Big Time Spills it All
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Concept
Dungeon Masters
In D&D, the Dungeon Master is the person who runs the game and decides what happens next. They can surprise everyone with unexpected twists.
Concept
live-action role play
LARP is when people dress up and act out a story in real life, like a pretend adventure. Instead of rolling dice at a table, you’re acting and interacting with other people.
Concept
Dungeons and Dragons
Dungeons and Dragons is a game where you make a character and go on adventures with friends. One person (the Dungeon Master) helps run the story and surprises the players.
Car
Nissan Titan
The Nissan Titan Crew Cab is a large pickup truck with four doors. The podcast groups it with other trucks/SUVs by talking about the truck-style engine. It comes up because that engine type is a big part of how these vehicles work and are maintained.
Term
drag race
Drag racing is racing in a straight line to see which car is quickest over a short distance. It usually requires the car to put power down hard and quickly.
Term
stock crank stock block
“Stock crank stock block” means the engine’s crankshaft and engine block are kept from the factory rather than replaced with aftermarket forged parts. This is a common strategy to control cost while still upgrading key components (like turbocharging and supporting mods) to make big power.
Term
horsepower to the wheel
It’s how much power actually reaches the tires. Because some power is lost inside the car, wheel horsepower is usually less than the engine’s advertised number.
Concept
drag racing event
Drag racing is racing in a straight line to see which car accelerates fastest. People build cars for it by focusing on making strong power and keeping the engine alive under hard launches.
Term
machine shop
A machine shop is a specialized shop that works on engine parts with precision tools. They can clean and measure components so the engine can be rebuilt correctly.
Term
hot tanked it
Hot tanking is a deep cleaning process for engine parts. It helps strip off built-up gunk so you can inspect everything properly before rebuilding.
Concept
stick a Japanese v8 in it
This is describing an engine swap: taking a classic chassis (here, a drag-racing-style setup) and installing a different engine—in this case, a Japanese V8. The point is to combine old-school car culture with modern performance and reliability potential from a different manufacturer’s powerplant.
Term
ceramic
Ceramic is a heat-retaining material. It helps the cooker stay at the same temperature so your food cooks more evenly.
Term
smoker
A smoker is a grill/oven setup that cooks with steady heat over a long time. It’s meant to keep the temperature from swinging too much.
Concept
Nürburgring
The Nürburgring is a well-known race track in Germany. People talk about it a lot because it’s challenging and iconic in car culture.
Company
Kamado Joe
Kamado Joe is a brand of “kamado” ceramic charcoal grills that are known for excellent heat retention and temperature control. That makes them popular for searing and then holding steady cooking temps.
Term
sear
Searing is cooking the outside fast at high heat to brown it. It helps the food taste better and keeps the outside from getting too wet.
Concept
wheelie
A wheelie is when the front wheels come up off the ground while you’re driving. They’re talking about how fun their Jeep is because it can do that.
Concept
shop truck
A “shop truck” is a vehicle used primarily for moving parts, tools, and other cars around the facility rather than for daily commuting. They mention using the CJ-2A in this role—pulling stuff around and moving items—showing how project shops repurpose vehicles for logistics.
Concept
DMV
The DMV is the government office that handles vehicle paperwork and driving legality. They’re saying the DMV gave them permission so their race car could be driven on public roads.
Concept
burnouts
Burnouts are when you spin the tires so they smoke and heat up. They’re saying the DMV allowed them to do it on the street during their event.
Concept
crash out
“Crash out” is a racing way of saying someone crashed so badly they couldn’t keep going. It’s also the kind of phrase that can sound weird if you don’t know the racing context.
Concept
moto gp
MotoGP is the top level of motorcycle racing. If a rider crashes and can’t continue, people might say they “crashed out.”
Concept
sponsorships
A sponsorship is when a brand pays you (or gives you support) to feature them in your videos. It helps you make content without relying only on ad income.
Brand
Red Bull
Red Bull is a major energy drink brand that also invests heavily in sports and lifestyle media. In creator partnerships, it often funds or co-produces content to build brand visibility and association with high-energy activities.
Concept
multi-platform distribution
Instead of posting only on one website, you share your videos on several apps. That way, you’re less dependent on any single platform and you can find more viewers.
Concept
car got stolen
They’re saying their car was stolen. That’s a big deal for any car owner, and it usually means you need better parking/security to prevent it.
Concept
flip this
“Flipping” a car means buying it with the intention to resell it later for profit, often after a short ownership period. This usually depends on getting a strong purchase price and minimizing costs like repairs, storage, and time.
Concept
car theft targeting via tagging
They’re saying there’s a Discord group where people point out which cars are good targets. If a thief steals one of the tagged cars, the tagger gets money.
Car
Camaro
A Camaro is a performance car from Chevrolet. Cars that lots of people want—like this—can be stolen more often.
Term
SWAT
SWAT is a special police team that handles really dangerous situations. Here, it’s mentioned to show how intense and serious the moment was.
Concept
track day
A track day is when people take their cars to a race track for fun practice. You get to drive harder than normal, learn the car, and meet other car enthusiasts.
Company
Donut
Donut is a popular car channel on YouTube. The hosts talk about how being part of that community helped them build their audience and careers.
Term
radar gun
A radar gun is a gadget that measures how fast something is moving. In baseball, it’s often used to measure how fast a pitch is coming toward the batter.
LIVE
Welcome back to Talk Talk Nation. I'm your host Joe Weber, and I am in a very special
warehouse right now with my good friends at Big Time. Guys, thank you so much for having
me here. Joe, thanks for coming, dude.
Thank you for coming here, Joe. It's a long-distance dap.
It's good to...
Dap, dap, dap. I love your space, by the way.
Thank you.
I love the neighborhood. This is Arts District adjacent.
Yeah, we're calling it the car district.
It's called the car district.
We're next to a bunch of cool car people.
Lean customs.
Automotive school.
Yeah.
Accelerate automotive.
Magnus is kind of in your neighborhood a little bit.
Yeah, he's right across the bridge.
Art of attack.
Art of attack.
Rap legends.
Rap legends.
And then Big Time.
Yeah.
So for the audio listeners out there, if somehow you grew up under a rock or something, sitting
with me right now is Jeremiah Burton, Zachary Jobe, and Andy Paz. And at one point,
you guys all worked at Donut.
That's right.
I think everyone knows that.
That's where we all met.
That's where we formed our lifelong friendship.
Our bonds.
I'd say. We met each other probably the same year, 2019, right?
Yeah.
You started as a host around the same time Jobe did.
Yeah.
Jobe flew in from Ohio.
That's right.
Yeah, we just passed the seven-year mark of that, actually.
Wow.
A couple weeks ago, I think.
Seven-year.
And now you got your homie, Mike Day, in the background.
Yeah.
We'll drop in half in the chat for the seven-year mark.
Seven-year mark.
It's a big one.
It's a big one.
Seven-year anniversary.
But we had actually been interns at a comedy theater together before that.
Yeah.
We didn't know each other.
Yeah.
I was thinking about that the other night.
I was thinking, I saw Lou Wilson on.
He's on Jimmy Kimmel.
He's on Jimmy Kimmel.
And I saw him.
What was that?
UCB or something?
Yeah.
So Lou is a buddy of ours and he was an intern at UCB.
So we would clean toilets together.
And now he.
That's really what the interns do there.
He's like the bottle camera.
Off-camera like Ed McMahon. Yeah, Jimmy Kim. Yeah, he's the I call him like the voice
It's the guy who announces, you know, and then but he also is on a show where he does
Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah, d20. Yeah d20. Yeah
A bunch of our homies on that and they like sell out stadiums. They sold out crazy Madison Square Gardens
They sold out Hollywood Bowl playing Dungeons and Dragons. What am I told you guys this?
We need to get into something like this. They sold out the Hollywood Bowl and MSG by doing live
For people to watch them play Dungeons and Dragons, that's why.
Is there any sort of like other aspect to it or is it just game play?
I mean, it's comedic. Like you have comedians who are it's like a perfect
It's the perfect like place to let a yes to let a comedian shine because they each have like a character
Yeah, and they don't know it's coming at them because the Dungeon Masters like giving them wild cards. Exactly.
I love my friends. I went to the Hollywood Bowl one and I could not hang
People were dressed up as the characters because it's like an ongoing thing
Mm-hmm, and then they do something like turn to the audience and be like and then I grabbed my apple and everyone's like, huh
That's so funny
Inside joke of my ten episodes ago
I've always wanted to be in on the inside of an inside joke. Maybe one day
One day what if we started a larping thing donut and big time we could do live live-action role play in Madison Square Garden
What what will we do live-action role like what fight each other? Oh, okay?
Okay, I thought we could like build cars live. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no
No, we did have we did have a Dungeons and Dragons thing that we're spoiling up with if he if you remember
I remember if he was like
Like every character was a different car
And we tried we like piloted it and I don't think it really worked, but yeah, anyways
We did a Dungeons and Dragons ad one time. That's as close as ever. Yeah. Oh, yeah
You made a what a Starcraft car. Oh, well, we this was on donut. We did it was an ad for Hyundai or yeah
I think so. I think it's on days. It was a manufacturer. I think it was on day and where we shot
Uh, we were Dungeons and track me James and Job, and I think no one. Yeah, Nolan or Justin
I can't remember but it was uh, yeah long-winded way of saying like we know each other. Yeah
Toilets UCB many many years. We're actually in the same room. I don't think so. So what happened
All back then or no, so what happened is like, okay
So if you wanted to be like part of the cult that was UCB you had to intern there and you got one class
Eight yeah, and work shifts you got a free class, but it really wasn't so much about the free class
It was about like networking and getting to know people and so your penance for that was to was to clean the toilet
That was like one of my responsibilities
You had to take tickets and seat people and do all this stuff. It felt special at the time. Yeah
Yeah, yeah, I mean you're in the cult you're like, you know, and it's like I mean
That's what you're you've been looking and trying to do for so long. Yeah, I'll clean it. I'll clean it
Yeah, pretty good clean toilets. I didn't know that and I just found this out and this is all I've only heard this that
UCB has like sort of a MLM vibe a little bit
MLM. Yeah, like multi-level marketing. Yeah, sign up for Improp 201
I'm gonna do it like if you sign up under me you get me paid or whatever
I think the culture of it was just I don't know how it is now. I'm so far removed from it
But like it was very, you know, like it was like this was the ticket to start up
Yeah, and if you played by the rules and played the politics well, then you could make it on a house team
Which, you know, Aubrey Plaza was on a house team before she got Parks and Rec
And yeah at the time a lot of people from UCB were making it onto TV
Yeah, and so that's what they were using to market. It seemed like back in the day
You know how like you went on like if stand-ups got on the tonight show
I got like, you know, like approved by Johnny Carson or something like that was a version of what we went through
Like if you got on a house team a smaller version of SNL, right? Yeah, pretty much
Yeah, and a lot of people went on to go be yeah
SNL from that
But so like because we were both interns if you had to have someone cover your shift you basically had to email
Everyone but you couldn't blast email you had to individually email it and there's like probably 150 interns
Yeah, so I would go like if I was out of town or something
I can't make it like I would just go through the list and do email everyone and I believe I hit up Joe
Probably a few times. Yeah, I think I hit up you once in a while. Yeah. Yeah, but I was like when you started at doughnut
I was like, you're my burden
Dude, why do I know any toilets for me?
Yeah, I was cleaning the toilets. Just for you though. Joe would go in there and take a shit and be like, not working today, mother f*****g!
What happened to the UCB that like the big one it closed down they I think they foreclosed or they built it
Well, they had a 32 million dollar mortgage going into the pandemic. Oh my god. Yeah, cut it. Who founded UCB?
It was Amy Poehler, Matt, Besser, Ian, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh, Matt Walsh
Oh, for some reason he's like Steve Colbert or something. No, he was he was second city in Chicago. Oh, yeah
Anyways
Hey, this car podcast is all about improv of the late 2000s
Dude, honestly, I had we had to cut so much out of the Ralph Barbosa interview because I was like, so how do you write jokes?
Yeah, we like got into premise talking and stuff like that, but this is the main audience of this podcast
I'm assuming car people, right? Yeah. Yeah, let's talk f*****g cars
I want to f*****g about our origin. We got a lot of time. Yeah, I'm gonna work my way down
I met kind of in comedy, but then we started
Writing together a little bit for B2B. Yep
I think I ended up writing a couple scripts during the pandemic for you guys just to like keep my skills sharp
Yeah, I remember writing about the VQ. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, how it was like a smooth engine or something
All smoothness with the VQ
Yeah, sounds great. Sounds really smooth. We've graduated to VKs around here
Yeah, we just got a VK, which is the you know, the V8 version of the VQ that we're building, but but yeah
What's that in like a Nissan Titan?
A Titan. Yeah, the Armada QX56. Yeah, just a bunch. It's a truck engine. You throwing it in a drift car or what are you doing with it?
No, we're trying to drag race. Yeah, we're gonna figure that out pretty quick.
They're really so I saw a video probably like a year and a half ago of a guy
I got to get his name so I can give him some credit because it was just a real I think was on 1320 where a guy
was I think was in an S chassis and he was like, oh, it's a VK. It's
Stock crank stock block. He does pistons rods and a big fat turbo and some off-the-shelf cams
And he was making
1900 horsepower to the wheel and I was like, holy shit. I go that's crazy
And then I started looking at these trucks and we found a Titan for 500 bucks with a working engine
I was like, well, this is like
Yeah, perfect. This is perfect. Like this is right up our alley, you know, like and if we blow it up, it gives it crap
Yeah, 500 bucks, you know, and then around the same time this throttle throwdown came up
Yep, which is a big drag racing event in Pennsylvania on May 2nd
That throttle YouTube channel is hosting. Yeah, inviting some different creators to
To just do head-to-head drag racing. So we're like, well
Let's let's give VK and see if we can make four digits of power and take that there
So this hasn't happened yet. No, no, no engines and parts over there. Oh the build or the car or any?
Yeah, no, it's all in the early stages. We have two months to get a working
Drag car
We just took the engine apart a week or two ago got it cleaned up at a machine shop and
About ready to put it back together. How was the engine?
Uh, it was in pretty pretty gross shape grossly maintain even the machine shop commented on it
This thing's gross
But once so they hot tanked it for us and got it all cleaned up and it looks pretty good
We still got to take some critical measurements, but I think I think it's gonna be okay. No scarring on the no scarring
Yeah, no, everything looks pretty good for how like, you know, it looked like
Yeah
Yeah
What's this uh, $500 engine going into
Well, should we yeah, we continue and I think we've we have found it
I don't think the video will be out, but people will now know we're putting it in a uh, uh an 80s, um
Monte Carlo
Whoa, yeah, dude. I Ralph Barbosa has like four Monte Carlo. Oh, nice. I think Monte Carlo is the coming back
Monte Carlo is a cool, man. Yes. They're very cool
I mean, you know classic like drag racing chassis and we're gonna stick a Japanese v8 in it and see what happens
Dude, that's crazy. Moving on to joby. What's up? You came in 2019. Yep
I was tasked with being your like writing supervisor
Oh, yeah, I think we realized pretty early on that you're better to just wing it
Yeah, and I I've always said like you're one of the best people I've ever worked with on camera
You can just thanks man synthesize information and put it in layman's terms
On like in the snap of a finger. Well, thanks, man. That's uh, that's one of your best talents. I appreciate that
That's just how my brain works. I got a I got to put into layman's terms for myself
So, you know doing it for the camera is just second nature
But we bonded pretty quick because we both skate that's right. I was like a big part of the
Donut culture getting up and down the alley at the the old office. Yeah
And of course andy on the end. I don't want to forget you andy
We also bonded over food. I think when you first started at donut. Yes, we used to watch formula one and make quiches
Yes, we did and we did it multiple times. Yeah
multiple
Beef wellington in the bathroom here
Is that code for something right here? No came out really good beef wellington in the bathroom is a uh
They use it at all sorts of nightclubs. You want me to run you through what I did
Yeah, so Jeremiah for the holidays surprised me and got me a uh
Cremato Joe like the little green egg, but the red version Komodo Joe. Yeah, Komodo Komodo Joe Komodo Joe. Yeah
and I was like no way and
Immediately put to like insane use like I was grilling on it like four or five times a week at one point
Why is it? It just has like good insulation. Why is it so special? It's ceramic. Yeah oven and it can get up to like 800 degrees
Yeah, or it can get down to like 120 degrees and you slow cook. Yeah smoker
It just like stays at a consistent temperature for a while. Yeah, okay, so we had this uh
Grand tourism of 24 hour stream and we're all like, what do we do?
So there's other things going on besides watching us take turns going around the nirburgring
And he's like, I'll make a beef wellington. Yeah, I'm like, I'll make a beef wellington on stream
And I've never made a beef wellington before and I didn't even look up a recipe
I've just seen it so many times made and I'll tell everyone at home. It's not that hard. Yeah, it's difficult
Together pretty well. So I went and got um
Uh tenderloin, right? Obviously. Yeah, I took it out of the package
I butchered it took the silver skin membrane off and I made it into like a tube
Then I took puff pastry and mushrooms. Did you sear it first? Yeah, okay
So that's why I mentioned that I seared it on the kamado joe and that was the first thing
I ever made on and that was probably at like midnight. Yeah
The streams were like 11 a.m. Are you making the are you making the beef? Well, these are gonna kick down the road. Yeah, like
Well, they didn't realize that okay a big thing about the beef wellington is you need to sear the beef
And you need to make your duck sell you gotta let it rest
You have to let it cool down or the you have to you have to wrap it up
You're gonna melt the butter in the fridge you're gonna melt the butter in the puff pastry and they did not understand that
Yeah, they did not understand. Oh, it's been 45 minutes. Where's my beef rindton? Yeah, I'll be honest
There was a point where I was like beef wellington's not happening. Yeah, so around like 3 a.m. Or whatever
I had it cooking off in the toaster oven
There's plugged into the bathroom because we kept short circuiting and dropping the stream
We had so much shit plugged into this place. It looked like it was we were going to the
Yeah, and one of the shortcomings of this building is the number of outlets
We've got like four so we had everything just well, we upgraded our electricity has recently been upgraded
Which is good, but uh, I mean about the space that we're in right now. This is uh, it's around 6500 square foot
It's got two portions. We call the front the store. So we're opening up a actual storefront
I'm not going to say the date yet, but it's going to be in
Soonish, yeah
And then this is the back half is the shop workspace. So we have one single lift right now and uh a bunch of broken cars
Kind of like it's about half right now. Yeah
As I look around Camaro's broken. Mustang is broken. Okay. Gabe's car kind of just like that's broken if it doesn't run
It doesn't but jeep broken
Okay, one more jeep is not broken, but the 86 shell is broken that you brought at auction
All right, so we got three working cars four not working cars. Yeah, right. We got we got we bought that wheelie cj2a
From uh, bear jackson for seven grand
We went we went there with the goal of trying to buy the cheapest car possible and i'm not joking that thing
F*** rips dude. It's really it's our favorite car. Can you do a wheelie in it?
Yeah, I bet you we can put all the boys in the back. Yeah, I bet you you could pop a wheelie
Yeah, it's uh, it's super fun. It's just like I can't wait now is the perfect time to drive it
Yeah, it's so fun to putt around the town and we use it as like a shop truck in here pull stuff around move stuff
It's great. It's awesome. Yeah, it's fun. Well, also the the race car up front is broken too. Oh, yeah, that's right
That's a real race car. That's a real race car. Yeah, is that the one that you drove to uh, the
Fuji move board?
Yeah, but we did have a pass from the dmv that yeah the dmv allowed me to drive that legally on the street
As well as the shell of the 86 as well
Wow, that's so nice
The dmv is surprisingly nice to me lately. They let us shut the street down the other day and have eddie do burnouts
Which was cool
Yeah, I mean it's all it's pretty in car district. We have also different rules in car district because everyone is you know
They're all everyone gets it, you know, we're car people. That's the slogan of car town. Yeah, we get it. We get it, brother
And you know, I am you know, I don't know I'm guessing you guys still have to battle sound issues with
Um airplanes neighbors. We've been kind. I mean knock on wood, dude
It's been there's some events in the back. But other than that, this has been a pretty good
So I hope this audio works out for you
But essentially going back to our spot this is we're going to build out into some sort of podcast based eventually
We have racks and stuff coming to organize a little bit better and just kind of get it more built out
Yeah, it's very much a work in progress and we'll be for a little while but that's part of the fun, you know
Yeah, so you're planning a podcast. What what's the podcast going to be about? I don't know. I just know that there's
Stuff we want to talk about, you know
I have a good working title name for it as well. What's that? It's called watch me crash out
Oh, that's cool. I like that because well, it's funny because people now say crash out like oh, he crashed out or whatever
But in moto gp. Uh-huh. What do they say when they crash?
I crashed he's crashed out. It could have stopped. Oh, he's crashed out. He's crashed out
So out of context, it's quite funny for anyone listening
We could also change the name. I don't care. Oh, no, that's that's pretty good. No, dude
You can't back out now our next podcast crashed out
Are you guys here on the weekends all the time working? I wasn't here this weekend, which is pretty rare. Yeah, I mean it's actually
This is a fun place to be. Yeah, it's not so, you know, yeah, it's it's like when we
First started at donor got the new shop down there. You know, I was there all the time
I was I was thinking about
What I would call like the lawless era
Oh, yeah
The first time I ever brought emily to the office
I was like, where is everyone and we walk in the back and everyone is shirtless shooting
Shooting BBs at glass bottles
Yeah, like the pellet gun just boy stuff
Kenan had just like eating shit on the one wheel and was like bleeding
Yeah, bro. We played there was a period of time where it was like we had BB guns. We had pellet guns
We had the ball guns. We had the one wheels, which are just like collarbone buster. We had the crazy cards
We had the crazy cards. I correct one into christina z3. I'd pay like $2,800 to get that fixed
Yeah, we did um
Uh, we played wall ball. I was gonna say a football ball ball ball. Yeah, we would throw the football like we're just like no
I mean, I remember there there were times where I would just we had a soccer and I would just kick it as hard as I
Yeah, there's soccer balls hitting cars all the time all the time
We'll be right back after these messages
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Now back to the show
Well, let's talk about the youtube channel so far you guys are having
A lot of success what have been like the biggest challenges of the last
What two years now almost two years it's but it'll be a full well
I guess we launched the channel when we were still at dona. Yeah independent. We've been just over a year here in three months
almost
And um
Yeah, I mean, I think like I'll just speak for like personally
I think like the biggest thing is like there's so many aspects
To running a business that is not just the creative side of coming up with videos, you know like like sales
Yeah, exactly for us like when we were working together like in writing and like in pitch meetings and like that's your job
Your whole job is just how do you come up with the most creative fun video?
And then you know like we were also kind of one-man bands where we would go off and produce it
You know like eventually we had help and that's how we got it
But now it's like you still have to do that focus on that and then also run the business, you know like yeah, which is
You know like the youtube money only pays so much. You have to go get sponsorships
You got to be able to like run an efficient merch business if you're trying to get that going you got to like go meet new clients
You got to go, you know like and you're also like hosting red bull videos and stuff like that
Yeah, yeah, and that's like a larger play like trying to build the brand
You know like red bull makes us look great. We look we make red bull look great
You know like so like working with more clients like that and you know like one of the things too
It's trying to build up like the production arm of big time to where it's like if we want to go and shoot a video for red bull
We don't even need to host it. You know like yeah, we can just contract the bull
So you're trying to do more just commercial shoots like that
I just think like in today's age of
You know like nothing is for certain like I don't know if the youtube ad
gods and videos are always going to like produce so like
You know a lot of the meetings we have and a lot of the means I take are always about like
Hey, how do we get the stuff that we already worked really hard on and get it out to like different places?
Like you know like youtube's one thing, but there's facebook. There's tiktok. There's instagram. There's samsung tv. There's tubie
There's pluto. Yeah, you're doing any fast channel. Yeah, that's that's like the next step
I think we've built up like a pretty good catalog right now to where we can start going and having those conversations and
You know trying to build out the the channel that way
There's just like so many different like pieces like that's just been the most difficult thing is like learning like
Hey, how do you?
How do you like manage all of this and you know like keep the shit moving forward and also like being
You know like you know how it goes like you're trying to do a video a week
Coordinating with freelancers is insane and sure and like watch edits and coordinating with us
We took us a month to get back to you to do this. So I you know it's hectic. Yeah, but I knew that's why I wasn't like
Pressing it too hard because I see all the stuff that you guys do and I'm like, I'm just gonna let it breathe and whenever they're ready
They can let me know. Well, here we are. Yeah, but yeah, I mean it's uh, you know, it's a lot to keep a video coming out every week
There's eight of us. So it's not like there's a huge network of people to fall back on
We just have to make it happen another big constraint
Up until a few months ago was space, you know, we were doing this out of my out of my house
I wanted to ask you about that because that ended up kind of being a problem for you
Not only with neighbors, but like that's where your
Car got stolen outside of right true. Yeah, that is true and out of it
I mean, I don't know if there's any sort of relationship between it being outside of my house that has been on youtube a bunch
Yeah, or if that was just happenstance because you want to tell a story about how like that comes to be
Yeah, I mean so
I think yeah, I mean it well real quick about jobie's like house like yeah
That was a a big thing that eventually like why we did wait it so long. I don't quite understand
Stack up a couple bucks. I guess. Oh, yeah. I mean like we got this place and and to be fair like
We were all looking for spots to go
Yeah, we probably checked out 20 or 30 spots before finding this place right and to be honest
We're getting a smoking deal on this place. Yeah, that's awesome. So I think you found the right spot for sure
Yeah, it's good. It comes with its hurdles like, you know getting a car in and out of here is tough
Some of the electrical is not like what you say it comes with the turtles. Yeah, it comes with its turtles
Those are the couple turtles, you know
Make totally enough for you. You have to jump over it. Exactly, dude. Exactly
But I think that that's why the world is not real because
They looked at so many different places
And it just like what are the odds that this opened?
We're the first people to look at it and then every one of our neighbors is cool and works in cars like
Job and I went to look at some some offices some real uglies
And we go inside and it's like a fully padded room and the ladies like yeah, they make clothes in here. I'm like
This is a grow house. Yeah, why are we here?
And then uh, yeah, we found this place. Yeah, and to Andy's credit
I mean we found this place because he asked
Uh, a friend that was renting a place if if you knew of any other places and he was like will right?
Yeah will from rap legends who also raps cars at dona. Yeah, so it's like, you know, we it's just this big
Community of car adjacent brands that really led us to finding this and when Andy sent me the video of the place for the first time
As we're we've been hot on the trail trying to find a place. He sends me the video to this place
And I was just like, well, let's just say you didn't need a blue chew then. No, I was like Andy
We don't we're not trying to spend 15 000 bucks a month
This place was like way nicer than any other place, but they were within our budget. So it ended up working out
So I asked a million questions and we're answering them. Oh, we were talking about the car. Yeah. Yeah. So the car getting stolen
Oh, yeah, that wasn't so much. It wasn't like I'm gonna go pee real quick. It wasn't like oh the
People saw where we were and then like thought about oh, I'm gonna go and take that car
They didn't know what even knew about the car like we didn't even you have any you didn't reveal it
No one's no reveal. I yeah, I bought it one because I
I got a crazy good deal on it and I was like, I'll probably flip this and make some money
I'll try it for a couple months
and then um
I was like and then I went to seema and I talked to some guys and I like mentioned I had one
They were like, oh, we would love to like build this with you and pay you to do it and make some videos and I was like
Oh sick, you know
C706 C706, right? Yeah. So that's a ripper, Andy. It was very cool. I saw it once
Yeah, I drove it three times like, you know, and then it got it got swooped
But so we made a video about it getting stolen. We
Got a billboard up. Yeah, I've got a billboard. We got a billboard and
I said, we will find you made a t-shirt, which was really funny
Andy designed like one of those like funeral shirts with like the angel wings on the car
Airbrush and similar to the pop-up headlight. Yeah, you know, and so we um
Yeah, I uh
The the racket is kids in Job's area
Like they have a discord channel and on the discord channel
If you tag a car that people are looking to steal, they pay you money
So like kids just go around and be like, oh, here's a Corvette here. Here's a Camaro here
Here's a hellcat here, blah, blah, blah
And if someone ends up stealing it, then you get a hundred dollars, right?
And you don't even think so like it's just way of tagging where you get where thieves can go steal cars
so I believe that's what happened and uh, so I
Not with 100 percent certainty, but pretty sure we know the guy who did it and
figuring out whether or not what we want to do to move forward like the initial reaction is just like
You know this kid. Yeah, but I think the initial reaction is we do nothing. We're we are doing nothing
But Andy's risk adverse. I'm very risk adverse. I'm more like check with the dmv first before we do the police gave us a pet
But anyways, the cops had come here and just like yeah, you can't do anything about it
And I was like
And I was like, well, what if we just whip his ass and they're like, well, that's your decision
Dude, we're gonna put this on a podcast
Whatever it was just that we were just thinking about it. I mean, I'm not like I was thinking about it in minecraft
This is all in minecraft everyone. Yeah. Yeah in minecraft
Do you want anyone else to hop in for a second?
And the hot seat has been filled by what's your name?
Hot seats been filled by phil
Yes, this is philip aramenta the one and only phil is probably donut employee number 14 or so
Yeah, what year did you start? I started in 2017 at the time eddie was still
The office manager at the front. Yeah, so that's yeah, it was quite a while ago and you've been on
My podcasts more than any of these guys. I think you filled in a lot
Yeah, I think towards you guys were so busy towards the end and I finally like yeah, I think I ended up somehow on the podcast
That's cool. I mean, I loved it. Dude back in the saddle again. Yeah, but yeah
And you used to so let's just run through phil's history. You started as an editor, right? I started
I was an intern so when I got there there was like a group of just interns
And I was driving up from san diego to donuts to do my internship
And eventually matt offered me a job. So yeah, I jumped on board at the time. Nolan
I took Nolan's seat. I'm never gonna forget that because I got to the office and they're like, oh, yeah, this dude's gone
But just use his seat and here's his here's his like parking card
And no one was so pissed when he came back
Who's who stuff is this? I'm like, where's my and I was like, no, hi, I'm Felipe
That was back when he was doing that was Nolan
Yeah, Nolan was an intern and he was just doing like writing assignments and editing at the time
I think we all of us, you know, except for you guys
I think we all dipped into editing writing whatever it was
Yeah, I think back in the startup days everyone had to wear a ton of hats and kind of be
Like everything. Yeah, I mean, yeah, because we were doing I mean it got to a point where
It was like donut every day
That was crazy about that. You know, and that was pretty coincidental with
COVID right? Yeah, I was like, I mean don't we started it maybe before COVID. Yeah, right
But during COVID it was because I remember I filmed out of my garage
You were obviously filming out of your garage. You had like a little uh sweat oven. Oh my gosh
Filmed with 17 motorbikes was just filled with bikes and I had to film at night because it was so
And I just I still and you were writing like 12 hours a day bro. I didn't know I'd wake up
Right like non-stop, you know, like research scripts. It was like is it tomorrow yet?
And we and I did technical ass. Yeah
I mean, I remember the first ones phil and I were working on together
They were like 30 minute episodes and this was before we were making 30 minute videos like they they were serious
Everything else was like 15 to 17. Yeah, especially to fill 30 minutes with just talking head about technical things
That's like thousands of words especially when we moved from that was like that's when jesse asked me
He's like we need to like reinvent bumper to bumper because we can't go look at car
We're doing all this graphic stuff too and like yeah, there's graphics
Well at least well jerry was doing like, you know, the writing the 12 hours and then shooting at night
I was driving out to get all the b-roll get everything then I would get go to jerry's house pick up
Whatever he shot go home start editing. Yeah, it was like yeah, and he basically had a turn
uh
A 30 minute episode every week every week. It's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah, I mean it was a crazy crazy thought to be able to do
Canaan got brought on the b2b
Yeah team too, right? Well, I worked with I worked with phil claire claire. That's right. Oh, but I also worked with alex
Ignacio Ignacio sara sara, but no, but yeah, but she didn't really run beat it like directly. She was writing. Yeah
She was mostly writing um tirenin was a writer tirenin was a writer
Yeah, but i'm trying to think of the people who like Zach redpath. Yeah, we went through it and then canaan
Came through. Yeah, so they had cycled it was I mean I did I think it was 114 or 116 weeks straight of b2b
That's insane. It was nuts, you know, and then at the same time you're fixing the money pit miata every week
Yeah, yeah, you're doing you're doing like
the
Same amount of work, but like fab work and like
And mine's engine swapping inside. No lift forever
Yeah, just at my house with whatever tools I happened to have
I just still remember that like when it the jack came loose and it was almost rolled over
No, the jack didn't come loose. I put it down on purpose. Just forgot. I didn't have the ebra
Well, that was that and then I think we were talking about it this morning
Do you remember doing the e36 manual swap and that transmission dude? I think that transmission job almost killed it
I'll never forget that. Yeah, because my hand got super infected because that was the day I got the magnet put in my hand
Oh, yeah
And so the next day I had to I had to cut a hole in the side of the transmission
Because I ended I got a clutch from ecs and the wrong clutch disc was in the right box
And so like friction welded itself to the back of the crankshaft so I couldn't take the transmission off
So I had to like cut a hole in the side of the transmission to undo the clutch pressure plate so that I could get the pressure plate off
Oh my god
And uh or get yeah, you get the pressure plate off and in doing that
I just packed this fresh deep wound full of clutch junk
And then the next morning I woke up and my hand was bright red and like two times the size
And then I joked just wrestling the transmission on the ground
Just for anyone who doesn't know zack got like a really strong magnet put in his
Like the webbing of his thumb so he can put little like screws and bolts
Yeah, I thought it'd be pretty cool. Uh, I was wrong. I you want to know how often I use it
That sounded like the
So, all right, where do we leave off we're we're all going crazy during the pandemic and we're working
We're redoing b2b. We're doing we're doing a show a day
We're doing a show a day which means that there's like seven teams of people
Fervently trying to get an episode together every week and it's covet so you can't talk to anyone
There's no social interaction. It's simultaneous. It's also the strangest time ever
Yeah, you don't know if the world's gonna end. It's just like weird dystopian like thing where la is essentially
Empty yeah, and super weird. Yeah, I remember driving up and down the 405 by myself
Yeah, um, I think in like the third maybe episode of money pit
I was wearing like a a full like respirator to be outside because that was like what you were supposed to do
So I was like, okay. Yeah, and then we did like an episode on like killing germs. Yeah, we did
Yeah, it was weird. So there's like a handful of like
Things that if you look back, it's like, oh we did that just because of what was happening in the world at the time
Yeah, it's a weird era. Yeah, and it also was weird because like we got so many followers during that yeah
I mean if you are content creator, I mean think of all the content creators now that came out of covet who just like exploded
It was such a crazy time for growth. I mean we went from I think I started at donut with like
I think it was right over a million. So I remember seeing us get hit to two and then three and it was like every three months
Yeah, we were flying. We were getting a million new subscribers like 150 plus thousand a month. I mean we got numb
I remember like oh six million seven million
Well, but I also remember like
Real it like didn't it was like, okay. I guess this is yeah, you didn't know what numbers on the screen
You didn't know it's seven million men because you were around, you know, like maybe at most 10 people and during that time
It was like on an occasion where everyone was masked up and six foot away from each other
I'll never forget the the like moment that it started to land for me
It was I don't know exactly when but it was probably like early summer of 2020
And I took the miata out because there were a ton of riots going on downtown like all the the george floyd stuff was going on
And so I took the miata out just to drive around
I like hadn't been out and about in a while and I just wanted to see what was going on in the city
And I ended up accidentally like in the middle of the shit
So there's like hundreds of swat officers like lining both sides of the road
And i'm just driving down with the top down on our side, right?
No, I was just trying to get the guy in the auto or the painter's mask
And you're like, oh, what's he gonna do and jokes in there? I bet you I could run these people
No, dude, I drove through like I drove through a ton of like active fires people throwing stuff on fire
Like the riots and then I get through it. I'm like, oh my god
That was insane and then a car screeches up next to me at a red light
And I'm like, oh, and it's some dude to going Joe
I love money bit and I was just like
Unbelievable so that was like that was the moment I was like, oh, yeah
I guess there's people out there watching it, but it was such a strange like first interaction with the fan
Yeah, I mean that is crazy because we
I mean we started like pretty close to the beginning of the pandemic. Yeah
Yeah, I think money pit came out. There was one episode maybe before yeah, kovat kind of launched and uh
We we hung out as a group in the old office a lot and then like everything shut down
Yeah, gotta split up office. Yeah got rid of the office
So like seeing someone that recognized you that you don't know. Yeah, and I never really had that happen because you know
Like I had been in some other videos and stuff, but I didn't have my own
my own thing and um
Yeah, it was just a really surreal moment
Yeah, like the the world burning around me and some guy coming up to congratulate me on my youtube show
I'm really just driving through like with swat in this piece of shit meata with the top down
And then he just chucks a malt health cocktail
Literally a flying piece of whatever flew over me as I was driving through is crazy. It's absolutely crazy. That's insane. So I'll never forget that
Yeah, weird time. Yeah, very weird. Absolutely crazy. How many subscribers do you have at big time right now?
We're at 1.88. Yeah, 1.88. Closing it on 2 million. Yeah, and you got a million very quick. Yeah, and seven days. Yeah, it took seven days
Yo, and you want to know what on that topic? I saw uh, Steve will do it. You guys are all familiar
Yeah got back on youtube recently and it took him like 10 days
Wow, look at that. It was I think it was I think people thought it was fake
I think people there was a lot of early chatter being like oh, they bought them and we were just like everyone thought we had bots
Yeah, we didn't we didn't have bots. It just didn't feel
I think I was cleaning drives and I found of I had a video of everyone at the old office
We're like Matt staring at the tv and we had the counter at doughnut. Yeah, and we were like at
800,000 and I remember we stayed up the whole night
I think James and Bart were like somewhere doing something in florida for NASCAR
So we're all like video chatting what we're about to hit 1 million and I was like that took forever at least in my head
Yeah, well, of course. Yeah, I mean we we got lucky because you know, we already had that audience
So it's just asking people to come over
Come watch seven days. Yeah
Which was I blew all of our expectations out of the water. I'd say yeah
We were like it'd be cool to get a couple hundred thousand by the end of the year
That's what we were hoping or like listen get a couple hundred came in. Yeah
So that was that was cool. Has that helped you scale up faster than you thought possible?
Undoubtedly, I'd say I think yeah for like sponsorships and stuff. It just looks you know
Yeah, I think like you know like obviously the sales side of it is a big part in like the marketing of
Your channel it always looks good when you tell people like
You know like your number. Yeah, and I don't I never referenced people
I was like subs because I think like we're we're in a unique position to where you do call yourselves doms though
We do we're there. We're dom daddy dollars
Yeah
But but yeah, I mean like we have we have like genuine like fans and people that support us
You know, they're not just subs. I think like we do a good job of trying to you know
Like that's why we do a lot of live events and stuff like we'd like seeing our fans and meeting them and like trying to
Yeah being part of of like growing this car community because you know
That's what I always loved about doughnut and I I still do it was like, you know, like
It was what attracted me to it because that was not necessarily like a huge car guy. Like I liked I liked cars
Yeah, like motorcycles I like cars like driving cars, but I wasn't like a car nerd, you know
Like I was an engineer, but I love the fact that everyone was like
You know all cars are cool and like there's like there's something for everyone
And I think like the welcoming nature of it, right and I feel like that's something that has been super important to us because
there are you still like
certain like car clubs and like they get clicky and they talk shit about other people and like I get like there's like
Some fun nature to it, but at the end of the day, it's just like hey like you're trying to just build this thing up and you know, like
Pass it on to the next person and you know, like that's why I like doing the track day stuff because like tracks are dying
And it's something that I think is like super like you meet I you meet so so many good people and like interesting people and the community
Yeah, the community aspect of it is is huge. That's one of our biggest drivers
I think is trying to you know pass the torch on to the next generation keep
Keep this car community thing alive because in some ways it feels like you know
The further we move forward and new cars coming out aren't as conducive to the kind of stuff that we like to do
Yeah, so we're just trying to you know
Pass the torch to the next generation and show them that not only is this cool
But you could also like work in this field and make a living. That's awesome. I think that's a great message
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Now back to the show
Part of the reason that I wanted to come here today is because
Not only I wanted to show that like
Whatever people think is beef between our channels or whatever
It's just like wrestling. Yeah, it's like
It might get clicks, but like we still hang out. We're still friends. We're still homies. We were all pretty pretty tight and pretty close
Yeah, I mean we worked so close together for so many years. Oh, yeah
No one really understands I think and then like it's weird because we always had a stance at donut
Where like you never like respond to it, you know, like you don't need to address it
Like let people think what they want and then unless it's like something
Terribly huge but with like the drama and small talk shit like that like don't even you know, like we'd ever like
There are always comments where they say some stuff about donut and and you know, like we don't it doesn't
We're not like invading each other's space and taking you know, like there's there's plenty
There's enough. There's so it's so much out there
like I looked at the stat the other day and it was like
Just the fact that you have like a million subscribers is like you're in like point zero zero
Five percent of all youtube channels like donut has close to nine. I'm coming up on close. You know, like that's a crazy
That's a crazy number that alone is just like and we're all super proud of that
Yeah, like we all helped that happen
Yeah, so when people like I never I never you know, like get upset about
About donut stuff part of why we're here today, you know
Like I always look at it as a huge stepping stone to my success in my life
Like if I didn't have donut, I wouldn't be here, you know, so yeah
I think it's like it's helped us and there's no there's no beef there. I still still you know
In a perfect world it would have maybe changed a little bit and gone a little bit differently
I think it worked out pretty good because in the end like you own all this. Yeah, you guys are all
Co-owners I think that should be the goal at the end of the day
Exactly, and that's really that you produce. Yeah, and that was really the driver of all this is that that's what we all wanted
You know, and so even if things were perfect at donut there
That wouldn't change the fact that I wanted to have my own thing. Yeah, so
But now I'd wear I it's hard though. Yeah
Oh, yeah
Definitely have your own thing. It's like it definitely makes it apparent how how much help we had at donut
Yeah, we had a bunch of people we had a bunch of people that did a lot of the things that now
We just have to do so and it you know like ambition is a is a mother
You know, like it's it's one of those things. I've always been a fairly ambitious person and I think like
Sometimes you just think, you know, wouldn't it be nice if you just were just kind of complacent and just kind of like chilled
And I think I got a paycheck and I think like, you know, there are times when it's like rough over here
And I'm like I should have just stayed at donut man
I should have just ridden it out
But then I know I would have been, you know, like I would have been upset to get away
So it's like it's it all worked out for, you know, for the best and I think like
Ultimately, you know, like you and Colby and Jimmy and all of the
Adam the kind of guys who were there with us, you know, I want you guys to have just as much success not more
Yeah, and to be totally frank like it's not like any of us are getting rich
Yeah, we're all making way less money than we were. It's just uh
It's just now we get to say like it's all
And if there's a huge upside in the future
Yeah, this non-money making operation, we own that
Fantastic, I think there's pride in that though. Yeah, of course. Yeah, they're better
And I think like we you know, like one of the big things was
You know, like for example, like I don't want to shit on your bluetooth ad
But you know, we were doing ads where I was just like, I do not want to do this ad
But we had to do them and I think like that's a big thing. One of the big reasons is just like
We're not going to endorse shit that we don't use, you know, like we're going to make the videos that we want
You know, like and maybe they're weird and maybe they're one-off and maybe they lack a little bit of focus or direction
And the programming might be a little bit like wonky, but it's what we want to do
You know and we want to work with the set of partners that help us make those videos and there's no like
You know, there's a ton of like integrity in that and I'm like super proud of that. That's awesome
So you are doing all the sales right now, right? No, not not just me
But I do a lot of them but we have like a couple other people that I
You know, it's probably like 70 30 right now. I'm doing about 70 of like the sales stuff
Is Hannah still here Hannah so Hannah does she's not like on big time
But she'll she'll bring in certain
A partner for me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes commission. Yeah
And that's like really the biggest thing where these guys probably are annoyed half the time with me because I'm like
Over there on a call. We're trying to film and I and I'm trying to lock down a deal with like mobile one
Or I'm like, you know, and it's been like six months in the making like that's the
They're like telling you to shush
Well, no, it's like jerry you need to get over here and be in this video
You know, like I think like that's been a struggle
It's like trying to get joby and I like on camera together as best as we can but it's like
It's almost it's been a lot of like conquering like dividing conquer
Yeah, especially to keep one coming out a week, you know, like if we are both in a video
That's great and we have a ton of fun. Maybe it's even a better video
But then both of our time is there and it needs to be kind of split up
Right. Yeah, and so we're working at trying to like build the team up so that we can
You know, either make less videos or be, you know, in a way to where like the production makes more sense for us to
Not have to do a video a week. You know, we're working on getting some of the sales off jerry's back
We got conner now. It's helping out. Yep
So, yeah, it's but you know, it's it's not gonna happen overnight, right? Like we're gonna have to just yeah
I mean, it's a process. Yeah, but I feel like if you're just heads down
You know doing the work eventually you're just gonna like look up an event. It's gonna be profitable
It's gonna go a little bit easier. You can hire more people. Yeah, it's just baby steps
Yeah, it's like one foot out in front of the other and just kind of remember like I do this
I'm real bad at it and they know like I'm like
Super psycho about getting shit done. I get like very bold nose about like, hey, we're doing this
I'm like I point towards it and I like
You know made myself sick a lot
You know
I genuinely like and there are some videos where people are like Jared like we like that you're doing videos
But can you please like get some rest like we love you which is so nice
Thank you for people who see me and I look like shit on camera my bags are all
I think I've talked with you more than anyone here. Maybe Job a little bit, uh, but
You've confided in me a little bit that like managing is driving you crazy
Yeah, that's a thing like trying to
Like manage people is a thing that I am not best suited for, you know, like that's not my you have to have a lot of patience
You got to have a lot of patience. I've had a lot of blow-ups
You know
Sponsored by pull-ups
I've had I've had some like some like, you know timbers
Sorry
Yeah, I mean I think like
For me, it's always difficult because it's like I have high expectations for everyone
And sometimes holding everyone to your standard, right, which is not necessarily fair, right?
And I have like as I've gotten into this also learn like well, you can you have to
There's like a psychology in working with people and I have never been the type of person to have enough patience for that
I'm I'm like a little, you know, I'm uh engineer at the end of the day
Like I'm just like here's the facts is what we need to do go do it, right?
You can't fix a person like you kind of engine exactly
You just can't like that you have to be able to like talk to certain people a particular way
You have to be able to you know, like each person needs to be, you know, like
Validated in a particular way, you know, there's like especially when it's, you know, it's not only it's a professional group
But we are all to a certain extent friends. So
It's weird when it's hard to tell your friend that they're managing like yourself
But also your friends, but also yeah, it's yeah, because you know, everyone's working hard, right?
But we also have a standard and like
You know, that was a big reason why I left is because it was like well
My face is associated with this, but I don't necessarily have control. Well now we do
So if it doesn't meet the like standard, I'm gonna have to say something and that's tough
Especially when it feels like it's your buddy and maybe you've said it a few times, you know, so it's like to be real with them
Yeah, so like managing the like friendship in the business part of it is
Super, super tough. It's been like really hard. I think and I think like we've gotten a lot better at it
And it's gotten better. It's only gonna get better as long as like we continue to
You know, like
Like talk about I think like that's another thing too
Like a lot of times guys will just like bundle shit up and not say anything and just like build and build and build
And then you like catastrophize things you become your own worst enemy
You start thinking that other people are thinking all this shit about you and then it comes out
It's just like, oh no, I never thought that like, oh, I never thought that either. I'm just like, oh, okay
Part of it is that you was talking all you had to do was talk
But there's something about you know, like this is like a big high stakes gamble that everybody's livelihood is wrapping on, right?
So it's it gets a little little
Intense at times. Yeah, there's emotions wrapped up in it. Yeah, everyone's trying their best
But sometimes but I think on the flip side, you know, like you said it earlier
I think when you were saying like when you do put your head up and you see all this stuff, right?
I think aside from the success and the money. It's really rad when you look up and you're like, oh
We're putting a 4ag in that thing today. And that's our gig today
And even just yeah, like when we have events and stuff like uh two weekends ago
It's mortisburg like people just showing up and not only like expressing their like gratitude for us making the content
But just caring about this project or what's going on next or whatever. It's it's uh, it's huge blessing
I mean, obviously we couldn't do this without it
But yeah, I mean, it's the kindest people that that really like care about what we're doing and feel attached to it, which is
That's awesome. That's all you can ask for. Yeah, and you see it like we we've so like this is all our shirts
Like seeing people wear our shirts. Yeah, it's such a cool thing
You know, I had a buddy come over here
Is one of the guys I write comedy with and he was just like grinning near your ears
Like you ever just like look back and be like, this is pretty cool. Yeah, and I literally was like, I don't think I've ever done that
You know, I don't think I've I was not my personality
I'm always, you know, it's like a sin to not kind of live in the moment
But it is, you know, like a great thing to look up. Yeah, like hey, this is what we built
That's one of the best things about people stopping by is that like forces you to kind of like, oh, yeah
This is pretty cool, isn't it? You don't have to like front porch and be like, well, it's not that cool
But I'll let you in for a second. Sorry. It's kind of messy
Yeah, it's cool to see other people like and we just like the other week
There was kind of an impromptu car show people were coming through
That's awesome. And just like it's just saying so many nice things and it forces you to take a second to realize
Oh, yeah, because I think, you know
it's like
We're so lucky, right? Like yeah
If we were just a group of guys trying to start a youtube channel out of nothing like to have this in this amount of time
Would be it'd be insane. Yeah, it's just not possible for like it's it's yeah, truly a blessing and you know, I think like
Part of it. It's hard because you know, like we have such high standards. So we compare ourselves to other, you know
Groups or channels and bigger teams, but we've been at it for like 18 months, right? Yeah, so it's like we're doing on big time, right?
Yeah, yeah on big time
But comparisons the thief of joy, you know
So it's like you got to always remind yourself that because you can always
You know look at a different creator and be like, oh, they're doing this or doing that or you know, like
Like why aren't we doing that and it's just like in comedy
I used to compare myself to people who would like get lucky at 21 and get on a you know
Syndicated show or something and you can't do that. Like you have to you have to
Just be happy to follow your path. Yeah. Yeah, your path is your path. Yeah. Yeah, and you can't as long as you know
I say this all the time. I told someone this the other day. It's just like my
My like strength, you know, how joby's like joby's
Absolute like you said amazing. I'm being able to like distill information down and like be able to produce it like flawlessly on camera
Like I'm not that way at all. You know, like the boys will tell you how much
useless data there is of me screaming at myself and like just say it right jerry
Just say it right. I remember to say it, you know, just say it. The meltdowns. The meltdowns, you know
There's literal gigs of footage on the donut servers of me being like just say it right, you know
So that's not my that's not what I'm good at. What I'm good at is just being persistent, you know
Like that's it. And that's what I think like, you know, it's hard when you see someone just get instant success
Instant success. You're like, damn man. I wish I I wish it could be that easy, but then they got other demons
Yeah, and I think I think it's a double-edged sword. Honestly, like I think if I had found success at 21, I'd probably be dead
I'm glad you did it. Yeah
You didn't have success and you almost were dead when you got hit by a car
So I almost found a way anyway, so you could yeah, you almost found a way
So, I mean all things considered. I think things are working out just fine. Yeah
I do want to talk to kanan if he's joined the hot sea come on kray man for your last 10 minutes
You know, he's funny. He comes into my lap. It's just okay. So everyone knows real quick. I'll do a pre intro to krayman krayman
That's what we call them. That's what I call them. I call him krayman. Come on krayman. Come here krayman
Uh from the hit comedian kraymer. Welcome to the stage to krayman
All right, I wanted to bring kanan up because kanan was one of my first real friends at doughnut and uh, we had kind of
opposing computers and I would swivel my chair around and see me and brown face
And he'd be like
Look at this
Can you please take that off your desktop? It wasn't brown face. It was like crunch like
You just took the saturation and went like
Crunch the chocolate bar. Come on k. That's what it would turn into. That's really just joe's natural town. It's joe's natural town. Yeah
It was kind of red turning to chocolate
Yeah, but I always tell daisy my partner that joe was my first friend at doughnut. Yeah
Yeah, and and you introduced me to clown core, which I still it still pops up on my shuffle clown course
Yeah, well, I don't know. Is it a type of music or just kind of one? I guess it's one
It's like one band but it's like a precursor to a penis music. That's cool being
Having your own genre. I don't know if people know what penis music is either
The way to describe clown music with more is more. Yeah, it's deeper cut than that
Do you know what penis music is? What's penis music?
Play some penis music. Play some penis music. Is it online? You can play it. No, you definitely cannot. You can't?
Oh, it just you gotta buy that. It just has a phrase in it. Is this penis music?
Look at my slot. Now, this is what I call penis music
And it be ready because it's good because it's slap. Yeah, we'll turn some on in a minute joe. You'll love it
Yeah, dude penis music. Is this penis music? And then it's stuck in every one. Is that a horse?
Yeah
Yeah
When did you when did you come in to like right before
COVID because like my biggest memory from that time or some of my biggest memories is I worked at home
for way longer than I ever worked with anybody
You know, I think I worked at Dunn over like three four months and then COVID happened. Yeah. Oh interesting. So we started at similar times
I do remember Canaan being at the office
I also remember Canaan's story because I did and it kind of made sense because Canaan I was like that guy goes to the bathroom a
lot and then I remember
Because I was on the edge and so like people would always pass by me and there's just like some conscious, you know thing about
you know counting counting
Not not counting bathrooms
It's just like people that like are getting up and Canaan would like later years later be like
Which I always loved about him and it's like a testament to like Canaan's like, you know
Ability to like learn and like get better which he was like, I didn't know what I was doing
So I would go to the bathroom and look up YouTube videos on how to do it and then come back how to edit. Yeah
And try to do it and I was like, yo, that's sick. Like that's one of the things that is like such a
Like one to admit that is great and two it's like
Tells people like, you know, even if you're not necessarily qualified for the job, as long as you act like you are, you figure it out
Yeah, that's Canaan's super power too. I got just figured shit out right time right place too. We were so right before
Donut started to get really big. We were so scrappy at that time
I don't think anyone would have betted an eye if you were just on youtube watching it at your desk
Yeah, because I applied initially as an intern because my friend Ben Bartel had worked there doing a series called
Miracle Whips?
Yeah, he did.
So you got his old computer with the search bar stuff, huh?
And he told me to hit up Redpath and then so I applied as an intern and didn't hear anything back
And then like for months or something, two months, I was like, oh whatever and then Redpath just like hired me
So I don't know if he just like didn't read the email or forgot or something
But yeah, just come in and like edit like you'll be like an AE
I was like, okay, and I just kind of was like I've and what editing experience did you have at that point literally like I'd
You know a little a couple music videos that I had done. You know like pretty much nothing
Yeah, especially in premiere. I'd done like pretty much nothing, but that's why I applied as an intern
I don't I'd always wanted to learn how to edit. Yeah, and I just feel like I got yeah
Right right time right place got pretty lucky in terms of like people looking back now like you're saying
I'm like people had divin on that. I didn't really know
Well, I didn't work with you so I didn't know I just knew like this guy this like skater kid hot hot boys
There's no way Redpath didn't know like this guy doesn't know what he's doing
Yeah, but I think I got along with everyone enough. I I had brought in I bought a um
A radar gun for my baseball league. Yeah, I brought it in and I was like
It's in oranges. Yes
tangerines
What is a clementine the small one and came in through a 64 mile an hour fastball with a clementine
And it hit the fence and just like segmented. Yeah, I was like the slow-mo guy should have filmed it or something. Yeah
That's why they kept me. Yeah. Yeah, yeah
Yeah, but then you're like your arm hurt for like two years. Yeah, I remember I remember that you were like you had like
Like what are you needed Tommy Johnson?
Those are fun days. Those are good days. I mean, I looked we had a lot of good days
I always look back at those days as like
I was in the same boat as as kanan, you know, it wasn't like I had ever written a youtube video before
Made a youtube. I was like, you know, I wrote sketch sketch and characters and stamp
You know, like I had written comedy, but I didn't write a piece
Front to back 30 minutes about a car, you know, like so it was a little bit of an imposter syndrome too for me
But I always look at it looking back at those episodes. Like they suck. Yeah, they're not
They're so bad. It was also like
Yeah, they're they're terrible. Like you look at them. You're like, what kind of intro was that like 2.3 million views?
And they're still getting views and people are like still saying like I love you on bumper bumper
I'm like, bro. I don't do that anymore. I don't do that no more bro. Like
I think like but and it is funny. It's like one of the like though like of anything will ever do
outside of youtube that like that will have the most eyes on them forever forever kind of a funny weird
Yeah, so you got uh, you know, you can't be so precious with it. We were learning, you know, it was like
I always treated it as like the the graduate school of
For sure. Yeah, we were super lucky in that one. Lucky to just like be around a bunch of people who might not have known
Much more than you everyone is figuring out
But you're figuring it out and you're also like you have a platform that you get to test it in front of a lot of people
Which is like so valuable
I will say I I don't think you're looking at it through like the lens of you made it
Yeah, yeah, for sure. It probably doesn't suck as much as you think and it also
Is what I think is beautiful about youtube is it's supposed to be a little bit pretty. It's supposed to be like
Unpolished and I think the way that youtube is going now is
It's just going to turn into tv eventually
Sure, I think it is basically
Right, but that's one of the best things is very conducive to kind of throwing stuff at the wall to see if there's anything there
Rather than having to like, you know, do a whole season of something before you put it out
Yeah, make a video and put it out and see what happens. I mean that was like rms like rms was like a whole
I directed the first three rms. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and it was just those are those are my favorite ones
and I remember like
Not really knowing what to do
And I was just having everyone explain the same thing and I was like going to cut it together
And then yeah, it just well I'm part of that stuff like, you know, if you've got a group of people that that have
A rough idea and are like a fun group of people that are going to have fun something decent something at least fun to watch
It's probably going to come out of it. And that's probably what's cool. I you know, I can't speak
I haven't seen how you guys operate, but
Being such a small team you can move quick. You can make decisions quickly, you know
Divert to a different
Uh video for you too. Yeah, you have to like I mean the other day we
I mean this past month. There's been just shoots have gone to plan. Oh, man. It's been brutal. It's been terrible
It's just been one of those like
It's just been one of those months that's just been absolutely brutal where you just like look up and you're just like youtube gods
What the f***?
Can we catch a f***ing break, please? One of the producers
Uh donut was like
Get your s*** in order because mercury's about to be in retrograde and I don't ever subscribe to that s***
But the next day our whole family got the flu our nanny called out so like
I had to I had to work and take meetings and like also take care of my family while having the flu
none of the shoots
Worked out like it just it was horrible. Yeah, it happens
It it you know and when you're working on cars specifically like we did this c20 episode
Like that was like a 10 day shoot which is just like what the f*** the engine blew up during an episode
Of the on the Mustang that we're supposed to do
Like we literally have you talked about that? Like that we literally haven't driven the Mustang more than like
300 feet
Well, the yeah, but the power steering pump went up, right?
Yeah, well there was that and then post rebuild
We drove it around my block a couple times for pre-tuning
And a couple dyno runs and then we went to borla to film a whole episode and it came apart on the dyno at borla
It's one of those things where like
We were kind of aware that something was off, but like couldn't really
Stop the things that we had in motion and it came apart
But even though that creates more work for you. Does it do better?
Do you use depends it kind of depends. Yeah, I mean it it for one thing
It gives us more content to make right when something breaks and we have another thing to do to fix and whatever
I think that kind of content is very relatable, right?
Like, you know all the kids out there messing with their own cars. They're gonna have problems
So I think it's valuable to see people like us have problems as well
Super, um, you know, of course we could like edit around that stuff and like omit things going wrong probably
But I just I don't think that we would have the time. Yeah, that's the big thing
That's the thing that sucks is like when it breaks you have to go. Okay, but when we what do we do?
What do we do? We have a we that sucks
We want to like and we also like, you know, one of the goals is like hey try to
Try to see what it's like living with doing a video every week for a year, you know or six months or whatever it is
You created this prison, but I think like once you once you see what it's like
I think you need to go into the prison to figure out how to break out
Yeah, like that is like one of the least like raised the ceilings of the prison. Right. Yeah classic gerry mentality
Yeah, learn learn what it is like to suffer. I'm gonna break out of prison if we're not in there in the first place
Yeah, I mean I like to go in depth. I apologize. I
I'm putting the
What was that remember remember the show prison break where the guy puts his he tattoos
Do
But I I think like
You know, we don't everyone is in agreeance or in agreement that we're not going to
Be like this all the time. Sure, but it's
It's like any
We're super fortunate because if we were just starting a business, right?
Just from scratch where we didn't have a following or nothing
You got to assume like you're not gonna make you're not you're gonna be you're gonna struggle for five years
Like wouldn't even do it. Right. It's so difficult, right? So we're blessed that we already like we're already started up here
Yeah, you know, so like it would be a real sin for us to not take this opportunity that we have been given and blessed with
And really run with it. So like that's where the crazy part of my brain comes in
I was just like I don't want to lose this, you know, because we've worked so hard to get there
But also I I know like everyone's well-being is way more important than us doing a video week, you know
And like how do we position ourselves and is it, you know, like part of it is just like help
Like we need help we need editor help
We need writer help and like assembling the team and so like that's probably why canin was hired
Is because like one of the big things that donut when you hired someone was hey, can you chill with this person?
Yeah, that's the number one thing
Can you chill with them because if you can be with this this person for 12 to 16 hours a day
Then we can we can help you figure out how to like hone your skill at helping us
But if we can't chill with you then it's not gonna work if you're asking too many questions
Yeah, it's the same with Hollywood productions. There's a reason that
The same crew works on every movie together. You trust the people that you work with and it doesn't matter
Yeah, it doesn't if you trust them then you trust their
ability to grow and learn and become better at their job and then
It's almost like a pyramid scheme or then they can you know train other people
How they how they were trained, right? That was I think like the like enigma or the paradox
No, like the one crazy thing about like sauteal donut was that you had a group of people that like
All got like I didn't not get along with anybody. Yeah
Like that that's a crazy thing that I don't think has happened
Once maybe in my life and some other aspect where you had a group of people that were kind of similarly minded and focused on
doing like looking back on it all now like that that was
Yeah, it was like a bunch of find that again like a preschool where
Preschoolers are also in charge. Yeah. Yeah, and they're all teaching each other
Yeah
Or just like we should go over there try that and they're like, okay, let's do it. Why not? I'm like, this is pretty cool
And then let's figure out how to pull it on the internet. Yeah, it turns out other preschoolers are into it
That's a place of penis music
And by the way talking about the doughnut days of just complete chaos when no one was policing anyone
Kainan was the guy who he was the leader of this. This guy is already a monster. It's crazy that I get like chastised
For being the guy that made people have fun. I'm sorry. No, it wasn't that you we were all having fun
We were just like I pull up in the work
Hey, let's do something fun
It would be like this with his belly out with a pistol in his like in his like pouch. Okay. I just had a like a
Maybe trauma memory
But I remember uh, like hiding behind cars because you're on the roof with a paintball gun with markers in it
You're shooting. Oh, that's right. You're shooting like Sharpie. I'm gonna show me that. Yeah
Hey man, they fit nice. Didn't we used to shoot each other with the pellet? Oh, yeah
We would do one pump. Yeah pellet shoots with the gun one pump and we would shoot each other in the pros, right? Yeah
Yeah
Yeah, so Kainan was uh, he was a big leader in that
I remember Kainan was also like the rule maker for all the games that we made up too. He'd be like
Well, you can't do this. I I'll admit that I do that. Yeah Kainan likes making the rules also joby
Uh, you don't know joey's joey superpowers being able to distill information unless it's the rules of wall ball
Listen, I never and then he turns into someone who literally never was given the rules clearly dude
Dude, yes, you were brother. No, I have multiple
Dude, I can't even of course. He's gonna say well because it's the rule guy
I get it
But I was also there hearing the rules and like we would be playing in joey because this classic thing like
Like he would up and be like you're out, but he's like what hold on. That's a rule and he's like, yes, bro
Yeah, yes, bro, and then it would happen all the time
But yeah, Kainan, uh
Kainan was the the ringleader in the the days of no rules dude. He made up the best games
We still have the bottles on our i-beams
What are people going to take away about me from this podcast? Okay, he didn't know anything went to the bathroom a lot
He went to the bathroom a lot. He kind of sucked, but everyone kind of
Loves you and then he was like shooting people all the time. Okay. Here's a shirt off a lot. Kainan has the
Yeah, I love this Kainan has the biggest heart. He's one of the hardest workers. He's super
Uh persistent and and likes to learn new things. He's a chiller. He's a he's a chiller certified chiller
He's a certified chiller pretty good at pool. He's he's pretty he's very hot and he's about to read the new bluetooth ad for
podcast
So go
Make you do that. Joe. Thank you, man. Yeah, I have to give a personal endorsement. So I gotta try it first
Clearly it's been working for you. Yeah
One on the way
We haven't revealed that yet that would be a great ad if you just show your kids or anything like thanks to bluetooth
That would be that would be that would be so good. I'm a dad kids
Thanks to bluetooth
See, that's that's the kind of vision i'm lacking for these podcasts. That's okay. We can help out
Anyways guys, thank you so much for being on the podcast
Follow me at jojiweber follow these guys at at big time big time
I think the instagram is big time big time big time jeremy iber and zack job
What's your instagram?
Yeah, andy paas
Eddie as far as the eddy's all the homies like the day like the day. Yeah follow us all
And we'll see you next week. Thanks
About this episode
Big Time’s crew opens up about how their Donut-era friendships turned into a full-on car-content business—plus the chaos, setbacks, and big plans behind it. The conversation covers their warehouse “car district” buildout, a $500 VK/“VK” drag project, and a wild story about a stolen Monte Carlo and how a Discord “tagging” culture may have led to it. They also dig into running YouTube like a business: sponsorships, weekly production pressure, managing people, and why the community matters more than channel “beef.”
Original notes
This week, Joe sits down with Zach, Jeremiah and a few homies from the Big Time YouTube channel to chat about the challenges of starting a channel with a bunch of friends. From builds gone wrong to stolen cars to managing people you're closest with, no stone is left unturned in this riveting conversation.
Thanks to BlueChew for sponsoring this episode! Get 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code TALKTALK.
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