Benny Mailman's Podcast 42
Benny Mailman's Podcast 42
# 10! A Double Podcast! Lita, WOW! Stories From Nepal, A Greg Oden Story, and Tips on Publishing a Book
Finally! After a few weeks, here I am! This is 2 podcasts rolled into 1, literally. One will end end another one will start right back up. I talk about my student Lita saying WOW! and making me laugh. There are stories of me in Nepal, coming eye to horn with a mountain goat and skirting by a cow that takes a steaming pile right in front of me! I also have a few book publishing tips and updates, as well as a few of my run-ins with pro basketball players, like Greg Oden (cool dude!) Shaquille O'Niel (ok), and Steve Francis (Not a cool dude). This takes so much effort, I hope you enjoy it! Check out my website, benzen42.com! Videos, photos, and updates! Peace and Love to all!
Hey, how's it going? I am trying to get this podcast started. Hold on, hold on. Yeah. It's been a while. It's been a while, folks. I know. I'm trying to get it going here. There we go. There we thought Finding Podcast fo42 coming to you from the sky. Oh, this guy's gonna be close. Alright. Hello, folks. I just gotta I gotta roll with the punches here. Man that is way too close. Hey, I've got stories about Greg oden. I've got stories about my book. Oh, man, this is really hard to concentrate. This is some crazy stuff. Anyway, I know it's been a while. Please. Should there be fire coming from the engine? That's not good. I hope you enjoyed this. I love you have a great time listening to the podcast. It's gonna seem like it ends. And then it's gonna say hello. Super awesome. cool people. Oh, that is not good. All right. I better go enjoy the podcast. It's a doubler it is a double r Hello, super cool. Awesome, magnificent, super duper awesome humans of Earth. This is Benny Mailman podcast. 42 and I am your host, the original Benny Mailman. Yes, folks. I am the original. I am not a doppleganger I am not from another dimension might be I don't know what what do I know? Where do we all know what? Who said that? Who's talking? Are you talking? I'm talking and who am I? I'm your host Benny Mailman. Well, welcome to September it is September 3 2021. Here in a Siem Reap Cambodia. It's a pretty nice day outside the sun is out but it is not scorching hot in the over five years that I have lived here in cm reap. This has been the most moderate weather I have enjoyed. And let me tell you I enjoy moderate weather. It's a lot better than the ice eyeball freezing cold that I experienced in my youth in Wisconsin on a farm. Let me tell you a story about that. A very true story. When I grew up on a farm in cataract Wisconsin, we had to fill jugs of water five gallon jugs of water put them on a toboggan those of you who do not know what a toboggan is, it's a big wooden sled that you Paul in the snow. Now a lot of you are saying no toboggan is something that you ride down the hill in the snow and have so much fun. And everybody cheers and it holds like seven or eight people because it's so long and I will tell you it holds about seven or eight five gallon buckets of water that either my brother or I I don't believe my sister unless she might correct me on this. I don't think she ever had the to pull a sled of water up to the animals that in the barn rabbits and goats mainly chickens, we later would have heaters in the water for the animals. For those of you that live in Wisconsin, you know darn well that those heaters do not keep the water from freezing. There's like a small hole around the heater that the animals can't even get to but everything else is frozen solid blocks of ice. So when I would arrive tired Of course you have that youthful energy, thank goodness because I needed it to get that sled up to the barn. I would say it's about a couple 100 young Then you have to knock the ice out of the dishes for the rabbits and then put that water in their dish and the rabbits would. They were fiending for water and when you poured that water and there they were drinking as much as they could get before it would freeze again in about two hours. So moderate weather. Yes, folks, I enjoy it at age 51. I am not pulling toboggans anymore, I am nowhere near snow or freezing temperatures I am closer to closer to boiling temperatures, but not recently and see him reap if you want to know is a bit like it's a bit like Wisconsin, actually in the summer. It is humid here. There is humidities, I lived in Orlando, Florida for a little while. I like Florida. Don't love Florida. I liked it though. The humidity in Florida is Arry Dick aeolus, you would step outside and you would be so one of the things I wanted to talk about. And actually one of the reasons I started this podcast in the first place is that I am an author Benny Mailman, author of finding a 42 book one in the experiencer series book, one cut the rope, a souls awakening, I have been through a lot with the book because I have never done this and nobody helped me with it. So it was a trial by fire. I had a publisher, I paid them to help me get my book out. I watched everything as it unfolded. And I investigated. And I said how can I do this better do it on your own, you do not need a publisher. If you are out there and you're listening to this. Number one, they get part of your money. So you sell something on Amazon, Amazon takes their bet. And then your publisher, the person that helped you to publish who you paid to publish your book, they get money, and then you get some money and you paid them to do it. And the reality is that Amazon is responsible for 80 to 90% of all book sales. So why go through Anybody else? I mean, unless you actually get picked up by a publisher, I would still go independent. I don't know somebody would have to give me an awful lot of money for me to not do it myself. I have done so much with my book. And it's taken me eight years, nine years to bring this to the table. And I don't want anybody else. I may not make a ton of money, but it should be my money. It should not be somebody else's. This is my feeling. Go to Amazon directly. And guess how much money it costs to upload with Amazon zero, absolutely $0 to upload with Amazon, and you're getting more money. When you sell a book. I understand these other companies, they say that they can do a lot. They have a large outreach, they can reach a lot of people while Amazon's already doing that. I understand that they want to sell they have to keep their business going. I get it. But if I were to give you advice, I would say do it yourself. It's extra work definitely. But it's worth it. It's worth finding out how to do everything my opinion. So I just put out the Spanish version. I had my book translated into Spanish and that just went out it is on Amazon and it's also out with Ingram spark who is an international hardcover, actually they do hardcover paperback and I think e Book Two and believe they do all three, but I do my paperback and ebook through Amazon now. And I do the hardcover through Ingram cuz Amazon does not offer the hardcover. So I have that out now. And my publicity is about to drop and I'm very excited. And I have my website banned Zen 40 two.com or Benny Mailman. 40 two.com they both go to the same place. I had two websites and I wanted Ben Zen 42 to remain in the family. So I added that to the same page as been the mailman. 40 two.com a little confusing. Just type in one of those b ENZE n 40 two.com or Benny Mailman, b ENY m a i l m a n 40 two.com and you will get to my website. There are a lot of really cool videos that I have from my journey. I remember I was walking through Nepal and I have this video up on the site. I was walking through Nepal in the mountains totally getting my butt kicked by the elements and my feet were sore but it was still a lot of fun. It was so beautiful up there and you go from village to village along this path or this trail I guess which has ambiguous markings at times as As I was walking along, there was like this fence on either side of me. So there was it was a path that had a fence on both sides. So there wasn't a lot of wiggle room off of there. And there were two cows ahead of me. And I was following these cows and they had horns and I have this video on my website, I had to try and pass this cow and I'm videotaping them. And the one cow stops, lifts its tail and takes a huge dump right in a big steaming pile. Right in front of me, it couldn't have been better timing, I had my camera out or ready and taking a video and I saw the tail go up and having grown up on the farm, I know what that means. They are not trying to get better Wi Fi folks. Big steaming pile and out on the trail. And in the video, I believe I say something to the effect of that's pretty rude to do right in my face. It's bad enough if somebody farts in a room, but you actually took a dog right in front of me. So I end up passing these cows and trying to half pet them half skirt by them as the motivate around their with their horns, as does one video on my website. And that I'm pretty sure I have like zero traffic on my website. This is something I have not done well with. And this is why the publicity, I'm hoping to get gain a lot from the publicity. I was hoping to gain a lot from this podcast. And I actually had a bump of listeners a little bit less than a week ago. And I said to myself, you know what, I need to put out another podcast I've been working on my book one, I've been working on Book Two, which should be out in November. I'm very excited about that. I just haven't I don't know, I have not gotten around to doing a podcast. It's a lot of work. I have like 15 listeners, I'm not getting paid. And it takes like eight hours to put one of these out. But now that I saw a bump of listeners, I want to make sure I get this out. And if I can actually get listeners, I'll put more podcasts out regularly, I guess if I can see some sort of benefit for me also. So that is a story from the Paul the steaming cow pile drop. There is another story from the Paul, this is all going to be in Book Three. Actually, we climbed up a mountain, the French guy that I was with Nikolai. And he was always way faster than me and I cursed him like you could not believe I cursed him as an enemy. He would go so fast. I just could not keep up with him. He was younger. And anyway, we climbed a mountain one day for acclamation. And I don't know where he went. But I started to go back down the mountain. I actually at one point fell down as the snow was melting in the mud. And I felt the water in the mud seeping into my pants. I was eye to eye with this plant that had melting ice on it and acted like a prism. So as I'm on the ground, becoming actually part of the ground, I am noticing the beauty and the art of this area of the world. And it is incredibly amazing. I found this plateau at that point. And I stood on this plateau and looked at these massive monsters, these mountains of magnitude that I had never could never fathom how big these things were. And I listened to my music and I sang some music I sang some Iron Maiden some do do as Black Sabbath, Neil Diamond, sing some Neil Diamond kind of put on like a mini concert for the mountains. And I thank them and bow to them because I'm very aware of that nature, if it wants to can take you out at any second. So I was thankful. And I said thank you for your energies. And I'll tell you folks that same year, this was 2013 going through the Annapurna mountains in Nepal, that same year, I believe about 30 people died on that same trail that I was on, and I couldn't believe it. I was very saddened by this. In fact, I want to mention the names of these people. I don't know who they are, where they're from probably many different countries, but I'd like to mention them in my third book. So anyway, I get done with this mini concert and I'm going back down my pants are soaked from the mud in the snow I don't, I'm just like, you know, I'm gonna just go straight down the mountain. I'm not gonna follow the path. So I go through this big ravine and I'm using trees to govern my descent on the steep mountain. And all sudden I look up and here's a mountain go back this male mountain goat with these huge curly horns looking at me, and I froze up probably about 40 feet away from me staring right at me staring bullets through me. Oh god. Please don't ram me. I'm already covered in but I'm called. I don't want to ramming right now, I noticed that he was kind of standing guard for there were the female sheep. You know what I mean? You know, talking about so lame, I'm leaving that in there. They were climbing with the kids. They were climbing with the kids up the mountain. This Billy Goats Gruff was looking at me, making sure that his group was safe from me. And I'm like, man, I can't even breathe. I'm soaking wet. I'm called, you do not have to worry about me. Do you die. I'm not, I'm not hungry. I'm not in search of food. I'm in search of getting back to my room in that tiny village up there. What was that valley? I want to say Mustang. But it's not minang minang. It was minang. And minang was built up to be this huge village that you came to. And so I was very excited to get to minang. And when we arrived in minang, it was not that exactly. But still pretty tiny. But probably among all the villages that we went through, which was probably 4050 different villages. There's about 50 different villages up there. And what was interesting about the villages is that when you went through them, and you look back at them, you knew they were there, you could hardly see them because they were so well camouflaged, having been built from all the natural items in that area. The stone though the wood and the snow was there. So when you look back was so perfectly camouflaged. And you knew the village was there, but you had to really hear in order to make out any semblance of a building. That ram did not hit me. I'm kind of bouncing around. That's what I do you know that the ram skirted up after the others and then I went down and then there was a dog barking then I'm going through this big field in it's kind of sopping wet, and I'm soaked with mud and there's this huge water buffalo and I thought what if that thing Rams me that would be worse? Well, any ramming would be bad, especially with horned animals, but that thing would just knock you out water buffalo but he just sat there munching on his hay or the grass I walked through, it was kind of a funny moment. There was this really attractive lady sipping on a tea on the balcony of a like small I want to say hotel, but they're not really hotels, but I guess that's what they would be considered. But she was watching me come across this field and sipping on a tea and I could hear her laughing because there's no other noise out there. I could hear her laughing at me as I walked across this field and that's what I'm really good at folks. Whether I intend to or not, I will make you laugh at my expense. I am the dork. In my book, I say embrace the darkness. I should probably have some shirts made that say that. Anyway, those are a couple stories from Nepal both the video for the steaming pile of manure, manure manure. That video was on benzon 42 calm along with many others and many photos. The new book cover is on there and you can see the old book cover in the video. Interesting times, folks. Interesting time. If you had told me in my 20s someday you're going to write a three book series about a nine month journey that you will do through Russia Trans Siberian railroad, Mongolia riding a wild horse with no saddle China, the Great Wall Terracotta Warriors, you will see your brother Mike and his family and Victoria in Shanghai and then you'll go see a 92 year old herbalist doctor and by Asia China close to Jade dragon Snow Mountain. You'll go into Vietnam Halong Bay, you'll make the great selfie Porter the wonderful food Fawad Ali, my my great friend, you will travel through nhatrang you will go up into Cambodia, you will go to the great temples of cm RI and get those great energies Oh, by the way, someday you will live in cm rape with your Khmer wife of a checker folks, I would have said no, that that does not sound correct that does that sound correct at all. But in my life, I have never really known as somebody said, What do you want to do in the future? And I'm planning for tomorrow. I wake up each day and I say what am I doing today? What is going on? Really in order to reach your goals in life? You have to take small steps. And there's really no need to look much further than the next step in my opinion. And then you find out Hey, I'm here. Wow, I've got a book out. I've read vamped it. I've got a new cover. It's awesome book to professional editor. Little bit of money, their professional covers a little bit of money there, but worth it. I've always believed that if you're going to do something, do it 100% My Father Jim arena always said that to me if you're not going to do it 100% don't do it. So folks, I'm doing it 100% my publicity it's gonna drop soon. I've got a website I've got this podcast. I'm very excited and very humbled and grateful about life just about being here. So we have the Green Bay Packers facing the New Orleans Saints. There has been that one hurricane Ida I believe. It is called causing havoc wreckage like these massive hurricanes always do and the Packers will be playing in Jacksonville Florida against the New Orleans Saints that game folks for me in cm rape comes on at in the am of Monday morning and I can promise you I will be up and I will be watching that. I think it's 330 or 430. I'm not sure but I will be up and I will be a watching that. Very excited for the new season. Very happy that the NFL is back in strong. I'm very happy last year that they they put it together and in a time where everybody was stressed out and people are still stressed out the NFL actually put together a fall season for playoffs. A Super Bowl, they kept it together. They were the one sport that just got it together. It's my favorite sport. So I was very happy for that to happen. Very excited for the season and all the drama that goes around with Aaron Rodgers last year possibly davante Adams last year, possibly gyre Alexander. Man, I heard him speak and he's a spiritual dude. I want to get my book to him. If you know Zhi er Alexander and you can put me in contact with that. I'm pretty sure Aaron Rodgers would love my book too. And anyone else really who's who's spiritual. I never knew really how to market my book because it was both spiritual and an adventure. So now I call it the spiritual adventure. So now what I am going to do is tack on I am at about the I am at the 25 minute mark on here. And I actually did a podcast the other day with some stories. So I'm going to add that on to the end of this and then I will let that play out a couple of stories about meeting Greg oden and the funny story with him to talk about Shaquille O'Neal having me kind of met him more of less held a door open for him at the Venetian Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. And another story about Steve Francis. Not a great story. Yeah, he was not a cool dude to me and a couple other guys but that is all following this. So stay tuned. It may sound different, but I will indeed add it to this making for a fall. I think it'll come to about an hour then. And I really wish you all the best. I'm gonna do more podcasts. I always say this but as long as I have people coming in and listening and I see my numbers going up, I am most definitely going to stay on top of everything. Congratulations to the Milwaukee Bucks and Yanis Amazing, amazing soulful man was eight star I watched his story from Africa to Greece to the United States. Didn't even go home to his apartment in Brooklyn because he had no family there. So a lot of times he would just sleep at the gym. Amazing, amazing Family Guy very happy for the Milwaukee Bucks that is awesome Green Bay Packers, the Brewers are doing well while a good year for Wisconsin sports. I hope that everybody's doing very well out there as well as we can be good to each other behind. There is a lot of what I call trite rhetoric out there right now we need to realize I when I say we I mean as people of the world, we need to realize that we are very, super important to each other. Have a great day. Love you all enjoy these following stories. And I will see about getting something else out soon. Again, this is Benny Mailman, Benny male man's podcast 42 author of finding 42 book one cut the rope. He sells awakening available on Amazon now get this available in English hardcover, paperback ebook and audio book with your narrator Adam Trump who does a magnificent job On the audio You can also find it on Find a way voices the audio find a way voices, you can probably find it on a lot of things actually it's in a lot of different places Spanish version of finding 42 is out there also in hardcover, paperback and ebook so folks have a great everything much love from GM, reap Cambodia and enjoy the following stories that I have recorded previously. This is Benny Mailman saying coffee is delicious. Humans are awesome, which means you are super duper magnificent, awesome humans of Earth. This is Benny Mailman I am now Hello super cool, awesome, magnificent super duper humans of Earth. This is Benny Mailman podcast 42 and I am your host Benny Mailman. Glad to be here after a hiatus. Nothing really don't worry, not an emergency. Nothing happened except time doing other things teaching getting my Spanish translation for finding 42 ready to go to the market and it is ready to go to the market. I have uploaded it already to Ingram spark for the hardcover and very soon I will be uploading to Amazon via the ebook and paperback connection. Now there's not actually a connection button on Amazon. But I like to say connection. I am very excited for the Spanish translation to go out into the Spanish market because it's an entirely new magical market. For me, quite honestly, I have no idea why I had the book translated into Spanish I just did one day, I was thinking about having it translated into Chinese because they have a huge market, but they don't really have copyright laws from what I could search out. So in that process, I saw that the Spanish contingency of the planet are very avid readers. And I thought wow, why not have it converted into Spanish? So I did and the lady that helped me out Natalia from Argentina. Amazing. I asked her several several times, can you please be the one who edits my actual book in English form? And she said she would have a little bit more difficulty doing that. I know that this version, the Spanish version is immaculate, and it is solid. And she would send me at least 10 questions a day and email and apologize for doing so. And I said no, please, I want to make this the best that it can be. So the questions are welcomed through the questions that she asked I realized some of the mistakes that I had made in the English version was interesting small things that my editor that I paid to do the English version did not quite catch some of the more interesting questions where who are the Green Bay Packers? And how do I inform my audience or the Spanish speaking contingency what American football is or who the Green Bay Packers are, and I use the Green Bay Packers. But there are quite a few things. There are a lot of idioms that we use in the United States that fall quite short for most countries, actually, the United States is very up on their idioms, but the rest of the world they are not. So if I would like I quote The Big Lebowski, she would ask me who is the dude? So I would explain the dude and then I gave her full permission. If you have to change words and do explanations, please do. So I know that the Spanish version is probably it's definitely better edited. Although my second book is done very, very well. Why cuz I paid a lot of money for that one. So I guess it's truly you get what you pay for. That's what I've been doing the Spanish translation taking care of that. I've been sitting on that for a while and I thought, Wow, wow, I need to get that out. I have a student of mine. Her name is Lisa. And one day I'm teaching on the line. And one day I was explaining something and she said wow. And I just started laughing like it just was one of those things that caught me off guard and now her nickname I referred to her as Wow, I say wow, can you answer the next question, and she puts it a little smiley face emoji and then an Here's the question, I have a lot of fun with my class they have become the two classes that I have right now. They have become my social life, my wife and I don't go out anyway, when pre COVID we don't drink, we don't really socialize that much other than with family. And quite honestly, I don't have a lot of friends here in Cambodia as far as people that I would hang out with. I consider my classes my social life, I have so much fun with them. The teaching, the education is there, the fun is there. At the beginning of class, I say hello to every student in the class, it takes a while. 13 to 15 minutes. I have timed it for my evening level to class and I make sure that no student goes on, greeted, I made sure that I asked them how they're doing if they sound sad or not great. I asked them a few more questions. In my first class, I had a student say, you know, teacher, I'm not doing that good today. And I said his name is Lee hort. And I said, Lee, who are How come you are not doing well, as a teacher? Well, I used to be able to go out and have fun with my friends and go bicycling and go to the movies. And now I cannot. And I spent 10 minutes talking to the class and saying, you know, I know you all feel this way. I know there is a depression and sadness that comes with not being able to do what you used to be able to do on the regular. My goal is to console my students and give them hope and half promise that things will get better. I believe they will. I believe that it's going to take a bit longer than people thought the great thing about living in Cambodia in a lot of places, if you're talking about India, China, LAO, Vietnam, Thailand, everybody gets the vaccination. There are not everybody is let's get it. Let's do what we can to get through this here. Everybody just is on board. Let's get it let's be safe. I have I even I can tell you all this now. I made the news. I sat down for I sat down for probably 15 seconds and a news person came up with a big camera interviewed me via the translator, my wife and I made the news that evening here in Cambodia. So I can add that to the list of accolades of things that have happened to me in the mile life. So let's get to a story. How about Denver, Colorado? I am working on a Sunday night on my bike taxi man doing okay, not great. And my great friend Steven drennen comes up to me and says hey, Greg oden is at Red Square. And I said Greg oden, the basketball player used to be with Portland 2007. They drafted him or signed him or picked him or whatever you want to say. He said yes, that Greg oden, I go wow, I love seeing basketball players in real life because they are huge. They are massive people. So I said yeah, okay, I'll go. So I want to put my bike away, went to Red Square sat down right next to Greg oden. And it's a Sunday night. So there's not that many people there. It's Greg and there's about seven hanger honors. And I guess I became a hanger on her. He is a large man and funny and telling jokes. And then Steven says to him, Hey, my buddy here Benny is a comedian. And he says, Oh, yeah, he goes, do you have any jokes about basketball players? I said, Yeah. As a matter of fact, I do. I said, Look at how tall you guys are. And when you go up and you make a slam dunk. Probably one of the easiest possible things you can do as a very tall person. You guys celebrate it like you have discovered time travel. you're celebrating I said, Do you guys slam dunking a ball is like me taking a piece of paper crumpling it up and slam dunking it in a trash can and going wild and crazy about it. Don't you think it's a little out of control. Greg gets very serious as if I definitely touched a nerve. He looks at me and he says, I'll tell you what, man when you slam dunk a ball. It is like you are saying in your face. You look at the person you dumped on and you call him a bitch. Yes, yeah. You call him a bitch. Yeah. The story got so interesting. And he said, Man, he goes one time in college, I was going a little crazy and I slam dunk the ball and I call the guy a bitch. And then I pointed to each of his team members on the floor and I said your bH, your bH your bitch and he goes, I couldn't stop. I ran over to the sideline and I looked at all the players sitting on the sideline. I said you Your pitch your pitch. Oh my goodness. I had not planned on such a story. Greg then we had a great laugh over it. And Greg bought 21 shots of patrone for I think it was 17 people. I just I, we had a good time. I went somewhere with I think Steve stayed there. I think I went out. I'm like, that was cool. You know, it's nice to meet him and talk with him. And he was so the thing that I loved about Greg was he was so genuine and so nice and so kind really, I have no idea what he was doing in Denver. I think it was actually the playoffs. So maybe he was there for the playoffs. I'm not sure watching the playoffs. Yeah, I don't think he was with a team. He might have been retired already. At that point. I'm not sure but it was great talking with him. I think stick my friend Steven drennen. I thank him. He's a great friend of mine out of the Boston area. I walked out and later on my friend brian ross gave him a ride to the Four Seasons Hotel which if you are familiar with Denver, the Four Seasons Hotel is about a block or two away from maybe three Red Square away from Red Square. Brian took them back and he gave Brian I think let's 100 or $200 for the ride a very short ride Brian being the awesome person he is no I can't that's not $100 ride and every other bike taxi person will say you take it. somebody puts that$100 out there you take it and say thank you see later, you're awesome. So that is the Greg oden story. Great guy. Okay, so let's talk about another I met Shaquille O'Neal. I didn't personally meet him. I had just graduated college in Wisconsin University of Wisconsin lacrosse, and I was in Las Vegas, and I had a friend of mine who worked for a modeling company and the modeling company had got the gig of opening the front doors for the Venetian, the Venetian. When they first started, they had people dressed as gondoliers in a silly little horizontal lines of red and white gondolier, looking outfits and maybe a hat. I can't remember if there was a hat or not, but they would open the door and they would go upon Jarno Vaughn Gerardo, welcome to the Venetian for all guests. I had a friend there. Okay, so cut two, they were models, they did not want to open doors, and they would go over to Treasure Island and just cross the street and party and drink and get paid. I think it was $20 an hour while they were drinking. Well, they all got fired. And they wanted my friend managed to keep his job and he brought me on, obviously not a model, but I worked for a modeling company. I was a comedian. That's why I was in Vegas trying to become a comedian trying to gain work, I should say as a comedian, so here I am. And they didn't have any sizes for me. I was still lifting at that time. I was pretty big boy and I put on a shirt and I look like a total sausage like the guy that wears a shirt that's too small. Make sure you see that he has muscles and he works out at the gym. I look like that guy. So I never wanted anybody to see me. I got to see a lot of things working that job the movie rat race with Whoopi Goldberg and Mr. Bean I forget what his real name as my apologies to any Mr. Bean fans. How do you not know his real name? He's so famous. I love them. He's funny. I can't think of his name right now. Not gonna search it out. Big crew there. Cuba Gooding Jr. was there. He always had people laughing. I remember that weekend. Ice T was not in that movie. But he was there that weekend that they were shooting so I saw Cuba Gooding Jr. Talking to ice t Pauly Shore was there that weekend he was superduper drunk bouncing off the walls and I think it was his publicist that was with him and she did not look that happy because he was a puddle how he actually stayed upright. I don't even know he was wasted. So you got to see a lot of things working that front door Who else has a Whoopi Goldberg one a lot of money. She came like on her way to the set and they would shoot super early in the morning and have the big lights up there. And I was actually in one of the scenes but in the movie, I totally got blurted out or blurred out a shirt not blurred, blurred blurred me out. I'm like, wow, that's the scene I was in when they're all running out and getting into their vehicles. I remember Newman from Seinfeld does it Michael Knight is that his name Michael Knight. They had to stop shooting one day because he overheated because it's so hot. And he felt really bad about that. But you got to see all these people it was really cool the celebrities. That was also if you I think it was Lauren Hutton. Lauren Hutton got into a motor like she was riding a motorcycle for a movie or for a commercial For something and she got hurt and she got weighed up at the Venetian for weeks, actually the Lakers, the LA Lakers won championship, I forget what year it had to be 2001 ish around our 2002 right around there. I'm gonna think 2001 I'll send this limo pulls up and eight guys get out of the limo and they're all wearing Shaquille O'Neal jerseys running around all over the place, a little bit of chaos, not super chaos, but a little bit of going around running and doing things and then Shaquille O'Neal got out of the car out of the limo and he stood up and he stayed there had to be two weeks to a month that him and his crew stayed there and probably partied it up and he is a huge man also. And I held the door open for him and he stopped and then he moved to the next door to make me open that door. So I opened that door to let him in. And then he moved to the third door and I'm like, let yourself in Dude, I am not that guy. Like, I'm not kissing your ass and looking like whatever you want me to look like. So he opened his own door and went in. And I guess that's just celebrity You know, he likes to have fun and was probably just joking around. But at my expense, no, no harbor any ill well, different realities, man. That's two different realities coming together a wealthy superstar well known Shaquille O'Neal and me. I'm not well known, I'm probably not half well known. But I mean, even this podcast, I probably have 20 about 16 avid listeners on here, which is one of the reasons it's been a while for me, since I've put a podcast out. It takes me about eight hours to go through another hour to do the voice eight hours to edit and then put it through and do the text to speech or so there's text for it. And I paid for that. And I don't make any money on this. And I don't have that many followers. So I guess that someday, if I reach even 50 followers, 50 solid followers, I guess I'll probably not probably I will put out more podcast but right now I'm actually thinking about going the route of video and maybe I don't know if I can connect the video and the podcast but video seems to be doing a lot better than the actual podcast. I don't know. Those of you that are tuning in to listen to me and listening all the way through man. God bless you. Thank you so much. I love you and I appreciate you and I apologize to you. Those of you that are my avid listeners for not coming back for about three weeks by Here I am Here I am. So Greg oden. Shaquille O'Neal. Oh, how about a not a worst story? All right. Steve Francis, Steve Francis, if you remember him, he played for I think Houston. I can't remember. But he came to Orlando when I was working the streets in Orlando on my bike taxi. And it was the weekend of I think it was LSU playing Iowa and the Citrus Bowl that year. I don't remember what year that was. I'm guessing it would have to be 2005 somewhere around there. Maybe 2006. Anywhere. I'm on Church Street and I'm at a red light. And all of a sudden this huge Bentley pulls up and it still has the Texas plates on there. So I'm gonna cause probably Steve Francis, the people on my bike. They're from Iowa, they realized it was Steve Francis. And they're like, hey, and Steve Francis rolls down his window and throws a drink on those guys. And me and I looked at Steve Francis and I go, you're dead. And he got out started to get out of his car. And I'm like, Please get out of your car right now. Right? This is the marine inmate. Please get out of that car right now. I looked at him and I said, he shut us he shut his door had the window down. And I said look at you I go you're a millionaire. You are a millionaire. You have a Bentley. Yet you took time out of your day to roll down your window, throw a drink on us. And he said some expletives that I don't want to repeat here. And I said you took time out to be an asshole. Like that's awful. And you have all this money and look at the car you're driving. Why do you care? Anyway, he drove off nonetheless. A cool story right at the guys in my Bibles all upsetting the guy to my bike or like, Yeah, man, St. Francis threw a drink on us. And they were all high fiving and laughing and I'm like, I guess that would be a story to tell your friends that Steve Francis rolled down his window and threw a drink on you. I guess that's kind of funny. I didn't appreciate it. But when you're working, you're not usually in the happy mode. When somebody throws a drink on you. I remember I gave a ride to one of the Orlando pub Like relations to a lady that had worked with Orlando public relations for quite a while. This was about a year later, right before I left Orlando. And she goes, Yeah, I work with Orlando public relations, the Orlando Magic. And I said, Oh, I had said that he went to the, I said, you guys sent Steve Francis to, I think it was the next and she looked at me and she goes, thank God, he is gone. He was a cancer to the room. He was a cancer to the front office to the players, the best thing that team ever did was get rid of him. And I thought, huh, that does not surprise me. Alright, so we have several stories on professional basketball players. I myself, Benny Mailman, am a teacher here in cm rape Cambodia. I am an author of finding 42 I originally wanted this podcast to strictly be about my book finding 42 which now I could definitely do a video in the series on what I have been through as an author. It has been a lesson many, many lessons learned going through this process. And if I could say anything to anyone out there, who is going to be an author, go straight to Amazon do not go through an aggregate do not go through. Everyone said which publishing company is the best you you are your best publishing company. It is not that I did not want to go through Amazon directly because I thought, Oh, I want to put my book in all the stars. Okay, that's just being greedy. If you want to be smart, you go through Amazon, you go through Amazon, they do the E book, they do the paperback, and you have to do your hardback through somebody else. And I do mine through Ingram Spark, and they have been excellent with me. I've heard some bad stories about them. But with me, they have been excellent and wonderful Ingram spark shout out, then you can get your hardcover out to wherever you need it to get out to, right you can do the whole sale or get it into the stores that you want to. So now, I got rid of my publishing company, they were good for me. They were good for me to learn a lot of things, but they rarely got back to me on time. And when they did get back to me, they did not even answer the questions that I had asked them, they are a smaller company, let's just say I didn't feel the love from them, I did not feel the love. And they were also the ones that I paid $500 over $450 to edit my book, I said I don't have a lot of money. And they went through and did not do a stellar job, they did do a job, they got a lot of things done. But a lot of things still needed to be done after that. So that's an awful lot of money on everything I have done for that book, the new cover book to getting the new editing done for Book Two, which I think should come out in November. I've put myself out there. And I'm hoping that I have a strong base and I will get some publicity when that drops, which will be soon we'll see. But if you are an author out there, I would say go take the time, do it a little bit at a time go through Amazon directly. They are 80 to 90% of the book market. And what happened was the thing that upset me the most about my old publisher was that I asked I said, Hey, I want to advertise on Amazon. And they sent me an email saying advertising on Amazon is worthless. Well, that is entirely incorrect. And they did that. So they would not have to go through the process. I could not advertise my own book because I went through an aggregate. So I went through it on my own and I am getting some ads together and it's fun. And we'll see where everything goes. The Spanish translation finding 42 I'm very excited for that. To put that out. I think this podcast will be a little bit smaller. I just want to get something out. I know my awesome nephew. Alex was saying I'm listening to all podcasts of yours so that I can hear your voice and I know that some of you want to hear my voice. So here I am saying hello. It's a Sunday beautiful Sunday, almost afternoon here. Not quite. I'm doing well. And I plan to put out more podcasts. I always plan I plan I plan I will let you know how things are going with finding 42 as an author, and I hope that you all have a beautiful week. I hope you enjoyed the basketball stories. Some of them good. Some of them crazy, some of them, right yeah. Take care much love to you all. And I will see you soon. Well, maybe I won't see you but I will talk to you soon. I always wish you the best and I hope that you have a wonderful, wonderful everything. Peace. Love from cm reap Cambodia. This is Benny Mailman saying See you later. Go pack go. Okay, that was not a great performance against buffalo but again they were resting over 30 of their starters I should do a packer podcast maybe that would get more people in and then halfway through the packer podcast that could start talking about my book and then crazy stories. Oh, who knows? Anyway, I'm just talking. Take care. love y'all. Peace.