Men Have Stopped Trying. And It Shows. - The St. Louis Podcast: Episode #159

Eric takes a break from the war, the economy, and the political circus to talk about something nobody's saying out loud — men have completely stopped trying when it comes to how they dress.

The athletic pants. The puffer vest. The glued polyester Men's Warehouse suit that everyone has in the exact same navy blue. Meanwhile the rest of the world looks at Americans and wonders what happened.

Also: how to make limoncello at home that destroys anything you'll find at the grocery store, why Eric bought a squat rack for his basement, and why working from home five days a week is slowly killing him.
Sometimes you just need an episode like this.


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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome back to the St. Louis Podcast. As always, my name is Eric Brown. Thank you for tuning in. Wow, it's been uh it's been a couple of weeks, hasn't it? It's been a couple weeks of uh what seems like the same stuff that I've been talking about on this podcast continuously for way too long. So I thought today, why not take a trip down what Eric's been doing? So I wanted to give a shout out today and really um kind of talk about something that I guess I'm passionate about. And people will be like, Eric, who the hell cares? But that's what this podcast is for. So that's what I'm gonna talk about today. And you're gonna be like, Eric, what are you so passionate about? Well, we'll talk about it. So yesterday, of course, I uh was at an event hosted by uh Dakota Grady at uh Noble Luxury Brands, uh based pretty close to the galleria, right there off of Clayton, just a little bit east, close to the Clayton Winehouse, if you know where that is. And it was a great event. You know, there was uh a good amount of people there. Everyone looked, of course, very nice. And if you're not familiar with uh Dakota and what he's doing at uh Noble Luxury Brands, is uh custom clothes made to measure uh clothes suits for both men and females. And, you know, I of course with with having this podcast now for God knows how many episodes we're on, 100 and I think we're you know, I'll just I'll just pull it up and take a look here. Uh, you know, I've talked about some of these things, but I thought I'd revisit it today because last night was was very apparent of what is I feel like part of what is missing, not only in the United States, but mainly in the U.S. Of course, if you travel abroad and see um, you know, just what other people wear in different countries, it's very apparent uh that the U.S. has you know almost gotten too comfortable, if you will. Uh, which sounds stupid to say in theory. Uh, but it used to be the fact that, you know, you wouldn't wear sweatpants outside the house, right? That was that was always a thing. And of course, for men, um, you know, obviously if you're you're wearing sweatpants, you know, you might have a little bit of a bulge, if you know what I'm saying, gentlemen. And of course, ladies. So of course you're not wearing, right, you're not wearing sweatpants out of the house. But what sweatpants have turned into for men has now been, you know, the athletic pants, right? Um, and I'm not talking about the tight uh leggings, if you will, that men wear at the gym. I'm talking about simply the athletic polyester pants. And of course, what tops that is always going to be some sort of athletic polo. We are all now wearing polyester. Everyone looks the same. Does that make sense? Does everyone everyone just looks the same? Um, it's like the same pants, you know, the same shirt. Maybe it's branded by your company, maybe not. Uh, but for the most part, if you walk into office buildings, you will see uh, you know, 20 of the dudes wearing the same shit. And this has been uh, you know, an ongoing meme of finance bros forever, or not forever, let's just say in the last five to ten years, of course, of the vest puffer jackets, right? Not one of which I own, but I do want to own one for outdoor sports, but whatever. Who who cares? That's not why these people are wearing it. They're crunching numbers on a spreadsheet, and they have on the vest, right? So I was at this event, and of course, you know, everyone was dressed, dressed to the nine for the most part. For the most part. But everyone had on, you know, suit jackets, some sort of sport jacket, a full suit, you know, nice, nice, uh, nice shoes. And a conversation started to take place, and let me tell you, I this I was the type of person that agreed with this for a long time. Then I put on, you know, some colored tennis shoes that looked decent with a you know suit, but the point was brought up of you know, the people on news stations, you know, sports center, you're an announcer, whatever, you're wearing a suit, you're wearing a tie, and these guys are wearing tennis shoes. Um and everyone was kind of under the same assumption of the fact that for work on camera, it looks silly. It really does. Uh, some of the shit that these people are wearing, you know, with suits, and of course, that's you know, it's not only the problem with wearing the suit, it's also the problem of where the hell are all of these people getting their suits. I mean, what happened to you know, I think men have really failed on this, you know, recently is what whatever happened to to men actually caring about how they dress and how they look like? Now, I don't think it's the fault of necessarily anyone my age because I don't, you know, it's it's a it's a thing of our parents, you know, that we grew up for up with for the most part, also, you know, it started off at a downward trend a long time ago. And now we're living in an age that it is, you know, yoga pants everywhere, it is sweatpants, it's athletic pants. Um, and I get it. Again, it's comfortable, but there's a time and a place. And it seems like the time and the place now is for comfortable clothes everywhere. Now, I'm not the guy that's gonna tell you to go wear a suit on a plane. Um it's brutal. It's brutal because plane rides are brutal. Now, I guess if you're privileged enough here, you know, to be taking, you know, first class and business class, you know, I don't I don't fly enough. I should for my business, but I don't fly enough to have the points in order to do so. Of course, unless it's an international flight. If not, you know, I could leg it out, you know, three hours to wherever it is in the U.S. and sit coach, I'm not gonna tell you to wear a suit and sit and coach. That doesn't make any sense. But when you look back on the times, and maybe we could throw some photos up here of the cities, you know, 80 years ago, you know, all the men are wearing suits, right? They're wearing ties, and of course, a lot of them are not necessarily wearing dress shoes, they're wearing boots. Why? Because shit was dirty back in the day. Uh, so you had to wear boots, and that's just how it was. So we're at episode 159. I just remember that I should probably go back here and take a look at where we're at. And of course, uh, the last episode that we did was with uh uh Tommy Holstein, who who actually ended up getting a good amount of votes. He ended up losing, which is unfortunate. I'm sure he's gonna continue um to try and do something with uh politics. We'll have to have him back on. I know I'm going off in a different direction right now, but this event, you know, you go there, there's there's something about everyone just knowing that everyone took their time to present themselves well. And you know, men's fashion is essentially dead in my book. Uh, I was talking to a gentleman last night who had worked at, I would say he's high 60s, uh, and he was there for the event representing Skebal, which is a uh essentially a fabric maker, if you will, uh for suits, jackets, things like that. And I was talking to him, and he, you know, he he had been at Saks Fifth Avenue for a very long time. And that type of menswear is now dead, right? Going into a department store and actually finding something of quality is next to impossible. Um, you know, I I could go ahead and name the brands that you're gonna find in there, but it's you know, futile and pointless at this at this time in order to do so. So it doesn't really matter, but you know as well as I do um that if you've you know, moving over just to men's suits is everyone goes to what two places, and I'll let you go ahead and say this in your mind right now before I go ahead and say it. If you are getting a suit for a wedding right now, where are you going? Men's warehouse, right? Or Joseph A. Bank, maybe if you got an extra 50 bucks. Now, the problem with these places is you know, there's a thousand different issues. When you walk into men's warehouse, what I advise you to do or any of these other places where, you know, men are trying to sell you a suit or something, how does how does the shit fit them? Right? How do they look in the garments that they are wearing? And the answer usually is if you walk into a men's warehouse now, now of course, you know, if you're if you're new to getting into, you know, men's clothing, you might not notice some of this stuff, but you look at the shoulders. How do the shoulders fit? Is there bunching in the back? How long is it? Where do they cut it off on the arms? All of these things, and you'll start to notice that, you know, some of these guys that work at some of these places and gals as well, simply are there to sell you a piece of shit cloth to wrap around your body and look like an idiot the next time that you wear it. The problem is that unless you have a very specific family, you probably were taught some of this stuff, and no, no shade on my parents, of course. Again, I don't, you know, this isn't really a them issue. It goes back to, I think, almost, you know, their parents, right? We're talking about let's let's take it back to you know the 40s, right? And the 50s. So I think stuff has been going downhill really ever since. And the majority of people nowadays, if you ask them, you know, they'll have one suit. It's a black suit, and they wear it at funerals, and that's it. And, you know, people don't understand, and I sound like Jordan Schlanske on Conan right now, trying to explain whatever the hell is in my brain onto you guys about, you know, men's fashion, my opinion on no one trying anymore across the board. It's really not only men, but I think men are a little bit more lacking in this department. Uh, but you, you know, now you go out and you see, you know, let's just say you're going out for a happy hour after work. It doesn't matter if it's uh Monday, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, uh, you're not going to see many, if any, people with this sport coat on, let alone a full suit. And I think that's goddamn travesty. It's a goddamn travesty. Why? Because people don't care. People are lazy. And people are lazy because why? Because it it's okay to be lazy now. We all have the societal, you know, understanding, or maybe it's really not an understanding. Maybe I'm on the the other side of things that this is fine and this is okay. So going back to the event, you know, so they're talking about shoes, of course, a bunch of hot takes from people standing around, you know, having some nice tequila and having a good time talking about fabrics, right, for suits. Um just the interesting things that were discussed, of a simple fact of that we should like nice things. And it's okay to like nice things, and that it's normal to want to have something that expresses yourself, but not only that, it just fits you well. Like, I think a lot of the issue with, well, nowadays, obviously the average person is is fairly overweight, so that doesn't really, you know, help with the suit fitting. But suits off the racks suck, right? A lot of clothing off the racks sucks. So, like, that's why I've always talked about the fact of people like Eric, you know, where do you where do you buy your pants? Where where do you buy some of the things that you buy? And it's like, well, I had to go through 10 to 20 brands in order to find a specific fit, right? Uh, that fits well for pants or fits well for shirts, boxers, right? It all goes hand in hand. And a lot of guys just don't care. And I get it. I get it. As a man, we're not supposed to care about this shit, but there is something just intrinsically nice about caring. And some women, if you're a single man out there, or maybe if you, you know, care about impressing your partner or your wife or your husband, for that matter, um, you know, one thing I think that we could go across and and ask the majority of the population that they agree upon is trying to look nice. And that's it. And I've talked about on the podcast why I got into um, you know, suits and things like that is simply the fact that I got into business very young. Um, and if there was one, you know, suit of armor, if you will, that I could put on in order to maybe look more successful, look older, uh, look more trustworthy at that time to business owners I was trying to sell marketing services to, it was putting on a suit. And I know I've told this story before, you may or may not have heard it, but you know, you go into men's warehouse, you get a suit, um, you go back, you try it on, and then somewhere in the back of your head, you're like, is this really it? This is all there is this ill-fitting piece of shit that I had to put on. Uh now, of course, we've also talked about on the podcast that you know, pants don't fit me normally, right? I've always talked about I need to have a a company named Big Ass Big Balls. We call them Bab. And I would uh make pants. I'd have a pants company. Now, of course, there needs to be the opposite side of pants, which is no ass and no balls. Right? Like some of my buddies that are literally look like two by fours. But you know, menswear for the longest time, I feel like, has been around one basic silhouette that I really don't know many people that that kind of fit around. So, of course, myself, I'm trying to look for the athletic fit, right? What are we looking for there? Of course, obviously, we need more room in the seat. So, off the right, so if you're going to suit now, I'm uh a 42 jack, regular length. I still gotta shorten the sleeves because my arms for some reason are short. I don't know why. It's an unfortunate circumstance. Not that short, just you know, could be a little bit longer and things would fit me just a little bit better. But of course, when it comes to finding stuff that fits you well, if you care about that, the only reason I again cared about that was the fact that I went met went in a men's warehouse, spent what I thought was a lot of money on a suit, right? I mean, I'm sure they're still selling suits for you know 300 bucks plus whatever tailoring. Um, and you you know, you tell yourself there has to be something better. So what I did was I did some research. I did some research. I I looked into a deep dive. You know, I'm one of the guys that if I'm if I'm buying something that I know either some about or not much at all about, I'm going to make educated decisions based on what my research tells me. So what I found out was men's warehouse and a lot of these, you know, Joseph A. Bank and a lot of these places just sell essentially mainly polyester glued garments. So that's why a lot of people have the assumption that suits are very hot, right? Even in a normal office building that's, you know, air conditioned, suits are hot. Well, the suit is hot because the fabric itself is not breathing. The fabric itself is not breathing because of how the fabric is constructed. Well, polyester suits are all glued together. Normally, and I should have worn a suit jacket today, of course. People are like, Eric, you're talking about suits all the time. I haven't seen you wear a suit on this podcast in six months. And you're right, it's been hot. It's been hot. And to be honest, I've been feeling casual. This is why I need these type of events to, you know, push me forward in order to be like, what are we doing? Because I will tell you this, and half of this podcast right now probably sounds dumb as hell to the majority of people listening to it, if you even still are at this point, and I get it. Uh, we would call this nerding out. But there's something you just have to have an understanding of fabrics, right? Then you learn about that. There's wool, right? There's cotton, silk, linen, all these things. How do you want to construct it? Right. And the re you know, again, going back to the glue thing. So if you open up a suit jacket and you look at the stitching and the panels, well, realistically, those are supposed to move and breathe. That's why, with you know, all of the suits that, you know, I ended up uh getting from, of course, Dakota, breathe very well. And yesterday at his event, we were staying outside smoking cigars. Now we were in the shade, but uh it was at about five o'clock, and it was not it was not bad. Uh, what's his name? Gentleman from St. James came through. He had some some scents. He had some lemoncello cigars. Damn it. I wish I should, I wish I'd give him a shout out right now. I cannot remember the the name of his business. Regardless, uh, you know, of course, I think I've talked about this as well. I was in Italy last year, right? You know, had a bunch of lemoncello, of course. Came back home, and you look at the lemoncello that you could buy at a normal grocery store, it's sorry, sorry everyone that buys it, it's dog shit. Uh, for the most part, there's like one or two that you can buy at stores, but if you go to like Schnooks or Dearburg's a lot of the time, they'll have the cheaper end stuff. So then, what of course I did, just like researching everything about suits, I was like, how do we make lemon cello? And let me tell you, it's actually not hard. So here's what I do: I get two 750 milliliter bottles of Everclear. Uh, then I will go to the store, depending on if they have jumbo or normal size lemons. Usually jumbos are easier to peel, because of course men have decent sized hands, so these small little lemons peeling the whole thing is a pain in the ass. But, anyways, what you do is you get two 750 milliliter bottles of Everclear. You get about 18 lemons, give or take. Uh, if you're getting jumbo, go down to about 14. If you're getting the small ones, you want to go up a little bit, get about 20 or so. Uh, and then what you're gonna want to do is have what I do is I have a uh two different one and a half liter bottles uh that I use for this. And you dump one of the everclears in there, you dump half of the lemon peels in there, you dump the other 750 milliliters of everclear in the other one, and the other half of the lemon peels in there. You put it in the shade, or I should say in the dark, I put it in my closet. You let it sit there for about two to four weeks. Depending on the lemon and the alcohol, you know, stuff changes. A little bit, so go ahead and do a Google search. Then what you do, pull it out. Uh, then what you want to do is you want to make 750 milliliters times two of the simple syrup. Now you can make your own simple syrup if you don't know simple Google search, but I'll tell you right now, it's just water and sugar. Boil the water off. Got you got the simple syrup. Then you have essentially half 750 milliliters of now the actual uh lemoncello with still the lemon peels in there. I'm not done. We got to get the lemon peels out. So then what I have are those claws. Um, what the what the hell are they called? The claws. Uh I think it's baking cloths. Whatever it is. Look up draining cloths. Now I've used coffee filters in the past. The first time I did it, because I didn't have anything else and I was just trying it. Let me tell you, that's an absolute pain in the ass. Get some cooking cloths, some nice quality ones. Um, you're gonna want to drain out, of course, all of those lemon peels. You don't want the lemon peels necessarily in the lemonicello. Of course, the lemoncello will still have a little bit of a thicker coagulation because you know, maybe a couple get through. But, anyways, so you strain it, and now essentially what you have, of course, is the original 750 milliliters of Everclear, right? With essentially all of the uh flavor of the lemons. Then what do you think you do? Well, you have a 1.5 liter bottle, you go ahead and add the simple syrup half to each bottle. Then what you want to do is let that wait for a couple days, and boom, you have lemoncello, and this lemoncello will be significantly better, I swear to God in my life, than anything that you are buying at a grocery store. And you're like, Eric, that sounds like a little bit of work. It's not, it's really not. Uh I bought an OXO, you know, scraper. Probably takes me half an hour for all the lemons. All the cooks and cook linesmen's and anybody that's worked in a kitchen is like, are you serious? I could do that in five minutes. Please be my guest, come over and do that for me, and I'll give you some lemon cello. Um, I'd love to see how fast someone can do that. But yeah, I mean that's the most time-consuming part. Then you literally just put in a closet. You have to drain out the lemons. You got to make the simple syrup, add the simple syrup to it, boom, done. Meanwhile, people are buying this gas station yellow piss. Just do a quick Google search. What lemoncello should I buy if I'm at the store? There's literally only one or two that are really available in St. Louis and most of the you know grocery stores and liquor stores. So do yourself a favor if you like Limoncello. And of course, if you like spritzes, the Lomicello Sprit is a significantly, in my opinion, better drink than an April. Not a big Aperol guy. What I found in Italy, though, is that April has a cousin. Maybe it's a step cousin, maybe it's a second or third cousin, maybe they're not related, but they're in similar ballparks. It's select. Select spritzes are better, in my opinion, than april spritzes. And most of the people listening to this right now have never heard of a select spritz. And neither had I until I was in Venice. And in Venice, I ordered an Aperal Spritz and they said, Have you had a Select Spritz? I go, I don't even a Select. What am I selecting? They go, No, it's called Select. I go, Well, it's kind of a shitty name for it, but all right, let's go for it. About this time last year, actually last June, uh, I've had Select in my house for Spritzes. And I think I ran out of Aperol about a couple months ago, and inevitably someone's gonna come over and act for an Aperol, ask for an Aperol, and I'm gonna say, I have Select. Then they're gonna drink the Select. They're gonna be like, Eric, what is this amazing goodness? And I'm gonna be like, it's called Select. I had it in Venice. You're welcome. You can buy it, it's not that expensive. Anyways, I don't know why I just went on this whole tangent about Lemon. Oh, yeah, the Lemoncello cigars. That's right. Uh Dakota also had uh some Triumph motorcycles in uh yesterday. Uh gentleman from Triumph St. Louis was there. Uh, he had his own custom purple Triumph. That thing was a beautiful work of art. And it got me thinking, maybe instead of buying all of these overpriced sports cars, I should just go buy a $10,000, $15,000 bike thing, go 200 miles an hour. And I'll get around that way. Now, of course, you wake up in the morning and then you're like, the only reason I really haven't gotten a bike is because I've always said my whole life, if I got a bike, I'd probably kill myself. Well, they brought up a good point last night, which is the fact of, how old are you? And I said, 33, and they said, Well, you're not that young of a guy anymore. And I'm like, fuck. They're not wrong. They're not wrong. So they said, You're not, you know, you're not that young of a guy anymore. You're gonna be able to drive, not you know, you're not gonna be stupid all the time on the bike. And I go, yeah, probably not. Uh, I do have more fear now than I had, you know, 10 years ago when uh let's just say took advantage of the streets and my, of course, Saturn Ion Red Line at the time. Uh, very little fear driving that car. It was essentially how fast could I take you know, turns home. We used to, if you're familiar with uh now I'm assuming this is uh past the stat Statue of Limitations or whatever the hell it is. Uh and I won't say who I did this with to leave them off the record, but I will say uh, you know, high school, and then of course, you know, you know, driving back home from college and old state. If you're familiar with old state road, you will be very familiar with where old state meets 109 and where essentially uh old state turns right. You can either go right or left. Left goes to the elementary school, right continues down old state. We used to time trial that. Now, the scariest turn on that road is not the one you'd be expecting. It is now the one that is uh right by the entrance to the park, right there. But usually you'd you time trial up, right? Not down, because that's just sketchier. So you you know you're trying to get up to the point where it turns right as quickly as possible. And some good times. Some good times. There's there's a reason young people die in cars. You do dumb shit with them. Even knowing the fact that uh, you know, bad things happen to people all the time, especially driving. Especially people, you know, our age that are, you know, teenagers or young 20s, that's I believe still the leading cause of death is is car accidents. So it's scary. And now, of course, many people know I'm still driving a 2014 Toyota Corolla. And as I say that out loud, you can see my face and how much excitement entry it it brings me. But I will tell you one thing it costs me almost nothing. I get good gas mileage, the insurance is very cheap, and I have no car payment. Uh, stuff and uh stuff to fix on the car is obviously very cheap as well. So what am I bitching about? And then it comes down to the judgment, right? And going back to the whole suit thing, it's like, well, Eric, if you're in a suit, oh you're driving a tour de crawl, it's like I don't know, wrong driving the tour to crawl to have the suits. Just kidding. Um, you know, I think people, a lot of people my age do, you know, we are at a disadvantage um compared to a lot of other previous generations, just with the amount of you know, wealth transfer, wealth that has been generated specifically mainly by the stock market, which of course a lot of people my age have not been able to partake in anywhere near the amount that would be able to give themselves any sort of uh, you know, fast forward button, if you will. Because it's not like all of us at 25, 26 years of age, you know, kind of, you know, let's look at like 2019 through now. Um, that's when a lot of us were really just starting to make decent money. Trying to figure out what the hell we're doing with our lives. Um, you know, we don't have, you know, 500,000, a million dollars in in retirement to get those good stock gains that of course everyone's been talking about. So going back to the fashion thing, you know, I think it's really almost a resemblance of America as it stands as well. Um, you know, you look back at at photos in the past and even, you know, Woodstock and you know, some of these massive events, even from like the 80s or 90s. Um just looking at the resemblance of what people look like then versus now, um, you know, it doesn't lend itself well to how well everyone is doing in the U.S. at this current point. Besides the fact that I guess we are eating well. But that may change because of course everyone has been talking about gas prices for forever. I didn't want to spend yet another podcast ripping on Trump and how shitty of a job he's doing. Uh, I mean, really across the board at this point. I don't know anything he's really doing well. I was trying to think about things doing well. Came up short. Uh, you know, I have a handful of friends right now that are also traveling uh internationally, and a couple that live internationally and have just been traveling for the last couple of years. Yes, those friends did well. Um, you know, the big question as you know, they get asked all the time is when they say that they are American. The the biggest question now is what do you think of Trump? And for the majority of people I know, I'm not gonna say everyone, the majority of people I know and talk to in person, you know, or I talk over the phone with, it's obviously very easy to see, and of course I've talked about it on the podcast, it's very easy to see all the things going wrong. And uh, you know, essentially call it a disgrace. Now, it might be anecdotal evidence, but that's what everyone else thinks as well. It's not just me saying this as a United States citizen that you know you can go back and listen to episodes from you know two and a half years ago where I was saying we need Trump back. And boy was I wrong. But I'm not always right. No one is. My brother was right. He said Project 2025. I go, that's a farce. Not that much of a farce. Pretty accurate. But there are just nice, there are just nice things in life. Um, you know, I think everyone is is too comfortable, and I think it comes from a lack of, you know, I don't want to call it like mental illness or anything like that, but I just think people are just down. You know what I mean? You have to put effort into, I guess you know, you know, you don't have to put that much more effort into it, but you gotta iron a shirt. I mean, half the guys I know don't even have an ironing board or an iron. And then you know what I do when I figure that out, I immediately send them a link to an iron and ironing board. Those are the two things I should have in this podcast at the bottom. Just a link to an iron and ironing board. Get some affiliate commission off of that. Maybe that's what I should just turn this podcast into, is just shilling products that I use. And to be honest, it wouldn't even be shilling because I only buy, well, I shouldn't say only. I try to buy uh good shit. Now, the thing that I also try and do is spend as little as possible. So I am the king of affordability at the end of the day. I don't, you know, I'm not here sitting, I'm not sitting here making, you know, uh half a million dollars a year or anything like that. So it's not like I can afford to go and buy, you know, a shitload of suits every year that of course I would want to buy. Can I budget and maybe make that, you know, happen a little bit more realistically? Yes. Uh, but there is just something nice about a suit that fits you well, or just a jacket that fits you well, that is made for your body. And what's interesting, a couple days ago, I was having a discussion with someone, he's like, Yeah, my right shoulder is lower than my left. And I go, you know what that means? That's most people. I think mine's like that too, or one of mine's higher than the other. What that means, of course, when you put a jacket on, it's gonna be a little meh that way or that way. Now, of course, if this was made for you, what they could do is level out their shoulders, right? And just have that nice silhouette. I mean, even for overweight guys, I mean, gentlemen, overweight gentlemen, you can look great in a fucking suit. You just have to go get a suit that's actually made before your body, and you get a lot of these off the rack bullshit that we're buying from men's warehouse and spending way too much money on a piece of garment that doesn't fit you well, that honestly you don't like wearing either, is insane. We have women again, I will talk about that. We have women spending thousands on thousands of dollars on a wedding dress that they wear for one day. Men, let's step it up. If they get $3,000 for their wedding dress, we should get half at least. Or you should get the same amount. You know why? Because you can go buy a suit for your wedding that you could wear for maybe not the rest of your life, depending on how long you live, but for a very long time. You know how often she's going to wear that wedding dress again? It's gonna sit in your fucking closet. It's gonna sit in your closet, and as the man, you're gonna have to be responsible for finding room for because it's always gonna be taking up room. All these wedding dresses, spending all this money on a piece of fabric that you wear for six hours and some photos is insane to me. Meanwhile, the men is going to men's warehouse. And him and all the boys are are buying and renting the shittiest suits known to man. It shouldn't be matching suits. Listen, if you're gonna go match and get some tuxedos, or fuck off at this point, even then, it looks goofy, but at least it makes sense. Got a bunch of dudes in these gray or navy suits from men's warehouse. They look like shit. They look like shit. So I don't know when what happened to this whole and of course, this is my issue just with weddings. Um, which let me tell you, I have made known to any wedding I've been to. Um, I'm not hating on the women either. Go ahead and spend you know, three thousand dollars or whatever it is on your dress that you're gonna wear that day. I get it. But you being okay with your man uh going to men's warehouse and getting this glued fucking piece of shit that all of the guys are gonna be sweating their ass off in if you're getting married any anytime between like let's say May and fucking August, you know, four or five months out of the year. I mean, what what are we doing, people? Uh so that you and of course I used to wear suits, you know, you can go back and look at the podcast, look at the thumbnails, used to wear suits all the time. And you know, doing doing research though, I will say, and I do over-research, I over-research things. You can talk to my friends when I'm buying stuff, you know, big purchases, things like that. I've only got been in the ass really one time um when I've done a lot of research on purchasing things. It does not happen often. And the reason it doesn't is because I do research in order to find out what the hell is going on and what can I buy uh for essentially the littlest amount of money and get the the most return out of that product that I can get. So, right, so I bought um, you know, recently I moved into a new house, you know, in in March of this year, and I've been, you know, I've always had a bench and some dumbbells, some adjustable dumbbells. Uh shout out shout out MX Fitness. Uh, but of course, in you know, in high school, you know, I took weightlifting uh both junior and senior year. And in college, I did not as much, but some weightlifting if my ex was uh dragging me there, or if uh the boys had a couple of drinks and were like, let's go bust some weights out. Because freshman year I lived right by uh Defoe Graham, if you know Mizzou. Of course, that is the dorm that is literally, you know, a hundred steps from the rec center. So we go bust out some waves. But we did, you know, shout out to really Eureka and and and Coach Sumner and Coach Cleveland over there, and those guys that did weightlifting is they really taught us uh Olympic lifting. And, you know, I've been sick and tired of this bench and just having these weights. Is I went ahead and, you know, bought a full. Now my basement is it's an old, it's an old house. It was built in the 50s. Um, so the basement is only, you know, seven feet tall or so. You know, it's like 80 inches. So I had to buy a 73-inch rack. Uh, so I did research. I'm like, what are we doing here? You know, who am I gonna buy from? Monster Light rack from Rogue. Shout out. That thing fucking kicks ass. Now I will say though that rogue's equipment is very expensive. Not the Monster Light, to be honest. Um, but a lot of their stuff is like, I don't even understand some of the pricing when it goes to like uh building a gym and these products that people are buying. Uh, but of course, besides that, you know, rogue was uh, you know, very expensive when it comes to like getting the weights and the actual the bar and even the bench. Uh so I went to rep fitness. I'm like, what you know, what can we do here? And the only reason I was looking at all these companies is, you know, I did some research. I was like, well, who do I want to look at? Obviously, everyone knows Rogue, right? Everyone, you know, if you've been at a gym, you know, you know rogue. And probably at this point, you know, rep fitness as well. I mean, it's really just kind of the Chinese uh cheaper alternative, and also um free shipping, which is why I like it, because Rogue still charges shipping unless you spend like thousands of dollars, which is just an insane proposition. I get it. You're shipping heavy shit. I understand. Um, you know, then there's there's all there's so many companies like homegrown lifting and fringe fitness, and uh I you know, it just goes on and on. So, you know, then I'm looking for okay, I found the rack. The monster light rack for the most part looks like the best bang for the buck I can get for a rack that's about 75 inches tall. And if you're like Eric, why are you talking about racks? We're talking about squat racks, people. Okay, so we we start with the squat rack, found the rack. Not I need a bench. Okay. I know I need an adjustable bench. I'd like it to be a decline bench. I'd like to be able to put some, you know, uh attachments on it uh as well at the end. So I can do, you know, leg uh leg presses, leg curls, things like that. So I found the rep fitness uh nighthawk. And I also got very lucky because I really wasn't going to buy this bench, but I found a coupon code uh by rep by doing about five minutes of Googling and just trying about 10 different coupon codes and 20% off. So all of a sudden, this, you know, whatever it is, $450 bench turned into the other benches that I was looking at that were now, you know, let's just call it $350 or you know, $360. Well, now I could compare those with the rep, and all of a sudden the rep bench was significantly nicer. So we got the rep bench. Then I was like, I need a bar. Just need one bar. I need one bar I'd like to be able to use for, you know, deadlifting, squatting, benching, curling, or excuse me, uh cleaning. Because I'm gonna get back to I haven't cleaned in God knows how long. Uh but I did for the first time the other day. And let me tell you, I'm out of practice, and honestly, I probably need to film myself doing it and send it to someone because I'm sure um it's been a long time that I've that I've done a clean a clean, but let me tell you, that beat my ass. So anyway, I'm I need a bar. Great. I mean, Olympic bars are all over the place with uh pricing companies. Of course, a normal person, before really doing any research, I'm like, let's go to Amazon, let's go to Dicks, let's go to uh uh not champion sports, let's go to Academy Sports. Nah, that ain't the move. They ain't got no so then you go online, then you do research. Okay, now there are all these brands, but just because one person has this affordable doesn't make the weights affordable. So I'm like, great. Uh let's look for a barbell, or excuse me, let's look for a bar. All of a sudden I found a brand called X Mark. X Mark. And I was like, all right, let's look into this. Who are these guys? Found the crowbar, $200, found a coupon, got even cheaper. And now, of course, Rogue, rep, and those guys are charging for the same bar, essentially double what I paid. Okay, so I'm like, great, got the bar. Now I need weights, rogues weights, the the the Olympic bumper set. Now, of course, people say you don't need bumpers. You go into a into a you know a nice gym, usually they have bumpers. Um, so I was like, you know, I don't need them all to be bumpers, but I do need a good amount of of bumper weights. So, you know, you're looking at rogue, you're looking at rep, you're like, Jesus Christ. You're like, I just want to be able to put like 400 pounds on the bar, and I'm having to spend, you know, 1500 bucks in order to do so. Then I've found companies like Fringe Uh Fitness, Hunger Lifting, uh Giant Fitness out of uh the Seattle area up there in North uh Pacific Northwest. Um then I found Barbell Standard. And you know, I found Barbell Standard actually kind of on the forums. I should say forums, I should say Reddit. Um, you know, I saw that he was active on there last year. I was like, all right, it was really affordable uh compared to those other brands. So I was like, let's go with them. I don't need any colors or anything special. Just try to lift. Uh so I got barbell standard weights. And you know, it took me a little bit of time to make decisions. Now, if you know me, you're gonna be like, Eric, sometimes you take too long to make decisions. It's like, no, not necessarily. Maybe sometimes, but for the most part, eventually my brain will say, hey, this is this is it, and we'll go and we'll we'll just get it all done and purchase it and call it out. It took me a while to get to Dakota as well, right? Um, it took me a while to get to Dakota because of course, as a you know, 24-year-old or 25-year-old, it's not like you have, you know, a bunch of money to go spend, you know, on a couple suits. Whereas you go to men's warehouse, you know, you get three suits for like 900 bucks or whatever the fuck it is. I'm sure they still have something similar. It's like, great, okay, well, you know, I could make this work. The problem is, and this was like a massive joke uh, you know, about 10 years ago, is everyone had the exact same Navy suit from men's warehouse. Every single person I met that was in a suit that was blue. It was the same, I'm not joking. I'm talking about dozens of people I ran into. And, you know, a lot of them were, you know, in the finance sphere. But it was just funny to me. And I'm like, maybe I'm one of the few people that just see this, and the average person is like, what do you mean they're wearing a suit? It's like, no, it's the same fabric. Like, Eric, what is wrong with you? Why do you notice these things? And I'm like, that's a great question. I don't know. I don't know why I notice these things, but I do notice these things. That's all there is for today. We'll wrap it up. Shout out to Dakota. If you guys are looking for some good menswear, I'm not talking about just suits, you know, denim, uh, jeans, I mean polos. Dude kills it. Uh hit him up. Go out there. He'll measure you. They have a trunk show, I think, going on today. And of course, uh, shout out to Halfco Studios here where I'm recording this podcast today. If you are in St. Louis, you can come record here in their location in Creefcore. Hopefully, we get that moved into our new building in in Brentwood. Um of course that's been under construction for a while now. I'm hoping to have that. We're hoping to have that done here shortly. That way we could all move back into the office. Because let me tell you, working from home for the last two months, I'm sure if I was married and had kids, I'd I'd feel a little bit differently. And if I was older as well, and I was better able to still, you know, have it, you know, be able to sit down at my desk in my house and actually be able to knock out work, I can. But let me tell you, five days a week, I cannot. It drives me absolutely insane. Half the day, you know, I'm leaving to go somewhere um find somewhere to work. And of course, actually yesterday I signed up for serendipity labs in Clayton, so we'll see how that goes. I'll report back on that. Uh, of course, it's been hot out. If your guys' homes are hot, if your AC bill is through the roof, it's also just been hot. So maybe it's just through the roof because of that. But you can you could need insulation help in your attic. Uh, the West County insulation guys out here will take care of you. Um, they'll come out, they'll show you pictures of your attic. If you want to get up in there, feel free. Take a look for yourself. But a large majority of you people right now that are listening to this and saying, you know, my AC bill has been high and my my house still isn't that cool. I have rooms that are different temperatures. I walk into my bedroom, I'm hot as hell. Living room is cold, vice versa, whatever. It could be an insulation issue. Um, you know, they're now calling for about 18 inches of insulation in your attic, give or take, depending on um, you know, the insulation type that you are using. So all I would say is if you're if you're curious in this, go ahead. If you're listening to this, you got a husband, you got a boyfriend, make him stick his head up there. Um look at how much insulation insulation, excuse me, you have it. If you think you, if you want a quote, if you want, or at least you want someone to come out, take a look, see what can be done. You know, they do attic fans as well. Um, so they'll, you know, ridge vents, they'll make sure you take care of gables, things like that. Um so reach out to the guys, West County Installation, they'll make sure you're well taken care of. Of course, if you want to talk to a marketing agency, Vi.media, Vi.media, that's V-I-E.media. We're having our 10-year celebration in about a month and a half from now. So that'll be exciting. Uh, we work primarily with home service companies and also law firms. So if you know of one of those and you want to send them our way, if you are one of those and want an honest uh discussion on your marketing efforts, we might be able to help you. We might not. We'll let you know. Talk to you soon. Thanks for tuning in. As always, we'll see you next week. Bye.