Podcasts about soj

In this gripping episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins sits down with Robert “Bob” Cooley, the Chicago lawyer whose extraordinary journey took him from deep inside the Outfit's criminal operations to becoming one of the federal government's most valuable witnesses against organized crime. Cooley pulls back the curtain on the hidden machinery of Chicago's underworld, describing how corruption, bribery, and violence shaped the Chicago Outfit's power in the 1970s and beyond. As a lawyer, gambler, and trusted insider, Cooley saw firsthand how mob influence tilted the scales of justice—often in open daylight. Inside the “Chicago Method” of Courtroom Corruption Cooley explains the notorious system of judicial bribery he once helped facilitate—what he calls the “Chicago Method.” He walks listeners through: How defense attorneys worked directly with Outfit associates to buy favorable rulings. The process of approaching and bribing judges. Why weak forensic standards of the era made witness discrediting the key mob strategy. His personal involvement in the infamous Harry Aleman murder case, where clear guilt was erased by corruption. Life in the Outfit: Gambling, Debt, and Mob Justice Cooley recounts his early days gambling with Chicago Outfit associates, including Marco D'Amico, Jackie Cerrone, and John DeFranzo. Notable stories include: The violent implications of unpaid gambling debts in mob circles. Tense interactions with bookmaker Hal Smith and the chaotic fallout of a bounced check involving mobster Eddie Corrado. How D'Amico often stepped in—sometimes with intimidation—to shield Cooley from harm. These stories reflect the daily volatility of life inside the Outfit, where money, fear, and loyalty intersect constantly. Bob Cooley has a great book titled When Corruption Was King where he goes into even greater detail and has many more stories from his life inside the Chicago Mob. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. 0:06 Introduction to Bob Cooley 1:32 Life as an Outfit Gambler 2:00 My Relationship with Marco D’Amico 10:40 The Story of Hal Smith 11:05 A Dangerous Encounter 20:21 Meeting Sally D 22:23 A Contract on My Life 22:37 The Harry Alleman Case 34:47 Inside the Courtroom 51:08 The Verdict 52:26 Warning the Judge 53:49 The Case Against the Policewoman 58:36 Navigating the Legal Maze 1:08:14 The Outcome and Its Consequences 1:11:39 The Decision to Flip 1:24:38 A Father’s Influence 1:33:57 The Corruption Revealed 1:50:12 Political Connections 2:02:07 The Setup for Robbery 2:20:29 Consequences of Loyalty transcript [0:00] Hey, guys, my guest today is a former Chicago outfit associate named Robert Bob Cooley. He has a book out there titled When Corruption Was King. I highly recommend you get it if you want to look inside the Chicago outfit of the 1970s. Now, Bob’s going to tell us about his life as an outfit gambler, lawyer, and I use payoff to judges to get many, many not guilty verdicts. Now, I always call this the Chicago method. This happened for, I know, for Harry Ailman, a case we’re going to talk about, Tony Spolatro got one of these not-guilties. Now, the outfit member associate who is blessed to get this fix put in for him may be charged with a crime, even up to murder. And he gets a lawyer, a connected lawyer, and they’ll demand a bench trial. That means that only a judge makes the decision. A lawyer, like my guest, who worked with a political fixer named Pat Marcy. [0:53] They’ll work together and they’ll get a friendly judge assigned to that case and then they’ll bribe the judge. And all that judge needs is some kind of alibi witnesses and any kind of information to discredit any prosecution witnesses. Now, this is back in the olden days before you had all this DNA and all that kind of thing. So physical evidence was not really a part of it. Mainly, it was from witnesses. And they just have to discredit any prosecution witness. Then the judge can say, well, state hadn’t really proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt and issue a not guilty verdict and walk away. Now, our guest, Bob Cooley, is going to take us inside this world. [1:29] And it’s a world of beatings, murders, bribes, and other kinds of plots. He was a member of the Elmwood Park crew. He was a big gambler. He was a big loan shark. And he worked for a guy named Marco D’Amico, who was their gambling boss and loan shark in that crew. Among other bosses in this powerful crew were Jackie Cerrone, who will go on and become the underboss and eventually the boss for a short [1:55] period of time. and John no-nose DeFranzo, who will also go on to become the boss eventually. What was your relationship with Marco D’Amico? I talked about when I first came into the 18th district, when I came into work there, and they put me back in uniform, the first person I met was Rick Borelli. Rick Borelli, he was Marco’s cousin. [2:23] When I started gambling right away with Rick, within a couple of days, I’m being his face, and I’m calling and making bets. There was a restaurant across the street where every Wednesday and sometimes a couple days a week, I would meet with Ricky. And one of the first people he brought in there was Marco. Was Marco. And Marco would usually be with a person or two. And I thought they were just bookmakers. [2:55] And I started being friendly with him, meeting him there. Then I started having card games Up in my apartment And, Because now I’m making, in the very beginning, I’m making first $100 extra a week. And within a couple of weeks, I’m making $500, $600 extra a week. And within about a month, I’m making $1,000, sometimes more than that. So now I’m having card games, relatively big card games, because I’ve got a bankroll. I’ve got probably about $5,000, $6,000, which seemed like a lot of money to me. Initially uh and after a while that was a daily that was a daily deal but uh so we we started having card games up there and then we started socializing we started now he’d be at these nightclubs all the time when when i’d go to make my payoffs he was part of the main group there he was one of the call he was right he was right under jack right under at that time originally Jackie Cerrone, and then he was right under Johnny DeFranco. [4:07] But he was… And we became real good friends. We would double date and we spent a lot of time together. And we had these big card games. And that’s when I realized how powerful these people were. Because after one of the card games, there was somebody that was brought in, a guy named Corrado. I’m pretty sure his name was I can’t think of his first name, but Corrado was this person that somebody brought into the game. And after we finished playing cards, and I won all the time. I mean, I was a real good card player, and I wouldn’t drink. I’d supply liquor and food and everything, but I wouldn’t drink. And as the others drank, they were the same as at my office. After we finish up, this guy says, you want to play some? We can play maybe some gin. just human being. And he was there with another friend of his who just sat there and watched. So we played, not gin, but blackjack. We played and passed cards back and forth when you win. Then you’re the dealer and back and forth. And I lost, I think I lost about $4,000 or $13,000 to him. [5:26] I lost the cash that I had. I had cash about $5,000 or $6,000. And I gave him a check for the rest. You know, but everything I was doing was wrong, you know. Yeah, one of those nights. It’s in there. And it’s funny because you asked about Marco. [5:47] And I thought, you know, oh, well, and whatever. And I gave him a check. I said, no, it’s a good check. And it was. It was for my office. It was an office check that I gave him. And that next morning, I’m meeting with Ricky and with Marco at this restaurant across from the station before I go in and to work. And I said, son of a B. I said, you know, they had a bad night first ever. Marco wasn’t at that game, at that particular game. And what happened? I said, I blew about 12,000. Okay, but you? Wow. And I said, yeah, I said, one of the guys at the game played some, I played some blackjack with somebody. What was his name? Eddie, Eddie Corrado. Eddie Corrado. He said, that mother, he said, stop payment on the check. He said, stop payment on the check. He said, because it wasn’t nine o’clock. It was only like, you know, seven, you know, seven 30 or whatever. He said, and when he gets ahold of you, arrange to have him come to your house. Tell him you’ll have the money for him at your house. So that’s what I, that’s what I do. So I stopped payment on it probably about five after nine. I get a call from, from Mr. Corrado. You mother fucker. [7:17] I said, no, no. I said, there wasn’t enough money in the account. I said, I’m sorry. I said, all right, then I’ll be over. I said, no, no, no. I said, I’m in court right now. I said, I’m in court. I said, I’m going to be tied up all day. I’ll meet you at my place. I’ll meet you back there. Well, I’ll be there. You better have that. I want cash and you better have it. Okay. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m at home. Marco comes in. And he was there with Tony and Tony was there and Ricky was there. And Ricky was there. And they come over a little ahead of time and he comes in. I live on the 27th floor. The doorbell rings. Up he comes with some big mustache. [8:00] I open the door. You better have the fucking money and whatever. And I try to look nervous. I try to look real nervous. and when you walk into my apartment you walk in and you see the kitchen right in front of you and to the left to the left you’ve got an area away and you’ve got the the kitchen wall blocking what’s behind it over there and these three guys are standing marco and you are standing right there alongside of it and and when he walks in behind me, He sees Marco and all but shit in his pants. When he sees Marco, he goes, and Marco, you motherfucker. And, you know, oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t know he was with you. He says, how much money you got me right now? And, you know, he says, pull your pockets out. He had about, he had about three or 4,000 with him. [9:02] And he says, you give him that. He says, you, he says, you, and he says, you give him that right now. And you apologize to him. Oh, and he says, he says, and I may give you a number. I want you to call. He says, we can put you to work. Apparently this guy had done the same thing to them a few years before and got the beating of his life somebody brought him into one of their card games, did he have a technique a cheating technique or had some marked cards no it was a card mechanic he could play games with cards they call him a mechanic and, in fact the guy was great at it because he had his own plane and everything else. But again, he had moved from Chicago and had just come back in the area. And they mounted. And so anyhow, he leaves. And he leaves then, and Marco took the money. Marco took the money. Marco took the money. Typical Bob guy, man. [10:19] And I says, what about the cash I lost to him? He says, well, you lost that. He says, you lost that. That’s when I realized how powerful. That’s when I realized how powerful that [10:35] he was part of the mob, not only a part of it, but one of the operational. Yeah, important part of it. That brings to mind another unbelievable situation that occurred. [10:49] The, uh, this is probably the, we’ll know the year by when it happened. There was a bookmaker named Hal Smith. Oh yeah. I remember that name. He got, tell us about Hal Smith. [11:05] Well, Hal Smith was a, he was a big guy too. A real, a real big guy. I met him on Rush street. He knew I was a gambler. He knew that I was a big gambler and I started gambling with him. Thank you. And I was with him probably for about maybe five or six months. And I’d win with him. I’d lose with him. And he would take big places. He would take $5,000 a game for me. And as they say, so the numbers were big. At the end of the week, we were sometimes $60,000, $70,000. [11:42] They were big numbers back and forth. And he was always good for the money. I was always good for the money. And one particular week, it was about $30,000. And I was waiting for money. Somebody else was supposed to give me even more than that. And the person put me off. And it was a good friend of mine. And I knew the money would be there. But a lot of times, these guys are going to collect it at a certain time. And then they’re expecting to give it to somebody else. Well, he was short. So I said, look, I don’t have it right now, but I’ll have it tomorrow, I said, because I’m meeting somebody. Well, okay, it better be there. [12:31] And look, it’ll be there, okay? Not a problem. So the next day, the person I’m supposed to get it from says, I’ll have it in a couple of hours. I don’t have it right now, but I’ll have it by late this afternoon. And I’m in my office when Hale Smith calls me and I said, I’ll have it a little bit later. And he slams the phone bell. I’m downstairs in Counselor’s Row. In fact, I’m meeting with Butchie and Harry. We’re in a booth talking about something. They had just sent me some business or whatever, but I’m talking about something. And George, the owner of the restaurant, comes over and he says, somebody is asking who you are and they want to talk to you. And they point out this guy. It was a guy I had seen before, because a lot of times at two in the morning, I would go down on West Street, and they had entertainment upstairs. And there was this big English guy. He was an English guy, as you could tell by his accent, a real loud guy. And when I walk up to talk to him, and he’s talking loud enough so people can hear him, and he says, you better have that. I’m here for it. You better have that. You better have that money. [13:51] Bob Hellsmith sent me, you get the money and you better have that money or there’s going to be a problem or whatever. And I said, well, the money will be there, but people can hear what this guy, this guy talking that shit. And he leaves. And he leaves. He’s going to call me back. And he leaves. I said, I’m busy right now. I says, give me a call back when I’m in the office and I’ll meet with you. So Butch, he goes, what was that all about? And I said, you know, it’s somebody I owe some money to. Well, who is he? Who is he with? I said, Harold Smith. And he said, who’s Harold Smith? You don’t pay him anything. He said, you don’t pay him anything. And he calls, when he calls back, he says, you will arrange to meet him. And I said, you know, I said, well, where? [14:44] And they knew where I lived. They’d been to my place at that time. I’m living in Newberry Plaza and they said, there’s a, there’s a Walgreens drugstore in Chicago Avenue. Tell him you’ll meet him there at Walgreens, and we’ll take it. And he says, and we’ll take it from there. When he does call me, I said, look, I said, I’ll meet you tomorrow morning for sure at Walgreens. I’ll have the cash. I said, I’ll have the cash, and I’ll have all of it. I said, but, you know, I’m tied up on some things. I said, I’ll go to my own bank when I’m finished here and whatever, and I’ll see you tomorrow morning for sure at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning. Okay. I sit down with them and they just said, I said, they said, go there and go meet them. And we’ll take care of it. The Walgreens is a store right in the corner of Michigan Avenue and Chicago Avenue, south side of the street. And it’s all windows. Huge windows here. Huge windows here. And a bus stop, a bus stop over here. When I get there, I park in the bus stop and I’m looking to my right and here he is sitting in a booth by himself, right by the window. And I look around and I don’t see anybody. I mean, with a lot of people, I don’t see Butchie. [16:06] Uh or red or anybody around but i i go in there anyhow and uh sit down and i uh sit down in the booth across from him and he’s eating breakfast he’s got some food in front of him and uh the girl comes by right away the girl comes by and i says you know just get me a coke and and he says have you got the money and i said yes and why i got i got a lot i got a lot of money in my pocket but not the, whatever it was he wanted, not the 27 or 28,000. There’s nobody there. And, uh, so we’re talking for no more than about two or three minutes. They had a telephone on the counter. I hear the phone ring and the waitress, the waitress is on the phone. And then she comes walking over and she says, it’s a call for you. And, and when I go get in the phone, I woke up and there’s a phone booth there. And here’s Butchie in the phone booth. And he’s there with a couple of other people. I hang the phone up. I walk over and I had my appointment booked. And I walk over and I just pick up the book. And as I’m walking out there, walking in, we pass each other. And so now when I get in my car and he’s looking at me in my car and right next to him is Butchie. And across from him was a red old male and Fat Herbie. [17:34] Herbie Blitzstein? Herbie Blitzstein? No, it wasn’t Herbie. This is another one. That’s one thing of Herbie. We called Herbie Fat. It was Fat Herbie. And the third guy is like sitting facing him. This is like, that weighs about 300 pounds. Oh, Sarno. Make Mike Sarno. Mike Sarno. That was it. And that’s, that’s, that’s who it was. You know, and I, I drive off, go to my office and go about my business. I get a call later that day from, uh, Hale Smith. Where’s my money? Where’s my money? I said, I gave it to your guy. You what? I gave it to him. I met him at nine o’clock this morning and I gave him the money. You did. And I said, yeah. Um, okay. And he hangs, and he hangs up. I don’t hear anything for a while. I never saw him again. I saw Hale a couple of times because he was always in one of the other restaurants. I lived in Newberry right across from there, but he never talked to me. I never talked to him, never said anything. It was about maybe it had to be a good couple of months later, When I read about Hale, Hale’s no longer with us. [18:52] That’s obviously how they found out about him. I never saw the other guy again. I’m hoping they didn’t kill him, but I’m assuming that’s what probably happened to him. In a public place like that, they probably just scared him off. He probably said, you know, I’m way over my head. I’m out of here. [19:15] They didn’t kill him in the public place he wouldn’t have been in the newspapers my little thought is like with the three guys they took him for a ride, I don’t know they just told him to leave town and he realized what it was and he did Hal didn’t get a chance to leave town Hal had other problems if I remember right I’d have to look it back up but he had other problems with the outfit what I found out later what they had done, was they had gotten one of their guys connected with him to find out who his customers were. In other words, one of the other people that he didn’t realize, that Hale didn’t realize was with them, they got him connected with them where he’s the one who’s doing his collecting and finding out who the customers were because they wanted to get all his customers as well as his money. It turns out he was He was a huge bookmaker for years. That’s what happened to him. And they just took his book. Yeah, I remember something about that story because I killed him in his house, I believe. Yeah, Sally D. [20:22] Sally D, yeah. Sally D was one. When I first met Sally D, he was with Marco’s Fruit, too. [20:30] He owned a pizza place up on the north side, north shore, and I broke him. I was betting with him and beating him week after week. And one of the last times I played with him, he couldn’t come up with the money. It took him an extra couple of weeks to get the cash to pay me. But we were real close friends with him. He’s a bizarre character because he was a totally low level at that time. Yeah. When he then connected up with the Cicero crew, with Rocky and Felice, with Rocky and those people, he became a boss with them. It turns out it was after they killed Al Smith. He was part of all that. That’s Salih De Laurentiis. He’s supposed to be a boss. He moved on up after the Family Secrets trial. He didn’t go down with that, I believe, and he kind of moved on up after that. I don’t know what happened to him. What was so funny about that, when he would come into the club, Marco’s club, Bobby Abinati. [21:42] Who was strictly a very low-level player, although we indicted him with the Gambia star. He’s the one who set up the robbery. Would that have been great if that would have gone through? He’s the one who set up that robbery in Wisconsin. He’d be making fun of Salihide all the time. [22:03] When Salihide would come in, he would make fun of him and joke about him and talk about what a loser he was. This is when he’s a boss of that crew. I mean, just a strange, I mean, nobody talked to bosses like that, especially when, when you’re, when you’re what they call Bobby, you know, what was Marco’s nickname for Bobby Knucklehead? [22:23] That was his nickname, Knucklehead. Pat Marcy, uh, contacted me about, you know, handling me in the only own case. [22:32] I couldn’t have been happier because that was a short time after they put a contract on me. So now i realized if they’re going to be making money you know they finally stopped because for good six seven months when i when i came back to chicago uh i was checking under my car every day in case there was a bomb i moved i moved from uh from a place that i own in the suburbs into an apartment complex so i wouldn’t be living on the first floor yeah it’d be impossible to somebody to break into my, you know, took them thrashing into my place. I changed my whole life around in that sense. [23:10] And when I drove everywhere I went, you know, I would go on the highway and then jump over. I would do all, I wanted to make absolutes. Even though nobody came around, I wasn’t taking any chances for a long period of time. And that was too when it cost me a fortune because that’s when I stopped dealing with the bookmakers because I wasn’t going to be in a position where I had to go meet somebody at any time to collect my money and whatever. [23:39] So what had happened, though, was somebody came to see me. And when I was practicing, there’s a lot of things I wouldn’t do. I set my own rules. I would not get involved. After the Harry Alleman case, I never got involved anymore myself fixing certain cases. But even prior to that, I wouldn’t fix certain cases. I wouldn’t get involved in certain cases, especially involving the police, because my father was such a terrific policeman, and I felt I was too in a lot of sentences. I loved the police. I disliked some of the crooked cops that I knew, but on the surface, I’d be friendly with them, etc. Harry Ailman was a prolific hitman for the Elmwood Park crew. He killed a teamster who wouldn’t help set up trucks for the outfit, a guy named Billy Logan. He was just a regular guy. He’s going to take us right into the meeting with the judge. He’ll take us into a counselor’s row restaurant where these cases were fixed. Now, Bob will give us a seat right at Pat Marcy’s table. Now, Pat Marcy was the first ward fixture, and he’s going to take us into the hallway with Pat Marcy where they made the payoffs. [24:57] Now, Bob, can you take us inside the famous Harry Aileman murder case? I know you fixed it. And tell us, you know, and I know there was a human toll that this took on that corrupt judge, Frank Wilson. Okay. The Harry Aileman case was, it was not long after I became partners with Johnny DeArco. I get a call from, I’m in Counselor’s Row at the restaurant. Whenever I was in there now, my spot was the first ward table. Nobody was allowed to sit there day or night. That was reserved for first ward connected people and only the top group of people. [25:40] I’m sitting there at the table and Johnny DeArco Sr. Tells me, you know, Pat wants to talk to you. About something. And I said, you know, sure. Not long afterwards, Pat comes downstairs. We go out. We go out in the hall because we never talk at the table. And he tells me, have you got somebody that can handle the Harry Alleman case? I had seen in the news, he was front page news. He was one of the main mob hitmen. He was partners with Butchie Petrucelli. But it was common knowledge that he was a hitman. He looked like one. He dressed like one. He acted like one. And whatever. And he was one. In fact, he was the one that used to go to New York. And I know he also went to Arizona to do some hits and whatever. He traveled around the country. I said to Pat, they thought the case was a mob hit on a team street. a teamster. I assumed that it was just that. It was people doing what they do. But I said to Pat, I said, well, get me the file. Get me the file. Let me see what the case looks like. Because I would never put a judge in a bad spot. That was my nature. [27:06] When I had cases, a lot of these judges were personal friends of mine. What I would do, if I wanted to have a case, if I wanted to fix a case to save all the time of having to go to a damn long trial, I would make sure that it was a case that was winnable, easily winnable. When I got the file, when I got the file from Pat, he got me the file the next day. The next morning, when he came in, he gave me the file. I looked at the file. It was a throw-out case. When I say throw-out case, absolutely a nothing case. [27:46] The records in the file showed that a car drove up down the street. Suddenly somebody with a shotgun blasted a guy named Billy Logan in front of his house and drove away. They were contacted by a neighbor, this guy, Bobby Lowe. Was it Bobby Lowe? Yeah, I’m pretty sure Bobby Lowe. Who indicated that he opened the door and let his dog run out. And when he looked, he saw somebody. He saw a car, and he gave a description of the car. And he saw somebody pull up, and he saw him shoot with a shotgun. And then he saw the person get out of the car and shoot him with a .45, and shoot him with a .45. And then the car sped away. That was pretty much the case. Some other people heard some noise, looked out, and saw a car driving away. A period of time after that, it had to be about a year or so after that, somebody was arrested driving to Pennsylvania to kill somebody. There was a guy who stopped. [29:16] Louie Almeida was his name. Louie Almeida was stopped in his car. He was on the way to Pennsylvania. And in front of his car, he had shotguns. And he winds up, when he gets arrested, he winds up telling the authorities that he can tell them about a mob murder back in Chicago and winds up cooperating with them. He indicates what happened. He indicated that, you know, he was asked to, you know, or he got involved in it. He got the car and whatever. They did this. They did that. And he pulled up alongside Billy and wound up shooting the victim as he came out of the house. [30:09] Now, I look at some other reports in there, some reports that were made out, new reports. They talk about the Louis Almeida. They talk about the witness that gave the first statement. and they said that they found, or he’s giving us a new statement now where he says he’s walking his dog. He hears a shotgun. His dog runs towards the car where the shooting was coming from. He saw Harry get out of the car and walk over and shoot him, walk over and shoot the victim, and he was looking at him, And then he jumped in the bushes and the car drove away. A complete new story. Yeah. A complete new story. And. I looked at the reports, and this is an easy winner. And so I told Pat, you know, I’ll take it. You know, I’m sure I can handle it. I said, I’m sure I can handle it, but, you know, I’ll let you know. [31:21] That’s when I contacted, I met my restaurant, Greco’s, and I had Frank Wilson there a lot. Well, I called Frank Wilson, invited him and his wife to come to the restaurant. I had done that many times before. When he gets there, I tell him, I have the case. You know, I told him I was contacted on this case, I said. And I said, it’s an easy winner, I said. And I explained to him what it was. I told him, you know, it’s the driver of the car who’s doing this to help himself. And this other guy, Bobby Lowe, that gave a complete new story from the original story that he gave. And I indicated, you know, can you handle the case? And he tells me, I can’t handle the case, he said, because I was SOJ’d. In Chicago, Illinois, they have a rule that makes it easy for people to fool around because for no reason at all you can ask to have a judge moved off the case. And you can name a second judge that you don’t want to handle the case. [32:34] Frank Wilson’s reputation was as such that the lawyer that turned out to be a judge later on, Tom Maloney, who had the case, named him in the SOJ. It was assigned to somebody else, and he indicated he wanted any other judge except Frank Wilson. Frank Wilson on the case. And this was Harry Aileman’s lawyer. Yeah. Okay. And who Tom Maloney, who then ends up being the judge years later. But yeah. Well, because we knew he was going to be a judge. Yeah. We knew ahead of time. I knew at that time. That’s what makes the story so unbelievably interesting. Yeah. Anyhow, he says, I can’t do it because… In Chicago, in Chicago, it’s supposed to keep it honest. I love this. To keep it honest. Yeah. To keep it honest, each judge is supposed to be picked by computer. [33:33] Same thing they’re doing to this day. Trump wondered why the same judge kept getting all his cases. Because they’re doing the same thing we did, some of us could do in Chicago. He was the chief judge in the area. he said to me, I don’t think I can get the case. I don’t think I can’t get the case. I said, I’ll get the case to you. I said, I’ll get, because I already, I, in fact, through Pat Marcy, anytime I wanted a case to go anywhere, I would contact Pat and I’d give him a thousand dollars and he would get me any judge I wanted. Uh, I said, well, I think I can. I said, I said, And I gave him $1,000. [34:16] I said, here, this is yours. And if I can’t get the case to you, you keep it. If I can’t get, I never said to him, will you fix it? Will you this or that? I mean, he understood what it was. I didn’t know how he would react to it. When I asked him, would you handle it? Were the words I used. I had never fixed anything with him before. [34:43] In case he was, you know, he would want to report it to somebody. I wasn’t worried because Frank had a reputation as being a big drinker. After I got the Harry Elliman file, Pat tells me, I’m going to have somebody come and talk to you. Who comes? And we meet in the first ward office, and then we go downstairs into the special room they had for conversations. It’s Mike Ficarro. He’s the head of the organized crime section. He’s the one who prosecutes all the criminals. He’s one of the many prosecutors in Chicago. That’s why there were over 1,000 mob murders and never a conviction from the time of Al Capone. Not a single conviction with over 1,000 mob murders because they controlled absolutely everything. He’s the boss. [35:35] I knew him. I didn’t like him. He had an attitude about him. You know, when I would see him at parties and when I’d see him at other places, and I’d walk by and say, hi, he just seemed coldish. [35:47] I found out later why. He was jealous of the relationship I had with all these people. [35:54] He says, I’ll help you any way I can, anything you need, whatever. So the prosecutors on the Harry Olliman case were our people. That’s who’s prosecuting the case anyhow. But they couldn’t get one of their judges apparently who would handle the case. So, but anyhow, uh, so, uh, when we, um, when we go, when we, when we go to trial, um. [36:25] Before to help me out, I told Pat, I’ll get somebody else to handle the case. I’ll have somebody else. I said, I won’t go in there. I won’t go in there because everybody knows I’m close to Frank, very close to Frank. I said, so I won’t go in there. I’ll get somebody. He says, no, no. He said, I’ll get somebody. And so he gets a guy named Frank Whalen, who I didn’t know at the time. He was a retired lawyer from Chicago. He was one of the mob lawyers. [37:00] He was one of the mob lawyers. And he lived in Florida. He lived in Miami. I think it was, no, Lauderdale. He lived in the Lauderdale area. He was practicing there. So I fly out. I fly out to meet him. I i do all the investigating in the case the i’m using an investigator that harry alleman got from me in fact he was the same investigator that got in trouble in in uh in in hollywood for what for a lot of stuff i can’t think of his name right now but he’s the one who got indicted in hollywood eventually for you know wiretapping people and whatever it was the same one. And he got me information on Bobby on this Bobby Lowe. He found out Bobby Lowe, Bobby Lowe was a drug addict. [37:59] When the FBI got a hold of him, Bobby Lowe was living out in the street because he had been fired from his first job. He had a job in some kind of an ice cream company where they made ice cream, and he got fired there for stealing. And then he had a job after that in a gas station, and he faked a robbery there. Apparently, what he did was he called the police and said he had been robbed. This is before they had cameras and all the rest of that stuff. He said he had been robbed. And somebody happened to have been in the gas station getting gas. It was a big place, apparently. [38:45] And when the police talked to him, he said, I didn’t see anything strange. He said, I saw the attendant walk out to the back about 10, 15 minutes ago. I saw him walk out to the back of the place and then come back in. And so they go out, and he had his car parked behind it, and they found the money that was supposed to have been stolen in the car. So not the best witness, in other words. Well, that’s an understatement, because that was why… That was why now he suddenly shows up, and they know all this. The FBI agents that obviously know all this, that’s their witness. That’s their case. To me, it’s an airtight, you know. Yeah. Anyhow, I developed the defense. I went back to see Frank a second time. I flew out to Florida a second time, gave him all this information. [39:48] I had talked to some other people to a number of people that were going to indicate that Harry played golf with them that day see how they remembered not golf but he was at a driving range with them with about five people they remember what they were three or four years three or four years before that what I also found out now, and I didn’t know and it changed my whole attitude on that this wasn’t a mob killing you, This guy that he killed was married to his, I think it was his cousin or some relation was married. I’m pretty sure it was to his cousin. She had told Harry, I got this from Butchie, Butchie Petrosselli, who had become a close friend of mine after I got involved with Harry’s case, his partner. And that was why he killed them, because apparently the sister, his sister-in-law, whatever she was, had told him, you know, when he was beating her up, she had said, well, my Harry Alameda won’t be happy about this. And he said, supposedly, he said, fuck that, Kenny. [41:02] And that’s why the shooting took place. Wow. This changed me. You know, I’m in the middle of it. There’s no getting out of it now. Yeah, they’ll turn it back. And by now, I’m running around all the time with Butch and Mary at night. I’m meeting them at dinner. They’re coming to one of my places where I have dinners all the time. You know, I’m becoming like close friends, close friends with both of them. Yeah. So anyhow, but anyhow, the lawyer that he got, Frank Whalen, who was supposed to be sharp, turned out like he was not in his, let’s just say he was not in his prime. [41:46] Charitable. And when he went in, you know, while the trial was going on, you know, while the trial was going on, I get a call from Frank. From Frank Wilson, because I told him, you don’t come back into the restaurant now. You don’t come back into the restaurant. I used his office as my office all the time, along with a bunch of other judges. I had a phone, but it cost about a dollar a minute to talk on my phone. I had to talk on my phone. So when I’d be at 26th Street in the courthouse, even though no lawyers are allowed back there in the chamber, so I’m back there sitting at his desk using the phone taking care of my own other business. I stopped going in there while the trial was going on. [42:35] So, anyhow, he calls me, and he wants to meet me at a restaurant over on Western Avenue. And, okay, he called me from one of the pay phones out there in front of the courthouse, and I go to meet him. What did he want? Was he complaining about the lawyer, Waylon? What was he complaining about, Waylon? and I was screwing it up. [42:59] When I meet him, I said, you know, he’s like, you know, he said, you know, we go into the bathroom and he and he said he’s all shooken up. He says, this is going to cost me my job. He said, he said, you know, they’re burying him. You’re burying him. You know, because I had given this information on the two witnesses. And he says, Frank Whalen, he said, isn’t doing a thing and cross-examining these people and whatever. [43:32] And he says, and he’s all upset. And I said, Frank, no, I’m shook up one of the few times in my life where it’s something I can’t handle. He had never told me, you know, I’ll fix the case, never. And I said to him, and I said, Frank, I said, if something goes wrong, I said, I’m sure they’re going to kill me, is what I said to him. Yeah. I said, if something goes wrong, I’m sure they’re going to kill me. And I left. I left the bathroom. Now, I have no idea what’s going on in his mind and whatever. Yeah. I see Pat the next day. And by something goes wrong in this case, you mean if he gets found guilty, that’d be what would go wrong and you would get killed. Is that that’s what you mean? Well, no question, because when I met, I didn’t go into that. I met with Harry Alleman. I get a call after I got involved in the case. A couple days later, I get a call from Markle. Meet me at one of the nightclubs where I was all the time at night with these people. [44:47] Above it, you’ve got a motel, a bunch of hotel rooms. I get a call from Markle. The reason everybody loved me and the mob, I never discussed what I was doing with anybody or any of the other dozens of mobsters I run with that I was involved in Harry’s case. Never said a word to anybody about any of this. That was my nature, and that’s why all these people love me. I never talked about one thing with anybody else or whatever. He says, I want to meet you. When I get over there, he says, let’s go upstairs. Somebody wants to talk to you. And we go upstairs, and there’s Harry Alleman. And Harry, how you doing? How are you? [45:27] And he says, listen, you’re sure about this? And I said, yeah. I said, I’m sure. And he said, well, if something goes wrong, you’re going to have a problem. Those were his words to me. You’re going to have a problem. And I said, you know, he says, because this judge, he says, this judge is a straight judge. And he said, Tom, you mean Tom Maloney. He says, and Tom wants to handle my case. And he tells me he’s going to be named a judge by the Supreme Court real soon. And he wants to handle and he wants to handle my case before he… Uh, you know, before he becomes a Supreme court, before he becomes a judge, I knew the moment he told me that I knew for sure that was the case because we control everything, including the Supreme court. I said, you know, I said, don’t, you know, don’t worry about it. I lied to him. And I said, uh, I said, yeah, the judge is going to, I said, yeah, he’s going to throw it out. He knows, I said, he knows what’ll happen if he doesn’t. That’s what I told Harry. I want to keep him happy. [46:34] I’m going to keep him happy probably for a few hours I’m a little nervous and then that’s all behind me like so many other problems I got in the middle of oh my god talking about walking a tightrope so now the lawyer came into Chicago he was in Chicago I met him when he came in he was staying at the Bismarck was at the Bismarck Hotel right around the corner from you know where Counselor’s Row was that’s where he was staying in the in the hotel right there by the first board office and there was a way to go in there without being seen and there was a, You go through another restaurant and you go through the alley and go up there. And I wouldn’t, I didn’t want to be seen walking into there because I know the FBI are probably, are probably watching and whatever. When he comes into town, they handle the case. So I go upstairs to see him. You know, I said, what the hell’s going on in court? He says, I’m going, it’s going great. It’s going great. I said, it’s going great. I just, you know, I just got a call last night. I had to go meet the judge. And he said, you’re not doing any cross-examining. Oh, I’m doing a great job. You know, I’m doing a great job. So after a few minutes of, I leave. Yeah. [47:52] That’s when I saw Pat Marcy, too. And I said, Pat, I said, the judge is upset about whatever’s going on. I said, maybe we should give him some more because I agreed to give him $10,000. And he said, you know, what a piece of work he is. You know, he said $10,000, and that’s all he’s going to get, not a nickel more or whatever. So now to say I’m nervous again is an ultra statement. The case, I walked over, and I wouldn’t go in the room, but I wanted to just be around that room for some reason. FBI agents all over the place. [48:30] FBI agents all over the place. And so now I’m at home and I’m packed. I’ve got my bags packed because if he finds it, I don’t know what he’s going to do. I’m worried he might find him guilty because of all that had happened. He, when the trial ended a given night, and the next day he was going to give the result. In fact, I didn’t go out and play that night. I was a little nervous, and I stayed home, and I packed up my bags. I packed up my bags, and about 9 o’clock, I got in the car, and I started driving. And by the time he gave the ruling, I was probably about 100, maybe 150 miles away. And I hear on the radio, you know, found him not guilty, found him not guilty. So I turn around. Hit the next exit, turn around and come back. I turn around. Northbound on I-55. [49:27] Probably a couple hours later, here I am parked in my parking spot. My parking spot was in front of my office, right across from City Hall. And I parked in the mayor’s spot when she wasn’t there. And drove probably to drive her crazy. But that was where I parked. That was my parking spot. We’d see my big car with the RJC license plates parked in the bus stop. And so here I am. I parked the car and I go in. I go in. [50:01] And I’m sure Pat told some people, probably not, but I’m sure they told all the mobsters, all the top mobsters, because these guys all wanted to meet me afterwards and get the restaurant. I go in to see them. We walked into the janitor’s closet. You walk out of Counselor’s Row. You go to the left. It goes into the 100 North Building. Now, you’ve got the elevators to the right. And behind that, you’ve got a closet where the janitors keep all their stuff. And you’ve got some stairs leading up to the, there was a, what do you call it? There was an office there where the commodities, big commodity exchange was right there. that there was a stairway leading up to where the offices were with some doors with bars and everything on it. And Pat is standing on those stairs, about two or three stairs. You know, I said, wow. I said, you know, everybody’s going nuts. And he goes, well, you know, you did a good job. And he gives me an envelope. He gives me an envelope. And, you know, I put the money in my pocket. [51:09] We said we had some more. We said a couple other words about, you know, this and that. And then I just go in there. I go back in the counselor’s. [51:21] Now, after the feds started getting indictments, did you try and warn the Aleman case judge, Frank Wilson? Why did you do that? And when I went to see Frank Wilson, I went to help him. I said, Frank, I said, look, I said, I was contacted by, I said, I was contacted by the, by the, by the FBI. They were investigating the Harry Aleman case. I said to him, I said, they, they feel the case was fixed. I said, when they come to see me, I said, you know, I said, I’m not going to talk to them. I said, I’m not going to talk to them. I’m going to take the fifth. And in your case, you can do the same thing. When they, if they come to talk to you, you just take the fifth amendment. If they give you immunity, I said, you know, then you, then you testify, but you tell them the truth. I said, don’t worry about me. Tell them the truth. This is how I talk to him. When I’m talking to him like that, it’s almost like he’s trying to run away from me. [52:27] We’re at a restaurant in a big complex. It was in one of those resorts in Arizona. He’s all but running away from me. I was trying to help him. What I said to him was, Frank, I said, the statute of limitations ran on all this. It’s been more than five years. There’s nothing they can do to you or to me, I said, because the statute ran. I said, so don’t lie to them. What the feds were concerned about, and I don’t know why, that he would deny ever fixing the case when it went through. I don’t know why they’re worried about that, but they were, and I didn’t want to see him get in trouble. [53:13] That’s why I went there to protect him. Hey, Bob, you were asked to represent an outfit associate or an outfit associate’s son who was accused of breaking the jaw of a Chicago policewoman. And you know, when a cop is injured in a fight with somebody, the cops follow that case. And I do not want to see any shenanigans going on. So, so tell us about how you walked that line. And I bet those cops were, were not happy with you in the end. Some people think this is a reason you flipped. Take us inside that case, will you? [53:45] And the reason I mentioned that it had a lot to do with what I eventually did. Now we’ll get back to what made me do what I was going to do. When I was practicing law now, and now I have been away from all this for years, I was out of town a lot because I’m representing the Chinese all around the country. I’m their main lawyer right now. [54:10] And I get a call from Lenny Colella. And he says, my son, he said, my son is in trouble. I want to come in and I want to talk to you about handling his case. This was a heater case, too. This was a front page case because he was charged with aggravated battery and attempted murder. Supposedly, he had beat up a policewoman and it was all over the place. He was a drug addict and whatever, supposedly he did all this. And when he came into the office with his dad, he was high. When I talked to him, he’s got his kid with him. And the kid is a smart aleck. As we’re talking, the kid, and I asked the kid, well, whatever. The kid was a smart aleck. And I just said to him, I said, Len, I can’t help you. I said, get him out of here. I want nothing to do with him. I said, I can’t help you. You didn’t take cases that were involved with cops anyhow, for the most part. No. I didn’t know what had happened in this case. I know what I saw in the paper. I didn’t know what the facts or anything were or whatever. I mean, if it turned out that if I felt when I talked to him that he had done it, whatever, I would not have taken the case anyhow. [55:26] I mean, I would not have. That’s why I say, too, that may be, too, why I was as quick and as rude as I was when he came in there and was acting and was a little bit high. I just wanted nothing to do with him, period. I said to his dad, his father said, you know, if I get him cleaned up, you know, I said, well, if you get him cleaned up, then we’ll talk again. I said, but I can’t help him, and I can’t help him. [55:54] And off he goes. the father re-contacted me about a week later. And he said, I had him in rehab and he straightened out and whatever. And he brought him back in and it was a new person. And when he told me the facts of the case, when he told me what happened, because he was a big, tough kid. He was a big, you know, he was a weightlifter, but he was a big, tough looking kid. [56:19] And it’s a little police woman. When he told me what happened, I believed him. Because I’ve been out in the street and whatever. And he says, you know, he told me what happened, that he had gotten stopped. He was out there talking to her. And when she said, you’re under arrest for DUI, he just walked. He says, I walked. I was going to get in my car and drive away. And she grabbed me and was pulling me or whatever. And I hear all these sirens coming. And within a few minutes, there’s all kinds of police. There’s about half a dozen police there. He says, and then they started jumping on me. He said, she was under me. He was all beaten up. He was all bloody and whatever. And she apparently had her jaw broken. And there’s no doubt in my mind when he’s telling me that, you know, when they were hit with his clubs or with this thing that they claimed he had without his fingerprints, it was a metal bar. Right, a slapper. A chunk of lead covered by leather. Everybody used to carry a slapper. How about you carry a slapper? They claimed, but there was no cloth on this. It was just the metal itself. Yeah, oh really? [57:45] Anyhow, that makes it interesting during the trial when they flat out lied. No, he had no blood. I got the hospital reports. They wouldn’t take him in the station because he was too badly beaten up. But anyhow, he also had two other charges. He had been involved in a fight in a bar. And he had been involved in another situation with the police. And he was charged with resisting arrest and battery on a policeman out in Cicero. So he had these three cases. So I gave the father a fee on handling, you know, the one, I was going to, I gave him a fee one case at a time. I said, you know, first thing we’ll do, I want to get rid of those other two cases. I’ll take them to juries, I said. [58:36] I’ll take them to juries because I wasn’t going to put them. I knew both the judges on those cases, but I wasn’t going to put them in a position on a case like that. I take the first case to trial. And I get him a not guilty. That was the fight in the bar. [58:54] That was out in one of the suburbs. That was out in, I’m not sure which suburb, in the northwest side. After we get that case over with, before that case, I get a call from Pat Marcy. Pat Marcy, I hadn’t seen him probably even for a couple months, but I hadn’t talked to him for quite a long period of time. And he says to me, you got a case that just came in. He said, we’re going to handle it. And I said, there’s no need, Pat. I said, I can win these cases. I said, there’s no need. I can win these cases. And he said, we’re going to handle this. The case is going to go to Judge Passarella, he said, and we’ll take care of it. I said, Pat, there’s no need to. I said, I can win these cases. I said, they’re all jury trials, but I know I can win them all. And he says, you do as you’re told. Pat had never talked to me like that before. [59:54] Powerful as he was and crazy as I am, And he never, you know, you never demand that I do anything or whatever. We had a different type relationship. And although I hadn’t broken away from them by now, it’s been years. I had broken away from them for about, you know, two, three years. And he says, you know, take the case to trial. I said, well, he’s got some other cases, too, and I’m going to take the one. And she says, I’ll take it to a jury, and I’ll win it. You’ll see how I win it. I take her to trial, and I get her not guilty. The second case was set for trial about a month after that. Not even, yeah, about a month or so after that. And during that time, a couple of times I’m in counselors, and Pat says, when are you going to take the case to trial? I said, well, Pat, you know, I won the one case. I got the other case on trial, and it was before Judge Stillo. He was a judge that we eventually indicted. [1:00:51] Stillo was very, very well connected to the first ward. He’s one of the old-time judges out in Maywood. And I told him, you know, when I came in there, he assumed I’d take it to trial and he’d throw it out. And I said, no, no, no, there’s no need to. I says, I’m going to take the jury on this one. Number one, I had stopped fixing things long before this. And, but he was, to make money, he was willing that he would have thrown the case out. It was a battery with a Cicero policeman. And I says, no, no, I’ll take it. I’ll take it to, you know, I’ll take the jury. I said, I don’t want to put you in that pursuit. Oh, don’t worry about me. I take that one to trial and I win that one too. Now Pat calls me, when the hell are you going to take the case to trial? And that’s the original case with the police woman. That’s the main one. The main one. Okay, go ahead. [1:01:44] When are you going to take it to trial? And I don’t want to take it to trial. In fact. I had talked to the prosecutor, and I said, look, I said, because he was charged with, he was charged with, you know, attempted murder and arrest. I said, if you’ll reduce it, the prosecutor was an idiot. He knew me, should have realized that, you know, that I never lose cases. Yeah. You know, but I want to work out something. He was a special prosecutor on it. He said, we’re not going to reduce it. We said, you know, if you want to work out a plea, we went five years, we went five to ten or whatever in the penitentiary. And I said, well, that’s not going to happen. I said, well, then we’ll just have to go to trial. So now, while I’m at Counselor’s Row, on one of my many occasions, because I was still having some card games over there at somebody else’s other lawyer’s office, because I had had big card games going on there for years. I’m sitting at the counselor’s row table, and Judge Passarella comes in. There’s just him and me there, and when he comes in, I say, Oh, you’re here to see Pat? [1:02:56] And he goes, Pat, who? No more conversation. Who the fuck? No more. The guy’s treating me like I’m some kind of a fool or whatever. And I developed an instant disliking to him. I had never seen him around that much or whatever before that. So now, after the second case, you’re going to go to, you know. So I talked to Lenny. When Lenny came in, Lenny came in with him when we were starting to get prepared for the case. And, oh, this is before this is before I talked to the prosecutor. And I said, Lenny, I said, I says, if I can get it reduced to a misdemeanor, to a misdemeanor. I said, you know, can we work with, you know, and work out a plea, let’s say, for maybe a month or two, you know, a month or two. Is that OK with you? Oh, sure. He says, oh, sure. [1:03:57] Now, this Lenny, this was the kid’s dad, your client’s dad. This is his dad. Now, explain who he was, who Lenny was. His dad was. What’s his last name? Yeah, Karela. Karela, okay. Lenny Karela, I’m pretty sure was his name. He owned a big bakery out there in Elmwood Park area. Okay. And he was friendly with all the mobsters. Okay, all right. I got you. For all I knew, he may have been a mobster himself, but I mean, he may have been because we had thousands of people that were connected. He was a connected guy. All right, go ahead. I’m sorry. And he said, oh, yeah, sure, no, not a problem because the papers are meant, they’re still, after a year, they’re still mentioning that case will be going to trial soon and every so often. [1:04:43] What I had also done, I tried to make contact with the policewoman, not with her, but I put the word out and I knew a lot of police and I got a hold of somebody that did know her. And I said, look, I said, no, the case is fixed if I want it. Yeah. But I don’t want it. Even though I know that, you know, that it’s all BS, you know, I said, look, I said, get a hold of her and get a hold of her lawyer and tell them if they want to file a lawsuit, you know, you know, we can, they can get themselves some money on it. Uh, you know, he’ll indicate, you know, he’ll, he’ll, he’ll indicate that, you know, he, he was guilty or whatever, but I wanted to get her some money. The word I get back is tell him that piece of shit, meaning me to drop dead, to drop dead. You know, we’re going to put this guy in prison and that’s where he should be too. When the case now, now when the case goes to trial. [1:05:48] The coppers lied like hell and talk about stupid. I’ve got the police reports there. When they took him into the police station, they wouldn’t take him. The station said take him to a hospital. He goes to the hospital and the reports, you know, bleeding here, bleeding there, and, you know, marks here, marks there. They beat the hell out of him. [1:06:10] You know, nobody touched him. You know, nobody touched him. Nobody touched him. Was he bleeding? No, no, he wasn’t. He wasn’t bleeding. Didn’t have any, you know, along with, you know, along with everything else. Flat out lied. How many policemen were there? There were two or three. There were about 10 by the time it’s over. But it’s an absolute throwout. Any fingerprints on that metal? Well, we had some fingerprints, but not his. And on and on it went. It’s a throwout case to start with. The courtroom now where the case was, was very interesting. You walk in there, and when you walk in there, there’s about 20 people that can sit. And then there’s, it’s the only courtroom in the building where you have a wall, a glass wall, all the way up, all the way up. Covering in the door, opens up and goes in there. You go in there. It’s a big courtroom. A bunch of benches now in there. You go to the left, and here’s the judge’s chambers. You come out of the chambers, and you walk up about four steps. And here the desk is on like a podium. And it’s not where all the others are, you know, where you look straight forward. It’s over on the side. It’s over, you know, to the left as you walk out of his chambers. [1:07:40] When the judge listens to the case he goes in there I’ll come up back with my ruling he comes out about 10 minutes later he walks up the steps, And now he turns off the microphone. Somebody turns off the microphone so the people in the back can’t hear anything. The ones inside there can, you know, can hear. The one back there can’t hear anything because it’s all enclosed. [1:08:11] That’s why they got the microphone back there. Somebody shut it off. He says, basically, I’m not guilty in a real strange voice. And all but runs off the all but run and don’t ask me why this is what he did all but runs off all but runs off into the into his chambers, you know he’s afraid all those cops out in the audience were going to come and charge the stand I guess and put a whack on him. [1:08:43] But think about it this is Chicago he’s with the bad guys but I’m just saying I don’t know why he did all that, but that’s what he did. And so now, as I come walking out with Mike, and they’re all in uniform, and most of them are in uniform, and then you’ve got the press and all kinds of cameras and whatever there. And as I come walking out along with him, some of these guys I know, and these jerk-offs are like calling me names and whatever. I go, I go see Pat. [1:09:23] And when I go back into Counselor’s Row now, he’s there at the table. And when I come in, it’s a repeat of the Harry Allerman thing. He walks out. He walks directly. And I’m following him, and he walks in. He goes back into the same janitor’s closet and stands on the same steps just above me, you know, talking to me. And I said to him I said this judge is going to have a problem, I said, he’s going to have a problem. I said, what if he says something? And he said to me, nobody would dare. He said, nobody would dare cooperate against us. They know what would happen. Or words to that effect. And don’t ask me why. So many other things had happened before this. But now I’m looking at him and I’m thinking, you know, somebody’s got to stop this craziness. All this stuff. I’m thinking that at the moment, but then I’m worried for some reason, I think he can read my mind. [1:10:34] Stupid as all of this seems, I’m afraid to think that anymore. I’m almost, you know, cause Pat’s such a powerful person and every sense I know, I know his power, but anyhow, so I leave. And like I say, 10, 15 minutes later, that’s all forgotten about. He paid me the rest of the money I was supposed to get from them. [1:10:56] Obviously, he wanted to do it because he was probably charging a lot of money. That’s why he didn’t want me to take things. He wanted to collect the money because while the case was going on too, he puts me in touch with the head of the probation department because he was able to help in some way. He knew some of the, you know, some of the, some of the policemen involved in the thing had been contacted too. Yeah. But they were contacted and they messed up by, you know, they messed up by lying about all that. Yeah. When there’s police reports saying, oh, no, but anyhow, that was that particular case. Tell us why you decided to flip. [1:11:38] These had been your friends. You knew you had explosive information. You knew as a lawyer, you knew what you had to say would send these people to prison for many, many years. if not life. It had to be hard. As other things happened, why did I commit the, Probably two or three other times things happened. But the most important thing was to think when my dad was dying, and I was very close to my dad. When my dad was dyi

John writes "October 2025, there were a few of us sitting around the table in our off‑grid hunting shack, just enjoying each other's company. For context, we're deep in the PNW backcountry: no power, no civilization for miles, and no motorized vehicles allowed anywhere near the place. Out of nowhere we heard a thud on the side of the shack. My wife said, "There's something outside," but a friend brushed it off, saying it was probably just a piece of firewood settling in the stove. So we ignored it. A moment later, another thud, louder this time. Three of us got up, opened the door, and checked down the side of the shack where the sound came from, but there was nothing there. Convinced it was probably nothing, two of us headed back inside while the third said he needed to use the shitter (our name for the outhouse). We had barely sat down again when, just seconds later, he, let's call him "J" came sprinting back inside, not even making it to the outhouse. He blurted out, "There's something out there," and the fear on his face was real. This is a military veteran who's seen his share of things, and he said whatever it was made a deep exhale or grunt from just outside. So J, S, and I went back out. We'd only walked about 15–20 feet toward the shitter before stopping. The outhouse sits around 40–50 feet from where we stood, with no trees between us. Behind it, though, the timber tightens up. I saw it first. "What the hell is that?" I said. What I saw was a small red glowing light, pulsing faintly. A minute later J said, "What the hell is that?" he had finally locked onto it too. S still couldn't see it yet. The red light looked like a tiny, dim LED, pulsing on and off. The night was pitch‑black—so dark I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Whenever I stared directly at the light, it would vanish, and I'd have to move my head around, almost like searching around branches for an angle. Then it would reappear… then vanish again… then reappear somewhere slightly different. At one point, I saw three separate red lights at the same time, all at different heights but roughly eye‑level. Always single lights, never two together like eyes. That's when S finally said, "What the hell…" and he was clearly shaken. He'd been scanning the area with a thermal scope the whole time and seeing nothing until suddenly he saw what he described as a face, a circular white heat signature peeking from behind a tree or stump before disappearing again. After that, the red light on the far right appeared noticeably closer, now unobstructed by any branches. S kept saying, "Red… off… red… off… red… off…" in rhythm with the pulsing. We've had three other strange experiences over the past decade that we've never been able to explain, one was an extremely loud and heavy scream that terrified all of us, and the other involved a group of large ground nests. All of those seemed like possible Bigfoot‑related activity. Because of that history, it almost feels logical that these red lights might be connected. What I'm trying to figure out is whether you've ever come across anything like this, or if you know of any accounts describing similar red lights. I'm obsessive when it comes to researching things, but I keep running into dead ends, mostly references to red glowing eyes or floating orbs. This wasn't eye shine; there was no light source to reflect off of. And the orb stories I've found don't match what we saw either. This experience doesn't resemble anything I've come across in the short time I've been digging into it." We will also be speaking to Marissa, she writes "I've gone back and forth about writing to you because I'm not sure how relevant my experience really is but after hearing witnesses on your show describe encounters with dogman-type creatures, I can't help wondering if what we saw might fit into that category. My boyfriend, Brian, and I live full-time in a truck camper, traveling around the U.S. This happened in mid-July, when we were camped on BLM land past the Delta-09 Missile Silo, just outside Badlands National Park. It was a full-moon night, but we set up camp while there was still daylight. We made a fire, Brian cooked dinner and almost immediately after we arrived, I noticed something odd. A herd of cows in the distance suddenly came running over a hill, almost as if they were spooked. For the next several hours, as we ate and the sun went down, those cows made nonstop distressed sounds. We couldn't see them, but we could hear them, and it was eerie. One of my dogs refused to get out of the truck as well, which was extremely unusual for her. Eventually, once the moon rose, the cows went silent. The night was beautiful, so we decided to take a moonlit walk along the dirt road with our other dog. We walked maybe half a mile and then laid down to look at the stars. We'd been on the ground less than a minute when my dog gave an alert bark. We sat up, and about 60 yards ahead of us, we saw a large black figure. My first thought was that it was a cow until my eyes adjusted and I realized it had canine features. I tried to convince myself it was a coyote, even though it was far too big. We aimed our flashlights at it, and that's when everything turned strange. It had no eye shine at all. I've lived in the woods most of my life; every animal I've ever seen at night reflects light. But this thing's eyes were just… black holes. The entire body almost seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it. No matter how many times we shone our beams on it, no more detail appeared. It just stayed this pitch-black shape, panting loudly far louder than you'd expect from that distance. I had the unsettling feeling that it was staring directly into my eyes and that it was intelligent, more so than any wild animal I've encountered. We yelled at it, but it didn't flinch or move. A normal coyote would've bolted. I told Brian, "I don't want that thing behind me," which is not how I react to coyotes at all. We started heading back to camp me walking forward, Brian walking backward to keep an eye on it. Later, when we talked it through, things got even stranger. There were two of them. I had been so fixated on the one in front of us that I completely missed a second creature off to our right closer, and according to Brian, noticeably larger. Brian isn't someone who believes in Bigfoot, dogmen, skinwalkers, or anything of that nature, but he said it felt like the one farther away the one I was staring at was in control of the closer one, almost like an owner and a dog. He also said its legs looked blurry or formless when the light hit them, which matched what I felt but didn't say out loud. As he kept watch, both creatures followed us for about a quarter mile, staying just far enough back, until they finally slipped into the hills. Almost immediately after they disappeared, the cows started up again with the same panicked cries from earlier. We've gone over this experience so many times, and we always land in the same place: those were not coyotes. They were something neither of us can explain. So I'm reaching out to ask have you heard other reports of canine-like creatures with jet-black eyes and no eye shine? Does this sound more like something people attribute to a skinwalker, or is a dogman encounter a possibility? I know humans lack eye shine, but these things were absolutely not human. I haven't been able to find anything online that matches, other than a general trend of strange reports from the Badlands. I'd really love to hear your thoughts on what we might've seen."      

Slováci v Srbsku: Zuzana Chalupová - chudobná žena, ktorá delila po svete doláre: priekopnička a najvýznamnejšia ženská predstaviteľka kovačického insitného umenia, ktoré bolo v minulom roku zapísané na listinu UNESCO; V tomto roku si pripomíname 100 rokov od jej narodenia; Jej obrazy sa nachádzajú v mnohých múzeách, galériách ako aj v súkromných zbierkach po celom svete. Najčastejšie kreslila námety z každodenného kovačického života a práce; Svoje diela darovala aj na charitatívne účely Unicefu, Unesca a Červeného kríža; Na „mamu Zuzanu“ spomínajú riaditeľka Galérie insitného umenia v Kovačici Anna Žolnajová Barcová, insitná maliarka Zuzana Veresky a novinári Vladimír Valentík, Martin Prebudila, Katarína Pucovská a Oľga Glóziková Jonášová. Slováci v USA: Kristína Sojáková - jej meno sa už 18 rokov spája so svetovým IT gigantom IBM; Je globálna líderka pre softvér a AI partnerstva v IBM;

Cette semaine, un épisode un peu spécial car il a été enregistré en public lors des 24 heures de Libération qui se sont déroulées à la Cité de la Musique le 8 novembre à Paris. Installée au sein du Musée de la musique, l'équipe de Silence on joue a reçu Emeric Thoa, cofondateur et directeur créatif de The Game Bakers pour parler de Cairn, le très attendu jeu d'alpinisme prévu pour début 2026. Nous avons aussi parlé du très addictif Ball X Pit et de son armée de «béboules» et de The Séance of Blake Manor avec son enquête surnaturelle au sein d'un étrange manoir irlandais.Jérémie Kletzkine, dans sa chronique jeux de société, nous parle par procuration de Mythicals.Chapitres :0:00 Intro5:44 Les news18:25 Ball X Pit36:31 La chronique jeux de société : Mythicals41:19 Cairn, avec Emeric Thoa1:01:26 Le questionnaire de SOJ d'Emeric Thoa1:07:56 La minute culturelle1:14:59 The Séance of Blake Manor1:38:11 Et quand vous ne jouez pas, vous faites quoi ?Retrouvez toutes les chroniques de jérémie dans le podcast dédié Silence on Joue ! La chronique jeux de société (Lien RSS).Pour commenter cette émission, donner votre avis ou simplement discuter avec notre communauté, connectez-vous au serveur Discord de Silence on joue!Retrouvez Silence on Joue sur Twitch : https://www.twitch.tv/silenceonjoueSoutenez Silence on joue en vous abonnant à Libération avec notre offre spéciale à 6€ par mois : https://offre.liberation.fr/soj/Silence on joue ! c'est l'émission hebdo de jeux vidéo de Libération. Avec Erwan Cario et ses chroniqueurs Patrick Hellio, Julie Le Baron, Corentin Benoit-Gonin et Marius Chapuis.CRÉDITSSilence on joue ! est un podcast de Libération animé par Erwan Cario. Cet épisode a été enregistré le 8 novembre 2025 en public au Musée de la musique. Générique : Marc Quatrociocchi. Photo : Pointman. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Alex Pilot, réalisateur et cofondateur de la chaîne Nolife, lance ces jours-ci un financement participatif pour son premier long métrage Demo. C'est l'occasion pour le recevoir en entretien dans Silence on Joue pour parler de son parcours, de son rapport aux jeux vidéo et sur ce film qu'il a en tête depuis longtemps. L'entretien sera mis en ligne demain, et, en guise de bande-annonce, nous avons soumis notre invité au questionnaire de SoJ.La page Ulule de Demo : https://fr.ulule.com/demo-par-alex-pilot/coming-soon/Pour commenter cette émission, donner votre avis ou simplement discuter avec notre communauté, connectez-vous au serveur Discord de Silence on joue!Soutenez Silence on joue en vous abonnant à Libération avec notre offre spéciale à 5€ par mois : https://offre.liberation.fr/soj/CRÉDITSSilence on joue ! est un podcast de Libération animé par Erwan Cario. Cette bande annonce a été enregistrée le 15 septembre 2025. Réalisation : Erwan Cario. Musique : Nolife no thema 2007 Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Join us on our latest episode where we try Japanese Whiskey created in America?  Thanks to the patented Takamine Process, which uses Japanese Koji mold to help ferment the barley, this 8-year whiskey "perfectly blends rich umami character with an underlying sweetness" per their website.  What do medical adrenaline, cherry blossom trees in Washington, D.C. and Koji Whiskey have in common? Is Koji Whiskey any good? Is it worth it?  Only one way to find out...Special guests on this episode are our friends Brandon and Justin from Ethereal Brewing and The Void Sake Company in Lexington, KY.https://takaminewhiskey.com/?srsltid=AfmBOooQIxy_xT_ZqsGoiiB9z7CGq0lJWe5k-CM6XgnVBpGfZ0nLKQvChttps://www.winebow.com/knowledge/takamine-whiskey-story#whiskey #koji #japanese #koji #spiritreviews #drinkreview #podcast #isitworthit #arsenicculture  The Harrowing Escape Of Takamine And His Coveted Koji Whiskey-E99https://www.youtube.com/@arsenicculturehttps://instagram.com/arsenicculturehttps://tiktok.com/@arsenicculturehttps://www.facebook.com/arsenicculture/https://x.com/arsenicculture

Join us on our latest episode where we try the most consumed spirit in Japan, Shochu.  This Japanese distilled beverage is typically distilled from rice, barley, sweet potatoes, buckwheat, or brown sugar, though it is sometimes produced from other ingredients such as chestnut, sesame seeds, potatoes, or even carrots.  The main crucial ingredient in shochu is Koji and is a cooked grain (rice, soybeans or barley, etc) that has been inoculated with a fermentation culture called Aspergillus oryzae, koji mold. Koji is prepared by adding koji mold to steamed grains, then carefully kept in warm, humid conditions that promote growth. Rice is the most frequently used grain for making koji.Is Shochu good?  Does it really deserve to be the most consumed spirit in Japan?  Is it worth it?  Only one way to find out...Special guest on this episode is our friend Brandon from Ethereal Brewing and The Void Sake Company in Lexington, KY.https://www.satsuma.co.jp/english/con-shiru-shochu.htmlhttps://honkakushochu-awamori.jp/english/professional/shochu-production-method/koji/#newrelease #shochu #koji #spiritreviews #drinkreview #podcast #isitworthit #arsenicculture  https://www.youtube.com/@arsenicculturehttps://instagram.com/arsenicculturehttps://tiktok.com/@arsenicculturehttps://www.facebook.com/arsenicculture/https://x.com/arseniccultureShochu And The Mold That Makes IT Great-E98https://www.youtube.com/@arsenicculturehttps://instagram.com/arsenicculturehttps://tiktok.com/@arsenicculturehttps://www.facebook.com/arsenicculture/https://x.com/arsenicculture

Comme chaque année, les auditrices et auditeurs de «Silence on Joue !» ont voté pour déterminer les jeux les plus marquants de l'année qui vient de s'écouler. Les résultats ont été annoncés lors d'une soirée en public, «Les Silences d'Or», qui a eu lieu le 2 janvier 2025 sur le serveur Discord. Voici le palmarès :Meilleur jeu d'un studio francophone :#3. Minishoot' Adventures#2.The Operator#1. Prince of Persia: The Lost CrownLes plus grandes attentes pour 2025 :#3. Hades II#2. Hollow Knight: Silksong#1. Grand Theft Auto VIMeilleure expérience multijoueurs de 2024 :#3. Super Mario Party Jamboree#2. Satisfactory#1. Helldivers 2Meilleur jeu d'il y a plus de 20 ans joué en 2024 :#3. Silent Hill 2#2. Final Fantasy VII#1 Doom Jeux de 2024 que l'on aimerait voir chroniqués dans SOJ :#3. Dungeons of Hinterberg#2. Unicorn Overlord#1. SatisfactoryMeilleur OST : #3. Metaphor: ReFantazio#2. Astro Bot#1. Final Fantasy VII RebirthMeilleur jeu de société :#3. Duel Pour La Terre Du Milieu #2. Dead Cells#1. Harmonies Meilleure proposition originale : #3. Minishoot' Adventures#2. The Operator#1. BalatroMeilleur Early Access / Remake / Remaster / DLC :#3 Silent Hill 2#2 Hades II#1 Elden Ring: Shadow of the ErdtreeLes meilleurs jeux joués en 2024 (sortis avant 2024) :#3. Cyberpunk 2077#2. Chants of Sennaar#1. Baldur's Gate 3La surprise de 2024 :#3. Minishoot' Adventures#2. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown#1. BalatroLa déception de 2024 :#3. Star Wars Outlaws#2. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom#1. Le Vaillant Petit PageLe Silence d'Or 2024 : #5. Indiana Jones et le Cercle ancien#4. The Rise of the Golden Idol#3. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown#2. Astro Bot#1. BalatroRetrouvez toutes les chroniques de jérémie dans le podcast dédié Silence on Joue ! La chronique jeux de société (Lien RSS).Pour commenter cette émission, donner votre avis ou simplement discuter avec notre communauté, connectez-vous au serveur Discord de Silence on joue!Retrouvez Silence on Joue sur Twitch : https://www.twitch.tv/silenceonjoueSoutenez Silence on joue en vous abonnant à Libération avec notre offre spéciale à 6€ par mois : https://offre.liberation.fr/soj/CRÉDITSSilence on joue ! est un podcast de Libération animé par Erwan Cario. Cet épisode a été enregistré entre le 2 janvier 2025 sur Discord. Réalisation : Erwan Cario. Générique : Marc Quatrociocchi. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Join us on this episode where we try Korea's most iconic spirit, and one of the most popular types of booze in the world, Soju.  This national spirit of South Korea is known for being affordable and approachable with a full flavor profile.  If this drink is so readily available, how have we never tried it?  Watch (or listen) and find out all the details for yourself.Special guest on this episode, our friend Brandon from Ethereal Brewing and The Void Sake Company in Lexington, KY.https://www.bonappetit.com/story/what-is-soju?srsltid=AfmBOopJq-qIf2wTSGdyWhXjETcbtZ5C_ehA39Ahw-VBZM0nyNyh-uzq#soju #bestbooze #soju #podcast #drinkreview #newrelease #arsenicculture  The Best Booze You've Never Had-E92https://www.youtube.com/@arsenicculturehttps://instagram.com/arsenicculturehttps://tiktok.com/@arsenicculturehttps://www.facebook.com/arsenicculture/https://x.com/arsenicculture

So much went on this Morning Glory! I spoke to Isaac of Sojøurn about their latest single 'Stay,' how delicious.  you will be playing it on repeat all summer long. I also spoke to Nat from There's a Tuesday about their 'Water Baby.' Be ready to get melancholic, contemplative and listful. Elle talks about the hot hot summer weather, the film Party Girl and the beer on her dad's Grace Jones record. 

Have you ever wondered how those sleek and stylish triathlon kits are made? In this episode, host Andrew Harley sits down with Mark Goddard from Zoot and Soj Jibowu from Varlo to find out! Mark and Soj explain the intricate process of creating a triathlon kit from the initial design and material selection to the final product. They also discuss the key features that make a tri suit stand out, such as moisture-wicking fabric, compression technology, and aerodynamic design. From comfort and breathability to body mapping and chamois padding, you'll learn about the important factors to consider when selecting the perfect triathlon kit for your specific race needs. But it's not just about choosing the right tri suit, it's also about taking care of it. Hear the best methods for cleaning and preserving your triathlon clothing to ensure its longevity and performance. Whether you're a seasoned triathlete or just starting out, this episode will leave you with a better understanding of triathlon kits and how to select the best one for your race day. Big thanks to Precision Fuel & Hydration for partnering with us on this episode! Head over to https://visit.pfandh.com/tridot and check out the Fuel Planner to get your free personalized fuel and hydration strategy. Huge thanks to deltaG for also partnering with us on this episode. To learn more about the performance boosting benefits of deltaG Ketones head to deltaGketones.com and use code TRIDOT20 for 20% off your order. On their site you can: 1. Learn more about fueling with deltaG ketone products. 2. Make a standalone purchase, or subscribe for ongoing deltaG ketone deliveries. 3. Book a FREE 15 minute video consultation with Brian, an expert on exogenous ketones, and deltaG in particular, to discuss your individual goals and best choice of deltaG drink to exceed those goals.

Have you ever wondered how those sleek and stylish triathlon kits are made? In this episode, host Andrew Harley sits down with Mark Goddard from Zoot and Soj Jibowu from Varlo to find out! Mark and Soj explain the intricate process of creating a triathlon kit from the initial design and material selection to the final product. They also discuss the key features that make a tri suit stand out, such as moisture-wicking fabric, compression technology, and aerodynamic design. From comfort and breathability to body mapping and chamois padding, you'll learn about the important factors to consider when selecting the perfect triathlon kit for your specific race needs. Whether you're a seasoned triathlete or just starting out, this episode will leave you with a better understanding of triathlon kits and how to select the best one for your race day. Big thanks to Zoot for a special discount for TriDot Podcast Listeners. Use code TRIDOT for 30% a Zoot Sports purchase. TriDot and Dimond Bikes are a dynamite race day 1 – 2 punch. Dimond provides you with the Ferrari of bikes, and TriDot Training develops your engine. We are excited to partner with Dimond on some really cool offers. If you are new to TriDot, we're offering six months of the Mark Allen Edition of TriDot with the purchase of a Dimond. If you are already a TriDot athlete, we are offering either an upgrade credit or TriDot store credit with your new bike. Head to DimondBikes.com for all the info, and to dream up your very own bike.

June 9, 1959. Clinton, Ontario. After failing to return home, 12-year old Lynne Harper is reported missing and her body is discovered in a woodlot two days later. She has been sexually assaulted and strangled to death with her own blouse and suspicion turns towards her 14-year old classmate, Steven Truscott, who claims that he gave Lynne a ride to the highway on his bicycle and saw her climb into a passing car. Steven is soon charged, convicted and sentenced to death for Lynne's murder, but his sentence is commuted to life imprisonment and he is paroled in 1969. Decades later, Steven files a successful appeal to have his conviction overturned, but there is still a lot of debate about who was actually responsible for Lynne Harper's murder. Last week, we released Part One of our special eight-year anniversary episode of “The Trail Went Cold” about one of the most controversial murder cases in the history of Canada. This week, in Part Two, we will share the rest of the story before breaking down and analyzing all the details about the crime. Additional Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Truscott “Until You Are Dead: The Wrongful Conviction of Steven Truscott” “Steven Truscott: Decades of Injustice” by Nate Hendley https://www.cbc.ca/news2/background/truscott/index.html https://www.cbc.ca/news2/background/truscott/timeline.html https://www.thestar.com/news/2007/01/29/can_science_clear_truscott.html http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/court-acquits-truscott-calling-conviction-miscarriage-of-justice-1.668524 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/victim-s-family-stunned-by-truscott-compensation-1.747261 https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/who-killed-lynne-harper-retired-opp-sergeant-says-travelling-salesman-a-suspect-in-string-of-murders https://web.archive.org/web/20070401115048/http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/ccr/kaufman/exec.html If you would like to make a donation to “Season of Justice”, please visit our donation page at https://givebutter.com/SOJ_thetrail or text “TRAIL24” to # 53555. “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. “The Trail Went Cold” is going to be appearing on podcast row at “Crimecon” in Nashville on May 31-June 2, 2024 and “Crimecon UK” in London on September 21-22, 2024. To get a 10 % discount on the purchase of tickets to either event, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD24”, by visiting Crimecon.com or Crimecon.co.uk. “The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at the True Crime Podcast Festival, taking place at the Denver Marriott Westminster in Colorado on July 12-14, 2024. To get a 15 % discount on tickets, please use our specialized promo code, “TRAIL”, by visiting https://truecrimepodcastfestival.com. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

June 9, 1959. Clinton, Ontario. After failing to return home, 12-year old Lynne Harper is reported missing and her body is discovered in a woodlot two days later. She has been sexually assaulted and strangled to death with her own blouse and suspicion turns towards her 14-year old classmate, Steven Truscott, who claims that he gave Lynne a ride to the highway on his bicycle and saw her climb into a passing car. Steven is soon charged, convicted and sentenced to death for Lynne's murder, but his sentence is commuted to life imprisonment and he is paroled in 1969. Decades later, Steven files a successful appeal to have his conviction overturned, but there is still a lot of debate about who was actually responsible for Lynne Harper's murder. To commemorate the eight-year anniversary of “The Trail Went Cold”, we will be releasing the first part of a special two-part episode about one of the most controversial murder cases in the history of Canada. Special thanks to listener Sarah Browning for narrating the opening of this episode. Additional Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Truscott “Until You Are Dead: The Wrongful Conviction of Steven Truscott” “Steven Truscott: Decades of Injustice” by Nate Hendley https://www.cbc.ca/news2/background/truscott/index.html https://www.cbc.ca/news2/background/truscott/timeline.html https://www.thestar.com/news/2007/01/29/can_science_clear_truscott.html http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/court-acquits-truscott-calling-conviction-miscarriage-of-justice-1.668524 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/victim-s-family-stunned-by-truscott-compensation-1.747261 https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/who-killed-lynne-harper-retired-opp-sergeant-says-travelling-salesman-a-suspect-in-string-of-murders https://web.archive.org/web/20070401115048/http://canada.justice.gc.ca/en/ps/ccr/kaufman/exec.html If you would like to make a donation to “Season of Justice”, please visit our donation page at https://givebutter.com/SOJ_thetrail or text “TRAIL24” to # 53555. “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. “The Trail Went Cold” is going to be appearing on podcast row at “Crimecon UK” in London on September 21-22, 2024. To get a 10 % discount on the purchase of tickets to the event, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD24”, by visiting their website. “The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at the True Crime Podcast Festival, taking place at the Denver Marriott Westminster in Colorado on July 12-14, 2024. To get a 15 % discount on tickets, please use our specialized promo code, “TRAIL”, by visiting https://truecrimepodcastfestival.com. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

February 13, 2001. Bogota, New Jersey. The husband of 42-year old Patricia Viola returns home to discover that she has vanished and left all of her personal belongings behind. Prior to her disappearance, Patricia had been experiencing a lot of stress in her life and hinted to her best friend that she had something very important to get off her chest. One year later, a severed foot is found washed up on a beach 45 miles from Patricia's residence. While DNA testing eventually confirms that the foot belongs to Patricia, the rest of her remains are never found and there is no explanation for how she died. Was Patricia Viola's death a suicide or was she the victim of a foul play? On this week's episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore the unexplained death of a beloved housewife and mother which still does not have a conclusive resolution. If you have any information about this case, please contact the Bogota Police Department at (201) 487-2400. Additional Reading: https://www.newspapers.com/image/499516373/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/499511640/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/499814735/ https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/remains-found-in-queens-in-2002-idd-as-missing-new-jersey-woman/ https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/bogota/2017/04/19/archive-remains-identified-those-bogota-woman-who-vanished-11-years-ago/100657932/ If you would like to make a donation to “Season of Justice”, please visit our donation page at https://givebutter.com/SOJ_thetrail or text “TRAIL24” to # 53555. “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. “The Trail Went Cold” is going to be appearing on podcast row at “Crimecon UK” in London on September 21-22, 2024. To get a 10 % discount on the purchase of tickets to the event, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD24”, by visiting their website. “The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at the True Crime Podcast Festival, taking place at the Denver Marriott Westminster in Colorado on July 12-14, 2024. To get a 15 % discount on tickets, please use our specialized promo code, “TRAIL”, by visiting https://truecrimepodcastfestival.com. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

February 2, 2008. Tinley Park, Illinois. Police are summoned to a Lane Bryant clothing store at the Brookside Marketplace Shopping Center and discover that five victims have been fatally shot in the back room: the 42-year old store manager Rhoda McFarland, and four customers, 37-year old Connie Wolfolk, 34-year old Jennifer Bishop, 33-year old Carrie Hudek Chiuso, and 22-year old Sarah Szafranski. Even though another store employee was wounded with a bullet which grazed her neck, she winds up surviving and tells police that the shooting was committed by a black male. While the crime is suspected to be a robbery gone wrong, investigators are unable to find or identify the perpetrator or make much sense of his actions. On this week's episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore the Lane Bryant Shooting, a baffling crime involving five murdered victims which has somehow managed to remain unsolved for 16 years. Additional Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_Bryant_shooting https://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/03/16/grace.coldcase.lane.bryant/index.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2008-02-07-0802070622-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2008-08-02-0808010504-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/daily-southtown/ct-sta-lane-bryant-anniversary-st-0202-20180201-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/daily-southtown/ct-sta-lane-bryant-suspect-sketch-st-0202-20180201-story.html https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/tinley-park-lane-bryant-murders/169697/ https://abc7chicago.com/lane-bryant-shooting-murder-murders-tinley-park/11533547/ https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/lane-bryant-murders-tinley-park-15th-anniversary/ https://abc7chicago.com/tinley-park-lane-bryant-murders-unsolved-crime-il/12763590/ If you would like to make a donation to “Season of Justice”, please visit our donation page at https://givebutter.com/SOJ_thetrail or text “TRAIL24” to # 53555. “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. “The Trail Went Cold” is going to be appearing on podcast row at “Crimecon UK” in London on September 21-22, 2024. To get a 10 % discount on the purchase of tickets to the event, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD24”, by visiting their website. “The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at the True Crime Podcast Festival, taking place at the Denver Marriott Westminster in Colorado on July 12-14, 2024. To get a 15 % discount on tickets, please use our specialized promo code, “TRAIL”, by visiting https://truecrimepodcastfestival.com. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Pandora | iHeartRadio | Email | Deezer | RSS | More Don't miss this historic episode featuring Jason Lowe, Telarus Solution Architect for Contact Center. Join in as he discusses a key contact center product some companies just can not do without, which is Work Force Management (WFM). He talks about why they need it, how to overcome objections, and most importantly, how to help your contact center customers see the ROI on it! Can you believe that we're already at 100 episodes? While we go and ramp up and get ready for season three, we're gonna take you back, listen to some of the great moments in these past episodes. So stay tuned as we take you back to season one and two. Everybody, welcome back. We are here to talk about contact center, workforce management, and we're gonna talk about why that is so important. But before we get to breaking that down, what it is, why it matters, why you care, I'd like to welcome in Mr. Jason Lowe, also goes by the name of J. Lowe, into the studio today. – Thank you for having me, Josh. Happy to be here. – So J. Lowe, I wanna talk about your background. Part of my favorite thing of doing this is really learning where everybody came from, right? Did you used to cut grass, then you decided you wanna get into tech? Where did you start? What's your background? How did you get here? And give us the story. – Man, so I've always been into technology. My parents got an Atari, which I loved, and then we got an Apple 2C computer, and they sent me to a computer camp and did all of these things. But when I, quite frankly, when I got to high school, and I didn't wanna go to my other classes, I would go and hang out in the computer lab. And the person that ran the computer lab was very nice, and knew that if I wasn't there helping her with the computer lab, that I would probably be at the 7-Eleven on the corner, or something like that. So she let me go ahead and spend as much time there, and so I got to spend time networking computers together, and setting up software, and then I got a job right out of high school doing the same stuff, and it eventually led to writing code, and doing some of the really super cool, crazy, techy things. But then I was tired of not having a degree, so I went back to school, got my bachelors, and ironically, right after I got my bachelors, and I'm looking around for a job, any job whatsoever, and I ran into this fine gentleman by the name of Darren Solomon, who at the time, was a recruiter for a little company called UCN. – Ah yes. – Yes, and he is now at Varen, by the way, but he and I bonded, and he tried to shoehorn me into three or four other different positions, and I finally got in as a technical trainer at UCN. And so that's how my technology, at least in the software as a service space career, kind of got started. But yeah, previously everything from writing code, to networking, and computer maintenance, to software installation, and stuff like that. – I love it too, because it all translates, right? I mean, I never thought when I was going to school that I would need to know what the OSI model was, and understanding all these different layers, but you have these core things that you have, that you're taught that it always kind of comes back to, regardless of if you, we talk about this, of the things that we went to school for, are we doing those now, right? That's a whole nother podcast on its own, but I think that core, that troubleshooting, plugging it together, right? You're starting to learn what you like, right? So it's been awesome to kind of see that progression, and then turned into in contact, and then I believe there's some product experience in there. So I think you've gotten a cool, rounded out experience in my mind of the background, now obviously specializing in the context in our side here as an architect. – Yeah, it's really funny how things turn out. Everything's so iterative, right? You build on top of things, and when I got to UCN, I was a technical trainer, and then I go walking into Scott Welch's office, Scott is now CEO of Europe for Five9, and I said, “I need a mentor,” and he said, “Okay, here, take a test,” and so he gave me an LMS personality profile. They said it was a 96% match for sales engineering, which I had never heard of before in my life. And so a year and a half later, I'm on the SE team, and I also played SE roles at Talk Desk, and things like that, but really the fun and interesting thing where things went a little crazy for me was I met the SKO with Nice in Vegas, outside by a campfire, having a drink with Kristin Emenecker, who is now the chief product officer, I believe, for Playbox, and we were sitting there ruminating about what we were doing in our different roles, and she said, “Man, I wish I could find someone “to take this product role,” and I was like, “Well, I'll do it,” and next thing I know, we're having a conversation, and a month later, I'm on the product team, and I'm managing the relationship with Varenth, and at the time in contact before the nice acquisition, and so that was kind of my first exposure to workforce management in the contact center from a product side of things. I'd done things previously, but that really opened my eyes as to how these tools work, and what they do, and the value they provide. – So you got to see a lot of progression there. I mean, UCN is turning to in-contact, and you got to see the Varen partnership, product side, engineering side, architecture, all of that, and seeing in-contact grow over the years. As you saw that, I wanna talk a little bit about, and weave this into the workforce management side, because we always talk about, from a discovery call perspective, we're looking to understand where the customer is, what do they need, do they need the full suite of everything, do they need just this little segment of tools that we're trying to augment, because maybe the customer already bought that, and the agent's trying to wedge in with some product or service. So first off, help us understand, for anybody that doesn't know WFM, and what this whole workforce management thing is, break that down for us. – So WFM is one of a set of tools that are collectively referred to as workforce experience management these days. It used to also previously be called workforce optimization. And WFM, in a nutshell, the Cliff Notes version, is a tool that in one side, you feed in a bunch of variables, and on the other side, it spits out a schedule for your agents. That's basically what it is. Now the variables that you feed in, are everything from, how many calls we've taken, what service levels we want for these calls, what shifts do they wanna work, what kind of calls can they handle, are we expecting increases or decreases based on seasonality, or on advertising spends, or these different things. It takes into account all of these different factors, before it spits out the schedule, that allows you to answer the number of calls that you're going to get in the service level window that you want, service level being answering within a certain interval, like we wanna get 80 to 85% of our calls answered within 30 seconds, or something like that. And so it takes all that in consideration, and then it just makes sure that you're optimizing the number of people that you need to have on the floor, answering phone calls at any given time. So really, it's the thing that optimizes things in both directions. One, let's optimize the customer's experience by making sure that an agent's there to answer the phone call, but let's also optimize the spend for the company by making sure that we're accomplishing this with the lowest number of actual agents or employees necessary to meet those levels. – Awesome, I wanna go back to maybe one of the first examples that you did with this, but maybe let's kick back even further of how do we know who needs this, right? I mean, do most customers know that they need it? Is it a certain size that you would always see of when it gets to the size, that's kind of when, and the spreadsheets thing doesn't work anymore, or steer us around that? – Great question. So I would say in most cases, when you're looking at somewhere north of 40 to 50 agents, you're probably going to benefit from something like this. Now there are other variabilities that kind of play into things like, do we have a follow the sun model? Do we have just one shift, eight to five Monday through Friday, and that's it? Do we have long calls? Do we have short calls? Are we doing outbound also? What are the types of media channels are we handling like chat, SMS, email, et cetera with our agents? Lots of different factors, but generally rule of thumb, if you have more than 40 to 50 agents, if you will, whatever you call those agents, that's generally the level that's kind of a rule of thumb. – Okay, so let's look back at, I wanna show a progression here as we build on this at the end, then versus now kind of thing. If you flash back to one of the first opportunities that you ever worked in as an engineer, where you went, hey, I need WFM, or we need to add WFM in here, walk us through what was that like and what was the product set then and how much value did it add? – At that time, it really was just the scheduling component, but then there were also some affiliated products that also further justified it. On the scheduling side of things, that was enough of a financial justification to make it happen. This was an instance where I think they were dealing with 75 agents, they were doing spreadsheets, they did have a day shift and a swing shift, and they wanted to be really particular about their schedule and they wanted to really make sure that they were hitting those service level goals. And so they were less concerned with providing the agent with a consistent eight to five Monday through Friday schedule, but let's make sure that we have the right staff scheduled wherever needed. And so you have two different extremes in using the tools. One is going to be flexibility in the agent schedule, the other is going to be let's be consistent for the agent and just provide them a day job type thing. So the more flexible you can be with a schedule for an agent and start and finish at a specific time, take breaks at specific time, then you're going to be able to customize things a little better to hit those service levels. And in this particular case, it really made sense because they were using Excel spreadsheets and they were just kind of going off of what they felt. But when we dove into things and really took a look at their call volume, imported it into a WFM tool, they could really see the flows, the ebbs and flows during the day and see that sometimes people were taking breaks or were scheduled to take breaks or lunches during some of these peak periods. That's why their service levels were going down and they probably knew it was happening, but they weren't recognizing it because they didn't really have it right in front of their face in the form of a good report. – So how do you pull that in to help the customer see that it's not just an added cost? How do you quantify that into ROI? What's the easiest top couple things to drill that down? – I would say just taking a look at the fact that the people in a contact center are the number one cost. There's no, I mean, no matter what technology you're going to buy, you're still the biggest expense is going to be who you're paying and how much. And anything you can do to optimize that level of personnel or staffing, or dare I say, minimize it to what is just necessary to hit the goals, you're going to save yourself money. How is that going to be? Well, you're always going to be over-staffing if you're not really analyzing and taking a look at what's going on with all of these different variables and making sure that you have people staffed at the right time, but also not there at the times when you don't need them. And so it really boils down to, okay, how many agents do you have? What's your labor expenditure? Why don't we take some of your call volumes, run a couple of simulated schedules and see what your labor costs would be if we were to do it through the WFM tool on this other side. – Love it, love it, that's good. How do you think, let's talk about pros and cons. Our job, right, as engineers and architects is to help the partner solve the customer's business problems. And surely we would love it if we can come in and we can sell them context center and the workforce suite and UC and security and all these things. But we're only able to do, A, what the budget allows and then, B, what they really need that they can identify that solves their problems at the current time. So where I'm going with this is we talk about a fully integrated suite or just these a la carte products that help somebody wedge in. How do you look at pros and cons there? What's my pro or con either way of saying, Mr. Customer, you should leave this older technology that you have because by the time we bolt on, it's gonna be X, Y, and Z. Or, no, you know what, wedge it in here. How do you go through that thought process? – Well, it's interesting, right? You have to take into consideration a lot of different things like the philosophy and the environment and the customer. And what I mean by that is, are they cutting edge technology adapters or are they someone that likes to hang on to their legacy stuff? How open are they to that conversation? There's always that burden of teaching people what this new technology can do. And I've given you this analogy, but I think it's a very pertinent one. I'm giving it up. I'm not turning in my man card. Not gonna do it, but I like this show called Downton Abbey, I just like it, okay? – Awesome. – And the very, very first episode ever, they're talking about how electricity is this really great new invention. And they're talking about how they're actually gonna pipe electricity into the kitchen. And one of the kitchen maids is really confused and can't understand why in the world you would pump electricity into a kitchen for crying out loud. That's because she didn't understand that electricity could drive mixers and refrigerators and all these different things. She had to be educated as to why this tool was going to make her life better and easier and more efficient. And sometimes in the sales process with a lot of these products, you go through that. So ROI is really important. On WFM, it's a little bit more tangible. On QM and some of these other ancillary products, it can be a little bit harder to prove, but it is provable. You just have to do the analysis. You just have to get into the numbers and figure it out. Now as it pertains to do we do it as an add-on, do we do it as a suite of products, again, that's kind of the philosophy of the customer. Do they want to write one check? Do they want to have one hand to shake, one throat to choke, whatever your favorite analogy is? Or are they okay with trying to go with different pieces and bringing together a suite of best of breed products? And there's really no right or wrong answer for everybody because everybody has a different use case that is going to be met by different product mixes. Oftentimes people just kind of go with their gut or they go with what their company philosophy is. – Fair, good point. Do you find though that with a product like this, are you getting them to consider things that they haven't thought of yet? You know, what percentage of customers do you think are considering these things, right? Or thinking about the agent and how long they're on and how much their costs are and all those things. Or are you finding that you're having to bring up in these discovery discussions? Hey, have you thought about this? Have you thought about the software to be able to do these things? – There's a lot of factors there. Sometimes they're familiar with the technology, but it hasn't been the right time yet to try and implement it. Sometimes it's complete discovery and education because they've been so stuck on older technology that they haven't even considered doing this yet. It really is fun to go through that process with customers from both perspectives, right? We now have employees that have used this in previous lives. We want to adopt this technology. We haven't been big enough to do it yet. Now we're big enough to do it. Or our executive team is really emphasizing the trend of now, which is the customer experience. Let's make sure we're differentiating ourselves by how well we're treating our customers. We have to do a better job of that. Let's make sure that we are incorporating these different tools that can make that better. And therefore by extension, make the customer experience better. And so, wow, it's a fascinating time to be in this space. Let's just put it that way. Because technology is always changing, as you know, Mr. Podcaster, in all of these different areas. And all of these different and exciting innovations are really bearing fruit at a lot of different levels. And there's always that bell curve, right? Of early adoption versus late adoption, et cetera. Contact centers run the gamut, just like everybody else. They all run the gamut. It's fun to go in and see what levers you can pull or push to educate them as to what can actually make things better for them. How, why, how it's gonna save them money. How it's going to improve their customer experience and make their lives better. – So that's perfect scenario. That's when it goes good, when we're able to discover, and we can pull out everything that they need. Let's say a partner's listening up to this point, they're ready to hang up off this podcast and go try what you said and put into play. I wanna talk about the bad things, right? Not to be a Debbie Downer, but what are the problems that you're gonna run into in a conversation that you see? You know, what is it that customers struggle with if they don't wanna adopt WFM, or they don't wanna move in that direction? Or just what are some of the challenges if a partner goes down and has this discovery and asks some of these questions on their own, what are they gonna run into that the customer might say, eh, I don't know? – Well, the number one thing that you're facing when you're in a situation like that is, you know, it's not necessarily the competitor which is another provider, it's, you know, no change, or not make any change at all. They just wanna go with the status quo. That's a tough one to fight, and really it comes down to education. And sometimes partners may, how can I put this the right way? They want to make sure that they're coming across the right way when they're talking to their customers about new technologies. They may not feel armed or educated, and that's where myself and my solution architect teammates really come into play here. We can be that person in your hip pocket or side by side with you on these phone calls to have those conversations, to do that education, to make sure that the customer realizes the benefit that these technologies could bring to them. It's the role we play here atTelarus We make everybody better, including our partners, by giving them greater resources to accomplish those very things. – Love it. All right, let's get through, we talked about an early example. Let's talk about a more recent example. We can leave customer name out of this, but what I'd love to hear about this is that, we always talk a lot about what the deal ends up closing at. Really wasn't always what it started as, whether that's because we ask a lot of questions naturally and we gotta understand what fits where, and APIs and integrations and all that good stuff. But maybe walk me through an example where you helped a partner, you got brought into this situation, I said, Jason, here's what it is. And by the time you got through your discovery process and all of that, it ended up being that they needed this. And let's hear kind of what that is, and then really what did it solve? – Great question. So I think doing discovery the right way leads to discussions about these newer technologies. And it can be something as simple as just asking a question about something that maybe they hadn't considered on purpose, or if they didn't have experience with it and listening to them go, what's that? How does that work? How's that gonna provide me a benefit? And then you get into a greater conversation of what it is that those tools can do. Really the discovery process is key. I think it's very, very, very key in making sure that you're leading the conversation the right way. Plus if you're doing it right, you could find opportunity a little bit later down the road to introduce some of those newer things. A recent use case would be actually, one that I'm thinking right now was they just were interested in updating their phone systems. They didn't have much of an IVR, but they had heard, and this was the term they used with me, they had heard of some of these newer technologies that maybe they wanted to figure out to use down the road. And so that led to a conversation of, okay, well let's talk about those newer technologies and these are what they can do and these are the ways that they can improve that customer experience. And it led to a lot of aha moments for the customer. It led to a lot of, oh, and you can do that now? Oh, I'd heard that that might be possible, but I didn't think that that was technology that we would be able to afford, let alone justify. And then when you get into the details of that and they realize that there are cost-effective ways to incorporate a lot of these newer technologies into their practice, it really made an impact. And what started out as just a, let's replace just our phone system and we're gonna do all of these things as futures. And later on it progressed into, okay, guess what? We're gonna add this piece and this piece and this piece with these two pieces being phase two, this piece being phase three. Ended up probably being about twice as big of a deal as it was originally. – Love it. Message here, bring in the team, we can help. – We do those things for you. – All right, so as we wrap this up, just one or two final things here. Obviously we're talking about resources, one of those phenomenal resources that partners have that they can lean on and bring in our team to help with. Is there anything that you would give a partner advice on if they're not comfortable cracking into this technology, right, aside from bringing us in? Anything else that you would recommend for them to do? Education, things like that for them to learn who are not comfortable in selling this? – Just ask the questions and ask the questions around how people are communicating. I think that's probably the biggest thing. How are your customers talking to you? How are you talking to your customers? Who are your customers? What is their experience like? Is there anything you want to do to improve that? What systems are you using now to facilitate those things that you're doing? Then you can ask questions that are a little bit standard, like what is your SLA? What is your service level? What is your CSAT score? All of these different things that maybe you dropped some acronyms or you mentioned some things that they hadn't quite considered. Your job really is not to dive into and ask all of the, at least maybe your job could be this if you wanted it to be, but you don't necessarily need to dive in and ask all the super technical questions. You just need to progress it to, let's have another conversation. Let's get to a point where we're talking to somebody that we can discuss these things in greater detail. Oh, by the way, I'm gonna call Jason and have Jason on the phone with me to go ahead and have that conversation. It's just ask questions. Try and learn a little bit more about what they like, what they don't like, what's keeping them up at night, what types of technologies have they heard about and they wanna consider and go from there. – Love it. Okay, final thoughts here. So in honor of Miss Cleo, if anybody knows what that is, those late night infomercials where she promises to tell your future. We've seen a lot of evolution to your point, right? We talk about that all the time on this podcast of technology, the rate of change is faster than anything we've ever seen. If you look out, I don't know, it's hard to look out even past 12 months right now, but if you look out 12 plus months, anything that you see changing dramatically in this space that you want partners to kind of be aware of and pay attention to? – Customer experience is going to be influenced by a lot more technology than just an ability to answer the phone. There are intelligent agents, there's AI everywhere doing all sorts of things in all the different places at once. Sam Nelson, one of the great people we work with here, Talaris just today, kicked off one of her minutes, or I can't remember the exact name. – Sam Snippets. – Sam Snippets, where she was talking about AI and the role that it plays in the contact center and in customer service and customer experience. That is very, very true. And it seems like every time we turn a corner and we're talking to a provider, they're taking AI and applying it to a different place in the contact center and in the customer experience that we hadn't thought of or considered before. And so that's all leading to the point where you just need to be comfortable with the fact that technology is going to continue to evolve, technology is going to continue to make things better, but the bottom line is that there will always be someone that wants to talk to a live person and that doesn't necessarily want to talk to a machine or doesn't want to try and serve themselves in certain ways. And so there will always be people that you can talk to that are contact center or customer experience centric. Another thing, if I may, take a few more moments here, is the merger of marketing and customer service, sales and customer service. Marketing, sales, customer service are all kind of becoming the same thing. And so the systems that are serving one of those can oftentimes be the systems that serve others. And we have in our stable providers here at Telarus some fantastic tools that can do great work in all of those different areas and integrate with the other tools in the areas as well. – Love it. Okay, Mr. Jason Lowe, thanks for coming into the studio with me today, man. – Thank you for having me. – Okay, that wraps us up. All right, everybody, we're out of here for today. I'm your host, Josh Lupresto SVP of Sales Engineering. This is Workforce Management with Mr. Jason Lowe, Solution Architect, Telarus Telarus

Organizácia Slovak PRO stmeľuje slovenskú komunitu profesionálov v New York City už niekoľko rokov. V septembri organizovala prvý väčší summit, na ktorom sa zúčastnili desiatky úspešných Slovákov žijúcich v USA. V podcaste Sme svetoví približuje mená niektorých z nich Slovenka Kristína Sojáková, ktorá pracuje pre IBM a angažuje sa aj v samotnej organizácii. Podcast vznikol vďaka finančnej podpore Ministerstva zahraničných vecí a európskych záležitostí SR. Námet na projekt vytvorila Kristína Sojáková, ktorá pracuje pre IBM v New Yorku a spoluvedie skupinu Slovak Professionals in New York. – Ak máte pre nás spätnú väzbu, odkaz alebo nápad, napíšte nám na⁠⁠ podcasty@sme.sk⁠⁠ – Všetky podcasty denníka SME nájdete na⁠⁠ sme.sk/podcasty⁠⁠ – Podporte vznik podcastov denníka SME a kúpte si digitálne predplatné⁠⁠ SME.sk⁠⁠ na⁠⁠ sme.sk/podcast⁠⁠ – Ďakujeme, že počúvate⁠⁠ podcasty denníka SME⁠⁠.

Roman Bartoš odišiel do USA pred viac ako desiatimi rokmi. Začínal ako finančník v IBM, neskôr sa presunul do firmy Medidata. Ako skončil v Amerike, akí sú podľa neho Američania, prečo miluje vôňu oceánu a kedy doma otvárajú vianočné darčeky? V podcast Sme svetoví odpovedá na tieto aj iné otázky. Podcast vznikol vďaka finančnej podpore Ministerstva zahraničných vecí a európskych záležitostí SR. Námet na projekt vytvorila Kristína Sojáková, ktorá pracuje pre IBM v New Yorku a spoluvedie skupinu Slovak Professionals in New York. – Ak máte pre nás spätnú väzbu, odkaz alebo nápad, napíšte nám na⁠ podcasty@sme.sk⁠ – Všetky podcasty denníka SME nájdete na⁠ sme.sk/podcasty⁠ – Podporte vznik podcastov denníka SME a kúpte si digitálne predplatné⁠ SME.sk⁠ na⁠ sme.sk/podcast⁠ – Ďakujeme, že počúvate⁠ podcasty denníka SME⁠.

Keď pred rokmi priviezla so sebou 50 detských knižiek do New Yorku, netušila, že raz budú základom pre vznik slovenskej detskej knižnice v USA. Za štyri roky sa počet kníh rozrástol na 1200 a tešia deti naprieč USA. Vypočujte si rozhovor so Slovenkou Ivanou Brezinskou, hosťom podcastu Sme svetoví. Podcast vznikol vďaka finančnej podpore Ministerstva zahraničných vecí a európskych záležitostí SR. Námet na projekt vytvorila Kristína Sojáková, ktorá pracuje pre IBM v New Yorku a spoluvedie skupinu Slovak Professionals in New York. Podcast Sme svetoví je súčasťou podcastového feedu SME výber, v ktorom denník SME odporúča zaujímavé slovenské podcasty a podcastové minisérie. Ak chcete, aby aj váš podcast bol súčasťou SME výber, ozvite sa nám na vyberpodcast@petitpress.sk.

Fique por dentro dos principais debates da 218ª. SOJ do CADE com Vivian Fraga (Sócia | TozziniFreire Advogados), nossa âncora e comentarista oficial do Plenária Comentada que conta com os convidados especiais : Izabella Passos (Advogada | Figueiredo & Velloso Advogados Associados), Marcos Lima (Sócio | M&A Consultoria Econômica) e Milena Mundim (Sócia | Lefosse Advogados).

Hosťom podcastovej minisérie Sme svetoví je Vlado Lackovič, ktorý prišiel do Ameriky ako 15-ročný s rodičmi. Jeho rodičia sa na Slovensko vrátili, on žije v USA takmer 19 rokov. Po úspechu za oceánom aj on plánuje návrat domov. V podcaste rozpráva aj o voľbách zo zahraničia a prečo by Slovensku malo záležať na Slovákoch v zahraničí. Podcast vznikol vďaka finančnej podpore Ministerstva zahraničných vecí a európskych záležitostí SR. Námet na projekt vytvorila Kristína Sojáková, ktorá pracuje pre IBM v New Yorku a spoluvedie skupinu Slovak Professionals in New York. Podcast Sme svetoví je súčasťou podcastového feedu SME výber, v ktorom denník SME odporúča zaujímavé slovenské podcasty a podcastové minisérie. Ak chcete, aby aj váš podcast bol súčasťou SME výber, ozvite sa nám na vyberpodcast@petitpress.sk. – Ak máte pre nás spätnú väzbu, odkaz alebo nápad, napíšte nám na⁠ podcasty@sme.sk⁠ – Všetky podcasty denníka SME nájdete na⁠ sme.sk/podcasty⁠ – Podporte vznik podcastov denníka SME a kúpte si digitálne predplatné⁠ SME.sk⁠ na⁠ sme.sk/podcast⁠ – Odoberajte aj denný newsletter⁠ SME.sk⁠ s najdôležitejšími správami na⁠ sme.sk/brifing⁠ – Ďakujeme, že počúvate⁠ podcasty denníka SME⁠.

Fique por dentro dos principais debates da 209ª SOJ do CADE com Vivian Fraga e Flávia Chiquito, nossas comentaristas oficiais, e Nicholas Cozman, Membro do IBRAC Jr. e advogado de TozziniFreire Advogados. www.ibrac.org.br  

Fique por dentro dos principais debates da 208ª SOJ do CADE com Vivian Fraga e Flávia Chiquito, nossas comentaristas oficiais. www.ibrac.org.br

Don't miss today's episode featuring Jason Lowe, Telarus Solution Architect for Contact Center. Join in as he discusses a key contact center product some companies just can not do without, which is Work Force Management (WFM). He talks about why they need it, how to overcome objections, and most importantly, how to help your contact center customers see the ROI on it! Transcript of episode can be found below. Josh Lupresto (00:01): Welcome to the podcast that is designed to fuel your success in selling technology solutions. I'm your host, Josh Lupresto, SVP of Sales Engineering at Telarus. And this is Next Level BizTech, everybody. Welcome back. We are here to talk about contact center workforce management, and we're gonna talk about why that is so important. But before we get to breaking that down, what it is, why it matters, why you care, I'd like to welcome in Mr. Jason Lowe also goes by the name of J Lo into the studio today. Jason Lowe (00:33): Thank you for having me, Josh. Happy to be here. Josh Lupresto (00:36): So J lo I want to talk about your background. Part of my favorite you know, thing of doing this is really learning where everybody came from, right? Did you used to cut grass and then you decided you want to get into tech? You know, where, where did you start? What's your background? How did you get here? And give us the story, Jason Lowe (00:53): Man. So I, I, I've always been into technology. My parents got an Atari, which I loved, and then we got an Apple to see computer, and they sent me to a computer camp and did all of these things. But when I, quite frankly, when I got to high school and I didn't want to go to my other classes, I would go and hang out in the computer lab. And the person that ran the computer lab was very nice and knew that if I wasn't there helping her with the computer lab, that I would probably be at, you know, the 7-Eleven on the corner or something like that. So she let me go ahead and, and spend as much time there. And so I got to spend time networking computers together and setting up software. And then I got a job right outta high school doing the same stuff, and it eventually led to writing code and doing some of the really super cool, crazy techy things. But then I was tired of not having a degree. So I went back to school, got my bachelor's, and ironically right after I got my bachelor's, I'm looking around for a job, any job whatsoever. Mm-Hmm. . And I ran into this fine gentleman by the name of Darren Solomon, who at the time was a recruiter for a little company called U C N. Ah, Josh Lupresto (02:07): Yes. Jason Lowe (02:07): Yes. And he is now at Verint, by the way. But he he and I bonded and he tried to shoehorn me into like three or four other different positions. And I finally got in as a technical trainer at U cn. And so that's how my technology, at least in the software as a service space career kind of got started. But yeah, previously everything from, you know, writing code to networking and computer maintenance to software installations. Josh Lupresto (02:34): I love it. I, I love it too, because it all translates, right? I mean, you know, I, I never thought when I was going to school that I would need to know what the OSI model was and understanding all these different layers, but, you know, you have these core things that you have that you're taught that it always kind of comes back to, regardless of if, if you, you know, we, we talk about this of the things that we went to school for, are we doing those now? Right. That's a whole nother podcast on its own. But I think that core you know, that troubleshooting, plugging it together, right? You just, you're starting to learn what you like, right? So it, it's been awesome to kind of see that progression and then, you know, turned into inContact and then there, I believe there's some product experience in there.

" I define myself as a leather art wear designer so which means that I make one-of-a-kind pieces of art fashion using recycled leather. How I got into that -- long funny story but it really came down to my friend asking me in his driveway if I wanted to sew leather jackets together. My experience sewing before that was minimal. I had a sewing machine. My mom got me from Walmart and knew how to do some really basic straight stitches on jeans and didn't repair things. But I always had an interest in sewing and so I said yes and three years later here I am making jackets and vests and bustiers -- one-of-a-kind pieces," said Nicole or Gnykol, a fashion designer based in Bath.Nicole's passion started in Ashville, North Carolina where her and her friends would cut pieces of used leather and turn them into all types of things. She never thought that passion would turn into a career.Barney and J.M. are clay polymer artists and J.M. went on out on his own to do wearable art. So I modeled I hate modeling. I found that out pretty quickly. But it was great to work with them. Our friendship stayed intact and it was over the years we stayed in touch which led to the driveway question do you want to sell leather jackets? So J.M. had been working with leather and caught me up to speed when we started working together he brought me up to everything that he knew. And from there we learned a lot together in that process I'd say maybe six months in J.M. helped me up he gave me the means to have my own studio space, helped me get a work table, encouraged me to get the materials and tools that I needed, including sewing machine, we spent some of our COVID money buying sewing machines together, which was really fun, and fascinating. Six months and I started to have my own space and my own tools. That's when I started to branch out and start making my own thing. So J.M. was really focused on his jackets, and has been continuing on the jacket path whereas I took off and started making bustiers. So we make very different items from the beginning, we just started to start a collective. Our collective is called True Self Couture. So it's not just leather art, it's wearable art. The idea is that its everyday art, where it's pieces of art fashion that you can wear every single day, no matter where you're going, what you're doing. It's expressive, it's inspiring. It's one of a kind and it's to empower the wearer and just inspires the people around you," said Nicole.Nicole hopes to create wearable art for musicians, other artists, and celebrities. But the most important thing is that she crafts pieces for all."One of the main focuses of my work is to make couture pieces to make to order so that way no matter what your size and shape is no matter what your intention is I make for you, so you're not just buying something that you know is a medium. You are a medium, it's a little loose here, it doesn't quite fit there and it's just I want to make you feel like a rockstar. I've had some fantastic friends support me and some of my friends are cool. One of my friends just wore one of my bustiers that I made for her which is covered in these dragon spikes, she wore it to her brother's wedding and over a ballgown, and she looked, killer. I have performers that have ordered my work, everything from musicians to drag performers, I had a commission from a lady, a mature woman over 60. She just fell in love with the jacket I had down in the gallery here in Bath. I was so flattered that she wanted one of my jackets because it was not the age demographic that I thought would be interested in my jacket. But lo and behold, she was so really excited to have her support," said Nicole.Tune into the episode to learn more about Nicole -- her past and the future of her fashion career. 

Tyler and Mike talk chapters 57 through 60 in their book club of Console Wars by Blake J. Harris. They discuss SoA and SoJ tensions surrounding two future projects, Nintendo going on the offensive, and a little game called Donkey Kong Country. The theme music is by RoccoW. The logo was created by Dani Dodge.

V podcaste o šikovných Slovákoch v New Yorku sa tentokrát objaví Rado Varchola z Bratislavy. Porozpráva o tom, ako sa stal maklérom, ktorý zo svojich obchodov pokladá za najväčší, a či je lepší pečený moriak alebo kačka. Vypočujte si jeho úspešný príbeh. Podcast vznikol vďaka finančnej podpore Ministerstva zahraničných vecí a európskych záležitostí SR. Námet na projekt vytvorila Kristína Sojáková, ktorá pracuje pre IBM v New Yorku a spoluvedie skupinu Slovak Professionals in New York. Hudba: LuKremBo Podcast Sme svetoví je súčasťou podcastového feedu SME výber, v ktorom denník SME odporúča zaujímavé slovenské podcasty a podcastové minisérie. Ak chcete, aby aj váš podcast bol súčasťou SME výber, ozvite sa nám na vyberpodcast@petitpress.sk. – Ak máte pre nás spätnú väzbu, odkaz alebo nápad, napíšte nám na podcasty@sme.sk – Všetky podcasty denníka SME nájdete na sme.sk/podcasty – Podporte vznik podcastov denníka SME a kúpte si digitálne predplatné SME.sk na sme.sk/podcast – Odoberajte aj denný newsletter SME.sk s najdôležitejšími správami na sme.sk/brifing – Ďakujeme, že počúvate podcasty denníka SME.

A greve, convocada pelo Sindicato dos Oficiais de Justiça (SOJ), decorrerá também na quinta-feira durante o período da tarde (13:30-17:00) nos núcleos judiciais de Coimbra, Funchal e Almada.

Hosťom podcastu Sme svetoví je východniar a stavebný majster Jozef Biľ, ktorý do Ameriky pricestoval v úvode deväťdesiatych rokov. Slovensko má rád, no za svoj domov už považuje New York City. Vypočujte si jeho úspešný príbeh. Podcast vznikol vďaka finančnej podpore Ministerstva zahraničných vecí a európskych záležitostí SR. Námet na projekt vytvorila Kristína Sojáková, ktorá pracuje pre IBM v New Yorku a spoluvedie skupinu Slovak Professionals in New York. Hudba: LuKremBo Podcast Sme svetoví je súčasťou podcastového feedu SME výber, v ktorom denník SME odporúča zaujímavé slovenské podcasty a podcastové minisérie. Ak chcete, aby aj váš podcast bol súčasťou SME výber, ozvite sa nám na vyberpodcast@petitpress.sk. – Ak máte pre nás spätnú väzbu, odkaz alebo nápad, napíšte nám na podcasty@sme.sk – Všetky podcasty denníka SME nájdete na sme.sk/podcasty – Podporte vznik podcastov denníka SME a kúpte si digitálne predplatné SME.sk na sme.sk/podcast – Odoberajte aj denný newsletter SME.sk s najdôležitejšími správami na sme.sk/brifing – Ďakujeme, že počúvate podcasty denníka SME

It's officially Summertime! While some of ya'll will race through to fall without even a little break, TBI will take a break from making fresh episodes, as we rest, recover, and rejuvenate before we hit the fall season strong.   Our team has voted and we are bringing you all a replay of the  IG Popup lives and our most popular episodes.  Soj started his triathlon journey circa 2016. At TBL we've always advised that you don't have to buy fancy clothing or equipment to get started. Varlo Apparel agrees! Soj is very resourceful and made every penny count to create this exciting brand.  Soj has 60 races under his belt, and he is a former Division 1 athlete,  with many school records. As a younger athlete, he could not have imagined that everything he had learned would be challenged someday.  This apparel brand sponsors pro athletes and supports a growing team of ambassadors. So, what's next for Varlo? Anything they can dream about, as the future awaits.  Don't forget to leave a review, share it with your friends, and Follow Tri Beginner's luck on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.  And send any questions or feedback you have to  imreadyto@tribeginnersluck.com.     Cheers to defying the odds and being trailblazers,  Let's Tri this!   

Fique por dentro dos principais debates da 200ª. SOJ do CADE com Vivian Fraga, nosso comentarista oficial, Guilherme Ribas, e nosso convidado especial Paulo Casagrande. www.ibrac.org.br

Can you stop or suspend social security? How do inheritances impact your taxes? How do you pay for Medicare Part B if you're not on social security? In this episode of the Retirement Made Easy podcast, I revisit some of the best questions from 2022 that are still 100% relevant and timely for today. If you want answers to these questions, don't miss it! You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in... [1:40] Submit questions at RetirementMadeEasyPodcast.com [3:02] Question #1: Can you stop or suspend social security? [6:08] Question #2: Can you do a Roth conversion with an RMD? [7:20] Question #3: How do inheritances impact taxes?  [11:16] Question #4: How do you pay for Medicare part B? [14:44] Question #5: Should you buy savings bonds for your emergency fund? Can you stop or suspend social security? J retired at 62 and started his social security benefit. However, he's now considering stopping the benefit. Why? Because he has a part-time employment opportunity where he'd make $30,000 annually. He's concerned that will reduce his social security benefit. Can he stop his social security?  Once you start your social security benefit, you can only stop it within 12 months. Have 12 months passed? If so, you can't stop it. If you're within the 12-month timeframe, you have to contact social security, fill out a form, and pay back the benefits you had already received.  If you're collecting social security under full retirement age, you can only make up to $19,560. So J would be penalized for making an income of $30,000 per year, $1 per every $2 over the $19,560. Listener Question #2: Can you do a Roth conversion with an RMD? Can you do a Roth conversion for $15,000 when you take a required minimum distribution? You can pay the taxes on the $15,000 and put it in a Roth IRA where it can grow tax-free. However, you still need to take another $15,000 as a distribution because Roth conversions do not count toward RMDs.  Listener Question #3: How do inheritances impact taxes?  Tammy inherited accounts from her Mom that totaled $700,000. How will that impact her retirement? Does she have to pay an inheritance tax? Will it change her tax bracket? The $400,000 IRA that Tammy inherited follows different rules (that changed with the Secure Act). Starting 1/1/2020, you have 10 years to withdraw everything from the IRA. These withdrawals are taxable at the Federal level (some states will tax the withdrawals and others will not). You won't pay an early withdrawal penalty.  Listener Question #4: How do you pay for Medicare part B? How do you pay for Medicare part B premiums if you're not collecting social security yet? For those of you that don't know, Medicare Part B premiums are income based and usually deducted from your social security. In 2022, it will be $170.10 (14.5% higher). How should John pay it?  If you have an HSA, build that up before retiring and use it to pay for Medicare Part B premiums, dental expenses, vision expenses, deductibles, etc. If you have access to an HSA, take advantage of it.  How do you cover the 20% that Medicare doesn't cover? Should you buy savings bonds to fund your emergency fund? Listen to hear my thoughts! Resources & People Mentioned 3 Steps to Retirement Planning Submit questions at RetirementMadeEasyPodcast.com Schedule a 30-minute coaching session Connect With Gregg Gonzalez Email at: Gregg@RetireSTL.com  Podcast: https://RetirementMadeEasyPodcast.com Website: https://StLouisFinancialAdvisor.com Follow Gregg on LinkedIn Follow Gregg on Facebook Follow Gregg on YouTube Subscribe to Retirement Made EasyOn Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts

Fique por dentro dos principais debates da 198ª. SOJ do CADE com Vivian Fraga e nossos comentaristas oficiais Guilherme Ribas e Flavia Chiquito. www.ibrac.org.br

Fique por dentro dos principais debates da 199ª. SOJ do CADE com Vivian Fraga e Flavia Chiquito. Dada a extensão dessa SOJ em particular, contaremos com os comentários de ilustres convidados especiais, Ricardo Gaillard e Camilla Paoletti. www.ibrac.org.br

Fique por dentro dos principais debates da 197ª SOJ do CADE com Vivian Fraga e nossos comentaristas oficiais Guilherme Ribas e Flavia Chiquito. www.ibrac.org.br

Fique por dentro dos principais debates da 196ª SOJ do CADE com Vivian Fraga e nossos comentaristas oficiais Guilherme Ribas e Flavia Chiquito. Sessão relevantíssima em que houve alertas à comunidade antitruste do Tribunal em relação à formação de consórcios entre concorrentes e em relação aos embargos declaratórios protelatórios. Também, o novo Conselheiro Gustavo Augusto já apresenta a sua primeira grande contribuição ao Tribunal: proposta de sistematização para a dosimetria da pena em relação às pessoas físicas administradoras. www.ibrac.org.br

Fique por dentro dos principais debates da 194ª SOJ do CADE com Vivian Fraga e nossos comentaristas oficiais Guilherme Ribas e Flavia Chiquito. www.ibrac.org.br

Fique por dentro dos principais debates da 193ª SOJ do CADE com Vivian Fraga e nossos comentaristas oficiais Guilherme Ribas e Flavia Chiquito. www.ibrac.org.br

Fique por dentro dos principais debates da 195ª SOJ do CADE com Vivian Fraga e nossos comentaristas oficiais Guilherme Ribas e Flavia Chiquito. Nessa e nas Sessões seguintes, iremos conhecer um pouco mais sobre as posições do novo Conselheiro Gustavo Augusto. www.ibrac.org.br

We've heard Gandhi's advice to, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”.”  Well,  I would like to adapt that a bit:  “ If you want to see a change, create the change you want to see!”  This challenge is accepted by the Founder of Varlo Apparel, Soj Jibowu, presenting the fastest growing apparel company in multisport.   Soj started his triathlon journey circa 2016. At TBL we've always advised that you don't have to buy fancy clothing or equipment to get started. Varlo Apparel agrees! Soj is very resourceful and made every penny count to create this exciting brand.  He has over 60 races under his belt, and he is a former Division 1 athlete,  with many school records. As a younger athlete, he could not have imagined that everything he had learned would be challenged someday.    After a few years in sport, Soj researched everything he could about apparel brands because he knew he would only have one shot to get it right.  Soj's vision is not just to have the best apparel company, but to change the landscape of the sport and introduce it to as many people as can be reached. Varlo is not just apparel. It's a lifestyle! This apparel brand sponsors pro athletes and supports a growing team of ambassadors. So, what's next for Varlo? Anything they can dream about, as the future awaits.  Don't forget to leave a review, share it with your friends, and Follow Tri Beginner's luck on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.  And send any questions or feedback you have to  imreadyto@tribeginnersluck.com.   Let's Tri this! 

Fique por dentro dos principais debates da 192ª SOJ do CADE com Vivian Fraga e nossos comentaristas oficiais Guilherme Ribas e Flavia Chiquito. www.ibrac.org.br

Welcome back to... no, that can't be right... Episode 30?! of Smoke Til' It's Gone or Die! Somehow we've made it this far, and we're so thrilled you are along for the ride. In this episode, Patty tells the tale of the Connecticut River Valley Killer who has never been caught, despite all the evidence compiled over multiple years from multiple victims; this one is wild, with an 'I Survived' tale as well as some described violence that may not be suitable for the softer-hearted. Rylee dives deeper into CBD, how we interact with it, and the potential effects it can have on our little stoner bodies! Rylee's Probable Cause this week is a GoFundMe page for an incredible human we adore, Jess! Please take a look-see at this link right here and if you have some dollars, donate! Jess has been a wonderful, sweet listener and friend and deserves our love and support as she battles Judith, a b-cell lymphoma. Patty's Probable Cause is Season of Justice; Season of Justice (SOJ) is a nonprofit dedicated to providing funding to law enforcement agencies and families to help solve cold cases. SOJ provides grants to law enforcement for advanced DNA analysis solutions, such as forensic genealogy and next-generation sequencing. The organization also awards grants to families to support awareness campaigns, search teams and other initiatives that can assist in pushing their cold cases forward. SOJ's goal is to provide financial resources for both law enforcement and families in order to bring closure to those impacted by unsolved violent crimes. https://seasonofjustice.org/ As always, thank you so much for listening, and we can't wait to be back next episode for more stoned shenanigans and tales of terrifying true crime. You can find us on Instagram @stgdpocast, our email is stgdpodcast@gmail.com, and you can become a patron at patreon.com/stgdpodcast. Tell your friends about us! Under Massachusetts' Chapter 94G and California's Proposition 64 Bills it is legal for us two assholes to possess and consume MaryJane, medically known as cannabis, in our respective states. We do NOT condone the illegal consumption, possession, or sale of cannabis in places it's not supposed to be smoked, man handled, or acquired from a legal dispensary. But we DO condone what the awesome humans at Marijuana Policy Project are doing to support legislation at the state and federal level to decriminalize cannabis across the country, and advocate for those who have been incarcerated for cannabis possession. Visit mpp.org for more details. Bye! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stgdpodcast/support

Fique por dentro dos principais debates da 191ª. SoJ do CADE com Vivian Fraga e os nossos comentaristas oficiais Guilherme Ribas e Flavia Chiquito. www.ibrac.org.br

Hostia: Dr. Martin Furman (pamiatkový úrad Žilina, venuje sa téme detektoristov, je zástancom edukácie a spolupráce s nimi), Dr. Marián Soják (archeológ, zástanca nulovej tolerancie k hľadačom pokladov) Už desať rokov sú v ilegalite. A aj napriek tomu sa stále činia. Brázdia od pradávna obývané lokality kde hľadajú a stále nachádzajú. Pre niekoho sú zlodeji, pre iných amatérski archeológovia. Niektorí profesionálni archeológovia ich služby vyhľadávajú. Iní im nevedia prísť na meno. Budú niekedy hľadači pokladov s detektormi legálni? Moderuje: Petra Strižková Repríza relácie (23.2.2021) Kontakty pripravuje RTVS - Slovenský rozhlas, Rádio Slovensko, SRo1.

Para os debates principais da longa 190ª. SoJ do CADE, nossos comentaristas oficiais, Guilherme Ribas e Flavia Chiquito, são acompanhados de Renata Zucollo [Coordenadora de Atos de Concentração dentro da Diretoria de Concorrência] e Ricardo Botelho[Vice Diretor de Concorrência]. Tudo isso com a moderação de Vivian Fraga. www.ibrac.org.br

So J.D. finally convinced Dave to watch Stranger Things season 1. What did he think of it? You'll have to listen to find out. Plus James Gunn news, like a season 2 for Peacemaker and possibly another Suicide Squad spin-off. Plus Book of Mandalorian talk and so much more, enjoy! Support the National Breast CancerComplete Reading The post #444: Stranger Podcast appeared first on Super Hero Speak.

You know that big yellow sign. 75% of all Americans live within 5 miles of a Dollar General. That's right, 13,000 stores. Here is the amazing story of how J.L. Turner created this Empire. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Steven Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Aurora Pro Services Ad] Dave Young: Hey, Stephen, you got a dollar I could borrow? Stephen Semple: Well, you going shopping? Dave Young: Heck yeah. I'm going to Dollar General. You see them everywhere. They're all over, everywhere. Big yellow sign. Stephen Semple: Here's a scary stat when it comes to how big Dollar General is. 75% of the population in the United States lives within five miles of a Dollar General store. They do just under $30 billion in sales, a buck at a time. Dave Young: Out of a tiny little store that's smaller than any supermarket you've ever been. Stephen Semple: Yeah, most of their stores are only a couple thousand square feet. And today they have 17,000 stores, 143,000 employees, and are doing 30 billion in sales. Dave Young: Mind boggling. Stephen Semple: Mind boggling. Dave Young: How'd they do it? Stephen Semple: Well, all this started back in 1939, right in the midst of the Great Depression. And they started out of Scottsville, Kentucky by J.L. Turner and his son Cal. And they both invested $5,000 to start their first store. And they really invented the idea of the dollar store. So J.L. Turner was a traveling salesperson. He was functionally illiterate. He had a grade three education. When he was 11, they lived on a mortgaged farm and his dad died and he had to quit school to take care of the family. And he worked in retail up until the point of the Depression. Local businesses were dying all around him. So what he did is he bought the merchandise from these businesses that were going out of business and turned around and sold them to department stores. Stephen Semple: And this gave birth to their first idea, which was J.L. Turner and Sons. By the early 1950s, they were doing 2 million in sales. So 10 years after starting, they grew this business to 2 million in sales in the 1950s. By the mid 1950s, they had 35 stores in Kentucky and Tennessee. Pretty good, right? But the real success came next. What J.L. noticed was in retail stores at the time, one of the things that was really popular was to run these dollar days. The store would set aside a section of the store and for a day, say everything in that section is on sale for a dollar. He loved the simplicity of that idea. So in 1955, they renamed the store Dollar General and decided that what they were going to do was focus on this whole idea of everything for a dollar. Dave Young: Okay. Stephen Semple: So they had these really small stores, non-perishable items and consumables, focusing on selling everything in the store for a buck all the time. So in one way, they did something that is different. Almost all of the empire builders that we've talked about today have looked outside their industry and found an idea from outside their industry they brought to their industry, but what they found was something that was done in their industry, but limited, done every once in a while and only a portion of the store. What they said, "Why can't you make a whole store that way? And every day?" Dave Young: What's really cool is what they noticed was the excitement of their customers about things for a dollar. Stephen Semple: Right. Dave Young: It's not, "Oh, we could sell a lot.

On this episode, we meet Soj Jibowu. Born abroad and migrating to the United States at an early age, Soj spent most of his early years involved in athletics and outdoor physical activity. It was in 2015 that Soj came across his first multi-sport race in Chicago Illinois. Captivated by the athleticism, endurance, and displayed work ethic of the participants, he decided to get involved as best possible. 60 races later, Soj found himself embedded into the sport and cycling lifestyle in a way he never imagined. The love and appreciation for what athletics have brought into his life is real and something Soj has vowed to share with as many people as possible. His love for athletics has also been the drive to create Varlo, an apparel brand for multi sport athletes featuring innovative performance triathlon suits and cycling kits. Varlo's aim is to provide best in class products by never sacrificing quality. His website is https://www.varlosports.com/ and you can find him on Instagram at @allthingsmovement and @varlo_apparel. Disclaimer: If you take any advice or opinions from this podcast, you do so at your own risk. If you enjoyed this episode please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you are listening. Make sure to follow us on Instagram at @nogimmicksjustsweat and @ericmlogan. Contact: eric@nogimmicksjustsweat.com

Is it really worth it attending author conventions and events? And if it is, how can you ensure to get results from it? What is you would like to organize your own convention or event? What do you need to consider and are there financial risks to take into account? Zach Bohannon & J. Thorn from The Career Author podcast (http://thecareerauthor.com/) are sharing their experiences. New episodes EVERY single Monday. To subscribe on YouTube, go here: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC PATREON! Many bonus perks for those who become a patrons. https://www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy LET'S CONNECT! Closed Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmWritingFantasy/  Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/  Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper  Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer  Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Jesper (0s): Have you ever wondered if it's worth going to writing events and is it worth your money and is it really worth your time and what if you are sort of further along in your career and then you won't be speculating about is it worth creating some of my own events? That's what we're going to talk about here today. If you're fantasy author then you've come to the right place. My name is Jesper and together with Autumn we've published more than 20 books and it is our aim to help you in your writing and marketing endeavors. Jesper (36s): So today I have been joined by somebody else. Then the, actually it's the guys from the Korea author podcast. I listened to their podcast every week and I will let her put the link in the description field below for our podcast so that you could go and listen to if you want. But the reason that I wanted them on here to cover this topic is because I know that they have talked about it before because, and they also have both of their perspectives on this thing, so they both joint conventions by themselves. As a participant, but they have also an art creating events for other authors themselves. Jesper (1m 10s): So we want it to try to cover both angles here and they're welcome to, uh, the amwritingfantasy, uh, channel. Uh, Jameson. J. Thorn (1m 19s): Yeah, thanks. That's for, we're really happy to be here. Thanks for having us. Jesper (1m 23s): Thanks a lot. And, uh, well I guess we can sort of just jump right into it. I know you guys have participated, if we start with sort of the participation angle, and I know you guys have gone to different events just as participants where you have not been new organized so a bit, but I wonder if you could sort of share a bit about is. Is it worth the time and the money that it takes to go to these events? And if you do go to these events, how should, could you go about it to make sure that you actually get anything out of it? Because, uh, it, it is at least, I think quite a both expension of time, but, but also as S introvert authors, maybe it's not the coolest thing that we can think of. Jesper (2m 1s): Is it worth it? J. Thorn (2m 3s): Yeah, I think it's totally worth it. I can say that without hesitation. Uh, I'm thinking back on some of the live events I've done more recently. So I've done, I did the indie author lab that was put on by publishers weekly. Uh, last year I did podcast movement I think in 2016, 2017 which sort of like a big convention. Uh, I did a story grid certified training and a and a story grid weekend with Shawn Coyne last year and a couple of years ago. J. Thorn (2m 34s): Uh, so yeah, participation I think is really important in those and. And I think what's most important is that it's not necessarily what you think you're going to get. It's going to be what happens when you're there that you can't plan for. You can't anticipate things like conversations with other authors over a cup of coffee that leads to a further discussion that leads to a possible project or you know, you meet someone who happens to know somebody else and it's a good connection way. And I, I hesitate to use the term networking cause especially for introverts that makes our skin crawl. J. Thorn (3m 6s): It's got sort of this really dirty connotation, but, um, it really isn't, it's not networking in the, in the sleazy internet marketers sense. It's more about making connections with other people and, and really allowing yourself to be in the moment and to absorb what's happening. Certainly the speakers and the content is important and I think people will probably only sign up for events that they believe are going to help further their career. Um, but I don't think that's the main reason for going to a live event. J. Thorn (3m 36s): I really believe it's the interaction with the other participants, possibly the people who are putting on the event and then all the potential that comes from that. And even if I don't meet someone and I don't have a very, uh, concrete outcome from that meeting, there's always a skill or a strategy or a new way of looking at things that, that comes out of those events that doesn't happen for me online. Jesper (3m 59s): Yeah. No. And I know, especially from what you've shared in the past, us facilitated that you get quite exhausted from Merde, sir, you said in person events or things. So how do you go about it? You know, if you, uh, if you are like an author who are very introverted and don't really like seeing other people, do you sort of mentally pitch yourself up to, okay, I need to talk to a few people today are, how are you doing? J. Thorn (4m 25s): Yeah, that's a great question. And uh, I mean it is, it's a very broad generalization that, that creatives are introverts. Not all creatives are introverts, but I anecdotally, in my experience, I've found most of the writers I deal with are introverted or towards the introversion scale of, of the Myers Briggs and and. There's really sort of two ways, uh, an introvert can approach a live event to make it more manageable. The first one is exactly yes for what you, what you mentioned, which is to kind of set a little game of buy it for yourself and just say, okay, today at this event I'm going to talk to at least two people. J. Thorn (4m 59s): I don't know. I'm going to introduce myself to two people or one person. Like it doesn't matter the number, right? It's that you are your creating a little incentive for yourself that will put you in the right mindset and sort of open, um, you know, you're sort of opening your mind to, to meeting other people. But then on the flip side, it's really important to both at the event and after the event to have time to decompress. And I think this is where introverts really have to do this for themselves because it's not usually built into the events. J. Thorn (5m 31s): You need time within the day of the event to go and sit by yourself for 30 minutes or go read a book or go journal or just go and not talk to anybody like you. That has to be built into the day. And then I think it's also good and I think this applies to for extroverts as well. Once you get home from the event, you need time to decompress as well. I think it's really hard to just kind of jump right back into your, into your daily grind. You need time to, you need time to recharge and get some of that energy back. J. Thorn (6m 2s): Because for introverts, being in those crowded environments is not impossible. And it's not that we hate it and that's a misconception. It's just very draining on your energy and you need to, you need to be able to wait to do that and not sort of at a secondary level. I think it's really important both leading up to during and after the event that you are paying very close attention to your biological needs, making sure you're getting enough sleep, your eating properly, you're exercising if possible, because there's a tendency at these events to kind of go off the rails and eat and drink and, and, and you know, and do things that you wouldn't do at home. J. Thorn (6m 37s): I call it living like a teenager. And so if you're not a teenager that, you know, that's gonna take its toll too. It's, I think all of that taking that sort of comprehensive approach can really make not only an experience great, but make the least amount of disruption in your day. Zack (6m 52s): I'll also add real quick, like, I mean I'm definitely JL straight up, call me an extrovert. I don't know if I'd go that far. I mean I definitely have introvert tendencies, but um, I'm definitely more extroverted than he is in a lot of other authors and but to me, one thing I've noticed being at these events though too is that, you know, this, it's not the same thing as going to like a cocktail party or like a work Christmas party or something. I mean, there's a lot of other people in the room who are Waikiki and I think that knowing that comfort and that you're not the only introvert, most of the room is going to be introverted from what I've seen. Zack (7m 25s): I think that really helps open up people talk. And I know with our bigger events, specifically our conferences, you know, we try to, uh, you know, we, we do like the round tables where people were kind of forced to sit together, but it's not like there's never really been any kind of uncomfortable thing for me. Then we have our genre at dinners where people put together by the genre. So like we're kind of encouraging people to kind of break out a little bit, but not in like a funky like, uh, you know, speed dating type of way or something like that. But it's like really uncomfortable, you know? Zack (7m 56s): So that's just kinda my perspective from being a little less introverted, much less introverting I should say. Jesper (8m 1s): Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think from my own experience when I've been to sort of conferences or events or stuff like that is it's not as hard to strike up the conversation as one might think in a way you just sitting at the table and as long as you're sort of smiling and are open to people, then usually you can start talking. But where I think it's a bit difficult and where I'm curious, what would you guys say about this? Because the aftermath of it, you know? Okay, so you've gone home, you talk to five people, but how and why should you get in contact with them again? Jesper (8m 32s): That that part is a bit mysterious mystical to be, you know, how are you supposed to do that? I mean, okay, I can just find a, send an email to somebody. Hey, it was great seeing you at that event. But that's it's a bit, yeah, I dunno. I think that's J. Thorn (8m 45s): a good first step. And a lot of times you don't really know how or when or if that's going to happen. Uh, I remember I went to podcast podcast movement when it was in Chicago. Brian Cohen up from somewhere book show and he's very outgoing and extroverted and he had no problem walking up and talking to a lot of people. And and I think that was good for me and I, and I think if you are, if you tend to be more introverted and you have a more of an extroverted buddy you can bring with you, I think you can play off each other's strengths in that way. J. Thorn (9m 16s): And so I was able to kind of kind of tag along with Brian and then like I was really good at sort of looking at all of the offerings and saying, okay, well why don't we look at this one and sort of thinking about this one. And that was not something Brian was like really good at. So we kind of, we kind of balanced that out. And then what I did was when I came home, of all the people I met, I did exactly what you said. I sent an email and just say, Hey, it was really nice to meet you, a podcast movement. Um, if you, if there's anything I can ever help you with, just reach out. J. Thorn (9m 48s): And I kind of gave myself permission to leave it at that and I thought, you know, I'm going to do that. It's sort of a, it's courteous, it's kind and um, if something's meant to come from that, I'll hear back from them. And some people, I didn't, some people I didn't and and you just never know. I think the big thing that we always preach is that if you start a relationship by giving as opposed to asking, it's always, it's always better that way. So even, even the following up with a thank you from a live event, I think if you're just saying, Hey, thanks a lot. J. Thorn (10m 19s): If I, if there's any thing I can ever do for you, just let me know and then leave it at that. I think, um, that's, that's a good way to approach it. Not feeling that pressure to sort of work all those contacts that you just, you know, you just got all, all those business cards, you collect it. I don't, I don't think you necessarily have to have to force yourself to, you know, make connections with those people that aren't a natural. Jesper (10m 41s): Is there any specific events that is spread? You mean, I'm going to hook you up on the spot here, so it's okay if you don't know, but, but I'm just thinking that some of the people who are watching this video and, or listening to this podcast might be people who are also pursuing my traditional publishing wrapped. So are there, in your view, certain places that are better than other, if anybody wants to walk over there? J. Thorn (11m 5s): No, it's perfect timing because as we're recording this, I'm about three weeks away from heading to New York city for thriller Fest for the first time. Uh, so I, I think, uh, you know, if your listeners are not familiar, thriller Fest is the annual gathering for the thriller writers and that's where they have all their awards and there's Pitchfest and agents are there. In fact, I'm going to pitch fast, I'm going to be pitching a project to am to several agents. And I think every sort of a top level genre has that annual gathering. J. Thorn (11m 36s): Like for the horror writers association, they have Stoker con, uh, waa, waa has a big gathering. Uh, the, uh, science fiction and fantasy writers of America have an annual gathering. So I think if you are looking for, you know, an agent or if you're more interested in sort of the traditional publishing world, those, those, those are the events that you want to attend. And those are the big ones. And, uh, and, and they're, they're somewhat affordable. Like they're not, they're not out of reach. I think for, you know, a few hundred dollars per ticket. J. Thorn (12m 8s): Uh, you can, you can go to any one of those. And, uh, and I think that that would be a great way for people to get to know what, what that industry is like. Jesper (12m 17s): So I guess we can conclude, conclude that it's definitely worth going to these events and you need to put a bit of your extrovert hat on and then go through wasn't and try to build a bit of relations but, but I'm wondering then if we sort of jump into the time machine he say then we fast forward a couple of years and now the people listening or watching the video, they have sort of grown a certain pattern to a certain level in their career and they're starting to thinking, okay, maybe it would be cool to actually organize some events on my own and thus maybe use it as something that supplementary income to my book selling or whatever it may be. Jesper (12m 53s): Maybe it would be worth if you guys just spend like a minute of talking a bit about what you guys are doing and who you, so just to set the scene a bit for talking about what kind of events you are renting and how you're going about it and what you're thinking about and so forth. Zack (13m 8s): Yeah, we, uh, the, the whole thing started kind of funny for us. I mean it really came out of, we ended up doing a authors on a train is kind of our like a event that responded and that came out of us going on a train trip with Lindsay broker and Joanna Penn and spending a week writing and a VALIC. We went, rode on a train plan to book out and it's been a week in new Orleans, Louisiana. I'm writing a whole novella together and you know, J and I were sitting outside one night, uh, having, having a burger before went to a concert while we were in new Orleans and we just kind were like, man, I'm like, why couldn't we do this with other people? Zack (13m 48s): This is like a really cool niche event type of thing that really we didn't, we don't see anyone else doing stuff like this. Like you see people doing writer's retreats from, they'll go like rent a cabin every, want to work on their own stuff. And um, you know, you see the conferences and stuff, but you really don't see these like smaller, really unique things. Like who else was taking people on a train? And then my, you know, the really weird thing and that's really what started it. And it's spa, you know, it kind of snowballed into the smaller, like the world, the world building type advanced or we'll go and we'll pick a unique place and go build a world out together. Zack (14m 24s): Um, and then of course we're stood in authors on a train and we have our bigger conferences as well, which is the career author summit, uh, formerly the somewhere bookshelves summit. Um, so yeah, that's, that's kinda the, the main stuff that we have going on and we can obviously as conversation goes down deeper in each one of those. J. Thorn (14m 39s): Yeah, I would add to that there's sort of an intermediary step for someone who's, who's thinking about this. And, and I, I think it's very, uh, this was really good. I think it's really great to be thinking about diversifying your revenue streams as an author. I would ha, I would highly encourage people who feel like either organizing or putting on one of these events sounds like something that like to do. I think that you should definitely do it. Am don't listen to that. The, there's too many or there's too many people doing it. I don't buy into that. Um, I think there's always room for more voices, new voices, new experiences. J. Thorn (15m 12s): But I think between being at an attendee and then, uh, running our hosting, there's this other space that I would recommend people explore, which is start, uh, talking or offering to speak at other events that you're not running. I think it's really important to not only refine your public speaking skills and your ability to present because as you know with a podcast, whether you're on a podcast or on a stage, you are performing, it's a performance. And it, and it takes a certain level of skill and practice. J. Thorn (15m 43s): It's not the same as having a casual conversation with somebody. So I think you need to practice getting in front of people. And the way I did it is I started offering to do talks for fruit for my local library system. And I would go in and I would hold these little workshops and I would do these talks. And I did that for years. And uh, and I was a classroom teacher before that, so I had sort of the presentation mode refined. But doing those presentations sort of gave me the understanding of, okay, number one, what do people want? And number two, if that's what they want, how can I provide it? J. Thorn (16m 13s): Or how can I find someone who can provide it? So I think there is this middle ground where you, you really have to kind of find tune your chops. And one of the ways you can do that, going back to our previous point is you could reach out to people who are organizing events and offer to speak for free and say, Hey, I'm, I'm getting, you know, experience and speaking. I love your event on, uh, you know, I've been following you. I would love to S I would love to present for free to your audience if that's okay with you. And you know, some people are going to ignore you and some people won't. But I think getting your feet wet and really getting experience presenting, especially on a stage live in front of people would be really important before you kind of go all the way to that point where you're going to be the organizer of the event. Zack (16m 54s): I think another, I think another step you could even take is not think this is kinda gonna depend on where you live. Um, but I almost feel like running some kind of really small event locally could be really good. And even if you don't charge anything, you know, go rent a room at like a local coworking space or something. And obviously you know, you, if you're probably gonna want to be in a city where there's like gonna be a lot of writers that could come, but there's a whole other level of complexity of planning event and risk when you're talking about go like, you know, and for instance, in September we're going to Seattle and we live in Cleveland and Nashville and Seattle is a like fi five or six hour plane ride for each of us. Zack (17m 34s): So like to plan an event in Seattle and not live there is like, there's a lot of complexity around that and you know, J and I both have a background playing music and I know me personally, I know he has some, like I used to plan like a festival on stuff. Like I'm a small music festival and so like I have some event planning background and um, and I mean there's a lot of little logistical things that you may not think about whenever you're playing an event. And you know, we're still learning as we go and learn along the way. Zack (18m 4s): But I think that doing something locally small, maybe you get, try to get 10, 15 people or something to come show up and you do like a lecture type thing. Or maybe you guys do like a world building, I don't know like, but I think that can kind of help you start to see kind of the logistics of putting something together and getting people to show up as well, which is kind of a step ahead of like having a library organized, something you showed up in speaking, which I also think that's a great, great way to get started on that too. Jesper (18m 30s): Yeah. And it is a great point around getting a bit of practice with people or speaking in front of people because even for an introvert is certainly doable, but, but you sort of need to to get used to it a bit and then you can, uh, you can make yourself do it, so to speak almost. But, but I want, I mean I, and I think it's a good point too, to sort of work your way up to it and, and do some of those smaller events for four. I started if that's what you want to go, but, but at the same time I also know that it's pretty important for you guys that the event doesn't grow too big. Jesper (19m 2s): So I'm wondering how do you balance this side of, okay, you, you're of, you'll have some costs into it because you have to rent a place and probably get some food and drink and whatnot. And then at the same time, if you don't have enough people come in, then I guess either you can have a very, very high ticket price, which I don't think you guys are doing either, unless I'm mistaken. Or you can have a ton of people at a lower price, but what but how do you balance it out? Because if you're doing, I mean if you're just doing it for fun, then it's fine. But if you're doing as a sort of supplementary income, then you need to learn a bit from it. Jesper (19m 35s): Right? So what are your thoughts on that? J. Thorn (19m 38s): Yeah, I think it's really important to be completely transparent and honest and say that anytime you're organizing an event, you're taking a risk, uh, financially, mostly financially, but you're, you're risking your reputation as well. I mean, I, I don't think we're at this point anymore, but I remember we had conversations of like, what if we went, if we roll out an event and no one shows up or no one's interested like that, you know, there's a cost that's involved there. Um, and at a certain point, but, but more importantly, you know, the, the events, you know, for, for authors on the train, we're renting a mansion in San Francisco. J. Thorn (20m 14s): Well, we had to put 50% down on that before we put up the landing page. And for the career author summit, we had to secure the, the, the conference center before we put the landing page up. And, you know, so part of that is you need some savings. You need to have some money set aside that you're willing to risk. I mean you can mitigate your risk, but at the end of the day, anytime you're putting money up before you're selling tickets, you are taking risks. So I think it's important to recognize that. And uh, and we've been, we've been willing to do that. J. Thorn (20m 44s): And you know, we've been successful. We haven't lost a ton of money doing and we've made money in most cases, but you do need to have many willing to sort of put up and to secure those. As far as the event themselves are concerned. Our wheel house, our specialty is really these small sort of intimate gab world-building gathering since. So authors on a train and am PSI Phi Seattle and vampires in new Orleans, these are events, we're really taking a dozen people. J. Thorn (21m 14s): So we know that we don't need to have, you know, $100 in Facebook ads. Are they running to drive traffic to that landing page? Cause cause we're, we're going to sell them out. It's only 12 people and we charge enough that we're going to make some money, but it's not so exorbitant that people can't afford it. So that's sort of the, the one style of event that we really like doing. The career author summit, we kind of kind of fell into our lap. Um, it wasn't something we had planned on doing. Uh, summer book show, Bryan Cohen decided he didn't want to do that summit any longer and we had such positive energy momentum for that event. J. Thorn (21m 47s): We didn't just want to let it go and so Zach and I went to Jim Kukral and said, all right, well Brian doesn't want to want to do this anymore. And it was all good. In fact, Brian is going to be speaking at the career author summit, but we said, what if we continue it? We'll rebrand it as the career author but we made a very hard, definitive decision, very public decision and said, we're not growing it. It's at 120, 115 hundred 120 years about the match. Yeah, that's about the number of seats we're going to sell. And we're not growing it past that. I will not sell out those sell out. We could, we could buy, you know, we're, we're very close to having that sold out now and it's 11 months away, so it's not, and that's not a slight against events that grow larger become larger. J. Thorn (22m 29s): But we find in our own experience that, uh, once you go above 115, 120 people, it's, it starts to feel more like a trade show and less like a conference or a workshop. And that's just not what we do. We, we'd like to be able to walk around and interact with everyone. We like people to have the opportunity to meet all the other people there. And once you go North of one 25, it's hard to do that, Zack (22m 51s): I think. I think going back to kind of swing back to your original question too, is, you know, it's, it's very risky and J will tell you like what we kind of laugh because we joke that when we're coming up with these things, J always starts with yes. And I always start with no. So J comes to me with the super ambitious ideas and I'm always like, no, no, we've got to pare it down. And we ended up somewhere in the middle and it really works out. But I think that not getting too ambitious and trying to knock it out of the park so hard the first time when, if, when you're not really sure what all the costs are going to be in stuff, uh, it's, it's really important. Zack (23m 26s): So don't, you know, you obviously want to put on a good event, but you know, that doesn't necessarily mean you have to take all your attendees to the fanciest restaurant and have the fanciest venue. And we've made that mistake. I mean, we, we had, uh, one of our events, you know, we, uh, we're going to try to make it a little bit bigger and we rented a bigger type of, who ran a whole theater, you know, and, uh, we, we did a lot of different things and that event, as awesome as it wasn't as fun as we ended up having on it, uh, ended up losing money for us. So, and it's because we kind of went, we got too ambitious and we learned a lot from that though and and realized, you know, we, we'd rather deliver these really cool experiences. Zack (24m 5s): The problem was is that we were trying to get more people than we really should have and we really realized then like for our smaller well billing events like 15 people, max is kind of like that's really worse. Sweet spot is. And with that, you know, we can still make enough money to like be at the rock and roll hall of Famer at the Mo pop museum and see like we could still do really or rent a mansion. You know, we could still do this really cool stuff and still have room for us to make money as well. Jesper (24m 33s): One element is around the venue that you are reserving are paying for, but the other part is also how what type of event you're running. And by that I mean if you're running something like, like you're talking about here, like a willpower thing event where it doesn't take much prep in the way that, okay, maybe have some initial idea for a world that people then come to the UN and and basically the work is done, they're in the oven. But if you have more like a presentation type of event, either you would need to run the same presentations every time so that you don't have to prep too much or you what because if you do want to create a new presentation every time at the end of the day that his time away from writing and unless you are really earning money on that event, if you're just covering your cost or earning $1,000, you know, my question would be is that really worth it? J. Thorn (25m 26s): I I think that's a very legitimate question. I think the answer is going to be really dependent on on the individual situation Zach and I need to make enough money to make it worth our while. We sort of, we know between us what that is and that that's got to cover our own costs of, of getting there. The cost of not writing during that time, I think, I think that's an an another cost factors into it. And I think it depends on the event. So if you're talking about something like the career author summit, preparing to present at that, a lot of the work comes ahead of time and then you present and it's kind of over. J. Thorn (25m 59s): But world-building is kind of the opposite of that. So there's not a ton that we do leading up to it. But then once it's over, we published an anthology and Zach's right now is going through all the stuff from, from rocket park in Cleveland and that's, that's a full on anthology publication, revision, editing. It's a lot of work. So you know, and like that's, that's work that we're not quote unquote getting paid for. That was part of the ticket for the event. So that's just stuff that we're obligated to do that we enjoy doing. So I think it really, it really comes down to the person as far as like what type of event do you want, do you want to put on, what do you hope to get out of it and, and what sort of resources do you have to spend on it? J. Thorn (26m 40s): And that's both time and money. Zack (26m 41s): And I think too, I think, I think it is important to mention too that there's two of us, which are best, not obvious, but for people who don't know, you know, we do these events together, but we also write fiction together. So even when our fiction production doesn't necessarily have to stop you because J might go do be working on a presentation, but I might be working on our fiction. So I do think that's important to bring up cause, but that's not to say that one person's still couldn't manage this stuff on their own and still run their fiction business and do events. There's nothing that says that by any means. Zack (27m 12s): But, uh, I just think that's important to bring up for this conversation to those. Jesper (27m 16s): Yeah, true. Yeah. And I certainly don't think that this is anything, you know, the, the starting out author should really worry about or try to do. But even if you're not collaborating with somebody else, you know, if you're a bit further down your career path, you might have a virtual assistant who can help booking stuff and whatnot. So, so Zack (27m 34s): of course you're probably gonna need some help to do an event. There was no doubt. Yeah. Depending on the size and scope, what you're trying to do that you're probably gonna need some help. But like you said, you can definitely hire people out to help you or stuff. So Jesper (27m 47s): is there anything else we should cover around organizing events to say anything that I should have asked you that I do? J. Thorn (27m 56s): I mean, as far as organizing an event goes, I think it, you know, really the big takeaway, what Zach mentioned is is if you're, if you're really interested, do something very small and local for free. And that's the best way to get a feel for a lot of this. Everything from logistics to, uh, the type of people you want there to, the presentations or the workshops that you want to do. And maybe depending on where you live and who's near you, you can just invite a few of your friends and just say, Hey, come for free. You know, let's all do this together. J. Thorn (28m 26s): I'll, I'll sort of run it and I'd love to just get your feedback on it. And I think starting small and starting locally is probably the best way to do it. Because the last thing you want to do is to, is to think planning something like the career author summit sounds awesome. And you'd love to do that. And then you start to do it and realize it's not something you enjoy or it's, or it's something that you don't want to spend time on and then you're kind of stuck. So I think if you start small, then you're going to have a much better, uh, you'll have much, uh, a much better idea for yourself as to what, whether you can do something more grandiose in the future. Jesper (28m 60s): I think that's very good advices. And, uh, it's all, it's always good to get some advice to somebody who has actually done it, you know, rather than people speculate to be good on that. So I very much appreciate that. Sure, absolutely. I did mention the Korea author podcast in the beginning and I will put a link to that. So if you're watching on YouTube, it's going to be right below this video. And if you're on the podcast, just go to the show notes, but is there anything else, guys you want to mention where people can find your, or is this just the curiosity podcast you want to point people? Zack (29m 31s): Yeah, I mean, everything's over@thecareerauthor.com you can get the podcast there. Uh, if all our events are there. So if you're interested in attending one of our events, um, you know, we're, right now, we are, uh, all our 2019 stuff. Well, the only thing we have left to by Seattle, it's sold out. Our 2020 stuff is almost sold out. So, um, we, we have the career author summit in Nashville, Tennessee. That's a in may of 2020. We've got some great speakers will be there. We've got Joanna Penn, Lindsay broker, Brian Cohen, Jim Kukral, Mark Leslie, the fade, a honorary quarter. Zack (30m 7s): We've got some really good speakers lined up for that. Um, and we're getting really close to being sold out for that as of this recording. I don't know what it would be when you guys, when you air, but we're, I think we have like maybe 12, 15, 20 tickets, 15 tickets. Um, so we've got that going on. We have a authors on a train, California dream and is what we're calling that am. So we'll be taking a trip, we'll be taking a train from Los Angeles, California to San Francisco, uh, with a group of authors. And we will be doing, we'll be staying in a mansion for a few days and we're gonna build out an anthology together, write stories, collaborate. Zack (30m 43s): That's a collaboration event. Um, that has like one or two tickets available as of right now. Um, and then we also have vampires of new Orleans, which, uh, will be taking place Halloween weekend, which if anyone who's never been in new Orleans, that's like a the best time to go to new Orleans. The weather's really good. Um, and, and there's so much cool stuff that happens there during Halloween and, uh, we're going to be doing, we got some really cool stuff lined up. We're gonna be doing more. We're there, but then we're going to be writing vampire stories, publishing anthology. Um, and that is, we don't have any treats left for that either. Zack (31m 15s): I don't think so. And again, yeah, so this is all for 20, 20, so you can check all that stuff out. I mean, if you're someone, again who's interested in may rain events, you can, it's got all the stuff there. You can kind of see what we're doing and um, you know, maybe, maybe that will spark some ideas for you as well. So yeah, but everything's at the career author.com Jesper (31m 33s): yeah, and I don't take just anybody within this, a fantasy author audience here who doesn't like vampires. The only thing you need is you. You're missing the dragons, so you need to put them out there. We'll get there eventually. One a 21 maybe we'll come closer where you live and I will get a castle somewhere and dragons. Yeah, exactly. All right. Thanks a lot for coming onto amwritingfantasy guys. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you for having us. We appreciate it. All right, and to your opt in, see you next Monday.