Ep.249 w/Mike C/Junk Wax Hero

SPEAKER 1: Here's a gentleman who's a fierce advocate and ambassador for this great hobby.

SPEAKER 1: He has his finger on the post of the hobby.

SPEAKER 1: However, his voice is nowhere as smooth as mine buddy don't try.

SPEAKER 1: Here is John Newman.

SPEAKER 2: What is up? Welcome to episode 2 49. Got a great show on tap for you today, Mike Cak, a junk wax hero from YouTube. Also my partner, one of my partners of many and have hotline happy to have him there. We're gonna talk about his YouTube channel, his new show at Chris Sea Wall.

SPEAKER 2: And you know why he started a YouTube channel? How he does it, why he does it, what he does. He does the, Addic Fine Friday writing a book. He's in the process of writing a book. So this guy is, very, very busy.

SPEAKER 2: Got to hang out with him a little bit in Chicago at the National. Wanna talk about that, as well. And, just a busy guy. Glad he made some time. And, you know, we're gonna cover, some hobby ground. So we, we'll keep the intro short and sweet and let's get this show underway.

SPEAKER 3: Time for our hobby is the people announcer of the week.

SPEAKER 3: Hey, it's Chris Carlin, formerly from upper deck. Now, with collectors, remember the hobby is the people, if you'd like to be the hobby is the people announcer of the week. Do a wave or MP3 file and send it to sports card nation PC at gmail dot com.

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SPEAKER 2: Excited to have this next gentleman on the Sports Car Nation podcast on the sports card shop guest line for the first time. Somehow he's a hobby hotline, teammate and big on YouTube something. I'm not so, definitely might pick his brain there and, and find out what the, secret sauce is. But, Chuck Wax Hero, Mike C, welcome to Sports Car Nation.

SPEAKER 6: Thanks John. I'm excited to be here. I feel like I've made it and I love the intro. The intro is awesome.

SPEAKER 2: Yeah. And then it's all I like, I tell everyone else that says that then it's all downhill. A after that, I'm glad you like the intro and, and, and that's the pinnacle and then we're gonna, we're gonna talk. But I can and I and II, I appreciate that. And, you know, you have AAA YouTube show, you do a lot of different things. You do your attic finds. I think it's on Fridays.

SPEAKER 2: Just kinda, you know, you, you're, you're established now. I believe you're well over 6000, 6000 subscribers. Talk about the growth, you know, I've done that sort of not 6000 now, but, you know, the podcast, the audio version I built up from a slow start, you know, took, you know, I'm here five years.

SPEAKER 2: So it's not, it's not an overnight thing necessarily, but kind of talk about, you know, how your channel grew and, and, you know, maybe not give out all the secrets out, but just some of the, the reasons for you think you feel for your, for your personal success.

SPEAKER 6: Yeah, no secrets. I'm happy to share whatever anybody wants to know about it. But I started about two years ago, just two years ago in July.

SPEAKER 6: And it was slow, man. It is, it takes time to build up an audience. I remember getting to 50 subscribers and I was like, yes and then 60 I was celebrating every 10 and it was, it's hard and I had a 1000 subscribers after 11 months. And I thought, man, this is awesome. I might make $30 a month from this YouTube channel, which would be fantastic.

SPEAKER 6: And then, you know, I had over the next six months, I had continued that slow growth a little bit faster, but it was slow still. And then I, I did an Addic find and it was happened to be on a Friday and I branded it as Addic Find Fridays and it took off and I, I think I got noticed I was able to bring on Chris Sewell sports card collector investor dealer in that order as an, as an interview guest.

SPEAKER 6: And that helped a lot too and I brought on Ty from chasing cardboard to interview him and that helped a lot. And I did little segments. I, I focus on stories and collectors. I'm not big on the news, although I do a Sunday morning news segment, but I did like collectors rooms which got 25,000 views in a few days. And that brings in several 100 new subscribers. So I went, at the end of the year, I had 2500 subscribers.

SPEAKER 6: This was nine months ago. And within three or four months, I had doubled it to 5000 and since then, since April, it has slowed significantly.

SPEAKER 6: But it's been still awesome, exciting and I'm, I'm trying not to change the, the collectors, the stories. That's what I really want to focus on. That's what excites me. And one thing that I found in April, I was pushing really hard and I got 100 and 5000 views in April because I, I did a lot of videos and I wanted to get like high value videos out in April and I started doing videos that I wasn't excited about.

SPEAKER 6: I just thought this is gonna get a lot of views and I didn't enjoy them. And it just wasn't a good feeling. And so I've, I've stepped back and I, I only do videos that excite me or that I'm really interested in or that, really just focus on the collector or the stories or I do occasionally do news type things but it's pretty rare.

SPEAKER 6: It has to be something that really interests me. And the, the Sunday morning news videos that I do are only topics that really interest me. So I'm gonna focus on the Panini versus fanatics, lawsuits. That doesn't it, it interests me.

SPEAKER 6: I'll watch a video about it so I know what's going on, but I'm not gonna talk about it on my channel unless there's some sort of interesting nugget in there. But the, the secret sauce I guess is just consistency. It's just, I've, I've put out a minimum of three videos a week for two years and YouTube, the algorithm loves the consistency.

SPEAKER 6: I, I try to put out a decent thumbnail. I spend maybe three minutes on each of my thumbnails. They're, they're getting better but they're still not great.

SPEAKER 6: But yeah, it's, I think if you're having fun and you're doing things that you enjoy talking about topics that you enjoy, the audience responds well to that. And I, I don't know, I, I think that if I'm not having fun then why do it?

SPEAKER 2: It's funny here when you say that Mike, I think you hit the nail right on the head. One, you know, I do, sometimes I do Q and A, episodes on, on my other show. Hobby Quick, which is, a shorter show.

SPEAKER 2: One of the questions I got from a listener, you know, he asked me, how would, you know, when you're, like, done podcasting, what would, what would be that, that sign to you? And, and you actually said it, you know, to me it won't have anything to do with less downloads or, or anything like that.

SPEAKER 2: It's when this becomes more of a, a chore or a job than fun or a passion. And so if I ever turn the mic on and I feel like, oh man, I'd rather be doing something else or I'm gonna be going through the motions on this one that's my side and, and hearing you say what you did, I mean, it just, it, it, you know, rang that it and even like no one I was gonna talk to you tonight for, for this show, right?

SPEAKER 2: I'm you know, I always say I'm excited but that's not even lip service.

SPEAKER 2: But if I ever have an interview and I feel like, man, I don't even want to do this, that's never happened yet. But if that day comes that those are the kind of signs to me, like I, I'm not just gonna go through the emotions and be phony or, or, or disingenuous and, and that's another thing that you said that, I agree wholeheartedly.

SPEAKER 2: Right? Is you want to do stuff that you find interesting and you're passionate about, otherwise you're again kind of going, through the emotions and, you know, with your success, do you find, I mean, there's so many shows out there, things are gonna be similar.

SPEAKER 2: But do you, have you found, like, maybe people try to sort of replicate or have kind of taken something you've done and, and tried to do it too or, or not necessarily.

SPEAKER 6: I don't think so. And somebody once fairly recently gave me credit for adding images to stories. I stole that from somebody else. So I'm not, I think everybody should steal shamelessly as long as it's not like copyrighted or anything like that. Just little ideas. I took things from other people and I'm, I'm happy if somebody to try to take the same things for me.

SPEAKER 6: If you want to try to replicate my storytelling style or whatever else, I'd be flattered if you can do it better than me. I love that. I've, I've passed jobs off to other people. I've trained other people to take my jobs on and when they do my job better than I was doing before, I, I love that. So I, I think it's great.

SPEAKER 6: Yeah.

SPEAKER 2: And there's just as, you know, there, there's so much content decoration out there between YouTube.

SPEAKER 2: People who just do audio only, and that people just do live stuff only. Maybe, I, I, it's almost impossible to, you know, not even, even, not intentionally, but something's probably been done. You're not necessarily creating the wheel all over again, but, you know, your style and how you deliver it.

SPEAKER 2: That's, that's where the personalization comes in, you know, with success. Right? I, I've, you know, I, I, you know, I'm, I'm very blessed that this show is done. Done well. But we both know right. With that territory, you can't win the whole room. You can't please everybody.

SPEAKER 2: You've gotten emails or, or messages, I've gotten it where, you know, hey, I'm not listening no more but, you know, or this, or that sort of thing, you know what, I guess, you know, I, I like feedback and I, I say on this very show, right? Let me know what you like or don't like, that's how we get better.

SPEAKER 2: If you, even if you like something, let me know. And I, you know, there's segments I've done on this show that aren't, aren't being done anymore because some enough people said, I know where you were trying to go, John. It just, it doesn't, it doesn't really to get there and there are other segments that are still around because people, enough people said, we like that.

SPEAKER 2: I'm, I'm, I'm sure you get to share that. How do you deal with obviously, I think we both not to be cocky but I think we both get probably more good messages than bad. And that's always, you know, a, a good thing but you know, what's your take when you get something on the negative side? How do you, how do you, you know, view it? How do you, deal with that kind of stuff?

SPEAKER 6: Yeah. So I probably went a good year into my YouTube journey before I got anything negative because I, I didn't have much of a following. So I had a full year of positive comments to, to build that base of confidence. And as I've grown, I've gotten collected, let's say a handful of haters.

SPEAKER 6: And like you said, I'm very open to constructive feedback. People have told me I needed a microphone. People have told me I needed better lighting and those are things that make me better. And people have told me, I've made mistakes on stories or histories of cards and I love being told that that helps me learn and then I can go back and say, hey, last week on this video, I made this mistake and here's the truth.

SPEAKER 6: And thank you to so and so for telling me that, but if you just tell me I'm an idiot or, and which is right? You can, you can say that and I've never blocked a comment or I've never deleted a comment.

SPEAKER 6: But if you say that, like I, I think that oftentimes says more about you, the viewer than it does about me because you've provided me with zero constructive feedback. And I'll give you an example. I did the only non card related video I've ever done was about the Hall Of Fame and Jack Morris and why I don't think Jack Morris deserves to be in the Hall Of Fame.

SPEAKER 6: And it was more, it was, it was fun. And I got more hate from that video than any video I have ever done. And people were so mad about it about Jack Morris. It was so bizarre. And the one thing I, I always say to my, well, that.

SPEAKER 2: Was probably Jack Morris's family that has a large family and they all, you know, they got on the horn and like watch this video. This guy Mike is telling, you know, you don't think dad should be in the, in the hall and that, that I think, but I'm kidding.

SPEAKER 6: But you know, I, one thing I say to my kids, my kids are older now, but I've always said when they get bullied or somebody's mean to them at school, I would say, you know, it really says more about them than it does about you. And here's how you should handle it. And I, I try to turn that feedback onto myself and if somebody just says something cruel, I I try to ignore it. Sometimes I might respond. Thanks for watching.

SPEAKER 6: But oftentimes I just ignore it.

SPEAKER 6: Try to understand what that person might be going through to say something like that.

SPEAKER 6: For instance, another example on Bench clear media on Hobby Think Tank. I, I don't remember who I think I might have been with John Keating in one episode and we were talking about the NBA rankings, the top five players of all time.

SPEAKER 6: And I'm not gonna say it now because I don't want anybody to unsubscribe from you John, but people unsubscribe from Bench clear media over my top five list of all time and they were so mad. They commented this bleeping idiot. I can't believe this guy thinks this person is number three of all time. I'm unsubscribing and never watching either of you again. Yeah, it's crazy.

SPEAKER 2: It's crazy, man. People are, are intense, I guess is, is the way it's passionate and then there's like probably the bad part pa past that maybe intense or a little bit, you know, probably irrational and, and, and you're right, you said something like it's what, you know, if someone says you suck, John, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER 2: Well, well, tell me in what way so I can fix that. Just say in those two words, you suck. Like you said, it really speaks a little bit more about them. Maybe there's things are not going well in their own life. And again, I don't want to paint with a broad brush.

SPEAKER 2: Everyone's, everyone's different, but I, I, you everyone's title to their opinion, Mike as you know, but like give me some tell me why, you know, and I'm not saying I'll do everything you say, but at least I know why you feel that way and we can at least try maybe to make some things better.

SPEAKER 2: And I've had people say, you know, he talked about light lighting, you know, I've had people say, you know, just turn all your lights off John. So we don't see you here, you know, so I didn't really listen but it is a little darker in here for the, for those folks.

SPEAKER 2: But II I can't but, but, you know, I'll joke it aside like I, I have used that constructive feedback. I have listened when someone says, hey, I'm not particularly fond of this or a fan of that. I, I want that, you know, if ever and listen, I like you or anyone else we love.

SPEAKER 2: I, I don't know too many people who don't but you know, if, if that's all you get, I guess that's good. But I wanna, I, I'm always trying to, to improve whether it be pocket casting in my real job as, as a T A or whatever, as a husband, as a dad, a as you are, right? No one, we're, we're no one's mastered any of that yet.

SPEAKER 2: So there's always room for improvement. And so, you know, if someone can tell me something constructive that I can do something with, I'm, I'm open to it. It, you know, just saying I hate you or, you know, you know, go jump off a bridge that's not gonna help the show, get better. Like you said, I, I too believe it's more of an indictment on the sender.

SPEAKER 2: You know, maybe nine times out of 10, every situation is different.

SPEAKER 2: But, I always had a show, you know, let me know what you think. Good, good and bad. And, you know, I always, I do always, usually respond, in some way to any kind of email or correspondence. I get, it's like a pet peeve of mine. I don't, I don't like when someone else doesn't respond.

SPEAKER 2: So I make it even so, even some of those negative ones that I've gotten, you know, I've had different responses depending on, on what was said to me. But, I've always tried to respond and, you know, and let at least let people know, hey, you know, you may not like me but you, you can't say I didn't, I didn't respond and give you, give you a time, you know what I mean? And, and, and, and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER 6: I respond to almost every comment and definitely every email I've ever received.

SPEAKER 6: But there are the occasional comments that I just, I can't respond to because it's just gonna, yeah, it's gonna stir them up.

SPEAKER 2: Yeah, especially if they're making it personal.

SPEAKER 2: And, and they're just not rational. Right? You, you're, you're gonna try to have a rational conversation back and it's just, you, you know, by the first, the first message that, that you're not gonna get one back even with you being rational, I, I, I've, I've got, I get with you say, and, and, and sometimes it's like a, it's like a beehive.

SPEAKER 2: You just don't, you don't poke it and, and stir it up and, and let it be and, and, and on to the next. And so iii I fully understand that. So I, I've, I've done that too. I, I'm more apt to say something. I like to kill with kindness.

SPEAKER 2: So I like to, you know, if someone is maybe not so nice and I just try to be nice back and have them scratch their head. And so man, I was just rude to this guy and he sent this message back and, and make it, I'm not saying they can't still be rude, but at least make some their head and say, you know, hey man, this guy could have sent a whole different response back and he didn't.

SPEAKER 2: But there have been, there have been 11 or two occasions where like you like just let it go because what I, what I had typed out after proof reading it before hitting that send button.

SPEAKER 2: It wouldn't have been good. And I'm like, I'm just not gonna even.

SPEAKER 6: You're familiar with Bill Simmons of ESPN, formerly of ESPN. Now the Ringer.

SPEAKER 6: He started his career on AOL S Digital Underground in the 19 nineties and I started reading him right away. He was so good and so different from other sports writers and he wasn't an official sportswriter.

SPEAKER 6: And I read him for a long time. 10 plus years, followed him to ESPN where he was on ESPN2, not ESPN2 but something page. I can't remember what it was called. And, after a while I felt like his writing got bad and I decided I was young, I was in my twenties and I, I sent him an email. I still remember this so vividly.

SPEAKER 6: It was 15 plus years ago, I sent him an email and the subject line was the precipitous decline of the quality of your writing. And I wrote Bill. I've been reading you for over a decade and I can't help but tell you that your writing has gone downhill so fast and it was pretty mean. In retrospect, it wasn't like, it wasn't like mean. But why, why would I send that to him? What's the purpose of it?

SPEAKER 6: But his response has stuck with me forever. And he said he responded back to me personally and said, Mike. It's people like you who stuck with me from the very beginning that made me who I am now. And I can't thank you enough for reading me for all those years. I'm sorry that my writing isn't for you anymore. But I understand and I was like, how, why would I say that to him? That was such a great response from him.

SPEAKER 2: Yeah, I might have to, I might have to steal that. But no, it is. He kind of gave me credit for. I wouldn't be here, you know, the 10 years you gave me and, and others is, is why I'm here. I'm, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER 2: You know, and, and it may, you probably scratch your head and say man, I kind of feel a little bit bad or maybe I could have worded that a little bit. Did you let me ask you this? You don't have to say what you said. Did you respond back to his response? No, no, let it, let it go.

SPEAKER 2: Yeah, but you know what that's, I mean that's, there's a perfect example, right?

SPEAKER 2: And, you know, I try to, you know, I, I go to the school of thought where treat people like you want to be treated sometimes I'm probably better at it some days than, than others and, and maybe the days I'm not as good at as the days where I just don't send what I was gonna, you know, send and I just, like, like you said, can't respond with some things that just if they're not rational, it's, the response is just going to add fuel to the fire.

SPEAKER 2: And as we both know that stuff can eat your time up and, and it's not productive time at, at that. So, iii I get it.

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SPEAKER 3: Let's go.

SPEAKER 3: You are listening to the Sports Nation podcast.

SPEAKER 2: The National wasn't that far away. Your second? I think it was my, fifth, kind of your thoughts, you know, now, 67 weeks out from it, what you thought and, you know, maybe improvements, what you enjoyed, maybe what they could do better as we, you know, count the days down now to, to Cleveland.

SPEAKER 6: Yeah. Well, everybody's talked about the heat. So I, I'm not gonna talk about that except just that little mention.

SPEAKER 6: But, I loved the National, I loved it this year. I loved it last year in Atlantic City. I thought that Atlantic City was a little better in some ways. There was more room to move around. It was pretty tight quarters in Chicago.

SPEAKER 6: But I, I think it's just such an amazing show. I hope it continues to be. I think they have new ownership next year and under new ownership comes changes in, in my experience.

SPEAKER 6: But, I, you know, you see things, you never thought you would see. You see cards you've never heard of before. You see things and you think I've got to start collecting that now and then you get in trouble for some new collection you start.

SPEAKER 6: But, you know, it's, I just stopped at all of the, big auction house booths to look at the Bonkers cards they had on display, the multimillion dollar cars they're showing and the, the unique items II, I bought plenty of cards too, but it's, it's like going to a museum and, you see collections of things like this one guy who's also a youtuber and probably follows you like, he follows me who had this awesome Japanese baseball card table and that's what he focused on was Japanese baseball cards and that's stuff you're not gonna find at a Portland Maine car show.

SPEAKER 6: I don't know. I just, I had a blast. I learned a lot. Plus the people, you know, you, you meet a lot of people, you talk to a lot of people. It's such a great time to me and, and I have heard a lot of people complaining about it.

SPEAKER 6: I didn't, I don't know, it was hot in the afternoons, but I don't know. I, I disagreed with a lot of the complaints about it.

SPEAKER 2: No, you hit it right on, on the head. It, it is if you, you know, I always say every year, like if you go to the National and you don't have fun, I don't know what you're doing wrong.

SPEAKER 2: Like tell me what happened because obviously if something really terrible happened, you got, you lost your card or they got stolen. That's a bad experience. But other than something, you know, terrible like that. You went to the National and just didn't enjoy it yourself.

SPEAKER 2: I don't know again what you did wrong. You know, the, he was bad on Thursday. I thought after Thursday it, it improved and I think I, I'm not an HV AC guy. I don't want to pretend to be. I almost felt like Thursday, like the compressor broke and I almost felt like the days after that they had replaced the part and it was, it was kicking in i in again.

SPEAKER 2: Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER 6: Well, a bunch of dealers were saying that they had all the garage doors open to allow people to allow dealers to bring in their cards. I don't remember if that was Wednesday or Thursday. And they said that the heat, you know, it was very, very hot in Chicago and the heat was just pouring in through those massive garage doors.

SPEAKER 2: Yeah. And, and that could be very well the case it, it was hot. I know there were a few people report they had to needed medical attention because of upset heat. So it was hot enough to cause a few medical issues. It's probably worthy enough to, to at least mention definitely in in passing another point you mentioned Atlantic City was the way it was set up.

SPEAKER 2: It was more rectangular and it there was a lot more open spaces. I agree with you. 100% I will say this though, as someone who went to the Chicago National before expansion, that was this year of, I believe 200,000 square feet, it was more open this year.

SPEAKER 2: If, if you, if you, and, but you're right, it was tighter than Atlantic City, Mike. I agree with you there. You would have really, if you went to the, the, the National that was at the Chicago before this year, you would have really been complaining because that was like, like elbow to elbow, sort of boxing out.

SPEAKER 2: I remember talking about it like, it was tough to get like show face time in front of it felt like it was playing pickup basketball where they like get under the, before someone else and then hold my position and you know, there's no fouls, right? It was just kind of, you call your own, but no one wants to do that. It was, it was tight. I will say they improved on that.

SPEAKER 2: Maybe they can improve, some more. I think a lot of it too. I don't wanna sound like I'm gonna defend him a little bit here. Maybe I am just the way that they're like rooms upon rooms. If you like, look at the floor plan where Atlantic City is one kind of rectangle.

SPEAKER 2: These are like 34, you got like the breakers, section, you got the, the corporate section. It wasn't in one sort of rectangle and I think that caused a little bit of issues with, I've heard other people complain about that. It was still kind of, tight and, and, you know, I, I get it and, and they brought the record apparently with, with attendance.

SPEAKER 2: So I'm sure that the most people ever, at least that's what they're, they're, they don't release official numbers so we have to take their word for it. But, I'm sure that was a factor and, you know, you kind of make the best of it. And, you know, you gotta be there more than a couple of days when I hear someone is there a couple of days.

SPEAKER 2: I don't, I don't know how you even form a plan of attack to, to really cover everything. I think, you know, I get it. One or two days is better than no days. But, for me even being there five days, like, for me, I know I didn't, I didn't see everything. I see someone else post a picture and I'm like, where was that? I never saw that, you know. So I know I didn't cover everything.

SPEAKER 6: That's another thing too is that it's really difficult to find certain tables, certain booths, like I had a guy tell me I'm in booth 16 55 come on by.

SPEAKER 6: And it's, it was tough in Chicago to find them. There were some booths you, you know, had aisles that were numbered up and down, but there were some areas where it was like, where even are the 16 hundreds. So I'm making up the number here. But how do I even get to that? And there's no floor plan that I knew of.

SPEAKER 6: There's no map and I walked around for a long time trying to find a certain booth and I would be where I felt like I was in a certain area and I'd be like, hey, is this where I'd find booth 16, 55? And they'd be like, well, I don't know. Well, what booth are you? Well, I don't know. Well, how do you not know what booth they are?

SPEAKER 2: I'm in Chicago, actually, I'm in Rosemont. I'm not even really in, well, no, you're right. I will say this, the Chicago National out of the four or five. I've been to, I get lost every time. Like when I say lost, like, hey, where's the exit? It's time to go. How do I get out of here or? Like you said, if you're me, hey, meet me at this, booth or whatever, like, it's sometimes hard to find.

SPEAKER 2: Like, unless it's like a corporate boat booth where you look for the big, you know, sGC or C, you know, if it's, if it doesn't have a big, oh hanging, you know, ban banner, it could be tricky to find and you just walk, you know, you walk around for five minutes and you kind of lose your, your bearings.

SPEAKER 2: Like, hey, II, I kinda knew what it looked like when I was standing over there. Now, I'm over here and I'm like, I'm lost again. So it, it's really easy to get disorientated. I guess that's the rather than lost, maybe disorientated is, is a better, I'm not lost. I'm in the right place, but I just don't know, you know, I'm not exactly where I want to be in the right place. So, yeah.

SPEAKER 6: Well, Danny, Danny Black texted me and said, hey, I'm at the entry, come up here for a minute and I couldn't find my way back to the entry, the entrance, I walked around and around and he's like, dude, where are you? And I'm like, I don't know where I am. How do I know?

SPEAKER 2: Oh, yeah, it happened to me too. He was like, are you coming? Are you? You're free? I'm like, dude, I'm, I'm, I think I'm on my way there. Don't, you know, don't wait up apparently, save yourself. I'm not gonna, I might not get out of here, but it, it, it was easy to get just the way the floor plan is and it's sort of not a, you know, a perfect rectangle.

SPEAKER 2: Atlantic City was more city was easy to navigate. I, I had fought in Atlantic City too. I know a lot of people don't like the city itself or the maybe the neighborhood around the Convention Center, but I'm not there for that. I'm there. You know, sleep in my room, wake up, go to the show, go to dinner, go, you know, go back to town, take a shower, watch some TV.

SPEAKER 2: Sleep again, rinse and repeat and come back to the show. So, you know, I, I get it but it does again. I'm, I, I think I speak for you here too. It's nice to be able to drive, to a location as Atlantic City is, for me, Cleveland will be that next year, Cleveland. But I, I didn't really realize this.

SPEAKER 2: So I kind of did the math on it is closer to Atlanta, Atlantic City to me than Atlantic City is I would have guessed without really fact checking. I would have lost my own bat. I would have thought Atlantic City was, but Atlantic City is like five hours and 20 minutes drive and Cleveland is actually five hours and five minutes.

SPEAKER 2: So it's 15 minutes wins the race by, 15 minutes. My plans to go a day earlier and check out the I'm a big music guy. So check out the rock and roll Hall Of Fame, which I've never, been to. So I'll check that off the bucket list. So I'll be there a day earlier and, and then get ready for another year, another, another National. I've never been to Cleveland period.

SPEAKER 2: So it'll be interesting to see what the lay out there and, you know, it used to be done in Cleveland, quite a bit and then that the Convention Center actually closed and now it's reopened. So it'll be interesting to, you know, I've been to Chicago, I've been to Atlantic City. Those are the only two venues for the National that I've been to.

SPEAKER 2: It'll be interesting to see Cleveland's, version of the event as someone who, you know, I know others have been to it before. People say it's pretty good. But, you know, I haven't, I haven't been to one yet, so I'll, I'll have to, get my, you know, about a year from now, a little, a little less than a year from now.

SPEAKER 2: So it'll be interesting, to, to see all right enough about the National, you know, we, you know, they, they're not, well, they do give us free tickets but even so, you know, let's talk about free ticket. Well, you gotta sign up for it, you gotta get your, your media but you, but you could, so there is the trick.

SPEAKER 2: You got a new show coming out. You, you mentioned, Chris Sewell, you got a new kind of a, a do show. I, I'll let you explain it. It's your show, for those that don't know yet, kind of fill in, fill in the blanks for those folks there.

SPEAKER 6: Yeah. So Chris Sewell is obviously a much, much better and more successful youtuber than I am about sports cards. He knows a lot more about them. And, I've watched hundreds and hundreds of his videos and just, I think he's awesome. And so I brought him on and we had this great, great conversation.

SPEAKER 6: We ended up talking for a long time afterwards and then we emailed and then we started texting and we just have a lot of views in common about baseball. We, we, I think I'm only a year older than him. So we grew up on the same baseball, we have the same views on baseball and have very similar Hall Of Fame beliefs and, and a similar obsession with Hall Of Fame and Hall Of Fame voting. And so I said.

SPEAKER 2: Hey, hey, and that, so what you're saying, he agrees with you on Jack Moore. He does.

SPEAKER 6: Yeah, of course, he does.

SPEAKER 6: And so I, I said to him at the National, hey, why don't we do a show together where we just talk about random things like Hall Of Fame voting and you know, maybe I take one Hall Of Famer and try to convince you that they're not or I take one non Hall Of Famer and try to convince you that they should be and vice versa.

SPEAKER 6: Or we talk about, you know what, what's our favorite junk wax set, stuff like that? We, we'll just mix it up every time and he said, yeah, that sounds great. So we just had our first episode, at the end of August.

SPEAKER 6: And so when this episode comes out, our second episode will have been released. We're rotating channels. So the first one was on his channel, the second one was on mine and they're every two weeks, usually released on Mondays.

SPEAKER 6: And, yeah, it's just, it's meant to be fun and hopefully nobody takes our Hall Of Fame opinions too seriously because as we know, people treat them like politics.

SPEAKER 6: Yeah.

SPEAKER 2: It, it is funny. I, I know I talk with heavy Jay about Steve Garvey. We both kind of think he should be and there was people who were very animated to like you guys are both crazy and, and, and both raw. It's funny people get like politics and politics and, and Hall Of Fame debates seem to really get people's blood moving and some in some cases boiling and, and it's funny and it's kind of like, I like shows like that, right?

SPEAKER 2: Mike, right? Kind of a little script but not too much script, right? It's kind of what me and Danny try to do with, with card matches and just laughing at each other, make people laugh, have fun and sort of fly by the seat of our pants.

SPEAKER 2: And you know, you, when you do shows where you kind of have sort of a format, sometimes it's kind of nice to do one where you, you sort of don't and you can kind of just go off script and who knows where it goes.

SPEAKER 2: Like we, we can start out with, this is gonna be kind of the topic and then we finish somewhere else and that's always fun. And when you do it, obviously with someone that you, you, you enjoy conversating with and maybe think similar, similarly.

SPEAKER 2: You know, it's, it, I think it adds to that, enjoyment and, you know, you, like you said, while we do content to that other people enjoy, right? We gotta have fun our ourselves too because if you're not, it becomes a job and I can tell you my real job pays more, than this one. So, you know, thankfully I have fun, at that one too.

SPEAKER 2: I'm blessed to be in a, a career, you know, now, two years since a change that, you know, working with kids in, in the, the school setting that, really is right up my alley. So, but you gotta have whatever you do, right? If, if you're having a little fun, you know, you gotta reassess what, what you do.

SPEAKER 2: And even even in collecting, I always said, like, you know, I, sometimes I'll get messages, John, like I'm kind of bored with collecting. I'm thinking about maybe getting out of the ho either getting out of the hobby or kind of just put my stuff away. And not really being active and, you know, I'd never tell someone like to leave. That's like the last resort.

SPEAKER 2: But I'll just say, hey, do you ever think of, you know, my response to that when I get those messages is, is, hey, do you ever think of doing something else that maybe you've thought of before and you just didn't do it? And like you said, when you, you were at the, you know, you saw a whole table with Japanese baseball cards, right? Maybe that's an interest, right?

SPEAKER 2: I, I don't want to speak, you know, or maybe that lights the light, go on to something else. You were, you know, thinking and so I always respond when I get those messages, you know, I, I've heard other res like, hey, you're not having fun. Get out of here and, and I'm not saying they're completely wrong, but before I say, get out of here, let's explore other angles.

SPEAKER 2: Maybe you can still try something different and it reignites a different passion, a different hobby, passion. If you've tried everything and it's more angst than fun, then, you know, at that point I, I won't tell you what to do but you probably have to make that decision, for yourself.

SPEAKER 2: And if that's either taking a pause or selling your stuff and riding off into the blue ya or that's, I leave that up to them, I'll never tell somebody to, you know, get lost or get out of the hobby. You know, it's just too easy to do and, and that's something if they're gonna do it and I don't want them to do it cause I totally should do it.

SPEAKER 2: You know, that will be, their decision. All right, we coming down the home stretch, you're, you're in the process, of writing a book, you know, kind of talk about is it as difficult as you imagine? Is it not as difficult as you imagine some of the hiccups where you are, in the process? How close is it to, completion? Anything you wanna share along the book, being an actor?

SPEAKER 2: Yeah.

SPEAKER 6: So I talked a little bit about my attic, fine Friday series and I thought, man, this would be awesome if I just compiled all the best ones into a book. And, what I've done is not just tell the stories of the attic lines, but kind of what was happening in the era, not only of the card, but also when the find happened. So, for instance, spoiler, there's gonna be a Mr Mint chapter in there or two.

SPEAKER 6: And so I talk a little bit about who Mr Mint was. What's the importance of the 1952 set? What was happening in the hobby in the, in the mid 19 eighties?

SPEAKER 6: And, also the cards themselves, of course, and, and the story behind the find, I had the book, have the book just about done. And I had a hiccup with, some, some photo rights that I was requesting from somebody. And, I lost momentum. I lost motivation over this.

SPEAKER 6: And so I haven't done anything in it for quite a few weeks now, which is frustrating. But yesterday I was out mowing the lawn and I wasn't listening to any music while I mowed the lawn. I do my best thinking when mowing the lawn, which is weird. I know and I, I got myself all pumped up to get back into it yesterday.

SPEAKER 6: So hopefully that translates to some good work, getting it polished up and published very, very soon which I'm excited about. I've got to make some, some edits and I've got to add another four or five chapters, but hopefully, we'll have that out there soon that.

SPEAKER 2: Hiccup you mentioned with, with photo rights, is that something you think will be resolved? There will be a situation where, you know what, I just won't be able to use that particular photo and we'll just do the best, you know, with the ingredients we can.

SPEAKER 6: Great question. I have changed my photo strategy because of it. I have said I'm just not going to use anything but photos of cards for this. So, except in a very small number of photographs that I received permission from the original source.

SPEAKER 6: But I had a large source of photos tell me. No.

SPEAKER 2: Ok. Well, you know, I like photos.

SPEAKER 2: But, you know, the, the, the written word is if that's interesting, you know, like you said, you can kind of work around that, put pictures of the cards which are sort of, I'm assuming a public domain, and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER 2: Close enough, you know, well, you know, and, it was, was writing a book, something you, like, always sort of wanted to do or did it just kind of with the attic finds that it just kind of dawn on you then? Like, where, you know, was it some an ambition of yours as a younger version of your.

SPEAKER 6: I've always been a writer and I, I've written a couple of novels that I just never did anything with because I never had any confidence in my fiction writing. But I was always a good, nonfiction writer. And so this was, gave me the perfect opportunity to share that and hopefully other people agree and it's not just, not just my opinion. So we'll see.

SPEAKER 2: That and then maybe you'll go back to those, those fi, after publishing this, you can always go back to those fiction works and maybe, you know, release them then, or make a few changes you deem necessary and, and, and get those out there, you, you know, so you never know. You never know.

SPEAKER 2: Well, I'm, I'm glad to finally have you on. Again, I appreciate your time, look forward it. You said the books quote, you know, in, in sort of that home stretch. So hopefully, myself and others will see that soon. Continued success, continued success with the new show, with, with, with Chris.

SPEAKER 2: And speaking of that, give out, as I let every guest do at the ad, give out all that information where they can catch you on YouTube or Social Media is anything you want to share?

SPEAKER 6: Yeah. So if you just go to YouTube or to Instagram or Twitter, just search for junk wax hero, I think on Twitter, I'm junk wax hero 79 since my year of birth. Don't confuse me with junk wax heroes because that's another Twitter user who's much more active and better at Twitter than I am.

SPEAKER 6: But I share cars on Instagram and my, most of my stuff is on YouTube.

SPEAKER 2: No doubt, awesome stuff. And, and like you said, like you said, you've got the collector frame of mind. That's something you enjoy. I think, I think a lot of people do. I, I try to mix it all up. But you know, I think, as I always state whether you're a dealer or not a dealer, You know, we all start as collectors, right?

SPEAKER 2: That first pack usually usually as a kid, not, not 100% of the time. But, usually as a kid you, we've all started as a collector and then it turned into whatever else it, it turns into. So that's always something we can point to our roots no matter what part of the hobby you're in at the moment.

SPEAKER 2: And, you have to start there and, I think people like to, to go back to that and those that are still are even, even, probably are more so. So, you don't need me to tell you keep, keep up the good work and, get that book out there and for the masses to see it.

SPEAKER 6: I appreciate it. John, thanks for having me on. This was a blast.

SPEAKER 2: Same, I feel the same. Thanks, Mike.

SPEAKER 2: Good to catch up with Mike C there. Check out what he's doing on YouTube, his new show, like I said, in the open, and in the intro, you know, glad, glad he's part of the hobby hotline, team and, and bringing his perspective to that and, like I said, had some fun in Chicago and, and look forward to even getting to know him better. As time goes on. So, again, thanks to Mike C.

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