the window to someone else catching it. Not window, like you know. Over the fence. Over the fence. Over the fence. Over the wall. A lot of places was walls. Yeah.

you know i had to fucking like do a lot of hard work for that shit and then people are still complaining that you didn't have the right buns for your burgers yeah yeah it was fucking hard okay that story needs to get out yeah well here you heard it here first i've never heard you tell that story i didn't even know i was i was totally oblivious that was how we did it like yo you don't understand how fucking crazy man like and then like

Yo, a car, right? Like, people were, like, complaining about, like, their delivery being late. Yeah. Yo, but, you know, like, bitches were charging, like, a thousand a car. Yeah, so expensive. Yeah, like, these, the Huolala, or anyone who had a fucking zhen. Zhen. It was charging, like, 一千块钱跑一趟, right? And, you know, like, it was fucking... So, I did not even make that much money. People think people who did bao gong was very rich, right? But I'll tell you, like, a lot of money...

was not mine. Every process of getting my shit and sending my shit needs money. - And you did not charge that down to your clients, your customers? - No, no, I paid, I charged the same, but fucking I changed a bun and people were bitching. - Yeah, one thing I did notice when I saw your flyers get passed around, your prices were pretty much like really good. Because even like Shake Shack or even some of the other ones. - Okay, see that's not my phone, because my phone's all the way over there. - Still not my phone.

It's one of your phones. Not my phone. Just, can we just get rid of all the phones everywhere? They're on the floor. Airplane mode. No, you always use that excuse. Just put it somewhere else. God damn it. Oh, what the fuck? How far did you throw it? But no, anyway, it was fucking crazy, I'll tell you. But I'm glad that you dug yourself out, right? I mean, how many shops do you have now? Hmm.

So we did okay. We're opening six more. Oh, wow. Charlie's? Charlie's, yeah. We're opening a pizza place.

So you're going to the pizza biz. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ooh. Okay, so that's actually... Okay, let's turn the page. I'm glad you shared because that was like... One second before we move on. Can I just... I just really want to bring it on air. So you did show me, mention to me, I think it's in like Nanjing or some other city that had a Charlie's replica.

A knockoff? There's many now. There's many. Yeah. And it's like to the point where I'm going through like the listings in Dianping and I'm looking at the photos and the menu. I'm like, geez, this is Charlie's. Except they called it something else. But okay. I've had a similar experience with that. Not to the level of with Charlie's. But

I feel like there's kind of like two emotions you feel. One emotion you feel like, what the fuck? Like, they can't do that. But another emotion is like, well, if they're doing that, that means like I've... Doing something right. I'm doing something right. Yeah, like I'm successful enough for people to start knocking me off. That's also kind of like kind of flattering in a way. How do you feel about it? To be honest, like in China, I think...

It doesn't bother me. Actually, so just a couple days ago, I did a new SKU recently, like a Blackpink thing, right? Oh, Blackpink Burger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did the wings. Is that selling well? It is. Really? Honestly, it does not look appetizing. It looks like Pepto-Bismol. Exactly. Pepto-Bismol. That's what I thought, too. Like, as your friend, I love you. Yeah.

It does not look appetizing. Let me tell you guys, okay? When my marketing team brought it up to me, I had the same reaction. I'm like, fucking, this shit is fucking disgusting. But we're very confident, blah, blah, blah. You know, we've done a lot of research.

Shit like that. I'm like, all right, fuck. I guess I will fucking make it because I never made trendy shit. Well, okay. Wait, hold on. For the listeners who don't know, explain, describe what we're talking about.

Just black and pink stuff. It's a burger, but it's like... There's wings too. Yeah, there's wings. Okay, so it's like all pink. The sauce is pink. So it's like the sauce. And the chicken we use, we make it black, charcoal, bamboo charcoal. But anyway, like, all right. What do you use for the pink?

Just food coloring? Dragon fruit, guys. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, the red dragon fruit? Yeah. It's very organic, actually. But let me tell you. Oh, and cactus. Really? Yeah, there's pink cactus. Anyway, um...

But... So, I hated it. Right? But they were like, no, you gotta try it. Shit will go well. So, your team sold you on it? Yeah. Is this because Blackpink is so popular? No, just because... Guys, I have to say we're fucking old. No, I'm serious. I'm serious. Us three, we're not fucking young anymore. We...

So I used to think I know what my consumer wants. What's hip. Yeah, yeah. But I do not. And also we were talking about it before the show, I think. Us being not local, local. We've been here many years, but we did not grow up here our entire life.

We actually are very different than the logo. For sure. Logo. But, yo, so I did not think it was going to do well.

But it fucking did very well. It's still on your menu now, right? Yeah, yeah. Because it did so well. How long are you going to keep it on there? Until it stops doing well? No, no. Because I'm going to keep it on. So I was supposed to take it off like December, but now I'm going to extend it until end of February. It's doing that well? It's fucking doing well.

Like yo Young kids are different from us Fucking young kids love it man And before you guys hate it Do taste it I think It tastes good Okay It just looks like Like not very good

So the pink sauce is actually made, it's like a sweet and spicy sauce. I know what the problem is. We grew up in the States around Pepto-Bismol, right? So we have that, we look at that, we think of that taste in there. Well, when we think pink, we think, okay, bubble gum. In terms of food, right? We think bubble gum and we think like medicine, like Pepto-Bismol and Tums and stuff like that. But that's not here. I'll tell you, Shu Ju was fucking wild, okay? Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, well, that's crazy because like, yeah, we were talking about this before we started recording because you had ordered a pizza into the studio, right? You ordered some dominoes.

And I didn't know you were going to get into the pizza game yourself. So that's interesting. Because we're talking about, you said Domino's is the most successful pizza chain in the world? In the world. But if we had to choose in a pinch, right? Like fast food pizza, it'd usually be Pizza Hut. So we were kind of shocked to hear Domino's is actually the biggest and most successful pizza chain in the world. They had the most successful comeback ever.

of like in recent history of all F&B I think wow so I don't ever get the exact number of years but for a while like Dominic was dying they had a new CEO fucking

Went crazy. Went crazy. They're number one. Well, okay. So let's go back to this original topic of bringing up Domino's before we got into the business side of it. What's flavor? Charles ordered a pizza with... Was it Supreme? Supreme. It was supposed to be a Supreme. So Supreme is like... But it did not come out...

I did not think it was a Supreme. Well, first of all, Supreme, that's a Pizza Hut term. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. So that's something back in Pizza Hut. We're like, oh, we want a Super Supreme. We want the Supreme, right? And anyway, here's the thing that we were just talking behind before we started recording. We realized that our taste buds are very different to pizza than local people.

taste buds yeah well we were using pizza as the example but it's not just to pizza it's to everything yeah right like after all these years of living here one thing i know for sure is that we cannot use our um western taste palette to judge like western food that would be successful here in china

the flavor profiles are just very different. - It's just very different. - Yeah, it's adapted to the local taste, which we are not accustomed to when it's on a pizza. If we're eating Chinese food, we can eat all the local Chinese food with the best of them, right? But like on a pizza, we anticipate and expect a certain taste profile. And when that's altered, it's a shock and it's upsetting.

I think that's what it is. We anticipate, right? Because it's like, I think, Chongqing, right? Let's say, or Sichuan, eating Sichuan food. They'll expect Sichuan food. Yeah. But if you give them, if you somehow fuck it up, well, not even fuck it up, if you make it somewhat different,

That why it doesn't taste authentic. - This happens all the time. Like in the real example is that like I used to go on business trips with, you know, a lot of local Chinese here, coworkers, and you know, we would go to New York, right? For business. And they would go to the Chinese restaurant, like a Chinese restaurant in New York, for example, right? And they would go. And to me, I'd be like, oh, this is like an awesome Chinese restaurant. I love the food here. They go and they're like, that is shit.

Exactly. Because they're expecting the local flavor, just like we're expecting New York style pizza to be that way. And then it doesn't because it's, it's, it's tailored to the American tastes in America. And all of a sudden to them, it's a shock and it's upsetting. Yeah. So, so we were talking about before how like Domino's, right? Like we've, I did not like it. You did not like it.

But it sells well. It smells good, though. I assume people like it, right? Because they're doing well in terms of business, right? So obviously they're selling, right? And then, I mean, yeah. So let's say you say, like, what do Chinese people like? They like softer bread.

Because New York style would have a crispier... They don't like hard bread. No, they do not. And then they like it sweeter. They like the Japanese milk toast. Yeah. Very soft and sweet. There you go. That's your dough. Japanese milk toast dough pizza.

Bam. Bam. I cannot tell you, but that's actually... You're throwing gems at me. Very similar to my dog. Okay, yeah. So what's the... Are you okay to share your pizza concept or is that like still top secret right now? No, top secret. Top secret. But... Off air then, off air. How he did...

I'm always throwing you gems, Charles. Actually, that's actually exactly what I'm going to do it with. So it's not so top secret. But different, different. But I am going to make it softer, more pillowy, sweeter. Well, here's my frame of reference. Whenever I was saying this before as well in my office, whenever the coworkers and teams, they order pizza, I

Basically, they're like, hey, we ordered American pizza, right? And I'm like, no, you guys eat it. I'm not even going to look at it. Because I know, I know when I open up that pizza box, it's all going to be these weird flavors, like shrimp and like, I don't know what else is in there. And they always go, what? This is pizza. Yeah. This is pizza. Like, this is your food. We got this for you. This is pizza. Yeah.

Yeah, but you know, New York has fucking shrimp on pizzas now, too. Really? Fucking New York is changing, guys. Well, shrimp on pizza is not new. I mean, that's like... It's just the way they do it. If you go to even the nice Italian restaurants or even pizzerias, they had some styles with shrimp on pizza, like a shrimp scampi pizza or something like that. But the... No, I totally get your feeling because...

This has happened to me all the time in different ways. Like, yeah, they'll get like the category of food that, like pizza is a category of Western food, right? And there's no cheese. And then they'll just get that general category and expect you to be like, oh, this is your food. This is like what you like. But it's not. And it's so wrong.

You know? Like the flavors, it's just like completely... It's just very different. Yeah. It's just different from what we like, right? Well, it's like if we... If Chinese immigrants came to America, right? And we went to like Panda Express and got them all this food from Panda Express and be like, this is your food. This is what you like. Yeah, Chinese food. You must be starving for this. Like scarf it down. And then it's like, they're looking at this like, what the fuck is this shit? Well, I mean...

Back in the day, when I was...

living in New York, I used to always order Kung Pao chicken. And that's one thing that you still see on the menu here. Kung Pao chicken. Kung Pao chicken. But the Kung Pao chicken in the U.S. and the Kung Pao chicken in China are completely different. It's not a dish at all. Okay. The three... Okay, from America, American Chinese food, right? The three staple chicken dishes was General Chow's chicken, right? Sesame chicken. Kung Pao chicken and orange chicken. I never ordered orange.

So what were you? I actually liked orange chicken. No, I'm an orange chicken man. I'm sweet and sour chicken. But that's orange chicken. But that's orange chicken. That's orange chicken? What? Very fucking similar. No. Sweet and sour chicken is orange chicken. What the hell are you talking about? No, the orange. Orange chicken is sweet and sour. It doesn't matter. The orange chicken tastes more orange.

No, it's the fucking same shit. Really? It's very... I mean, sweet and sour and orange chicken. Orange chicken was orange in color. Sweet and sour was red. I'll tell you. There were different types of sweet and sour. So orange chicken, they use like a condensed sun-kissed kind of thing. I've seen it in my kitchen. And that's the only difference. Oh, really? Yeah. It's...

Maybe it has more orange flavor to it, but it's the same dish. That sold Howie. It sold Howie. No, no, no, no. It sold me because I was always an orange chicken guy above all else. I was definitely an orange chicken. Because that was my go-to, the sweet and sour chicken. And the sesame chicken was my number two.

I don't even know what the sesame chicken is. Yeah, yeah. I don't even know what sesame chicken is. Sesame chicken is... I was looking at you because I'm like, do you know what sesame chicken is? I have no idea. Stop! I think what it is, it's a general towel with sesame. With sesame, exactly. I think that's what it is. But I've never had it. Yeah, and less pepper. But it's a lot of sesame. Yeah, a lot of sesame and less pepper. Now I think I know what he's talking about. Yeah, sesame chicken. Like just a shit ton of white sesames. Yeah, sesame chicken. You guys don't know what sesame chicken is? What the fuck? It's...

Fuck. I didn't have a lot. I did not have a lot of Chinese food until college. College, yeah. I was talking college too, yeah. But you were in New York. Yeah, I lived across from... I fucking went to like Pennsylvania. So we did not have the sesame. Okay, so we just called it fucking General Tso. Oh, did you guys hear about the shooting in Malibu Park, California? I heard. Yeah. Did you hear about it, Javi? I heard it's a Vietnam dude.

Is it? They said an Asian male was the lead suspect, but they weren't sure because I was still preliminary. Ten dead. At a Chinese New Year kind of party. Chinese New Year. I heard he's 72. What? 72 years old? Yeah, that's what I heard. What? Do they know the motive yet? No. No.

And, I mean, I didn't check now, but I know like two hours ago they did. Has it been confirmed it's a Vietnamese dude or is that just speculation? I have no idea. Well, speaking of Asian death and violence, do you guys get asked this a lot from like relatives or other people about, you know, how bad is it really in the States? Do you guys know? Do you get those kind of questions? No. Do you, Charles? My relatives don't really care. In the States...

Because Chinese New Year, right now we're going through Chinese New Year and my wife's, my in-laws are in town. And so over dinner, we've had a couple of opportunities between other uncles and stuff like that where they ask like, oh, you know, in America, I hear all this, you know, Asian violence against Asians. The attitude that I get is less like inquisitive about that. Like they don't, they wouldn't ask. I think it's just already assumed by them. Yeah. You know, like, oh, it's like, you know, there's a lot of shootings. There's a lot of violence there.

I think it's already assumed, so they wouldn't even bother to ask me. All right, but I do feel like there's more fucking violence now than when I left the States 10 years ago. That could be very true, but it also could be that it's just being more publicized. No, I don't think there were so many mass shootings back then. I think New York was always dangerous, I think, right? In New York, we had a lot of shootings, but it was like...

Mugging shooting Especially your school You had middle school drive-bys But anyway We're more about like Mugging crimes I shoot you

But it was not like hate crimes, right? Like, not like... I shoot you out of love. It wasn't hate. No, but... Not because you're Asian. I don't shoot like 10 people, you know? I just shoot fucking one person. I think that was the New York I grew up in. Yeah, we never heard about... Because I never heard about so many racially motivated mass shootings when we were growing up. Like, that wasn't a thing. Like...

When we were growing up there, Columbine had just like happened, right? Like that was like the school shooting, right? That was kind of like the beginning of a lot of school shootings when we were growing up there. But like now it just seems, it seems, I don't know if it's the case, but it seems there's a lot more racially motivated shootings going on. I feel, yeah, I feel that way too. It's fucking, and it's not, I just think America has fucking too much hate now. It's fucking crazy. There's a lot of anger over there. A lot of anger.

And, you know, there's a lot of anger directed in every which way. But one of the ways I think it's intensifying is towards the Asian community. But the weird thing is, I mean, we've discussed this ad nauseum, Justin and I, behind the scenes. But when I speak to other Asians that are living in the States now, the general response is, no, nothing really. Same old, same old. Nothing really.

Yeah, actually my mom says the same thing. Like, you know, my mom and my uncle in the States, I asked them like, is America super dangerous? And they're all like, no, it's okay. But I think maybe like when you're in...

It's I think it's like In a bubble No it's like how When we're in China Oh Right like Well cause we're relying on social media Relying on the news But it's also just a numbers game too Check this out We're in China We get quarantined for like A couple months Right The lockdown let's say Like the April to June lockdown We experienced it

It was bad, but we normalized it. It seems okay. It's not like it was so shocking that we had to run away. And it wasn't, at least in my experience, it wasn't nearly as bad as some of the media portrayals of it. But here's the thing. I think...

When my mom, I'll tell you, at that time, I don't know where your parents were, but my mom and my uncle, they were calling me. They were like, oh, fuck, how is it? And I tell them the truth about how we're getting locked down. And they were like, oh, fuck, it's bad. You're going down. You guys are going down. You guys are super fucked. And to them, it's like getting locked down is not acceptable.

But we normalize it, you know? Like, cause when you're in this country, when you're in this situation, it's okay. - It's almost like a survival mechanism, right? - Yeah, yeah. - Because you have no other option but to normalize it if you want to survive. - Exactly, exactly. - Yeah, the extreme of it is Stockholm Syndrome. - Well, that's what you wanna say, but that's a whole different thing. I don't know why you always bring up Stockholm Syndrome. But no, I got those same calls,

not about the lockdown. It's actually weird because I didn't get any calls when we were locked down about people asking me how I was doing. What I got calls about was very recently when China opened up and the wave, the first wave hit of, you know, mass, you know, COVID cases going around. That's when I got to call being like, we hear it's like, you guys are fucking going down. Like everything's like, it's all fucked there.

And yeah, I think definitely the medical infrastructure here was definitely stressed and probably still is to some degree here. But like, I think for us on the ground, it was like, yeah, I mean, people are getting COVID, but they're like, they're getting over it. And then it's not like the world.

The world is ending. And I would tell them, like, I haven't even gotten it yet. So I don't know. And my friends seem to be fine. Yeah, they got sick. But, you know, I'm fine now. I'm surprised you haven't gotten COVID. It's pretty fucking crazy. I feel I'm the last person in Shanghai to have not gotten COVID yet.

You're probably not the last. Am I the last man on Earth here? There's a bunch. You're probably the last 10%. There's a bunch because I feel like everyone I talk to, they tell me I'm the only person they know that hasn't got COVID. I said that to you, but then I went out, like I said, for family dinners, stuff like that, and there's always two or three uncles. Yeah, I think 10% of the population are just immune.

I think there's 10% who are just immune. Yeah, because we're the elite. We're a higher, better breed of human. Or you just hibernate like you have been. But how are you feeling now with everything trying to normalize again? We're looking forward to 2023. It's okay. I'll tell you, man. 2022 was a fucking tough year, man, for me. Because I know you guys...

We're talking about how you guys are down and shit. Yo, I've been down, man. Because I think last time you guys were talking about something, I'm like, oh, you'll get better. Or I said something like that. Are you talking about depression? Not depression, but I think...

I think about kids. Anxiety. Yeah, anxiety. Exactly. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah. You're stressed about everything the kid does. Every little thing the kid is doing, you're stressed out. I'm like, it'll get better. And you're like, how would you know? You don't even have a kid. I'm like, yeah, obviously I don't have a kid, right? But I think... Because I think there's only two ways with anxiety. Either you fucking like just fucking...

or you fucking just live through it and you care less and you do better. Well, time heals, right? Yeah, exactly. Or, you know, you normalize it.

You got to because otherwise you're going to get so deep into it and you'll be like too fucking stressed out over stuff. And literally you'll probably not do well. Is that what you did? Like you just had to normalize to your own anxiety? Yeah, yeah. You got to. You got to. I mean, I think that's how everybody does it. You know, like you have to normalize stuff so you get to live through it.

Right? Or you dig yourself into a hole. Actually, recently I heard like a very good... I forgot where I heard it. But anyway, they were like, oh, if someone stabs you with a knife, right? That's like anxiety, right? Like people stab you with a knife. I think that's more than anxiety. But anyway, let's just... But let's say you get stabbed. Okay. Do you want to pull out the knife, check it out, and stab it back in? Probably not. You know, like...

You would want the knife to stay in until the hospital where the doctor fucking takes it out and like heals it. You definitely do not want, fuck, how bad is the wound? I'm gonna like take out this fucking knife, check out the wound and put it back in. But that's what it is. If you're suffering from anxiety, let's say, right?

And you're stressed out about it. You think about it all the time. That's where you're almost what you're doing. You know, you're like fucking pulling this fucking knife out, checking it fucking out and step it back in, you know, because, because you ain't going to fucking like heal it. Five hours later, you fucking pull it out again. You fucking like check it out again. It's like, oh fuck, is it better now? Just to check if it's really in there. Exactly. It's like, oh fuck, it's not better. All right, let's, let's do it.

let's push it back in. You know? Then it just kills you more. You know? Because you want the wound to stay as small as possible. But if you're like fucking repeatedly stab yourself, you're fucking dying. Honestly, I wasn't sure where you were going with the knife analogy in the beginning. But...

It makes total sense what you said. At the same time, man, it's like, it's so much easier, like, you know this, like, it's so much easier said than done when you're actually going through it, right? It is. That's the vicious cycle of, I think, anxiety and how it relates to even depression, which are very closely linked things. It's that...

You don't, it's not like you want to think about it. It's not like you, like whatever is ailing you, right? It's like, it's not like you have this desire to like, oh, I really want to think about this. Like you don't, like you wish you can get rid of it. You wish you can stop thinking about it, but it's just there because I think in the moment, it feels like there is no bigger problem on earth than that for you. And if you don't solve it or if you don't find a way around it,

you will not survive. And it goes back to this whole theme of survival we were talking about. I think in the moment, it just feels like, okay, if I don't solve this, I'm not gonna survive. So whenever you come up with an issue like that, you have no choice but to constantly think about it. And it applies to personal things in life. It applies to, I'm sure, business situations where maybe you're running a business and you're like, okay, well, if I don't solve this problem, my business is not gonna survive.

So what do you do? You keep thinking about the problem. You keep analyzing it from every perspective. And you do your darndest to try to resolve whatever that issue is. And the same goes with your personal life. When you have that thing, you feel like, okay, I'm not going to survive if this doesn't get fixed. And the only way it's going to get fixed is if I put all my attention, consciously or subconsciously, towards it. And that's the vicious cycle.

Because sometimes there is no answer, right? Sometimes it's only time. Exactly. But maybe you can tell yourself that in the moment, but then maybe there's another way. Maybe there's a shortcut. Maybe there's something I'm not thinking of that I can do right now to fix this, and you're pulling your hair out trying to get to it. So, Justin, recently I read a book called

It's a Chinese book. But in English, if I had to translate, it's about the art of being stupid. What it is, is sometimes you just got to be dumber about life. Because everybody, we try to be very smart about life. We try to anticipate everything. We try to see everything. But those people are actually not the people who does the best sometimes. Because sometimes you just need to...

Because the book talks about how some people, they're just slower. Or like your boss, let's say, your boss just treats you like a dick. And there are two types of people who go home. Some people, they go home and they fucking feel super shitty.

They're like, oh, fuck, the boss treats my dick. Like, the fucking guy is a fucking asshole, right? Like, you know, you go home and you're fucking super... You're thinking about it constantly. Yeah, you're mad. And there's another type of people in life who goes home literally and he's like, it's cool. You know, I'm just gonna like... Forgets about it. Yeah, he just forgets. Literally, he just forgets about it. And like, he goes home, like, he fucking does what he does and he goes to sleep. And the second type of people actually succeeds.

But more than the first time, you know, like, cause the first time maybe we'll type of people, they, they just get too stressed out about life. They get too caught up in their own head. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Cause life is going to fuck you, you know, like that's how life is, you know, like, and, and sometimes like the, the, the second type of people who we think are kind of stupid, uh,

But they do better in life. Because they keep marching along. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, but what is better in life, right? So that's always very personal for everybody, right? Was that happier, maybe? Happier. Yeah, happier. Exactly. The second type of people are happier and they are more successful. Well, it's like ignorance is bliss, right? That's a common thing. Yeah, yeah. So sometimes I think you just got to...

So I think the art of letting go is actually a... Perfect example for you. That's very profound. Yeah. Perfect example for you. If you did not have access to all these articles, YouTube and people, and all you did was raise your child and talk to the doctor, and the doctor tells you, everything's fine. I'm going to grab a beer. How many beers did you bring? I brought two. And you already had one? Yeah. So there's no one for me. Okay. Yeah.

I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking. What else have... I know you're super busy, but have you been keeping up with anything or obsessing over anything else recently? Yo, Art of War. I've been reading about that shit. Oh, really? Yeah. It's a good book. It's a good book. It's very hard to understand, so I'm reading books about Art of War. Yeah.

Oh, I have something I can tell you. I mean, have you... Well, I mentioned this before to you, Justin, but I don't think I've mentioned to you before, but one of my obsessions recently has been ChatGPT. Yeah. And you can just write in... What is that? Is that an app? It's an AI software. Oh. It's artificial intelligence software. And basically, all you need to do is punch in some keywords...

It's conversational. What does it do? I'm not going to give a professional explanation, but I'll give you the gist of it. So basically, it's a website where once you create an account, you can speak to an AI to help you write out or summarize or anything to do with writing or text-based AI. So basically, it's created by a company called OpenAI.

And they had like, have you seen the AI where they do like image manipulation? Yeah, yeah. It's like, I want to see a picture of a... Yeah, then they come out with like a crazy picture. Yeah, well, so OpenAI created DALI, which is like one of the most famous ones. And so this is their text-based one, right? And so basically, ChatGPT, why it's so like, I guess it got so popular is because it's conversational. So what that means is before you have to know

what to say like the prompts have to be very specific and whatever but now you can talk to like you're talking to a person and it'll understand you as a person basically and you can and it reads your history so if you keep talking to it it understands all the things you were asking and then there's there's like you know what i mean so so to be even more specific

My personal case that made my jaw drop was I'm a filmmaker. So I gave a prompt. I'm like, look, hey, I want to write a short film about a restaurateur named Charles. And he came from America and moved to China. And I want to have a happy ending. I want it to be funny. And he opens burger shops everywhere.

He's like, okay, here's my summary. And then he'll come out with the summary, right? I'm like, okay, that's good. But I think we can make some more humor. Can you start adding some dialogue? And let's make it a little bit longer now. Okay, sure. Boom. And then the whole thing comes out. So that's... And it's actually legit, right? And I've tested this. It's like a good story. It's really good. It's legit. It's not like, oh my God, right? But it's impressive. It could possibly be, oh my God. It's so good.

that it feels like, okay, definitely a human wrote this. Yes. Like an intelligent human being. Yes. Like it might not be award winning, but it's like an intelligent human being wrote this. Yes. Like you would never think it's AI generated. But it

If you shoot it Possibly It could be award winning I don't know about that But But I mean I haven't Gotten that far But I feel like Imagine the first screenplay Yeah Yeah That would be fucking Award winning Yeah maybe But it is interesting Because it does come up With some creative things That I was like Whoa okay interesting You know I'm sure you spent time with it I feel like If someone fucking Does a film about

which is a story that chat gbt came up with like yo it was just and you didn't tell anybody you didn't announce it until after the yeah yeah maybe after you got all the feedback yeah exactly all the awards yeah yeah yeah like chat gbd that would be game-changing that would be game-changing how we did it for even our podcast intro we have like a written introduction to like our podcast description right

and he used ChatTube. It came out better than anything we wrote. - Yeah, so basically I put in our existing bio, right? And I said, make this better.

Right? And he's like, sure. And then boom, he made it better. And then I was like, oh, okay. And I was like, give me another option. Hold on, does it only work in English right now? And Chinese. So now, this is how I use it. I use it every day. So this is how I use it now. You use it every day, okay. Yeah, to translate to Chinese. So when I'm chatting with you, when I'm texting you on WeChat, it's not even you. If you're chatting to, all right, I guess now you're married, you cannot chat to. Help me respond to Justin's text. Yeah, yeah, hold on. It's a chat. No.

No, Howie. Howie, I have a question. Assuming a single guy is chatting to girls, can he use... Yes. He could be like, help me flirt with a girl. Yeah, help me flirt. How should I respond? Holy fuck, is that smart? Yes. Oh, fuck. And you can even tailor it to how you want to come off. Like, make me funny. Make me sound like a funny guy. Or make me suave. Or make me sexy. How would a...

How would a Harvard professor respond to this? Holy fuck. So that's the impressive thing about ChatGPT. So it can... All right, huh. It's ChatGPT.com? I'll send it to you later. Oh, fuck. I got to check this fucking shit out. It's crazy. It's crazy. So here's the mind-blowing thing, and I'll get to finally why I brought this up. So a lot of people use it to create blog posts, articles. Like, I want the top 10 whiskey...

malt whiskeys in the last 10 years. Write me an article that's about two pages long. Boom. It comes out immediately. And it's legit. And it's actual brands and it's actual flavor profiles and all that stuff. Legit. And you can put

Put it against like Grammarly or whatever Make sure the grammar is correct 100% You know Is it copyrighted? Like I mean Has other people written it? No It's all original Like you can't tell It's from like A robot They have software now But now there's even more workarounds Where you tell the chap GPT Like ways to make it Even more unique Don't let Don't let people detect That I used you

Yeah, I mean, it's already been putting... It's been putting through its courses. So, like, the first question that I had was, like, what happens to, like, school papers and essays that you have to write? Yeah, and they've been put to the test, where literal teachers were given many papers, some of them written by ChatGPT, some of them written by real students, and the average score was, like, a B- or a B or something like that for ChatGPT, you know? And it's like...

You know, it's not bad. That's okay. That's okay. No, I would love a B or a B minus. And then like the revenge from the teachers is that they would put in the article or the essays from the students and be like, is this well written? And then the chat GBT would be like, well, there's grammar here. And then there's this problem here. This is kind of wrong. No, but like the whole educational system, how are they going to deal with this then? Don't know yet. It's still early stage, man. Yeah.

Yeah, but it's fucking crazy. I think the more we use AI, the smarter they're going to get. So here's why I brought ChatGPT. It has something to do with what you said. You just said that you're reading Art of War, and then you also alluded that you're reading other books that talk about Art of War and all that stuff, right? Because I cannot understand Art of War. Understand it, right? So what I would do is go to ChatGPT and be like, I can't understand Art of War. Explain it to me as if I was a 12-year-old. All the chapters summarized. Please.

Please. And then be like, you know what I mean? Like, holy fuck, I gotta go home and try it. Yeah. Wait, are you reading, um, art of war to apply it to business practices? Like what are you going to go into war? Not for pleasure. Oh no, actually, uh, two, two lessons I think was very huge. So the whole book about art of war is actually not to go to war. So that's actually like the whole book's,

If you have to summarize it, it's about not, like, war is terrible. Do not go into war. And I think that would be, like, the huge summary of the book, right? And the second thing I learned that was profound to me was, because I, you know, like, in life, you always think there's enemies, right? But in Art of War, they actually talk about how you can never defeat an enemy. People lose on their own.

So, you know, you just do what you would do. And, you know, like, or me, right? Like, nobody can defeat me, actually. If I lose one day, it'll be because I lost. You defeated yourself. I defeated myself. I, you know, I don't know what the fuck I was doing. Somehow I fucked it up and I lost. But it was me who lost. And, you know, I thought about it and it's true. Like, let's say...

my restaurants right one day if i were to like lose all my restaurants and i i lose my business it's not because my competitors really did anything to me right what can they do they cannot like kill me unless they like stab me and like you know okay maybe then then then it's extreme but assuming they do all the legal stuff they can never kill me you know like like and to lose one day i will have to it up myself

Then I lost. You know? And it's the same as my competitors. Like, I can never really think of trying to kill them, right? Or defeat my competitors, right? It's about improving yourself. And one day, your competitor, because they're competing, because they're doing... Like, through time, like you said, right? Like, time heals everything or time kills everything. Like, through time, like, their management might change or they might do something really dumb and they will defeat themselves. You know? And...

So you should never think about defeating other people. It's about... Or changing what you would do anyway because of some perceived enemy. Yeah, exactly. Because you cannot kill your enemy. Your enemy kills themselves. You can only do better. That's up to you. And that's true to ourselves too. Nobody can actually defeat us. Sometimes in life...

we feel like we're losers, but, but I think in life, you're not a loser until you let yourself to be a loser. You know, like, like, cause nobody can defeat you. Really? Really? Cause like, like I said, one more time,

Nobody can defeat you. Stand up and say it. No, fuck you. Say it with the chest. Unless they fucking start doing illegal shit where they kill you or stab you, shit like that, they cannot. Unless they intentionally sabotage you. Or they fucking literally do illegal stuff where they cannot do. Nobody can physically... But there's people that do that, though. Like do illegal stuff to sabotage other people. We don't talk about that. But in business, we don't talk about that. Because I think most business people...

to be a bigger big business you got to be legit right you're not you know yeah if you're like trying to do like illegal all the time like you're probably not going to be throwing meat over the wall yeah you're not going to get anywhere burglaring me out of warehouses in the middle of the night but no i think i think now art of war has taught me something all right yeah one more one more thing art of war have taught me everything we learned about other word is fight fake

All right. What I mean is... Is some fight club shit going on? No, no, no. In Art of War, in life, we always think about how the weak defeats the strong, right? That's when we learn... You mean the strong defeats the weak? No. When you learn the Art of War, when you're reading the Art of War, you always think, all right, I want to read this book.

To become strong. So that a weak person can defeat a strong player, right? That's why... Okay, all right. Because no one in a strength, in a position of strength would be like, I want to read the Art of War so I can defeat a weaker fucking person. If you know you're like 90 degree, 90% strong, and this guy's only 60%, right? Like, you're going to defeat this fucker. That's how I feel about how we hold. But, you know, Art of War, actually, so...

It tells you actually very specifically, weak can never defeat the strong. But it's how you turn everything. So it's always strong that defeats the weak. But it's how you make the playing field to make it where you're strong and the enemy is weak. You know, like let's say your army is like 10,000 people. This is 1,000 people, right?

1,000 men can never defeat 1,000 men. We don't even fucking fuck about that. Pound for pound. Yeah, we cannot fuck about that. 1,000 soldiers are never going to defeat 10,000 soldiers. Exactly. But how we make the playing field where I can make your 10,000 into less than 1,000. Using the landscape to your advantage. Exactly. But in the end, it's actually always the strong that defeats the weak. But it's about how you make it.

So even when I'm weak, I can make myself strong.

So I think, so, you know, like there's a lot of, so, so, you know, like before really understanding art of war, I always think like, all right, maybe like art of war would teach me how to, when I have like a thousand soldiers, I'll fucking defeat 5,000 soldiers, but it's impossible. It's impossible war. I will never fucking beat you, but I just have to somehow make the situation different where I still have a thousand soldiers. You have 5,000, but I make you come, um,

Slowly, you know, like I make you march towards me. So you're yeah inside 5,000 your your soldiers coming 500 at a time Yeah, you know, so my thousand will fucking kill you So yeah, our war is fucking fucking profound man profound. That is profound. Yeah Well, it's like what like how you know how the United States lost the Vietnamese war right like the United States were clearly the stronger military force and

But the Vietnamese, the Viet Cong used guerrilla warfare. Yeah, exactly. And so they changed the game, right? They changed the game. They were the weaker ones, but they used, you know, the landscape, the terrain, you know, different tactics that were unseen before prior to that to make themselves, give them the strength. Yeah. Right? Yeah, the Vietnamese read the art of war. The Americans read the art of sex. But also, slowly, you know, you try to...

change it towards like business and stuff you know like like you know first is war but war is business you know business is war how do you utilize your strengths right yeah what does your competitors have that oh what do you have that your competitors don't have that you can utilize how you like you know get your troops fucking riled up well i think that's very pertinent to you because like

In terms of the FNB game, in terms of the people you are competing against, you are kind of coming from the kind of position of the underdog, right? Trying to beat these big franchises, right? Yeah. And before I wanted to beat them and now I know. I'll never beat them. One day, if they so choose to fuck it up, and they'll lose. But I will never defeat them. And because...

Because it's a different game. You know, like before I was trying to like defeat them. Because defeating them takes a lot of fucking energy. You know, like killing another group of soldiers takes a lot of fucking energy. And you would lose a lot of soldiers in that process yourself. Yeah, because you would lose much more. In the art of war, they say 10 to 1.

But you don't know the real numbers. Because defending is easy, you know? You just fucking... Hunger down. Fucking hunger down. As long as you have enough food and shit, you fucking, like, you'll defend. But offensive is fucking tough. And before, like, you know, I was trying to think about so many ways, like, how do I, like, get rid of my enemies, right? Like, you know, like, I just don't want them because, you know, fucking they're...

They fucking make me mad. Who are your enemies? Fuck, I cannot say. Damn it. But now, you know, the game is actually not defeating them. It's just...

Just keep doing you. Just keep doing me, surviving for as long as I can, and hopefully the enemy fucking make a mistake. Well, honestly, Charles, I mean, we've been friends for a bit now. I mean, we were here when you first started coming up with Charlie's. We've been around before you did Charlie's. I killed it. I mean, Charlie's is a name brand, you know.

We did okay. It's a name brand in Shanghai. For a local brand. In Shanghai, there's not one person that I talked to that doesn't know who Charlie's, that has never had a Charlie's burger. You guys have your own brand. You guys have your own DNA. When people hear locals or not, they know Charlie's. They know what it's all about. So I think that's always very impressive. And break. So did you actually use ChatGPT? No.

No, all I know about it is what you've told me. Yeah. But I did start seeing it. Like, I started seeing it, like, like Joe Rogan started talking about it. He had a guest on and, um, I don't know why I always bring up Joe Rogan, but like, cause you, you love him. I don't. I actually, okay, here's a misconception. Okay. With you guys, you and Eric, you guys think I idolize Joe Rogan. In fact, I don't, he annoys the fuck out of me. Like,

Especially like a lot of the stuff he says, especially when it comes to like international issues. Like he is so... He's a little ignorant. He is so misinformed. He's a little ignorant. He is so misinformed. When you start hearing him talk about international affairs, he is so wildly misinformed, right? But, you know, so is a lot of people. Yeah, but he has interesting guests sometimes.

but what i've always admired about him was the fact that he does his own thing on his own terms that to me it was kind of like a model of success you know like he does what he like everything he does he does kind of on his own terms and it's only something he enjoys even commentating for the ufc like yeah you know so that's what i've always admired about him i don't admire the man himself in terms of a lot of things he says but like

But his situation, I admire his situation, put it that way. So I've been using it a lot for translation, actually. So when I'm working on scripts and stuff like that for work, before I would have used Google Translate or Bing Translate. I look at the translation. There's also another good one called Deeple. And it's just not there. It's okay. Can we smoke a cigarette? Yeah, yeah. Give me one. Give me one. Do we smoke?

Yeah, yeah, right here. Yes. You're smoking camels? No. Oh, I bought these last... Oh, I didn't know I had these here. Okay. Camels. I love camels. Camels are very strong. Yeah, so I'm using it as my translator right now. And at first, if you just let it... Like, for example, my first prompt would be, translate this to Mandarin, and it'll do it. And then usually I have to kind of like...

massage you a little bit. I'd be like, but I'm a filmmaker, so you gotta massage it. You have to translate it from a filmmaker's perspective. And they're like, okay. And then next thing you know, it gets lingo better. I'm gonna go check out this fucking... No, it's awesome. It's awesome. You should design the wording in your menus using ChatGPT. Yeah.

I'm just going to make ChatGPT make me a menu. Like my new menu. Just tell me what to make. Well, a lot of people use it for... Actually, it's not to just replace your workload. But actually, it's a great brainstorm partner. For example, you're like, okay, I created a new burger with these ingredients. Come up with five different names for it. All right, guys. So one of my things actually...

Like, I love AI, but I'm actually scared of AI. I was going to ask you. One day, I feel like AI will fucking kill us. But actually, what I wanted to ask you was about robotics and AI with your business in the future. I mean, have you thought about it? Yeah, man. I've been researching. I mean, yo, it's the future. Yeah. You gotcha. McDonald's in America, you know, like...

All right, so that's one thing I think people are fucking stupid. You know, like people are trying to raise minimum wage. Yeah. But it's actually not as smart as people think. Because the more expensive you make labor, the more...

- The less people want to use it. - Yeah, exactly. And the more, 'cause you know, - Business owners. - Just part of economics, you know? And you make labor so expensive. We're gonna start using robots and a lot of people are gonna lose jobs. - Especially in a capitalistic market. - And it's always a capitalist market, right? Exactly. So, you know, people are fucking fighting for minimum wage.

Fuck, it's not going to turn out as well as they think. And minimum wage also hikes up with inflation. It goes together with inflation. But it's also the difference in thinking short-term versus long-term, right? When you're a minimum wage worker, you do not have the privilege of thinking long-term about like, oh, this will eventually displace a lot of the workforce that I'm a part of.

You're thinking about your next paycheck and those extra dollars to buy food or pay for rent or whatever it is. Pay for your car bills. I mean, that's the difference. And that's the human condition, right? People who are going back to the whole survival theme, people who are just surviving are thinking short term because they only have the luxury of thinking short term. So I think there's a restaurant. I forget who it was. I think it was either...

White Castle or Burger King They already have a robotic kitchen Current Yeah current That's making burgers That's fucking frying Yeah fast food especially Because everything's already kind of just like routine And we hire the most employees You know and If you make minimum wage 15 Or whatever the number is now And we're gonna fucking fuck with it Yeah

And you know, and one more thing is, as a restaurateur, I gotta say, like, people are hard to control. As of now, robots are easy. You know, robots, you command, they listen. People...

We have thought. Until the robots become self-aware, they're the better option. Exactly. The easier option, I would say. And robots fucking just listen, you know? And that's going to be a problem for us in the future. Like AI. Okay, so let's talk timeframe then. In your best estimation...

What is the timeframe we're looking at until AI takes over? That I have no idea. I'm not very techie, but... Like what would be your best guess? Like 50 years? Less? No, no. 20? We're talking about like 10 years. I think I'm fucking overestimating. Yeah. But don't you think we as humans would put in protocols in place to prevent that?

Like to prevent a Skynet situation? - I mean, unless the government literally says- - All right, first of all, I'm not even, I'm not talking about Skynet 10 years, but I'm talking about, let's say robots replacing humans. - Oh, but that's already happening though. - Yeah, but in the F&B industry. - If you look at a lot of warehouses, warehouses are automated. - F&B situation, 10 years. - Robot line cooks? - Yeah. - Fuck yeah, man.

Because they're just going to be cheaper. Yeah. Because everything's... You can automate it. It's pretty... And they do it better. They do it better. Precise, yeah. Very precise. They do it more consistent. Because it's the same thing every time. Exactly. Which is better for fast food. Yeah. You know, like, I'm not talking about, like... Restaurants. High-end shit. Right? High-end shit, I think...

You always want humans because we can create. Right now, we create better. Yeah. Well, here's the misconception, right? And I feel like that's one thing that made me kind of stop my tracks for a bit because I remember a year or two ago, I was thinking about AI and we always talk about this kind of stuff, Justin, right?

And I wish to comfort myself and say the creative endeavors, the creative jobs would be safe for a while until ChatGPT. No, but not just ChatGPT, but also the image generator. Oh, yeah. And they're doing video now. Yo, I don't know about ChatGPT, but the fucking like the art. It's good. Oh, it's fucking crazy. It's good. It's very good. It is good. I've seen the artworks done by it. It's insane.

And it's like split second too. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But I get that, but I feel, I feel it really depends on what specific art form we're talking about. Right. So if you're talking about like paintings and drawings and stuff, there will always be a price difference between artificially generated, even though it might be like, like technically better, like it will never replace the value that people will be willing to pay for

for, let's say, like a Jackson Pollock or something. But you don't know. Yeah, that's the misconception right now. I don't know. Because right now, if we just use ChatGPT as an example, because we've been talking about it, yeah, right now, you're not going to have this robot, this AI, come up with these crazy ideas that nobody can ever think of, or another Quentin Tarantino- But also the intrinsic value of, because with human-generated art, it's the...

It's the errors and the inconsistencies in the art that give it the value. Yeah. Like, people don't want that perfect thing. That's not where the value is when it comes to artistic. Yeah. And that is, you know, an algorithm that could be programmed. Yeah. But, no, hold on. As we were saying, like, how humans are just animals in the end, right? We know how, like...

AIs can predict how humans like our stories. They know how humans like our shit. The protagonist go through some fucking shit.

Coming out strong. It's formulaic. Yeah, exactly. It is formulaic. And a lot of the creativity is how do you add one formula to another formula to create a new, fresh formula? Yeah, AI is going to fuck us. But what I'm saying is that... So I used to be... I used to comfort myself and be like, well, the creative stuff should come out... Like, as a director, they're not going to take away the director job for a while, right? I think it's coming sooner than we thought because these type of new creations...

are all in the creative endeavor. It's actually, because that's the true test of whether you can pass as human or not. - And humans were more formulaic than we all think. - Very formulaic. - We think we're individuals, we think we're fucking smart, but in the end, we run on formulas, man. 'Cause we're fucking animals, shit that passed down in our genes and we just cannot escape.

- And the scary thing I think with AI is the more we use it, the better it gets because the more information about us humans we are feeding it to use. The more it's learning about us, right? The more we use it, the more it's learning about us. Just like an algorithm. - Yeah, and some experts have recently said that this timeline of AI sentience, what have you,

previously predicted around 15, 20 years, maybe 30 years, right? It's... No, it's going to be much quicker. Much quicker. 5, 10 years. Like, it's getting faster and faster. But, yeah, okay. Like, I can't argue with anything you guys are saying. Like, I agree. But, like...

But I feel like every generation has that thing that they're predicting, oh, this is going to be the end. Like, this isn't the first time we've come to, like, some sort of existential technology that we feel, like, was going to, like, replace us. Every generation felt that. AI, we're talking about a different animal. AI is just so fucking smart. What was the last one that we went through? Y2K?

Remember that? Yeah, when Y2K was one. I thought the whole grid was going to shut down. AI is on a different level. Not the old AI. We used to think AI. But the new AI, I don't know. I think once they know, because they're already self-learning. They can all self-learn now. But once they get a conscience, it's fucking...

It's over, man. It's fucking intense. I mean, it's not here yet. There's still some time, but you don't know what's going to happen once that time comes. So it's getting integrated into society slowly. And I think what Elon Musk has been doing with his Tesla AI, which is still far from anything complete, but...

With the timeline getting compressed, I would say, you know, he even said it was like another couple of years. So one thing I do agree with Elon Musk is he's terribly afraid of AI and think people should be. Yeah, yeah. He was one of the founding investors for open AI. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's not private anymore. Because AI is too smart. It's dangerous.

So I think there was a summit of him and Jack Ma talking about AI. Oh, that was like two years ago, right? Yeah, yeah. And like Jack Ma was like, oh, AI was going to be like super awesome. And you know, I was like, no, AI is going to be super not good for us. And I gotta say, even though he fucked it up with Twitter and shit like that, I think he's on the dot with AI, man. AI...

When it gets too advanced, it's not going to be good for us. Well, I mean, think of it this way. OpenAI, the company that... I forgot what the CEO's name is, but did you know that one of their major programs that they've been implementing is UBI? Universal Basic Income? Yeah. So, because... Through AI? No. As preparation to be responsible. Once the cat's out the bag, just...

to be responsible citizen of the world. Because they're responsible. We unleashed AI, but here we're also giving you universal basic income kind of thing. Ain't that some shit? I mean, it's just a lot of weird stuff. Obviously, we can definitely go down this rabbit hole quite easily, and I constantly do. And that's one of my main...

topics i'm very interested in because especially with kids now because i'm constantly thinking about like what what's their world going to be like and you know their world is going to be so fucking crazy man i think our kids world is gonna be so fucking crazy man i just feel like i just have so much other shit to worry about to me what justice is like i'm still worried about feeding i'm literally worried about feeding my baby milk i don't

I don't have time to be worried about AI. Fuck AI. Feeding is all I got. If there's an AI that can feed my baby milk, I'd be all about it. All about it. Then Justin would be fucking scared. I wouldn't be scared. I'd be all about AI. I will be a slave. If Justin...

Jessica's mom cannot feed the baby and the AI succeeded Justin will be fucking shitting his pants but we should be told as much as I'm into it and I feel like I'm definitely one of those people that you were mentioning where I'm getting affected by it and I'm like believing it and starting to feel a little bit of anxiety no you should you should believe in it but there's a run run right now there's a whole group of people that you know when I have these type of conversations they listen to it and they're like yeah

No, AI, I don't think it's going to turn out good for us. Yeah, especially once they're trained a certain way or a certain way to think.

they can use that knowledge to multiply their learning. Exactly. To surpass. The thing about, it's kind of like Marvel, right? Like Ultron. Yeah. Right? Ultron was an AI, right? Yeah. But it's also a Marvel movie. No, no, no, no. But hold on. Ultron was just an AI that ran wild. He's like, hold on, it was real.

That was a documentary. It was an AI that ran wild. It was based off of Tony Stark's thing. You got to defend the Earth. Obviously, Marvel wanted to destroy the world. But all it takes is, let's say one day AI becomes self-aware and it learns something bad.

And it's going to fuck us. Well, look, here's my concern would be less about us losing control of AI, you know, like, which is like the normal kind of route to go down. Cause like we watched movie Terminator, you know, we, we, we get these images in our mind and which could be totally true. Like, I'm not saying like that will never happen, but my concern is less about us losing control. Cause I somehow rightly or wrongly, maybe naively, uh,

have faith that we can always pull the plug on it if need be. - No, no, there's no plug. - My bigger fear is about how we will become more reliant on it as a species and how big corporations will start using it to exploit us. That's my bigger fear. It's like how humans will start using AI

in positions to exploit other people. - Hold on. - We're already at that stage. - Yeah, but we're-- - 2015? Are you stuck in 2015? - No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, yeah, we're already there. But think about how much worse it can get, the smarter AI gets, the more reliant we become on it. - No, so I'm scared-- - That's already pretty bad. - Where AI-- - It's already, I agree it's already pretty bad, but it can get so much worse. - First of all, companies are already using AI to control us. I think that's already-- - But it can get truly dystopian. - All right, all right, think about this. - That's what I'm saying. - TikTok.

TikTok, Douyin, right? - Yeah. - That's already a company using AI. - I am not saying, you guys aren't listening to me. I am not saying that it's not happening now. It's already happening now and we're already having conversations about it now. As prevalent as we see it being used now and the control it has now, I feel like things

I feel like more and more there will be less and less people who are actually controlling the AI having more and more control behind the scenes of what is actually happening in the world. In terms of shifting wars, mindset, attitudes, beliefs, information, like everything. Like they will literally control the world more so than they already are.

I mean, just look at, like, if we read about, like, the atrocities that, like, a lot of the misinformation on, like, the Facebook algorithm had for, like, creating, like, all that violence, like, in Myanmar or whatever, like, a few years back. Like, that's a small case. Expand that worldwide. And, like, already behind the scenes, you already see people who are in control of the algorithm, who are in control of technologies. Yeah.

influencing the masses in terms of what they're believing, what they're thinking, shifting the outcomes of wars or even the wars themselves in terms of it starting in the first place. You know what I mean? 100%. Like these global dynamics that are happening that will become more and more controlled by fewer and fewer people. No, so Justin, what I'm scared is like,

As long as humans are in control, I'm actually like, okay. I feel safe. I feel safer. But what I'm scared is one day the controller thinks they're still in control. But they're not. But they're actually getting control by the AI. So they're like, oh yeah, I'm telling the AI what to do. But it's actually the AI telling the controller what to do. Making you believe that. Exactly. Because they're so much smarter than you. Exactly.

Then we're fucked. Yo, I have to say like us, right? Like our age, we, we lived through like the, the entire, we went from no computers from Nintendo 64, I think. Well, no internet. It just shows that we have an age gap. He's like, he's like our age group, you know, we lived from like no PS4. Yeah.

To like now there's a PS5. No, fuck. Nintendo 64 was... Can you imagine before the PlayStation 4? Nintendo 64 was fucking old school, man. I had an Atari. What about the original... Oh, fuck. I never had an Atari. I had an Atari. What about the original Nintendo? Forget Nintendo 64. I did have a Nintendo... Why would you start at Nintendo 64?

Why not start at the original Nintendo? No, because I was not rich enough for the original Nintendo. First of all, I did not have money for the original Nintendo. I finally had money when it was... Sega? Sega Genesis? Sega Genesis, I did not have money. PlayStation 1 was the first console where I can afford to buy. And Nintendo 64, I think, was a very close second.

So, you know, that was my age. Wait, were you born when the Nintendo first came out? Were you already alive? 86, yeah, I was alive. Atari, I was fucking alive. Atari was like 19... No, but Atari came out in the 70s. Or 1980 or something like that. Fuck you, you were not alive. With like Pong and stuff. Yeah. 70s, you were not alive. It was ColecoVision. Oh, you're older then. I'm older than you. Fuck you, you were not alive for Atari. I was alive for Atari. I had Atari. He was born in the 70s.

He was born in the 70s? You didn't know that? I did not know that. He was born in the 70s. Holy fuck. He's fucking old. Oh, shit. Don't ask Eric how old he is, because Eric's even... Eric fucking knows before even there's calculators, bro.

Our kids will never know what the fuck we went through. - Well, we talk about that a lot. Like we are the last generation to have known a world pre-internet. - Yeah. - And that's big. That's huge. - That's huge. - That's huge. - Huge. - Like that cannot go understated. Like we are the last generation of people to know a world, to have consciously and remember living in a world.

Before the internet Yo like That's crazy Kids don't understand What the fuck we're talking about But like it's fucking wild It's a different world Like the do Da da da da da da da da right The dial ups Yeah yeah the dial ups Right like We have to like I'm surprised I got you How did you get that? I'm surprised I understood What you were saying But that was what it is It's like da da da da da Like Who can bake Who can do the best dial ups sound Right now try it

No, no, no. I'm sorry. It was like, do, do, da-da-da-da-da-da. No, no, no. It was not do, da-da-da-da-da-da. There was a do, but it was more annoying than that. It was like, do, get out of my way.

See, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how we fucking make the sound because kids will not understand. They will not even know what the fucking sound is. No. Because fucking computers don't make sounds anymore like that. I can guarantee you most of the listeners listening have no idea what the hell we're doing right now. They have no idea what a dial-up modem sounds like. No, they do not. They do not. It's fucking wild. If you are curious, just go and look up dial-up modem sound and you will understand what we're saying.

It all makes sense now. It was not that calm. It was brutal. If a kid listened to that sound today, I think they would go insane. It was not that bad. It was bad. Unless you guys fucking was like older version of the computer than us. It was like... It was like that.

First of all, the fucking shit is on the floor, okay? Your shit is in next to your ear. It was right there on the desk. What are you talking about? I kept my shit on the floor. It was loud. It would wake the whole house up. It was not that bad. AOL, right? Yeah, I remember back then, I was trying to look at female pics.

It took a long time. It took a long time. One picture would take, what, like two minutes to download? Yeah, yeah. Videos was unthinkable. No, no. Videos was unthinkable. Female pictures would take a very long time. It was tough jerking off back then, huh, compared to now. Playboy magazines. Penthouse magazines. Hustler, if you're really daring. What, did you buy them or you had a subscription? What did you do? What, you never had friends that were older or you never...

Yeah. Pass around the magazine. So you were jerking off at your friend's house? No, you pass around the magazine. Or videos. VHSs. Skinamax. I'll say at my worst, I jerked off to like Victoria's Secret. Oh, who hasn't? Fred Drix of Hollywood. Who hasn't? What do you mean at your worst? That's like at our best. Like who hasn't? I just had nothing else. But yo, like if you're like kids these days are...

Like, magazines would be unthinkable to them. Unthinkable. Unthinkable. Like, to them, like...

It'd be like stone tablets to us. Think of it this way. A lot of the younger generation now, I mean, nothing against them because I feel like I'm a victim of this as well at times. If you stop and think about how much you actually use your brain during the day, you actually consciously have to calculate things or think creatively for something. That amount compared to 10 years ago of you, 20 years ago of you,

I can guarantee it's different. Yeah. Because now it's all about intake. You're intaking, right? You're intaking. You're not outputting. Well, think about it. It all trickles back to the internet. Yeah.

Because none of that information is available to us at a moment's notice without the internet. So when we were growing up before internet, there was no such thing as a smartphone. You had to literally remember any phone number that you wanted to reach. I could not just look up Charles on WeChat. I had to literally remember his full phone number. Or you have your physical address book, phone book. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, like, it's different. But definitely you memorize your top few friends, your family, you know, that's it. It's weird because I can't even imagine anymore what it was like to leave the house. Like, let's say I'm going to, okay, Howie, Charles, let's meet at the Bridgewater Mall 8 p.m. tonight.

Okay. You better be there 8 p.m. You leave the house with no guarantees that any of you are going to be there. And if you guys had any change in plans, there would be no way of you reaching me to let me know. I just had to go purely on faith at 8 p.m. that you guys would be there. No, guys. I don't remember that. I have a very good story on this. Okay. I remember it was 14.

Back then, cell phones was rare because they were very expensive for high school kids. So I had a cell phone, but my girlfriend did not. So we were supposed to meet at a pool hall at 4 p.m. on a Saturday. She got in trouble with her mom. She couldn't show up till like 8 p.m. And I fucking literally just waited. I waited. But what would make you wait for the extra four hours to be like, he's just not going to show up?

Because, you know, I liked her, first of all, right? And I know she would not show up unless it's like a very crazy situation. And there was no other way. I could not reach her. I had to wait. Back then, for those kind of meetings, if I remember correctly, you had that leeway. You had that leeway. Four hours? You didn't have a four-hour leeway. I don't know about four hours. You're right. I don't remember. Some shit fucked up with her mom. But...

She had to like run away, right? And shit like that. But it was a long story. But yo, there was no way to know. Like you just had to wait. It was all in faith. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. It's crazy. When we were kids, exactly like Justin said, like if we say something, like either we go there or I don't know what the fuck's gonna happen. Well, you know, okay, here's a hot take. Here's a hot take. In my experience, I felt people were generally...

less flaky back then. - You have to be. - Because you had to be. In order to survive and be accepted by your friends. - If you wanted friends. - If you were a flake, you couldn't. Like now you can flake out because I can just text you last minute and be like, oh, I can't show up. You know, whatever, right? Or, oh, I'm gonna be late, I'm gonna do this. There's a lot more lead way because there's instant communication, right? And people can react instantly. Back then you couldn't. So you couldn't like afford to be a flake.

Because you'd really be screwing someone over. Yeah, exactly. And you'd have to be a total dick. Yeah, you'd have to be a total dick. Yeah, because you know that person would have to wait. Yeah. I remember a clear moment where I was working in the mall and my mom had to drop me off and pick me up from work. I didn't have a car, I was too young. And we'd meet at a certain time and she was late by like...

half hour and usually she's never ever late and then there's no traffic there's no none of those concerns so I had to find another way to get home meanwhile she was stuck in traffic and

And she was just around the corner when I left. And also next thing you know, she gets there. She's like, where the hell's Howie? So it was just this one big, you know, miscommunication. Oh, fuck. And everyone's freaking out on both sides. So she's like, I can't find my son. And meanwhile, I'm like, I don't know what happened to my mom. You know? Yeah. Not until like hours later at home where everybody went back home and was like, what the fuck happened? Yeah. Yeah.

But like, I don't know, like again, I'll say again, like I don't remember what that feeling was like because I know we lived it, but I don't remember what it felt like. Was there just less anxiety back then? Because I feel like if I have my level of anxiety I have today and that happened, I'd be freaking out. But I don't remember ever freaking out, like if someone didn't show up or I couldn't like, you know, as much. Well, what about something even simpler? You call your friend's house.

Their mom or whoever picks up. Hey, is Justin home? Sure, one second. You got to wait. They come on. He's busy right now. Can he call you back? Sure. Mom, stay off the phone for the next 30 minutes. Justin's going to call me. You know that kind of stuff? Yeah. Right before call waiting started. Yeah. It's just these weird little things that we take for granted.

But then, like, you know, the kids these days, they'll say, like, the kids, the things they experience are going to be fucking crazy, too. Like, every generation has that, I guess. Yeah. But the internet did change the game, and I think it is a special distinction. I'm not trying to, like, differentiate ourselves, but I literally think it is a special distinction in any era, just about what the internet has become, that...

Any generation to have known a time before internet and experienced the birth of the internet to today, I think is a very special time in that window of world history. Yeah. I don't think that can be understood. I mean, I feel like we are saying that because we're going through it. But even objectively, like what bigger impact does the internet like? Come on. I don't know. I mean, I feel like... Like the wheel? I feel like...

a, you know, fire. Like what? People that are like late twenties now, right? They're probably be like in another 10, 15 years. No, just listen. They're like, yo,

Yo, do you remember back in, you know, when we were in like middle school, high school, we used to post real photos of ourselves, like unfiltered. Like, oh shit, yeah, man, I look ugly as fuck. And yeah, they saw me from where I am. Sure, sure. But that's a small consequence compared to the impact of the internet. But to them, it was world-changin'.

You don't show up. What about directions? There's no freaking GPS. Do you two... Can you two read the map? Yeah, basically, yeah. I'm actually very good at reading the map. Just because as a kid, like... Because that was the only way, you know, where the hotels are, where the fucking gas stations are. Landmarks. Yo, fucking kids these days don't know how to fucking read the map. I met someone who like... I met someone who like...

They do not know how to read a map. So... Because I forgot why. Why? But one day, like, I'm like, all right. Let's just take out the map and, like, see where the fuck we go. And, like, they were like, what the fuck? What the fuck are you talking about? I'm like...

i'm like yo it's not that fucking hard it's the same thing as like before then like times earlier even people had to like look at like study animal tracks to like get their food and now it's like people those people are being like you know what we go yeah people don't even know how to read oh that's true that's true that's true that's true actually that's true i think that's exactly what it is like i did not think about your way but i'm like how the

fucking not know how to fucking read a map bitch like it's not that hard but yeah I guess it'll be like someone like oh can you not read this fucking track yeah can you not read the paw prints in the mud of this animal and track it down for miles to get your food do you not see that sliver of fur stuck on the tree it would be like that probably oh fuck no I think I think we so yeah yo guys I think when we are 70

We still have 30 years to go, right? Howie, much less. Still around 30. Howie has like a few years. The changes we'll see will be fucking crazy, man. It'll be crazy. In comparison to what we've been going through. And not only the changes we'll see, but the way these changes affect the global dynamics that we live in. It's the equivalent of our...

Maybe, I don't know about your parents, but you hear the parents or grandparents hear the story, I used to walk to school with no shoes and this and that. And we'd be like, what? That's crazy. I biked to school. It's like that. We've become the grandparents. Yeah, it's crazy if you really think about it that way. Anyway, man, that was... Charles, fucking... I love you, man. Oh, fuck. It's always a pleasure talking to you, dude. And...

In many ways, I feel like you are an inspiration. I mean, like the shit you go through and the shit you go through like quietly, like I only learn about a lot of your struggles like when I have to dig it out of you, right? And I think that's a testament to kind of like the character you are. You go through a lot of shit on your own very quietly without a lot of people knowing. And I really kind of, I respect your strength in that. I really do. Oh man, fuck. Thank you guys. Cheers, man.

Happy Chinese New Year. Happy Chinese New Year. CNY. I'm Justin. I'm Howie. That was Charles. All right, guys. Be good. Be well. Peace.