Wow, that is some cool stuff I'm gonna keep it on this station or this channel, whatever they call this is a preview aye? aye? I'm gonna pretend I'm from Canada preview aye? are you doing aye? alright on today's show, ladies and gentlemen and shape shifting aliens that will not tell us you who you are. We know who you are... not really anyway, that's really off target. Today I'm going to talk about my favorite thing in the world coffee. And I'm going to talk to you who are some of my friends that are in this podcast, Jim Norris Randy Olinger Chris "Chango" Quinn. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. And then and then you could tell that was me. couldn't you? I'm usually better at that. How about this? That was real. Matt and Amanda, my friends man, Amanda, married awesome, great people about my balloon. This podcast is all about the balloon, advertising balloon. And some crazy stories in my short lived career as a balloonist flyer with a billionaire as a boss didn't go over quite well with me, but tune in, folks. And let's see where this takes us. A second podcast? on the same day? That's some crazy stuff, folks. Peace and love to all! Ka Kaw! Ka Kaw! I may need help folks. But I ain't getting it. This podcast is dedicated to you. Hello, super cool, awesome, magnificent humans of Earth. This is Benny Mailman's Podcast 42, and I am you have guessed it Benny Mailman. If it had been somebody else, I would have jumped in and directed you or redirected you unless of course, the person who was imitating me falsely, maybe they were pretty good. And you're like, wow, I still want to listen to Benny Mailman. I'm gonna listen to this guy or woman first. If it was a woman speaking then I would really have to question whether you have been listening to my podcast. Because one thing about my voice is definitely a dude speaking Well, anyway, I already did one podcast a few days ago, but I'm gonna tell you something. I did not have a lot of energy. I told you in that podcast, which probably precedes this podcast. I am guessing. I'm not guessing. I know. It will precede this podcast. I was burned out man. And I think I was burned out through yesterday, one week of recovery from the intense editing and adding to book two and getting that off to my editor burned out man the whole week. Not a lot of energy. And I understand I would guess that there are some people out there who like five year olds have this incredible amount of creative energy. They can keep going and going and going but I would imagine musicians I don't know. I haven't talked to a lot of people. But you need to have a boundless amount of energy for the time you are working on something. So I would guess that musicians have a boundless amount of energy, boundless, endless boundaryless, boundless, whatever you want to put in there for that period of time that they're working on their art to get out an album to get out a book to get out whatever it is that you spend quite a bit of time on that and intense energies that leave you a little bit hollow when you're done. Now, I know that hollow feeling from working I did the bike taxi for many years. I used to work Coachella, those were 13 hour days, three days in a row, three weekends in a row in Denver, Colorado. I used to work Friday and Saturday nights and Saturday night you were done probably around three got to bed around four, then during the National Football League season, you would have to get up around 10 o'clock. Not a lot of sleep, your body exhausted and work the Denver Broncos game and that would be devastating on the body. And I remember that hollow feeling on Monday, I would call it coma Monday. My apologies to anyone listening that is currently in a coma. I did not mean to offend you. This is definitely an American thing apologizing for everything. Hey, sorry, I breathed your air. That hollow feeling. For me, it comes with writing and editing. And I'll tell you when I did my first book when I got through the process of writing and was finally getting it out there and finally found a publisher that I that I thought would do justice for me. And they did not 100%. But I don't believe anything in this world is going to be 100%. So if you can get somebody around 85% of what your hopes are. I think that's pretty good. And they did a pretty good job. There are things I did not like in certain areas I did not like but they were they were good overall they were when I handed them my book. I figured Wow, that's it. I was incredibly wrong. They're like, Okay, well, you're going to do the hardcover. So we need information, we need you to write things down for the inside flap on the front cover, and the back cover, we need you to write information about the book and about the author on the back cover. And we need your input on the cover. And it's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm paying money and somebody else. The reality being not a lot of people on there and knew anything about me. So if I was going to write something about me, it probably had to come from me. So there was a lot more work. And I remember that being very intense, all the way up to the publication and I was exhausted mentally I was pushed to the parameters pushed to the edges of sanity pushed into the gray area of insanity. Just looking for better ways to say that but it was tiring. So now I have all this energy a lot more energy mental might be because I just drink my morning coffee from my lovely wife, Vicheka, who makes and I'm not just saying this because she's my wife but it is the best coffee I have ever had. Bardos coffee in Denver, Colorado also fantastic. I remember drinking an iced milk I would go to Bardos on South Broadway and drink the iced mocha and I would have enough energy to scale Mount Everest. I felt like I could fly then let's talk about coffee. I'm going off topic now. Now that we're on coffee, let's talk about coffee, the Gypsy House cafe. Also in Denver, Colorado. I lived there for a while and I partook in many of the coffee houses there. The Gypsy house cafe which used to be on 13th 13th and around I want to say Ogden Corona somewhere in that area. Amazing atmosphere. Very bohemian. Very cool. I remember the mother which would be I guess, think she owned the entire place. But I don't want to confirm that because her daughters were there too. So maybe they owned it and she worked there. Maybe she owned it and they all co owned it. I'm really not sure on that. But she was not a fan favorite of everybody that came into her place but she loved me. And she would talk to me and she always had a big smile on her face and very direct, very direct woman. And I love that about her. My nephew Alex met her when he came up and he started laughing when we laughed and said Wow, she is Ah, an amazing energy. And I said Yes, she is. She really is. She had told me a story. She had told me the story about how she was on the floor cleaning one day scrubbing or, and they were open for business. But she did not hear the door open. And she was she looked up and here was this young man. And this will not be entirely foreign to people living in Denver to see somebody with a lot of tattoos and piercings, very artistic type of people very self expressionist. She looked up she saw this young man full of tattoos, but she's telling the story. It's like she had just seen the devil himself. And she looked at She goes, I looked at the young man, and I see you are the devil. And I know she said it because she was that strong energy of a woman. She looked at this young man and said, You are the devil. I will give you your coffee, but don't ever come back. And she told me that story. And I'm like, I love you. such an amazing woman, such an amazing woman. And her daughter's the same and they you could go into the Gypsy house cafe and they had several couches in there that were very comfortable on old couches. So it made it really feel like home like a home away from home in Denver. I always lived by myself. So I loved going to the coffee house, they would have people come in and do slam poetry. I went there once with my friend Eden, she took me there and quite amazing to listen to that and people's deep feelings and strong feelings and it gets to for me, it gets to be a little much after a while I can go down that road. I could get really vocal, but what I have noticed is that if I go down that road, it's hard to get off that road and so I have through my 51 years of existence I have learned just to stay off the road. If you go on that road, some shits gonna happen. And for a lot of people they would love it. They would love the true spoken from the heart words, but I am strongly under the impression that this world needs less shouting less demanding less anger and more happiness. Are there things to be outraged about on this earth? Oh, yeah. But I don't know how I often sit back and go well, how did all these people get into power? How did the evil rise to the top when the United States have senators receiving tons of money to be from lobbyists in order to vote that's extreme man. That's extremely wrong. Anyway, I don't again, I'm getting on that road. Now. I'm getting off that road because I know I don't want to go down that road. I really don't Gypsy house cafe super awesome. Great used to just sit there and eavesdrop on people's conversations and they were always spiritual. And sometimes people would do readings for other people in there. Do tarot cards, loved it, absolutely loved it. Bardos, superstrong mochas loved sitting that loved meeting friends there and just sitting down and it was not always easy to find a place to sit in there. And then if you needed to climb a mountain bigger than Mount Everest, if you were going to the moon, you might want to stop down and see Jim Norris at Mutiny Cafe. Jim is a I met Jim, actually through my great friend Randy Olinger and Chris Quinn "Chango". And he Jim and I. This is a unique friendship because I never really knew him that well never hung out with them. We didn't travel in a lot in the same circles. But when I would go see my friend Randy play, I would get a cup of coffee. And Jim made these coffees from coffee. So the What I mean is the ice cubes were coffee. That's what I meant to say. Even the ice cubes were frozen cubes of coffee so that when they melted it was more coffee. I call him in my book called Jim Norris, the witch doctor of coffee because it will summon spirits. If you were not in the mood to do anything, you went from being apathetic to swimming across the Arkansas River, right? coffee, coffee, coffee, I love coffee. And those are my three favorite places again for those of you who will visit Denver Gypsy house cafe, which I believe now is on South Broadway also Gypsy Tea House cafe I hope and pray that they are still open. When I go back to visit Bardos coffee house, South Broadway Mutiny Cafe, oh, yeah, books all kinds of books there. And they do shows and music. And I hope to actually do a book reading when I am back in the US at Mutiny. And that will be quite an exciting place for me. I remember when I was still writing the book and editing the book, I sat down and just did a little bit inside mutiny cafe. I am a huge I'm all about energy, I understand the world through energy. And it makes a lot more sense to me even money. Money is energy. If you really like somebody's service and you tip them. That's energy. You're saying here is my energy for your awesomeness. If you do not tip someone, also energy when you pay your bills, energy, some of that should be thankful when bills come due, as I often did for a long time, I used to be upset at the belts, don't be upset at the bills be appreciative of what those bills brought to you whether you're paying for music, Okay, wow, that gave you awesome music for the month television agreed need to pay for the television. Sometimes does it seem to be a bit too much. Of course, of course it does. But we can always choose to be appreciative or upset, positive or negative. And you might as well be positive. Because if you're negative, nothing changes, you still have to pay the bills and you're angry. So why not Be positive, be thankful for the services granted to you from that money. So getting back to where I was energy, you know, me, Benny Mailman bouncing around going down the rabbit hole. I don't even know where I started. But I know I'm in this rabbit hole. And I just go forward, why I'm too big to go backwards. Not good at going backwards. Really good at going forward. I sat in the Mutiny Cafe and wrote part of my book and edited part of my book in that cafe, so that I would have the energy from there. Because I always felt the great energy from Jim, he always had this smile. I always felt like Jim Norris was when you would see Tom Waits appear in a movie as a cameo. And he would have a couple lines and then he would disappear, usually being the voice of evil. So I don't mean to say that Jim was the voice of evil, quite the opposite. Jim was that person who was a cameo in my my life's movie, and he just had the smile, and he never never charged me for a coffee. And of course, I would tip him Maybe he knew that. Maybe he knew I was going to tip them three or $4. Anyway, I have just never been someone who probably learned it from my parents, I've just never been someone to withhold money where money should go like if it's supposed to flow somewhere, let it flow, let it go. I have always found that when I release something of value to me, whether it's money or an object that I've held on to for a long time, and you have that feeling that you don't want to let that go. But you give it away as a gift and express to that person the importance of that object to you, whatever it may represent in your life, I have found that it is this grand feeling this grand feeling of oneness when you release something to somebody you are giving of yourself and you are also releasing that and allowing yourself to grow. Okay, so I have gone down the coffee path and went in the coffee rabbit hole, which it's very easy for me to do. I love coffee. I hope I get sponsored by a Coffee Company for my book at some point or I get to do coffee commercials or represent a coffee brand and I can wear that coffee brand t shirt everywhere. That would be that would be a idyllic, idyllic there's a word what I wanted to do when I was in the previous podcast, I did not really give a story why if I don't really want to tell stories if I don't have the energy to tell them because that's where a lot of the action and fun and excitement comes from is the voicing of that story. So I'm going to tell you a story right now that you have no idea you have no idea because I've never mentioned this before my taxi story. No lot of great bike taxi stories to come but not right now. Marine Corps story Marine Corps story boot camp Okinawa going over to the Philippines or going over to Korea. No, no, not yet. Not yet. Not today, folks. Today I have something special for you. Today I am going to tell you the story of the advertising balloon and the billionaire the billionaire I don't remember his name, but he was billionaire. So let's cut straight to the story. I get a call one day from my great friend Amanda, married to my great friend, Matt. Awesome living in Las Vegas. I was living in Las Vegas at the time, that would put the timeframe somewhere between 2001 and 2003. Somewhere in there. I don't remember the exact dates of the store, Amanda says, Hey, do you want some extra money? And I said, Hey, of course, what do you have in mind? And she said, my friend from LA called me and said that there is a man billionaire that wants to put these balloons up advertising balloons in Las Vegas. And she says, Do you know what an advertising balloon is? I said, Yes, I've seen them. Advertising stuff in the sky from afar. You can see them for ever hyperbole, you cannot see them for forever. That's not even the right word from wherever, maybe would be better. And I said, Yes, I will do that. Amanda said there will be two balloons, and you will get paid for each balloon. I think it was $100 a week. And I said Oh great. That'll be a great supplement to my bike taxi money. So I remember the company was gateway computer gateway on I still remember the street Stephanie out in Henderson, out in Henderson, Nevada, the gateway computer store off of sunset and Stephanie. And then there was another gateway computer store way out towards Lone Mountain. I forget the streets out there. I want to say Cheyenne, but I'm probably wrong. Close to Cheyenne buffalo somewhere in there. I said sure. That sounds like a great idea. Okay. And Amanda was done, man. Amanda's out. Here's the information. I meet with the billionaire. I remember I sat with him in a five. One of those five cent diners right next to the gateway computer place. This diner had full on neon like this diner glowed in the dark red, green, yellow. It was full on neon. I sat with a billionaire. And he was dressed quite normally pants. Okay, obviously, I meant to say bluejeans. He had pants on folks. Can you believe it? He did not show up in his underwear. This billionaire was wearing pants. Um, we've I'm not gonna edit that out towards wearing blue jeans and a nice shirt. But I remember his shoes look like something from another planet. And I figured them to be somewhere in the area of probably million dollar shoes. I don't know. That is not my world. I have zero understanding of wealth. Trust me. Really nice guy told me Hey, we need to keep these in the air. And I pay you$100 a week for each balloon right now we're starting out with two. And I'm like, wow, an extra $200 a week. That would be awesome. Put these balloons up in the air and make sure that they stay in the air. That cannot be that difficult. Wrong! Wrong answer. So what I do to my students when they have a wrong answer. And they seem they seem to love it. I'm not going to go down the student rabbit hole right now. That's another rabbit hole. Let's stick with the balloon dude. So we go over and we go on to the roof. We go through the building Hi, gateway employees. How are you doing? Everyone's in their nice little polo shirts and helping customers. And we climb a ladder in the back and go onto the roof. And he shows me okay. Over here. If anybody from Henderson Nevada is listening, you know that there are massive power lines right next to the building. I mean, massive huge power lines. And like a lot of them. So I said okay, here's the rope that we use the rope was actually a plug, you plug the rope in. And that lit the light inside the balloon so that you could see it for ever or from wherever and we had to make the rope shorter because of the power lines. So he showed me how to measure it out. Then we went down and there were these big, big there are these helium containers. Like you see if you were to go somewhere and see them blowing up helium balloons, those big metal canisters, those tanks, that's the word I'm looking for those tanks. There are about four of them. And he opened this box and here's this balloon and to cut the story a little bit short we blew up the balloon took a while this thing was bigger than a high on day was bigger than a car and then we put on the tail fins on this thing. And we slowly let it up into the air and it was a thing of beauty folks. There was this huge, bigger than a high and a smaller than a matte truck but not by much in the air advertising for gateway their logo. Everything looked awesome. straight up in the air, no wind beautiful Went to the next door did that store, he explained to me just keep them up in the air, it should be easy. If the wind gets over 15 miles an hour, you need to pull them down and tie them down. And I'm like, okay, that's a wrinkle in the job I did not know about, but I guess if I'm making an extra $100 per balloon per week, I guess there should be some part of the job. That actually is important. And I said, Okay, so I'm working the bike taxi Friday, Saturday night, and it's Sunday. And I know I'm resting Sunday, and I get a call. And it's from gateway computers. And Stephanie. Your balloon is like, attacking people in the parking lot less than what? Yeah, you need to come down here. So I went down a road. That's the name of that road was Gilbert. I believe it was Gilbert. So it parallel Stephanie. So I'm driving down Gilbert in order to get to Stephanie, going on to sunset. Take a left. Get to Stephanie, as I'm driving. Now, mind you, I've never done this. This is day one. Right? The balloon has been up less than 24 hours. I'm driving down Gilbert and I look over to the left. And here's that that balloon is on the move, man. It is trying to make a break for it. And I'm diving around hitting people trying to hit it hit anybody but it was looked like it was going to I said, Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. So I rant I got over there. I went through the store. And there's people looking at me like I'm a demon like you, you brought the demon balloon. I don't know what's going on. I've never done this before. But I'm getting the stairs from corporate employees. And I get to the roof. And that thing is moving. I'm like, Okay, I have to bring this thing down. Now mind you, the roof has it's one of those tar roofs and it has a little bit of pea gravel on the top of it. So it's not a smooth roof. I don't know why they do pea gravel. I have to ask somebody someday about that. So now in the movie sequence, I am it is man versus balloon. It is Betty Mailman versus the gateway balloon. So I grabbed this rope and I started pulling on it and it is like I have never fished for a blue marlin. But I imagined from the stories I have heard from my friends that have that this was quite similar. And I'm trying to pull this thing down. It's fighting me. And it's hard and my my arms are aching my forearms, my elbows, my shoulders on fire, and I'm pulling and pulling and pulling and I'm like, wow, this is it's getting a little bit closer. It's getting a little bit closer and I'm like, come on, come on hand up, pull down, hand up, pull down. And everyone was just like I was maxing out in the gym. And when that balloon got down close enough to me. The balloon attacked me. I was brutally attacked by this balloon. So the wind is whipping. This balloon is coming down and it smashes me it would have been hilarious to see if somebody would have filmed this. The balloon punched me right into it was like punching me like I was like a whack a mole but it's like whack a Betty mailman right in the face. knock me down to the pea gravel roof. And I was getting scuffed up and a little bit of scars and or a little bit of cuts and the scars would come later. Obviously this balloon beat me up it beat me up like Mike Tyson fighting Little Red Riding Hood. I was a little red riding hood. And I got crushed by the mike tyson balloon. I'm oddly enough mike tyson doesn't live that far from their good analogy. So anyway, this balloon beats me up now my cue mother. Like I'm swearing my face off, because it's me. It's Benny Mailman vs balloon Man vs balloon, and I am losing. So I am in the epic battle of the moment and I get the balloon down. I tie it down. I'm swearing at it. I climbed down into the corporate america area of quietness, elevator music and nine to fivers. Which I have never been so I don't know that world. So the nine to fivers are looking at me and one of the ladies with the glasses on looks at me and says you know, we could hear everything you set up there and they have customers so they were a little concerned about that. And I gave her a look and the look was all it took for her to understand. I don't give a shit. I just battled a balloon. I got shoved into your pea gravel roof. I'm bleeding. I am super dirty. And that balloon if I had had a knife, I would have stabbed it. I want to I would have taken that balloon out and this is day one. This is One with this balloon. I'm gonna just I told my friend, Matt married to Amanda. I said, Matt, you guys got me into this job. You need to help me I'm going over to the other balloon cuz obviously that one's probably going crazy. We're going over to the other balloon together and Matt was so Matt is classic Wilkie Wilkinson is his last name. So I'll call him Wilkie, classic, wealthy, totally calm. Nice little laugh. And he said, I said, Matt, you have to meet me. Oh, a message. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So Matt, as I'm driving to the next balloon, as I'm getting closer, I don't see the balloon. You know why I didn't see the balloon. It wasn't there anymore. The rope had snapped. That balloon was on its way to Jupiter, for all I know. And that goes to your classic Wilkie? Do you still need my help? No, Matt. No. Add to tidy this story up a month or so later, something else happened in the balloon, high wind again, brand new balloon. And at that same place, Matt, you have to meet me again. They called me up and the balloon is attacking people. Matt meets me there. That balloon had come down and one of those 50 I think they're like 5060 feet in the air those lights for they're really a lot higher than you think. Well, the balloon had came down, or the balloon had come down and smashed that light wrapped itself around. And the light, I actually parked my car underneath underneath the light to look up. And Matt said I wouldn't park there. So I moved my car a little bit. And sure enough, one of those big square lights, which don't look that big. But as it fell through the air like a meteor and it crashed, and it crashed into the area where my car had previously occupied into that space. Matt looked at me and said told you I go Thanks, Matt. And I am like my I feel like a fail even though I've never done this before. I'm looking at this balloon. It's smashed in there. I don't know how I'm gonna get out of the light. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to explain this to the gateway people. So my heart's racing. And Matt looks at me and he goes, someday mailman. We're gonna laugh at this hysterically. And I looked at Matt. And I said, Well, Matt, not right now. Right now, it's not that hilarious moment. But Matt, he was just a calm. He is such a calmer and just a great, wonderful friend to have. So how about the other building? I wanted to tidy that up a little bit. So the other building I go back to this is the one on Stephanie. I go back in the balloon has deflated. So I call up the billionaire and I said, hey, these balloons attack. These are a tete you sent me a CAC balloons. We cannot have a cat balloons in public. And he said, Okay, well, this is what we need to do. And he was trying to make designs on the end to the balloons to make them stay up and stronger wind. I don't believe that worked that well. So he sent me a new balloon. I'm thinking okay, the balloons are dead. I'm done. Nope. There are more balloons folks. And they came in the mail. I arrived at Gateway to put up my own balloon for the first time. No billionaire help this time, no billionaire. So I measured out the rope to make sure it wouldn't hit the power lines blew up the balloon got it up in the air Same as before. got it done, looked at it super proud of my balloon skills. So early on in the balloon game. I had a strong grasp of this balloon thing. I was very excited. And I'm like, okay, an extra $100 a week I kept telling myself that's starting to become it seemed like a good amount of money at first and then after the work I was putting in I'm like it's getting a little bit less. It doesn't seem like quite enough now. Stress I'm going through and then putting Matt through. I don't know if Matt ever stresses out that guy's just calm cucumber for sure to make him into the parameters of a podcast. I measured the string wrong. Oh, I shouldn't be laughing about this. But no one was hurt. I got a call had to be Oh, it was the next It was very early the next morning. And I got a call from gateway and they said, Ah, you need to come down here. Immediately. I said What happened? Just get down here. So I zoomed down there. I'm like okay, what could happen? I'm going down Gilbert again. I look across to Stephanie paralleling and there is no bullet There is no balloon. But the story about this, no balloon is better than the other no balloon. So I get over there. And I get and I go, what happened to go the alarms, the something set off the alarms last night and the police had to come and go What happened? We were talking to the guy that owned the five cent diner all if you recall all the neon lights all over this building. So what I'm about to tell you is the account of that five cent diner owner. He went outside and the wind had picked up. It's just ridiculous. The wind had picked up and it was so incredibly strong and that balloon was going everywhere. And that balloon has the light in it because I have plugged it in. So there is electric current going to that balloon the balloon that I thought I had measured correctly, but did not the hat balloon. I wish I could have seen this and would have horrified me at the time. But the owner of this Tyner sets a balloon goes to the power allied arts, like that's the word there there's your verb it arcs sends a flash. Send a boat flash through the electrical rope into the blog. The rope blows up. The rope combusts when I went on the roof, I didn't find a piece of rope and mind you burnt rope bigger than a quarter disintegrated. And that's it was like 100 foot rope or not 100 foot that's too much probably like 40 feet. Not a piece of rope bigger than a quarter then the account of the five cent diner neon sign owners. The balloon is on the loose. The robot has combusted. The balloon is on the list. It starts flailing down towards the five cent diner. Like a wounded balloon, right? Looking for a safe haven starts coming down towards the five cent diner and it smashes the neon lights. They all scatter as the owner is watching this. And then the balloon continues to float off into the sky like some storybook ending to a disaster. I have this vision of this man that owns this five set diner watching this balloon arc. The rope combusting the balloon flailing like a wounded balloon to the five cent diner smashing all his lights and then flailing off into the moonlight to be a movie that can be a short movie just on that. And I'm looking at this thing and I'm thinking $100 is not enough. It's not even close to being enough. And if you live in Las Vegas, or you have been in Las Vegas, you have probably experienced super high incredible wins. And that is Las Vegas is notorious for super high uncontrollable crazy wind the final straw we might as well fail. Okay, this is gonna be the balloon podcast. Okay, this is the balloon podcast, the balloon story. This podcast will be known as somehow I am still doing the balloon. I don't know why they got a new customer and they were it was going out of business sale and they wanted a balloon. This was also over on the towards the Lone Mountain area of Las Vegas. I did what I always do, I attach this balloon to the you'd have to attach it to something on the roof so that it doesn't flail off even though many of them did flail off. During this time period. By the way, I got a call from this construction company. And they said hey, we found your balloon. Your balloon has landed. I thought it went to Jupiter. I thought it broke the through the atmosphere. But apparently they reach a point and they blow up because of the pressure. And it failed down into this construction site and I had to go get it from them. And it was pretty flat. It was pretty smashed, but did not cause any damage. Thank goodness. So the last straw of my balloon career was this. I got a call again. Your balloon is attacking people in our parking lot. Come on, like that's hyperbole, absolute hyperbole. So I drive over there. It's Friday night. I want to get to work And start making my Friday night money on the bite taxi. So I go over to take care of this and then get down there. When I get over there. That balloon is indeed attacking the parking lot. It is coming down like a boy. Wow, wait, what else and people were the movie of King Kong. People are running for their lives. They're getting their items from the store that's very low priced items, grabbing them and running to their cars, hugging their children get in the car. And I said, Okay, I've got to kill this balloon. Another Benny Mailman, epic movie balloon moment. Benny Mailman versus the balloon four. This is the fourth time I'm fighting a balloon. And I get up there and I pull this thing down. It had ripped out an air conditioning unit. And it's like, this is enough. I cannot do this anymore. I pulled that balloon down and I stabbed it. I think I had a pair of scissors or maybe a box cutter. I it was me against that balloon. It was me against the Moby Dick of balloons. And I took it out guy balloon guy. I boxed it up and the people were upset and they're like, who do we call for the damages, gave them the billionaire's number I'm like dum dum dawn. I'm beyond done. I call the billionaire. If you can imagine me no money, man talking to a billionaire. I'm just like, I'm done. Dude, your balloons are destructive. Their dive bombing people. It's causing me a lot of headache. And you're only giving me 100 bucks a week for them. Dawn, d o n e dawn. I quit Wrestling reckling find somebody else to do these balloons in Indeed, I was out. Now here's another cool story, I'm going to tack on to the end of this, which doesn't have anything to do with the balloons other than the balloons took me to this moment, the synchronistic moment that's learning from the universe. I was angry. And I was upset and I was in my car and I wanted to get on the interstate to get to work on Friday night on my bike taxi. I am behind a trans-am that's going very slow. And I was at that time very stressed, yelling at the trans and Come on, come on, come on, had all this anger and stressful energy built up and from attacking the Moby Dick of balloons. And finally, I get around that trans-am. And I get out to the interstate. And I'm going down the interstate. And I look over if you've been to Vegas, you know, there's three or four lanes, I think probably three at that time. Now I'm probably for four inbound lanes. And I was traveling. And I looked and I saw this, it looked like the hub of a semi had fell off. It was a giant piece of metal in like the third lane. I don't know why I saw it, or why I picked up on it so fast. Wow. I don't think in my mind, I swear to you as truth. In my mind. I said I do not think a car can go over that and miss it. Like if a car goes over that it's going to hit it and it's going to cause an accident. No sooner. Absolutely not a second after that thought went through my head, a car hit it. And that car came straight at me. For some reason, the trajectory of the car went from being parallel to me to being perpendicular. And that car shot right in front of me. I slammed on my brakes with everything I had not a pumping the brakes situation, eight slam on the brakes. That car was so close to me that I couldn't see the bottom of it. And I didn't know how I wasn't hitting it. I couldn't believe that I didn't hit this car. Then the car starts flipping. It flipped like about seven or eight times. Right in front of me as it's flipping front row center Benny mailman because of the Moby Dick of balloons, the billionaire, the synchronistic moment had taken me to this my stressful energy now becoming energy of fear and scared that I'm going to hit these people and I might kill them. Or something might happen to me. Somehow this car flips off the front of my car when I say the front I mean not hitting it, but so close. I have no idea. I can not tell you how I did not hit this car. I don't know how I saw it flip. Talk about 3d. This was like 10 D. This was scary. D and it was somehow I started to slow down from the break slamming and they were still flipping so they started to pull away from me a little bit which seemed like 20 minutes but it was probably like about It was probably 15 to 20 seconds that this all took place. And that car landed on its wheel somehow. And there is dust there was construction. So there was a lot of dirt and a lot of gravel. And my car was covered in dirt and the window was pelted with rocks and pebbles, I came to a stop that my heart is pounding through my chest just pounding. And I'm so thankful that I did not touch that out of the vehicle, that I in no way would be responsible for what happened to somebody I would not be able to live with that it would be so difficult. I saw the people climbing out of the car. So they were alive, and I'm sure quite stunned. And there must have been an ambulance and a fire truck or because they were there in seconds. They must have been coming in. They stopped off and the police comes up to me and my heart's pounding. And he goes, were you involved in this accident and I had to think about it. I felt involved. I could see the faces of the people in that car as they were flipping off the front end of my car. I could see their faces just in like fear fear faces. I had to think about it. And I looked at the officer. I said, No, I saw the whole thing. up close. He took my story. I told them about that big piece of metal, they hit that piece of metal they shot over, they flipped over. He said, okay, you can go it didn't feel like I should go. But when the police take your story and they say you can go you go, just Okay, I'm done. And I left. And I remember pulling into work. We were for those of you in Las Vegas that remember the Polo towers. I know my friend Howard will listen to this and laugh. The Polo towers does not exist anymore or know what I'm sorry. My apologies. My apologies. It is not the Polo towers. It was the boardwalk casino. It was the most ridiculous, tiny casino. It had two big clown heads on it, which a lot of people would tell me they were afraid of those clowns. It seems spooky. I'm going down the rabbit hole. So we've told the story. Let me tell you about the boardwalk casino which does not exist anymore. I think it sat right next to the Monte Carlo, or at least in that area, that tiny boardwalk casino. And I remember they had a buffet and butter bean if you if anybody knows who butter bean is a super huge. I think he was a wrestler, maybe maybe a boxer, but he promoted the boardwalk casino buffet, which was like four to authors and did not have the greatest food. But it was the only place open after we would get done with our chefs and we sometimes would go there they had the two clown faces on the front and there was a roller coaster. But it wasn't a roller coaster. It was just a design. So people would come to ride the roller coaster and there was no roller coaster. It was just a design. The boardwalk casino the first place I ever saw and had and enjoyed a delicious boba tea. This boba tea is awesome. And it was a little Japanese restaurant. I mean tiny tucked in the corner. But they made the best chicken and rice, I would go there and have that meal and that would give my energy for actually I would work from about six or seven at night. I would stay out till eight in the morning till the sun came up. There will be many stories that come from that also, but for today that I think that's enough, right like that is some stories that is Benny mailman versus a balloon 123 and four, then the mailman getting away from the balloon then having the synchronistic event of that car almost car accident. Oh, and this is what I didn't mention had I not bad behind that trans-am and going slow and cursing at that trans-am for going slow. That car would have drilled me that car would have hit me I would have been in really bad condition. And that was a moment where the universe said to me slow down Calm down. Stress is not good an eagerness to get somewhere making your drive a little bit faster than you should is dangerous the universe handing out a lesson a lesson. before I was even I would even consider myself being awakened but yet a lesson I still understood at that time. So balloon 123 and four we talked about Wilkie Amanda have been in the story my friend Howard talking about the boardwalk casino hilarious. That's where I forgot to tell you that's where we kept our our bike taxis in their garage on the second or third floor when I arrived that night after that almost accident that synchronistic event I remember just being startled and shook up I was shook up that could have been a moment could have been my life. moment, but it wasn't. I'm sitting here today and cm, reap Cambodia giving you an account of that time in my life, which would have been 2002 2003 timeframe. I'm very glad to be here I am grateful every single day to be alive. I have great beautiful, wonderful friends that are not alive anymore. I have friends who have gone to war, and they came back but some of their buddies did not. And that hurts me to think that they lost their friends, their buddies. So yes, I am grateful every day folks to be alive. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to be over my meltdown, my brain meltdown over my editing of book two. But when you read book two, you will say wow, I'm glad he let his brain melt down because this book is dense. The stories of love and connection synchronistic happenings beautiful adventure, ladies and gentlemen, it is Sunday. And my wife and I are going to go and enjoy this day. I will get around to editing this and getting this out to you the awesome beautiful listeners. And I ask that if you love this, if you find messages and joy and happiness and enjoyment from this podcast, please share it. I don't have many calls to action, because I just love to tell stories. But then a big part of me realizes, hey, you are doing an incredible amount of work. You should probably have a call to action. So that's my call to action. I love you all I want you all to have a most wonderful week. I hope as always you find yourself questioning how the world is being so kind to you. How all these doors are opening. How come you feel so much joy? And the answer is simple. You deserve it. You're awesome. Remember that? Remember that you are awesome. This is Benny Mailman and cm raped Cambodia on a sunny Sunday morning. wishing you all the best. Have a great and wonderful everything. Peace and love to all. See you soon. At least I will talk to you soon. Awesome. Humans of Earth. see you when I see you. Yeah. Oh, how about the rap? I need to get to work on that. I need to get to work on that rap so I can get that out to you all soon. Take care, much love. Benny Mailman is out