Florida Boys

Transcript

Speaker: I'm Mark McBride. And I'm Steve Brown. Welcome to Season 2 of the Yo-Yo Player Podcast, where two dusty old graybeards grab their friends and reminisce about the 1999 Fiend Magazine Yo-Yo Tour.

Speaker: In this episode... Right about now, the Florida boys found themselves in a heap of trouble.

Speaker: Hell, and I don't know how much of this you know, I guess it's 15 years later we could actually say it, But as you were as you had pointed out, Warped Tour was so much in line with the persona of Steve Brown, capital S, capital B, you know yeah that everybody thought this was the Steve Brown Tour. Now, yeah we knew that, Greg and I knew this, we're not fucking dumb. Right.

Speaker: And you know, I love you. And even back then I did. And so I was like, we got to make sure that Steve gets on this tour. We cut Losey. And Losey had no money. And I'm sure they didn't. And I'm sure they didn't see the point of it.

Speaker: I'm sure that they, i don't i know. I think that they saw the point of it. I thought that that like they like Jack and Losey, he was, he was, he was a sharp guy. Yeah. I'm sure Jack did. I'm sure Gil was.

Speaker: Yeah. And so we basically cut Losey. a huge deal. Yeah. Like we charged low C like man, maybe even as low as like a quarter to a third, what we caught charged all the other companies to put somebody on there to get Steve Brown on that tour.

Speaker: Yep. So you got to give him a lot of credit to Greg for that one. I mean, i I, I mean, there's, it's a, I think you, it it was only like a few years ago that you told me this, like, I didn't know.

Speaker: Cause again, like I was just there as a demonstrator. This was so early on in my demonstrator career. I mean, this is the first company that I worked as a demonstrator for after like working for Greg, like that was it. You know, this is like, I think it might've been this podcast that you found that out.

Speaker: Yeah, actually I think it, I think it was, I think it was just last year and you told me about it ah while we were recording an episode. Um, But so i I had no sense of any of this stuff. And I know you know also didn't care. i didn't give a shit. You know what I mean? he's like he's yeah Like I was just getting started on all this and all I wanted to do was figure out how to yo-yo like 17 hours a day and have somebody pay my bills.

Speaker: That was all I cared about. Like I was i was that like fucking single-minded about all of this.

Speaker: the center hub, right? Like you and Steve were kind ah the glue of the whole team. Steve was definitely our jester in chief, right? Like connection to a lot of shenanigans and fun.

Speaker: I really hope you put that on a business card, Steve Brown. Yeah, fully. well Yeah, no, in hindsight, ah you know, Steve was just Steve, you know, like big loud mouth and some skills and some talent. And, you know, its great for, you know, it's a full of novel skills and and witty repartee and fun facts and interesting stories. And, you know, that's Steve and Steve.

Speaker: But there's what there' is one there's one story that I had distinctly remember from you. Yeah. And I'm going to tell this as if Steve's not here and awkwardly look over at him.

Speaker: And so so I, again, have known Steve, even at this point, I'd known him for years kind of thing. we'd We'd had a lot of history and everything like that. And and at some point...

Speaker: I remember being in the back of the bus and we were all shooting the shit and Steve, who was, you know, inclined to telling his tales type, you know, just whining in some bullshit, yeah look you know, like doing his shit. and i And I'm used to this stuff. I'm like, oh, motherfucker.

Speaker: And then you chimed in and you said, have you guys ever noticed that you'll be like listening to Steve tell a story? and you're like, wait a second. I was there for that.

Speaker: That's not how that happened. And I went, yes, it's not me.

Speaker: I have been known to spin a yarn or two. is so but effect Yeah. You know, I do. jewish wish a little youre better You're better now, but man, when you were young, oh shit, man. I remember, I remember being like the one that killed to embarrass you amongst like friends.

Speaker: the The killer though, where i really wrote you off, Steve, was, Lucie, do you tell the story about being in Austin, Texas and seeing Junior Brown playing like as a busker?

Speaker: And you going, wait a second. that guy's junior Brown. and And I, you know, after I tipped him a dollar and listened to a play, and i was like, wait, you're junior Brown and junior Brown goes, just keep on moving boy.

Speaker: Wow. That was really cool. And here you tell that story. And I went motherfucker. That was Arlo story that happened to Arlo. And I was there when Arlo told you and me that fucking story. And then you just retold it as your story.

Speaker: Fuck you. was going to say, while you were telling that, I'm like, that never happened to me. That happened to Arlo. Yeah, you once told that story. First person. No. I swear you did.

Speaker: I swear you did. I would chalk it up to Steve's just a natural empath, right? So he probably really just like- He's so into it. Like he heard the story and it was as though he has experienced it himself.

Speaker: And then, you know, a few months later down the line, you know, years down the line, you got a few in you you're telling it, and it's like it happened to you, you know?

Speaker: I think it's more likely that I was not clear at the beginning of the story that it wasn't mine. And then as I was telling it, I was just trying to like tell it as well as possible. Yeah. Cause I called bullshit on you and you went, fuck you, man. Well, that's, I mean, that's ah that's a hundred percent. Yeah. That's a hundred percent in Arlo story. Cause when the fuck would I even be walking around in Texas? Exactly. You were telling it to somebody that was not us and I was next to you and I'm just like, dude, that was fucking Arlo. And you're like, fuck you, man.

Speaker: the point where you slightly gaslighted me. You were like, no man, that was fucking me. I'm like, no, man, I was with Arlo when he told us that story.

Speaker: What was wrong with me? Well, you were a poet, and you you know poets get some license. I was. I mean, that's the other thing, though, is that like I also had no shortage of my own fucking stories. So I'm really confused as to why I would fucking ever care about telling somebody else's. Because, I i mean, I have no shortage. Like, I've done so many dumb, ridiculous, hilarious, weird fucking things, even by that point. I mean, I was still, so I mean, I was, what, 25, 26 on Tour?

Speaker: on warp tour and man yeah we were yeah We were about 24. Yeah, I already had some good fucking stories at that point. so like So you got no excuses for your decision making, by the way.

Speaker: Your frontal lobes were pretty much ah fully fully formed by that point. so yeah we were We were fully formed adults. yeah i I have no recollection of this, but I also sadly do not doubt it.

Speaker: And I think Henry's was like a late ad, if I remember correctly. I feel like a lot of the other manufacturers were already lined up and Greg had them ready to go. And and Henry's was kind of like, you know, maybe the sixth or seventh that had come on board. Does that does that sound right to you, Steve?

Speaker: Uh, you know, so here's the funny thing. It's funny that you asked me this because Mark and I have been talking about this a lot. I had nothing to do with organizing this tour, but I somehow became like the, the center linchpin of it. Mark is actually the one who essentially concepted the whole thing, originally pitched it purely to Omega to just get them on warp tour. They blew him off. And then he went to Greg with it and was like, Hey, I've got this idea.

Speaker: And then he and Greg cooked up the idea of having multiple manufacturers doing it. So I literally, I'm learning all of this stuff myself as Mark and I are doing all these interviews.

Speaker: Yeah. I mean, um I think, I think it's, it's difficult for a lot of people to make the connection as to why yo-yo manufacturers would want to be on this tour. Right. And I think, um I think, you know somebody like Greg probably did a great job of,

Speaker: selling, selling these companies on the vision and the opportunity. And, um, so I am continuously amazed that looking back and Steve and I've talked about this plenty of times. We've talked about it a lot. Then we've talked about it many times since where it's like, these companies sell a product that went to 12 16 year old boys.

Speaker: Every fucking yo-yo contest is 12 to 16 year old boys. It's that's all that it is. And somehow they did not think that 12 to 16 year old boys were instant interested in things like rock and roll or girls.

Speaker: It was, it was actually, it's kind of remarkable. And like, you know, Mark has given me a lot of like sort of background on like how, you know, putting the whole thing together. And it is remarkable to me how resistant all of these yo-yo companies were to this. Like they really had to be convinced and sold. And it was one of those things where I was like, don't any of you know what your demographic likes besides yo-yos? Like, have you done any of that kind of, of work? Have you done any sort of like market research as to like what 14 to 16 year old boys do besides yo-yo? It was yeah it was really kind of amazing. like To me, like I looked at it, i was like, oh this is this is perfect. like

Speaker: The people who like yo-yos 100% would like Warped Tour. You know what i mean? like This is an easy, easy jump. But yo-yo companies are really, they were all really, really hesitant. And they were all really cautious and slow to get on board. And then even once they got on board, they didn't understand it very well.

Speaker: You convinced the companies to buy in so not they're not goingnna be left behind, that they're going to jump on this tour. I presented things in such a way that if they felt that way, that's what they would do. I knew I needed to have, I think, I had one more demonstrator than I needed, which was fine. And ah ah one more company than I needed, which was fine. um And there was a lot of stuff I just didn't know about, like,

Speaker: You know, we could have done it cheaper if we figured out a way to run our own food or not use the bus and have our own vehicle. I mean, with the number of people we had, we probably could have gotten a much smaller sleep vehicle, ah paid for a driver and been ahead of the game and not use the van's equipment.

Speaker: We could have done what what um the folks at ah Pettywise did and grill their own food outside their bus every night.

Speaker: Oh, no. They grilled it for everybody. We've talked about the... yeah Well, I remember... i so So the tour starts. We get everything signed. I've got everything shipped where I need to ship it.

Speaker: There was one expense that I wasn't expecting. Shipping the tents cost... I should have the tents shipped directly from the factory, but I didn't, the printed tents. And they were shipped to Tallahassee and then we shipped them out. And I didn't have a good deal with UPS. So there went like 500 bucks to get that and the other starting equipment there. damn Because we had to get a sound system there and some other stuff, as I remember. I don't remember what happened to the sound system. I think I rented it.

Speaker: But um I didn't end up with it, so I think I rented it. um But the Vans people gave me lots of contacts of who to buy stuff off. And I think they were all getting cutbacks because they cutbacks because were kickbacks because they were they were not the cheapest place. But I did not know that at the time.

Speaker: I'm much better now. I learned so much. You go into one of these projects... And the best you can hope for is not the knowledge, but the not enough knowledge to ask the questions to get the answers you need. You don't need the knowledge. You need to know how to ask the questions. That's actually something I said to Lau before the tour. i said, you're going to go out not knowing what you're doing and you'll never know what you're doing, but you'll know the questions to ask to find out what you need to do. And he came back and he said, Greg, I thought about that every day and you were absolutely right.

Speaker: Yeah. okay. So we were we signed on, we signed the check and. so now Okay. So let's, let's get the, let's get the roster clearly here. So we had. So the cast of characters, the cast of characters. So Mark McBride was on tour for Duncan Fiend magazine and as tour manager.

Speaker: uh and partly as tour manager lao all of us was on tour as official tour manager um because you had too much other shit going on and we needed somebody who could just be focused on that yeah the challenge with lao which we'll uh we'll get into is that lao's brought on as tour manager but i had just basically done too much leading into it because it was not a early swap out. It was a late slop swap out.

Speaker: So I had done a lot of the work. So you had done pretty much all the legwork leading up to it and weren't in a position where you could easily hand off tour managing to somebody who was not up to speed.

Speaker: Yeah. And then on top of it, looking back, like I was, I was not a good manager like as far as i really yeah it was like the setup didn't the setup did not like line us up very well and i was not for lack of a better word mature enough to really understand the roles and you know give him the space to be that tour manager well so that was a foggy thing yeah we were young and dumb we were really young and to this point are the bulk of our experience in what does it look like

Speaker: what does a manager look like had come from Greg and Greg was very much that kind of manager who was like, it's easier for me to just do it myself than to stop and explain this to you. Yeah.

Speaker: And you and I, like you and I took that to heart, like real early on. And it's, I've spent years trying to like unlearn that because it's only, it's only sustainable to a point.

Speaker: No, it is. And I don't want to blame Greg completely because like at that point I was in film school and I remember thinking about the fact that I was the only person in film school who wo who read like leadership books. Like I had read like Art of War and a couple of these things. And I even by the time I was a senior started to notice that everybody else was – bad at, you know, what I now know is micromanaging and all that stuff.

Speaker: But I was, so again, we're talking about, we're talking about a time in history where I was just starting to figure out that this was a thing. yeah And so, so I definitely like say like that, that led to some stuff that looking back, like, man, I, Lao owes me definitely a few kicks in the nuts for some, for the, for, so for the way that I behave.

Speaker: I remember Lau, he was just, ah who's worked at Infinite Illusions, did some yo-yos. He was cool. you know We hung out and got along fine, but he just was kind of a low-key, kind of low-key hippie type with the long hair.

Speaker: Let's start at the beginning, man. How did you get scooped into like Infinite Illusions, Greg, and that whole scene? Sure. So 95, probably I started juggling my uncle juggled some in college.

Speaker: Um, and, uh, that led me over to lofty pursuits, which was the local storefront for yo-yo guy and infinite illusions. Right. And Steve was working there at the time. So I pop in there and, you know, kind of, you know, pulled tricks off of him here and there. I was really doing juggling stuff. Not, um, not yo-yo at the time, but so I got really into that. And, um, Steve, I guess moved on at some point, I think, God, your wife required you to have, uh,

Speaker: ah health insurance, if I remember correctly. Was that ah that the story? Yeah. Well, what happened is that was when I started officially, i was working for Team Losi and they just had me on retainer.

Speaker: And so I was still like pulling shifts a little bit for Greg kind of on the side. And then once I started working for Duncan, like I was actually ah i was actually getting like health insurance.

Speaker: which was kind of amazing. got I think you initially worked at a bookstore as if I remember correctly when you first got Lofty. Is that right? At any given moment I had like four jobs like constantly. Yeah. I guess the point of the story was Steve had left Lofty and I was working at a sandwich shop right, know, right across the parking lot.

Speaker: And so Greg offered me a job. So I started working over at the storefront. It was, it was in, it was ah the December of 1997.

Speaker: and yo-yos were fucking exploding, right? That was the beginning of the boom. And I come into what I thought was a storefront, right? Those little kites and yo-yos and dogs and shit. Oh, hold I'm going to stop you. I'm to stop you right there. If you got the job in December 97, then you replaced me.

Speaker: That's when I left. Oh, yeah. so yeah yeah you So you replaced, you like when I left, Greg needed great need to replace me. And so you got my job. you I guess you were more back of the house. I didn't really know you very much, right? Yeah. no that was even it got me before that Well, that was probably, i think I started, i probably left right around the same time because 97 is when I got married to my first wife. And then 98 was when, ah 98 Prim Nevada Worlds. So that was in August. That was when I started working for Team Losi.

Speaker: So you kicked me in probably right as I was like on my way out. so that yeah endeded prem I vended at Prim for Greg. Yeah, I guess so. yeah well so anyway anyways got That wasn't me then. I got you. So there was a little overlap. You and I were there for a little bit at the same time. Yeah. well So i I started working there.

Speaker: And I just I was i was only in the storefront ever. Right. So then i was going to get to the back of the house and I'm walking around. He's like these fucking like long rectangular pink slips with a yo yo or two and some string fucking everywhere.

Speaker: i mean, any place you could put one, there was one leading up to Christmas. Right. I mean, was blowing up hard. and i remember great i remember Greg ah gave me a sign. He was like, I want you to go through and inventory all the yo yo's in the back of the house.

Speaker: you know I need a count. I need a count of all the yo-yos. I don't fucking know shit about yo-yos. And I'm like trying to, and they're everywhere. and Things are so scattered and it's chaos. you Things are coming in constantly and there's stacks. and i I'm like trying get to get this thing accurate. Like I'm really trying hard to get it. It's like my first task. You know, I'm trying so hard to like get the count right, but I find more over here and more over there. And and look maybe a year later he told me, oh, I was just getting to do that to familiarize yourself.

Speaker: with yeah fuck god I mean, it was a pretty good idea, kind of, but it stressed me out, you know? But anyway, so I did that. What a wax on, wax off move. Yeah, I mean, it was very Greg in retrospect, you know? But, uh, like, you know, just give me a job to fucking waste much of my time stressing me out for fucking nothing. But anyway, so I, uh, I did that. I love, you know, heart type to Greg, you know, but, um, so I, so I worked for him and then, um, yo-yos just kept on exploding. So I took it on myself to really learn yo-yo. So I sat with the old Dale Oliver videos, you know, just learning fucking mounts, mountain this, mountain that, you know, and then, um,

Speaker: and then um I ended up being coming the manager of the storefront, the local store for lofty pursuits. I got that. No, was that when lofty was at Lake Ella?

Speaker: Uh, what is that? What was that dark street? The original Tharp street. I wasn't the manager at that point. But when I moved over, I became the official manager. So when it got to Lake Ella. Yeah. And it just kept on getting bigger and bigger. So I was doing Southeast Regional with Greg and helping to run that. I was running a yo-yo club that got huge. I remember I had a ah kind of the end of it before Warped Tour. I had like a competition. I was having a competition a month for I think probably a year leading into Warped Tour.

Speaker: And that last month, 100 people showed up for a little to the local competition, man. It's just me. I'm just me running the show, man. Like it was blown up hard. So all that was kind of going on. and i was running that. I was running the local juggling club in Tallahassee.

Speaker: And then I guess leading up to Warped Tour, um Greg needed somebody to kind of be the manager on the tour. you know I wasn't at the skill level that you guys were at. you know i so I was an okay player, but I wasn't i wasn't that deep into it.

Speaker: Yeah, we were saying like I had been putting the the tour together with Greg, but then Duncan needed a guy. So it was like, well, we'll peel it'll be it's easier – it's easier to replace the tour manager than a demonstrator.

Speaker: so we'll jump you over there and then we'll pull you on. Now, what did Greg tell you as far as like, what was his you know what was his sales pitch set up for getting you on the tour? well i I mean, I was, you know, i was kind of, you know, since high school kind of raised on punk and metal, man. So you didn't have to sell me on it. You know, was like, you want to sell me a fucking war trip for six weeks? Do what?

Speaker: Backstage pass. I was like, fuck yeah, sign me up, man. didn't have to sell me on it at all. At all, you know. It was like, yeah, i mean, that was basically it. He was like, i need somebody to kind of be on there to run the show, to connect with all the local. think a big part of it was one of one of the things that I got said I didn't do it all that well was there was we were going contacts in most cities. Right.

Speaker: So whatever the the local store was or whatever. So I was supposed to make contact with those people ahead of time and then kind of, you know, smooth them and blah, blah, blah, do something. And then also kind of, you know, you know organize you Rugrats. And in the end, i mean, I did all that stuff, but um I probably could have done the Men in Giro part a little bit better. i don't know. i i was i was also I was also demonstrating with you guys on the stage. I probably could have done less of that. I probably could have been at the at our booth a little less and doing some more of the behind the scenes stuff a little more, i guess, in retrospect, you know.

Speaker: Okay, so you've now, you've you've you've interrupted this like four times now. So let's just get through the cast of characters. Thank you. All right. All right. We've got Lau.

Speaker: So everybody's all signed on. So we've got ah tour manager is Lau. Yes. Duncan demonstrator is slash tour correspondent for Fiend Magazine is you, Bart McBride. That is correct.

Speaker: We've got me on the tour by the skin of my teeth for Team Losey. Yes. Yomega has actually sent two demonstrators, one for the first leg of the tour and then one who's going to swap out for the second leg. Starting the tour for Yomega will be Mr. Rick Wyatt and ending the tour for Yomega will be Chris Siozik.

Speaker: Yes. For Henry's Yo-Yos, we have Nick Vandersky. For BC What's Next slash Tom Kuhn, we have Jason Tracy. And for Playmax, we have Julia Shikolshai.

Speaker: Correct. That is the cast of characters. That is the full cast of characters. Not everyone made it to the end of this tour.

Speaker: Oh, shit. Yeah.

Speaker: Going into it, we did not understand that there would be casualties for such a thing, but there were.

Speaker: and we'll get into that later.