Episode 53: Steve Hofstetter

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Hey BTBBuddies happy new year. And thank you for listening to behind the bits. First episode this year is a very good one. Steve Hofstetter is one of the hardest working comedians working today. He co founded the nowhere comedy club, which is the gold standard for virtual comedy shows and has a new book out called ginger kid, mostly true stories from a former nerd. This was a great talk and I really hope you enjoy it. Now the BTB internet talk show is back on Thursday at 8:00 PM. This week, you can stream it live on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. I might throw him Twitch into the mix as well. Why not? Thanks again for listening and here comes Steve Hofstetter. It's a good one today. I've got with me the hardest working man in the comedy business. Steve Hofstetter. How are you doing great. It's really great to have you on the show. You are somebody I've wanted to have on the show, and I'm glad I saw your post saying that you were going to do some podcasts. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. So I'm going to jump around a little bit here today because I want to make sure we put some important stuff up front. One of the things that I really admired that you did during this pandemic is you were the co-founder of the nowhere comedy club. Can you tell me a little bit about that and how you got started? Yeah. Nowhere is the first all digital comedy venue. And the way we got started is I'd been doing virtual reality shows for years. And Ben Glebe had been doing the live streaming from comedy club when it was clear that we would have to cancel a bunch of tour shows, which was, I think March 11th or 12th, somewhere around there. At the same time, Chris Bowers, who. Then a buddy of mine, we called comedy clubs together. He reached out to me and said, Hey, I want to do a variety show. And Ben reached out to me and said, Hey, I want to start a comedy club. And I had already had plans to do more stuff on my, more lives for him on my YouTube and potentially Facebook and kinda got it all together and started the distancing social club, which is this hybrid of, Podcast morning radio with late night TV, it's a little of everything, but it's also, a kind of a tit funded program where live standup that you get paid to perform. And while we were doing that and I continued working on any comedy club idea and, we ran into the crowds, we were running into where, okay, what tech do we use? As well as how do we make sure the audience is good audience? And the thing that we did with DNC right away was ensure that we could hear the audience. So many of the early shows and including the ones that are going on that are still going on. Don't have an audience you can hear. And I don't understand why it's suddenly in such power. Mike the audience the same way that you could hear them. If you were in a club, they could yell out of the club or a theater or a bar or any other venue. And we're used to that and it's easier to handle them on zoom because you just mute them or kick them out. So we we made sure the audience looked part of it, which I think is super important. And then we also we have a philosophy of, to get the right answers. You have to ask yourself the right question. And I think a lot of comedians were asking the wrong question. They were asking, how do we reach as big of an audience online as possible? Because that was always the question you asked when you were doing social media. But when we're trying to replicate live shows, the correct question is how do you reach the right audience? How do you replicate. 200 respectful people watching the show like we're used to at a comedy club. So we decided we would limit the number of tickets we would sell and we would charge for them. And we wouldn't just charge a dollar or a suggested donation. We would charge at least 10 bucks and we tested it. And April was our first show was actually three shows that day.

I tried one at 11: 4:23

00 AM, 1:11 PM and 1:00 PM. And the idea was that one of the three Europe, one was for Australia or North America, and I got to tour the world and one day, and we've been doing shows ever since. Yeah, I am very impressed. First, first off, I totally ripped off your social distancing, a talk show myself. I've got one called the BTB internet talk show, and it's a cross between yours and Ian bag's show. Just so you know it's a total rip off. I appreciate you saying that, but the reality is we're all in this business, we're all going to try to create similar things. And, respect that you put it that way. No, unless you're really doing the same format, then I don't think it would be. It's the idea I took the idea was so good. I took it and ran with it and I love doing it. It's a it's a lot of fun, but this nowhere comedy club, this is not this is a of people. You got the rubber bigs all weekend. Mike Birbiglia, you got Todd Barry coming up. You've got Mary Santara you got the gays or us show with a lot of great people and just great stuff. And then you're up there. Greg Proops is up there. It's really cool. I'm actually going to buy tickets for one of the Birbiglia shows. And I think I'm going to do a Q and a one, so I can talk to him because I want him to be on the podcast. Maybe I can convince him. The, for big shows are some of the best shows about the best show we have. Yeah. And we've had, we've had, John Cleese did one and we're going to have him come back and we've had some of the other people who have popped in on the showcases or the interview shows are brothers irregulars. So we've had Jim Gaffigan and Nikki Glaser and John ham and seen him pain, but there were big shows are produced so well. Like he really, he's not someone who threw a laptop up on a couple of empty Amazon is he really put the thought in, put the effort in, bought the equipment, like understood that this is a way to replicate a theater show. And so it shows there are perfection. He's so good at it. And his team is so good at it. The fun thing about it is that there's no limitation of geography. And so we'd had, we had a comic who was in Singapore. We had a bunch of Australian comics. We had, we have a UK comic and to be able to have anyone who is qualified to do do a show no matter where they are in the world is. Something really cool. I closed a weekly show with Dan McGuffin, who does it from Australia. It's been great. So let's get into your work ethic a little bit because I have never seen somebody. Bob zany used to do it, but somebody who booked as many shows all around the country as you, what is it that drives you to do so many shows and be out there for so much of the year? The my, my running joke about it is fear of failure. But really what it is. When you work for yourself and you don't do the work, the only person. So I wouldn't want an employee to not put the work in. So why would not not to mention why do we do this? If we don't love it. I love that about. And while the road is exhausting, it's also fun and rewarding. And especially now where I'm at the point of my career, where, the shows are usually packed the money. Good. I get to bring my own openers. Don't boring brand. Like why would I want to do less of that? Sounds great. When you're on the road and you're doing let's and let's pretend like we're not in COVID times and locked down. Let's. If you're doing like five shows in a week on, and it's at three different venues, do you mix things up? Do you do different shows for different crowds? Do you start, do you work out new material? How does your show go when you're doing so many? You know what I mean? I certainly try to work out some new stuff into my stuff when I can, but, I keep things fresh by ending the show with, and it's not only to new with me, but I bring my openers onstage for it. Also. It's just a lot of fun. No, we have a great time and that every show different, but I am working on material. And so if I want to work out that material, then I do work. And every now and then, something will happen in the news that I'll call her, me going back to an old bed or be in the mood to talk about something. But for the most part, I'm trying to get a book for that hour that I'm developing. It's thoughtful in order to make it. Perfect or as perfect as it will be in order to record it. When did the Q and a start? How long have you been doing that? Oh, God, I've been doing that over a decade and I started doing it. And so it was kept to get people to ask the question because people didn't, I'm wanting to ask, but it was an evolution of, I started ad-libbing on Sunday because people would come to a Thursday show. And they would say, Oh, that was fun. I want to come back and see you. And I'm like it's a favorite show all week. So even if I do get a different still, it's not like I have hours and hours of stuff, I was doing it every day. So I got this idea. The clubs would have a Sunday show and the Monday, Sunday show, and this is when you're not drawing, you're just at the mercy. They show you, you do shows on a Saturday night and then you end the week in front of 30 people. So I started in Louisville at the comedy caravan when I asked them for permission, I said, Hey, can I give out free tickets throughout the week? And I'll tell people that it's a hundred percent adds up, you'll come back. And they said, yeah, And it went so well that eventually my Louisville show started selling out before the Saturday because it just became word of mouth. People were like, Oh, this is a show where anything could happen. And it's the show where Hey, if you have a mouthy friend, bring him to the show. And what I used to say in the beginning was, when I would talk about the ad-libs show, I would say, I'm going to show you have questions. Great. I'm going to ask you questions. If you have them. Now, the friend of the show I'll fuck him up. He just became the thing that got started. A lot of the shows and I started my regular show. I did that by ending with a QA and in the beginning. I would bribe them to ask question, I would say, Hey, I do my pitch on my album. And then I would say the first one, I asked the best question, get that album. And sometimes I would still only get evolved, now part of my show and by the way, the reason that, I really believe in it is because. Personalize the show over people who are there and it allows someone to walk more than one show in a week. I'm doing the same hour, see the back end. And it's also something that I know I can do as an artist that not everyone can do. And I recommend that for all that, something you can do that differentiate you as a comedian, do it. It's very it's very improv because they're, you don't know what they're going to ask and I've watched some because you tape a lot of it and I've watched quite a few of them and you're pretty fast on your feet, but I don't see that you have an improv background. How is that? Just something that comes naturally to you? No, I do have an improv background. It was when I was a kid. Okay. So why was the thing that got me to comedy was about 13. I joined my high school, had an improv club and I joined it and I was at the highest school, started seventh grade. So from eighth grade to 12th grade, I did improv at least once a week for five years. And it is something that it's been a bit. No, I don't have any like real formal training, trying to figure things out by watching old episodes of the British line. But at the same time, every now and then I have I've joined a group on stage for something fun. And it's a, one little roll back to when I was a kid. Yeah. Yeah. It's really cool. When did the so obviously your YouTube channel is one of the biggest YouTube channels of any comic and a lot of it has to do with the responses to hecklers. And how did that all come about? It started at the YouTube thing with, I was. In the beginning of my YouTube channel, I didn't want to put my material up. I just wanted to put out like flips up from those Sunday jobs. And then there was a show where my opener was trying to get a new date. So he hired a videographer to shoot all weekend stage. And I said, I was like, Hey, if I throw him a couple of bucks, if I cover a little bit of the cost, excuse me, as well. And there was an incident where a guy asked something very stupid and just in a very giggly way, I just kinda made out and I took that clip and I put it up, not really thinking much of it and it just started getting cute. And I remember how excited I was. When it hits 30,000, 30,000 views. And I remember thinking, wow, 30,000 people seeing my work and now I can get 30,000 views. I'm like, what a failure. You're yeah. Your your expectations. But. He just started moving and it was an accident that he became something big, but when they started moving, I definitely took notes, leaned into it and started trying to put more up. I went from having shooting a show occasionally with a videographer to buying a camera, no other little things put in the back of the room. You look like a potato buying a $200, you'd eat the garbage and then eventually having three cameras. And now having four 4k cameras that I used to shoot every shot and it was just an evolution of investing in myself. That's really cool. Has it become a. Just a thing where people just come to your show to heckle because it doesn't, it, most of the people that heckle seem like just actual dumb asses. And yeah, it's only happened one time. And when that happened, I kicked the guy out and I deleted the footage because no one is going to get like interrupting someone else at night. And what I actually did on that one, Patty or I find being very funny is I kicked them out. As he was leaving. I said, I can't wait to put this clip up on YouTube. I pulled that whole crowd. There was I'd want him to think I was going to, so he'd go home and reload for a year and then it didn't happen. I told that old trout water people. I told them to go home after the show and comment on every video. Yeah, waited. And they did that for months. It was the fact that every time I popped them with comments that I left. So you're give you a more serious answer of why people want to see it. No one wants to see it. Plenty of people come to me after a show. Oh, I wish someone had told you and plenty of people say, Oh, it's too bad. No one did. When you see someone is you're watching a video on YouTube and you see them shoot a dummy in the head, you don't watch that you might want, you don't want to get shot. That's I think that's the main lawn, right? I think, you're, you have a definite point of view and. Your act, you definitely have opinions. So I guess, and from what I know about comedy and gone to a lot of shows and doing shows people, don't research the comedian that they're going to see a lot of times. Yeah. And they, they don't get what they expect, which they, they may expect you to be a prop comic or whatever. So when they come in and start drinking, I can see how between your point of view and material and them drinking. I can see how that is a good breeding ground for just people being dumb asses. But people suggest that first of all, how legit, but even if you're not going into that, the idea that it's fine. Someone who's an asshole. Not every bar you've ever gone into that guy. Adding the fact that I record every show, I do 300 shows a year. I do an hour at night and I go laugh when they're typically more wasted. Yep. Yeah. I really enjoyed watching a lot of those between that and the Q and a, I think that's a really cool way to differentiate yourself and obviously it's done very well for you. One of the things I want to get into is follow you on social media and I've been watching pretty closely, the issues that have gone on this year and for somebody who works as hard as you do, and. Wants to keep your name out there. I was very impressed by the fact that you took a stand on black lives matter COVID our president and things like that and risked all of that that you've worked for. And can you tell me. First of all, a lot of comics didn't, a lot of comics kept quiet, but you've been pretty vocal about it. Can you tell me what prompted you to do that and what you expected to happen versus what actually happened? I have spent over a decade cultivating a compassionate standard. I am very proud of my book. Sometimes you get. You get the person who just saw me yell at me and I liked that and doesn't understand the psychology behind, but for the most part, if you're vocal, the right people find okay. But I tried it lane with, the comedy friends who asked me about that. Get that it's good for fitness. The idea, the only way that you either have your band mates cultivated the right band bait, then you should have no problems speaking up. Whenever somebody says to me, Oh, you're alienating half your audience. I go no, they're not my audience. I'm Allie. who percent of high on you and I'm reading it. I'm reaching out to more of it, right? Every time over the years that I've talked shit about it, I will lose a couple hundred people out and the numbers shift over the years, but it's always a net gain because if you're saying something you truly believe in, you will. You will resonate with the other people who believe in it. When you say no one goes into a dress store and tells them they're losing half their audience by not selling, that's not what they do. And so I have shown other comics that I've posted my numbers on social media, that there was a comment. I got a DM that day that I posted, I donated. Good deal of money to to a black lives matter COVID fund. And it was started by Chris bread. I thought it was a really amazing charity. And I posted it saying that, I would match what people were doing it. And so that day I got a really nasty met someone saying, you're losing your fans. And I used to think you were funny and blah, blah, blah. And I took that message and I screenshot it along with my Instagram numbers for that week that showed, I had gained over 10,000 followers in a week. And I posted it with my Facebook numbers, which showed I was gaining two to 4,000 the day I posted those. And I said, tell me again, how this is making me use followers. That I followed that. And that's why I brought up that question because I do you feel like it's becoming important? So I, one of my first interviews, I talked to a a PhD in. Marketing or I can't remember what his PhD is, but he's a he studies comedy and he talks about two different types of comedians. One is a thermometer comedian and they tell you about what's going on. The other one is a thermostat comedian, and that's somebody who is trying to change. Mine's by what they say. Do you feel like we need more thermostat comedians now that is such a great way to break it down. I've never heard that before. I love that. Yeah. I think we always needed service that to me, there are a lot of idiots and look, there is a time and a place for a comedian that just wants to distract you and make you laugh. And not thinking about your problems and that's fine that ain't me. I don't regret the people who do it. So it's hard for me to say definitively, we need more. I'm just proud to be one. Yeah. It's A lot of people I've talked to who were more of a thermometer type comedian are saying that they want to be a thermostat comedian now, and they're writing material in that fashion just because they want to make a change. They want to change people's minds. Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. So let's talk about, I, I can't say I've read a ginger kid, but I know this is it's on my list to buy. I buy so many things from the people I talked to, but talking about being a nerd and being bullied in high school and junior high and stuff like that. First off. What were you like a nerd in the facts that you were in the nerdy things? Are you, or were you more of an outlier type nerd? Both, I think for the first one I was always like not too far removed from kids were cool, but still not accepted. I was deeper in baseball side by side, like the standard. Yeah. And I also, I think I've always had more of an adult. That's the humor that does that. Doesn't really quiet with a 13, 14 year old, a 13, 14 year old. Doesn't appreciate a good son. Like that I've been listening to Carlos seven. I started looking at, I started looking at him like I, I didn't it. And I have some friends, as I got older, I learned how to relate to people better. Joe, but I think a lot of us feel that I think. I think not feeling like you fit in, which is a pretty universal thing. Did you use comedy to try to fit in eventually? Yeah. And that's how they discovered it and I joined it and then it just become my life and. No. And it was the first time I got positive attention and not to ruin the end of the book, but I ended up speaking at my graduation and I got a laugh from an interruption that early, there was there was a pivotal point in the speech and all the quiet moment. And did you just hear a baby like relapse and so perfectly seriously. And I just go, and then I go back into my speech and against the lap and and that was a gap, I guess an early baby heckler, I don't know. So this next this next question is a legit logistics thing because you do shows all over. You actually did a show I'm near South bend Indiana, and you did a show at a bar that a friend of mine owns a vegetable buddies. And that was, I think it was towards the end of the year, last year. And the funny thing is I had talked him into booking a couple showcase shows and stuff like that, myself. So I was doing shows right after you did your show. And I want to talk to you about that particular type of bar, because it's a rock bar. The seats, the table, the stage is like five foot. Four and a half feet, the tables are far away and it's like the absolute worst. Place to do comedy. So when you think about doing comedy in a place like that, let's take out the fact that you fell the place up and everything's cool because of that. How do you change the way you act on stage? When you're in a venue that's got. The high ceilings, the tables are further away and the lighting's different and all that. How do you change the way you act on stage? First of all, I wouldn't even put that value on the bottom 50% of that, that you'd stand up. First of all, you do everything. You can change it to make it work. I have like that. I bring my hat, you move tables around, having produced as many shows, I've done. You get a feel for a while, after a while you get a feel for okay, I'm there. And when I'm on the road My openers and I show up two hours before show and nine times out of 10, you show up for show, we talked to them about logistics and we go have dinner every now and then we're moving the chairs around until door. Yeah. Sometimes you get there and you're like, Oh, you guys don't know what comedy is. It's not part of that is also. It seems counterintuitive. I quieter. I can lean back. And the reason it gets, because you need people, you will never be able to shout down. People want to shout you down, but if you get the crowd to be there, then the other people, and also. My guys know that, but when you open wrong, there is no meandering in here. You have to prove that you weren't funny within 30 seconds or you will be eating a lot. And and that's true at colleges. Most of the time you go doing like a theater, but the, I, the idea is prove that you're funny and then play around. It's funny. I did. I think I did my last show there in January, and I think I did, I don't know, eight or nine shows. And I finally figured out for me because I obviously wasn't pulling in the same size audiences you do. I think my best was 70. So w which is pretty good, but the problem. This was a problem I had was just being so far away, people from people on the stage and I just wasn't getting the feedback. The last show I did I had a one of my comics is a. Confined to a wheelchair. And I said, Hey, let's just do it on the floor. Let's do it on the dance floor. And I put the lighting I had Jeff change the lighting. So there's just one spotlight on who, whoever the comic was. And that show ended up going so well. I was like, Oh, okay, now I know what to do, but it took me nine shows to figure it out. I was moving tables like you and trying to figure everything out and it turned out just stand on the floor and you're okay. Every now and then, you learn something new. Like I used to run a bunch of gr it only sat 50 people and we added as like a long rectangle where you're at one end of the rectangle. And then one day you just decided to try, the manager, how to dry just from the middle of the rectangle. And it was so much better. And I never wrote, so before that, And it doesn't matter if that, you've got to play in the round a little bit more that way, but there's more of a front row and the more people in the front row, the more chance you have for what I call it, crowd leader. Because if you have one table that's losing their mind, laughing, going to the closer they are to the front row, the four other tables they're going to that laughter is communal and. Yeah. The more champions you can get yourself or a crowd leader about other shows. And I, I didn't know that for a year. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Thinking about the Facts that you are so entrenched in social media and you obviously, you weren't always, you have to start somewhere. If you were to give somebody a new, a newer comic advice on how they should approach social media in order to get their name out there, what would be the advice you would give? I actually was taking different forms, but no, I was on my first year I was on Facebook. I've been using social media most of my career, but I advice for someone is we strive to be original onstage. If someone called you a hack for your app, it would be the biggest insult. So why are people so willing to be hacked when it comes to promotion? Why is it that the only promotion they'll do with something they already taught someone else? Yeah, there'll be original. Figure something else you out those say, okay, that's something that somebody, and that gives me an idea. What about swap it that way? Hey, here's a new website that's popping. Maybe I'll be there after it. The original it's the only way things are going to work is if you do something new and there's, there's that old quote, there's nothing new under the sun. And there's another quote. Make it new. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Obviously the stuff that you have, between the Q and A's the heckler comebacks and stuff like that. Nope. Nobody else has it. And now really nobody else can do it unless they find a different approach because you're the King. Yes and no, Andrew. Them Joshua topic and, and that's wonderful. Like the thing that my friends used to say about me in college was a hundred ideas every day. And it's our job to tell them which 99 of them are horrible. Find the one. And that's what you need to do. I have so much positive the wall. I'll tell you. Probably the dumbest thing I did was early on in my career when I was I would go to, I would go cheat the random place around the country. He had shots up from people that no one's ever heard of from someone who was like on a soap opera for two episodes. And I started thinking, how the hell that had I get up there? I like that person. She knew that diner and the server goes, Oh my God. In one commercial for a couch, clearly the person had to volunteer to get that headshot. And I started thinking why can't I do that? So I sent a bunch of headshots around. I figured I would try with Bloomington Indiana because I was a regular affairs, light buckle up there. And I found 25 different restaurants that were in that neighborhood. And I send them a headshot with a letter saying, Hey, I ate there last time over the town. I loved it so much. Just want to send this as a token of my thing. Love to see you to show some time, you know what one Chinese food place put it up for a month. And I was at, it was great. But the point is there was an idea, been a great idea. So you have as many ideas if you can, maybe one of them will work. Yeah. Are you pretty impetuous about stuff? If you don't have those people to tell you what idea is good and why, what idea isn't would you just go after all of them? That's why I have close friends in my life and look every now and then I misfire something fear, also the more you do the better you get a date, the better your ideas, and sometimes you create some, it doesn't work. I posted five different podcasts, but none of them really, it moved on, you keep trying. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. What is the best and worst advice you got when you were coming up being a comedian? The worst advice I got, the worst advice I got is someone told me to ate clean because there's more work for clean and the reason that's bad advice, even though it is technically true. There's even more work for good comments. So if you're a good clean comic, there'll be clean. If you're not a clean comic, then don't be clean. Be the best comic you can be. Whatever that is. The best advice I got was from Jimmy Brogan. I was about five years and, working pretty regularly, all these comics to get him anywhere. Yeah, tell him I'm losing my damn mind. And I reached out to Jimmy. He is not only a mentor to me at that point, but also just to book the tonight show. So he knows what the bookers are looking for. And I asked him about it and he said, are you making enough money that you're comfortable? You have a roof over your head? I said, yes. And he said, are you having fun? I said, yeah. And he said, then shut up. And the best advice I got and it was, it was less than a year before I got my spot after that, because I shut up and I was a different Comic-Con. That's great. I'm so glad you've mentioned Jimmy Brogan. I, in order to be different and original, I did a podcast, a live stream podcast where I was getting comedy coaching. And basically I did showed like a seven minute set that I did and. I don't know if you ever heard of Joel buyers, but Joel and I went through the set and the funny thing is during that Jimmy Brogan was was watching it. And Joel said that he didn't like one of my jokes. Jimmy says that's the best joke of the set. So it's great to get different points of view, but it's funny that you mentioned that. And I pegged him to get on the podcast after that and he says, yeah, I don't like podcasts. No, no dice. So what three things do you know now that you wish you would've known when you started doing stand up? The most important thing is understanding how important we're all just trying to matter. And, ego comes into play when it comes, when it, when you run a foul of other comics, when you're dealing with coworkers, when you're dealing with directors or development, Either, whoever she goes is important thing to keep in mind there's as well. Another thing is for everyone that doesn't like you, there is someone across the street that doesn't like that there is, there are. 10,000 people, powerful enough to get you on TV. There is no one would prevent you because someone else will disagree with it. But I'd like to have known that I know now Your mental health is the most important thing in the system. I take less money per gig that I can bring my own opener to have someone on the journey with you, and every now and then look, I would say it's 50 50. Where I would open, I would have someone open for me. I didn't know. And I would really like them and touch it. And then sometimes I would have someone who would be a miserable week where I'm like, I am embarrassed. And, I made the decision that I would have rather lose money. I'd rather pay for the flight or whatever I could do to prevent that from happening again. Because my mental health is too important to me. If you were to give, say, somebody decides right now, they want to be a comic. What advice would you give given that we're in a pandemic and the world is the way it is? What advice would you give somebody that wants to be a new comic? It has never been easier to start. Because when you start and all you need to do to get people together on a zoom and go back and forth and work on point of an open mic does not work on. Nope. And you can do that now in a way you've never cooked before. Yup. Yup. Writing workshops has been the best thing I've done during this pandemic. Just it's been absolutely. Completely beneficial to me. Yep. All right. Let's I know you've probably got another one of these guys scheduled here, so let's wrap up. Where can people find you on social media website and all that? I'm a big believer in people. Use the social media that they prefer the most. So I'm on pretty much all of them. Find me there. Nowhere shows really, Hey, you can watch anywhere in the world. I watched one while I was walking my dog, check me out at nowhere comedy and Yeah. Great. It's been really great talking to you and I'm glad we got this worked out. I I'm glad I was on social media at the time I was on. Yeah, that's a, that's another, make sure you're make sure you catch the opportunities when they're there. No doubt pay attention. That's a big thing. Okay, Steve. It's been great talking to you and I wish you the best. I've really admired. First of all, how you handled your video about wearing a mask is just fantastic. I, I've shared that a couple of times and the way you've handled the strife in this country I really admired it because I. I noticed the ones who didn't speak up now. And those are the ones I worry about a little bit because they're too worried about their fan base to actually talk about what's important. And I think it's important that we talk about stuff now. I think their fan base are a bunch of assholes and I wouldn't be worried about a bunch of apples. Yep. No doubt. No doubt. Thank you, Steve. This has been a great talk and I wish you the best.