Austin Von Letkemann and Nick Palmisciano

Summary

Podcast Summary: Cleared Hot – Featuring Austin Von Letkemann and Nick Palmisciano

Introduction

In the December 23, 2024 episode of Cleared Hot, host Andy Stumpf engages in a candid and dynamic conversation with veterans-turned-entrepreneurs Austin Von Letkemann and Nick Palmisciano. The episode delves deep into their military backgrounds, entrepreneurial ventures, the challenges within the veteran community, and the intricate balance between content creation and personal well-being.

---

Guest Backgrounds and Introductions

Andy opens the episode by introducing his guests:

• Austin Von Letkemann (@MandatoryFunday on Instagram): A veteran with nearly two decades of military service, Austin is known for his humorous skits and videos that resonate deeply within the military community. His content often reflects his diverse experiences, from flying jets to mountain climbing.

• Nick Palmisciano: Also a former military member, Nick has transitioned into entrepreneurship. He is the creator and producer of Office Joe, a show that parodies corporate life with a veteran twist. Additionally, Nick co-authored Tim Kennedy's book Scars and Stripes.

Notable Quotes:

• Austin (03:44): "If you're not a fan of talking shit, then this may not be the episode for you. We talked about a lot of things and had a lot of fun at each other's expense."
• Nick (04:12): "Tim Kennedy will still be Tim Kennedy in five years, and he'll still be doing great things. The other stuff will have faded away."

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Office Joe and Content Creation

The conversation shifts to Nick's latest project, Office Joe. The show, inspired by The Office but set in a veteran context, aims to highlight the unique challenges veterans face when transitioning to civilian corporate life.

Key Points:

• Office Joe is available on major streaming platforms like Amazon, Apple, and YouTube.
• The initiative stems from Nick’s desire to maintain creative control, ensuring the original vision isn’t diluted by multiple layers of production.

Notable Quotes:

• Nick (71:27): "Episode one covers the theme of tribe, focusing on veterans trying to find their place and purpose after military service."
• Austin (82:56): "This was the most fun project I've done. Seeing it on Prime was one of the most profound moments of my life."

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Veteran Community and Mental Health

A significant portion of the discussion centers around the veteran community's internal dynamics, especially the toxicity and the struggle many face in finding their tribe and purpose post-service.

Topics Covered:

• Toxicity within the Veteran Community: The guests highlight how competition and one-upping behaviors can be detrimental. They discuss the difficulty veterans face when leaving the close-knit military environment and trying to fit into civilian society.

• Mental Health and Suicide Rates: The conversation touches on the high suicide rates among veterans, emphasizing that underlying issues often predate military service. They argue for a more holistic approach to supporting veterans, focusing on pre-existing traumas and better preparation before enlistment.

Notable Quotes:

• Nick (74:12): "We always find money to send young men and women to war, but then we huff and puff when it's time to pay for the results of that war."
• Austin (75:57): "When you're on the mats, you cannot think about anything else. It's almost like a form of meditation."

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Veterans Benefits and Systemic Issues

The episode delves into the complexities of veterans benefits, addressing both the integrity of the system and the challenges veterans face in accessing the help they need.

Key Points:

• Accessibility vs. Abuse: While the benefits are crucial for many, there's a concern about the system being gatekept and difficult to navigate, potentially preventing those in genuine need from accessing help.

• Systemic Reform: The guests advocate for maintaining and even expanding benefits to ensure all deserving veterans receive the support they’ve earned, arguing that the few who might exploit the system shouldn’t undermine its integrity.

Notable Quotes:

• Nick (129:03): "I have a fundamental problem with sending money to war and then skimping on paying for the results. It should be the other way around."
• Austin (132:38): "When you're talking about these benefits, it's hard to find the middle ground where we're actually being fair."

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Balancing Military Service and Entrepreneurship

Austin and Nick share their personal journeys of balancing active military duties with entrepreneurial endeavors, highlighting the support they've received from their chains of command and the community.

Key Points:

• Supportive Leadership: Both guests emphasize how certain superiors within the military have supported their ventures, recognizing the positive impact their content has on morale and community.

• Content Creation Strategies: They discuss the importance of authenticity, positivity, and the challenges of maintaining a consistent output while serving.

Notable Quotes:

• Austin (137:03): "I've had general officers reach out to me and say they loved it."
• Nick (141:53): "I prefer to err on the side of over-benefiting rather than under-benefiting. If you have to make a decision, it's better to give rather than take."

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, Andy encourages listeners to support the podcast by sharing it and engaging with the content. Austin and Nick express their commitment to continuing their work, both in the military and in their entrepreneurial pursuits, aiming to make a positive impact on the veteran community and beyond.

Closing Quotes:

• Austin (142:44): "I love what I do. I'm very proud of it, and I hope people continue to see that."
• Nick (143:56): "If you are going to send people to war, you have to pay for the results of that war."

Key Takeaways:

• The veteran community faces internal challenges that need addressing to foster a healthier, more supportive environment.
• Authentic and positive content creation can play a pivotal role in aiding veterans' transition to civilian life.
• Systemic reforms in veterans benefits are essential to ensure fairness and accessibility for all who have served.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Office Joe: Available on Amazon, Apple, and YouTube.
• Tim Kennedy’s Book: Scars and Stripes – co-authored by Nick Palmisciano.

Stay Connected:

• Follow Austin Von Letkemann on Instagram @MandatoryFunday.
• Connect with Nick Palmisciano on Twitter (@RangerUp) and other social platforms.

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Final Note: This episode of Cleared Hot offers an unfiltered look into the lives of veterans who are leveraging their experiences to create meaningful content and support systems for their peers. It's a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of military service, entrepreneurship, and community dynamics.

Transcript

[Unknown Host]

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[Austin von Lechtman]

Next and credit required.

[Unknown Host]

Contact us before canceling entire account to.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Continue you build credits, your credit stop.

[Unknown Host]

And balance and required finance agreement is due Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Holy cow. We have found ourselves at the end of 2024. Somehow I am super fired up for 2025. There are some really cool things on the horizon, personally and professionally. I'm going to talk about them as I am sure that they are going to happen. My theory is to under promise and over deliver and sometimes I feel like if you talk about them early you jinx it a little bit. But I digress. Let's get into what makes this podcast possible. It's Black Rifle Coffee. I just went over to the website right now it says free shipping on orders of $30 or more. But the reality is this. This comes out the Monday before Christmas and you probably have missed your opportunity to get somebody a gift to get it to your house on time. If that's the case, they have some cards right down here on the left hand side. Or what my suggestion would be is this is truly something last minute, but they like coffee. You have a choice between the ECs, the exclusive coffee subscription, or Evan's coffee subscription and their traditional coffee subscription. So you could always sign somebody up, make them a cool card and gift them the gift of coffee which keeps on giving and you'll be covered. You know, not awesome that you waited too long and forgot, but we've all been there at some point in time and it's a really easy and cool gift to give. And if you're a coffee fan yourself, there's a bunch of sales going on on their site so you could get some of their apparel, their gear, the samplers, the bundle, whatever it may be. You can pick and choose. And you know, people ask me all the time what can I do to help support the podcast. There's two things. One is you could tell somebody about it that costs you nothing. Share the podcast, write me a review on any of the mediums that you might find it that would be appreciated, but secondarily it's support the brand or brands that help me make this podcast possible. That's really it. Now let's get into the episode for today. My guests today are Austin von Lechtman and Nick Palmisano. We're going to work our way front to back on that one. Austin is probably more recognizable if you're on Instagram under the account of mandatory Funday. Now, as somebody who spent nearly two decades in the military, the things, the skits, the videos that he does about the military, they put me in stitches. And if you weren't in the military, you may not understand him as much, but go to his page right now and smash the follow button. The dude is absolutely hilarious. Nick Palm Shano, previous member of the military as well, switched into being an entrepreneur. He is now the creator and the producer of Office Joe, which is what Austin and Nick came to actually talk about. Even though we talked about a variety of things along the way. Office Joe, imagine the office. Most people are familiar with that. And this is my description, not necessarily theirs, the Office, but with a veteran setting. That's right. It's going to be amazing. And you can find it on streaming services. We talk about that in the episode. Nick is also the the co author of Tim Kennedy's book Scars and Stripes. We talk about that a little bit as well. And I'll say this about the episode. If you're not a fan of talking shit, then this may not be the one for you because we talked about a lot of things and we made a lot of fun of each other and other people. So if that's your jam, strap in. If it's not, you know, maybe the episode's not for you. Episode 366 with Nick Palmischano and Austin Von Lechtman. Enjoy.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Okay, I got the red smoke.

[Nick Palmisano]

Sun runs north and south west of the smoke.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Smoke.

[Nick Palmisano]

Okay, copy west of the smoke.

[Unknown Host]

I'm looking at danger close now.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, wait a minute. Give it to me.

[Unknown Host]

I mean, it cleared hot.

[Nick Palmisano]

Can't be cleared out.

[Unknown Host]

I mean, there's only one place to start. It is with Tim. So you are the co author of his book?

[Nick Palmisano]

I am. I'm the lowercase author of his book. You know.

[Unknown Host]

What does that mean? Just.

[Nick Palmisano]

Well, he's the, you know, he's. It's his book.

[Unknown Host]

Who wrote more of it?

[Nick Palmisano]

I. I don't remember.

[Unknown Host]

That's a lie.

[Nick Palmisano]

It is a lie.

[Unknown Host]

And yeah. Which ties in well with the book. Which would you put it in the fiction or nonfiction section?

[Nick Palmisano]

It is definitely a nonfiction book.

[Unknown Host]

All right. When he was telling you the stories. Did you know they were made up? I'm not cutting any of this out.

[Nick Palmisano]

I know you're not. I know you're not. No, we. We talked to so many people for that book. So many people in every area, interviewed as many people as possible, you know, and, like, you know, when you're talking about the combat stuff, everybody's story was, like, a little different, but they all. They all lined up to the same, you know, general messages.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. How. How do you think it'll play out for him in the long run? I mean, the Internet always finds something else to be outraged about anyway. If you give it enough time, how do you think it'll play out?

[Nick Palmisano]

I think in five years, Tim Kennedy will still be Tim Kennedy, and he'll still be doing great things. And I think that the other stuff will have faded away, because I don't. I've never seen anybody become great by breaking down other people.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

You have to build something to be great.

[Unknown Host]

Are you co authoring his book about service in World War II? Was he.

[Nick Palmisano]

Did he say he started or was.

[Unknown Host]

He in the trenches? Yeah. What's his. What's he gonna have in his backpack? 50 landmines, 50 artillery shells. Where'd the number 50 come from?

[Nick Palmisano]

50 was.

[Unknown Host]

You made that up, didn't you?

[Nick Palmisano]

It was all me. I wanted to get Tim in lots of trouble.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

Now, I went back and listened to the audio of our, like, interviews and looked at our notes, and you know how Tim talks, right? He's like, everything is over the top. He doesn't. He's not like, you know, this. This taco is really good. He's like, this is the best taco in the whole world. You know, like, and just over the. Like, it's. It's. You'll never find a taco this good. So he was like, you know, I had. I had a backpack full of grenades. Like, 50 of them, a gazillion of them. Like, I don't know, like, it was. It was tons. And so, you know, in the process, at one point it said. I believe it said I had, like, 50 grenades. And then, you know, when you go through the editing process, you get first people that haven't written a book. You turn in the manuscript, and then the main editor goes through and takes his or her cut at it. And then once, like, then that cut comes back to you, and you, like, accept changes, delete changes, offer up other changes. You kind of do that back and forth until you agree. Then it goes to a line editor and A line editor is just a grammar freak. So if there's.

[Unknown Host]

What are you looking up, Michael? Jesus.

[Nick Palmisano]

Anything that is grammatically incorrect, they flag it and you make a decision. And I think somewhere in the process the word like got removed. That's what I think happened. But, you know, having read it a bunch of times, I didn't see anything that was odd about that. Because 50 is so outlandish. I would not expect anybody to be like, yeah, he really had 50 grenades.

[Unknown Host]

Why put 50?

[Nick Palmisano]

It's a valid question.

[Unknown Host]

The answer is because Tim's book of lies, it's.

[Nick Palmisano]

Bottom line.

[Unknown Host]

It's a fictional book. It goes right next to the fucking Hobbit.

[Nick Palmisano]

I will tell you, Tim Kennedy does have a history of lying. And let me tell you, yes, now.

[Unknown Host]

We'Re getting to the fucking good stuff.

[Nick Palmisano]

Tim was like, he tells me, I am going into judo and I'm gonna work on judo. And I know you're good at judo and I've been beating you up all these years, so let's do some judo together. And we're only gonna do upper body stuff.

[Unknown Host]

Isn't he a judo black belt now?

[Nick Palmisano]

Now he is, but back then. But back then he was a white belt, and so I was like, cool, let's do that. Cause he really had been beating the crap out of me for years in fighting in jiu jitsu and everything, because he's, you know, a professional fighter, athlete, etc.

[Unknown Host]

Have we confirmed that?

[Nick Palmisano]

You know, I don't know. I don't know. Have we? Maybe. It's. It's possible. It's possible.

[Unknown Host]

We're gonna need to check the tape on that.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's possible that the 12 years that I spent cornering him was a figment of my imagination.

[Unknown Host]

Was it green screen?

[Nick Palmisano]

It might have been. All right, so we start, you know, doing some Randori only upper body. And about 30 seconds into it, he. He's talking to himself. He's like, oh, you're. You're hard to move. You're hard. You're. You're actually hard to get in on. Right? And then blast doubles me. That checks out just like 30 seconds into, like, trying jiu jitsu. Blast doubles me to the ground. And I'm like, you said we. You said we were doing upper body. And he does his little, like, evil laugh. So there's a confirmed lie right there.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, yeah. The question is, where do you file it? You know, I don't know. The beginning, the end. It's. What do you want? Javelin. We have a puppy today for the first time. Here. What is it, Michael? I know what we're going to do. Pick up that cage and stuff him in the other studio and lock the door.

[Austin von Lechtman]

All right.

[Unknown Host]

That's what he deserves.

[Nick Palmisano]

Sounds good.

[Unknown Host]

And then that way we can keep going. Yeah. Without worrying about the dog earlier. Oh, that's awesome. Do we still have good audio? He's running from.

[Nick Palmisano]

You know, he knows. He knows what's coming.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. I feel bad for Tim. He is. I mean, he's a fantastic person. A lot of people don't have the touch points of personal experience with him and that. God, I hate the world of social media. We were kind of alluding to this a little bit earlier. It's just. It's not real, the gap between social media and the real world. Tim does talk in the way that you described.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I've never met anybody who's more willing and ready to help. Like, if you come to him and you're like, hey, I need advice, or whatever. Like, I mean, he'll. He beat me up for 30 minutes on the mats first, but then we went back to his office and he was like, what are you trying to do? Like, when I was still kind of establishing myself, and I was like, these are my ideas. And he'll. He has a really, really great, clear way of communicating like this. This is not going to work. Like, I've tried this before. This is what you should do. And he'll put you in touch with people that he thinks can help. Like, he's. He is very generous, you know, in wanting.

[Nick Palmisano]

He doesn't do that for me ever.

[Unknown Host]

Just saying. I also have experience with him.

[Nick Palmisano]

He has never helped me with anything, so I don't even know what this guy's doing.

[Unknown Host]

My experience with Tim is he is constantly either grabbing a weapon or trying to fucking tackle me to the ground.

[Nick Palmisano]

Or threatening people for threatening people in, like, a funny way.

[Unknown Host]

Do you think that it will change the way he describes stuff? Going through what he's going through right now? Because here's the thing. And all jokes aside.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Some of what he is dealing with right now is his own doing.

[Nick Palmisano]

Oh, it's a bold statement. We're going bold today.

[Unknown Host]

No, it's. Our experiences are ours to do with what we want to, but it's not a free license to tell stories. Stories are important. The reason I wanted to be a SEAL was because of the stories that I had heard about seals. But Every individual is 100% responsible for what comes out of their mouth. And I don't think he is trying to portray something that he is not. But at the level that he is at, he has to expect such an extreme level of scrutiny on everything that he says he has to be cautious. And that's what I mean. Like, some of what he's going through is a little bit of his own doing. And I would say that to him if he was sitting right here.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, no, I know you would. And I know where that comes from. You know, I don't ever like to speak for anybody. I know that. I have never seen him lie, other than the jiu jitsu, the judo event I told you about, and occasionally telling women that they look nice at formal events when he doesn't really think that.

[Unknown Host]

That is the move, by the way.

[Nick Palmisano]

That is what we do. It's always, yeah.

[Unknown Host]

And if they say, how old do you think I am? You say, 22. Regardless if that's demonstrably false, if Gandalf is sitting in front of you, you're like, 22.

[Nick Palmisano]

You know, I. I don't. I don't spend time with anybody. I don't think.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

Is a good person. And. And, you know, he's one of the best people I've ever met.

[Unknown Host]

Yep.

[Nick Palmisano]

It is hard to have the entire. What seems like it's really a very small subset of the population. It is hard to devote that much of your life to a population, and it seem like the world is turning on you. So do I think that he will likely be more exact. Excuse me. More exact with anything he says, especially in a book form or something going forward? I think probably. You know, I personally think the whole thing has been really, really unjust. I just think it's been unjust. And, you know, I think that you can nitpick anybody and make them seem terrible.

[Unknown Host]

Not me.

[Nick Palmisano]

No. You, of course, are perfect. That's why we're on the show. We're trying to learn how to be more like you.

[Unknown Host]

I was down at Black Rifle yesterday. We might have talked about Tim a little bit on the podcast. It's hard to say, Hard to remember. And I was telling Evan, I'm like, I'm fucking tired of people not knowing about my valor. And so I finally came out with it like, I am the Navy SEAL with the most sniper with the most confirmed misses.

[Nick Palmisano]

And it's like, I want somebody to.

[Unknown Host]

Fucking prove me wrong. Like, that's my valorous statement that I'm throwing out there. And the funny thing is, I'm not even joking. I can miss a motherfucker like nobody's business, but that's literally how I try to be so cautious. First off, I always say the same thing. My career was super average. I never did a fucking thing. So I don't make any claims to do so. And if I'm gonna make a claim, it's gonna be something ridiculous like I just said, which is also based heavily in truth. Yeah, it's tough. Anything you put out there, it's going to be looked at through a lens of other people's experience. Probably an immense amount of time away from the event. It's, it's fucking tough. I wouldn't trade places with him for the world.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's very hard. And I also try not to go too hard on, on the people involved either because, you know, we were talking about this earlier. Not, and not even in the context of like the Tim thing, but like, I've never met a high performing person that isn't broken in some way.

[Unknown Host]

Like we're, yeah, they're not balanced, you.

[Nick Palmisano]

Know, like we're not doing superhuman or even big things because we're like healthy. Like something, you know, there's something broken inside you that makes you want to do, you know, or was that makes you kind of want to like heal something or go above board on something. And so, you know, I suspect that the guys that run that podcast kind of have something in them that doesn't quite match up. That. Yeah, you know, that, you know, maybe, you know, it could be as simple as, you know, they did great things and, and Tim has notoriety and, you know, they feel like he shouldn't have notoriety or it could be, it could be any number of things, like, and I don't know them, so I'm not going to, I'm not throwing shade. But usually, you know, usually when I see people do something that I don't personally agree with, I try very hard to be like, well, what is it that is making that happen? And I don't really buy, I don't think that they genuinely believe that he is, you know, a liar. I don't actually believe that. I think they don't like that he is famous, that maybe, you know, some of their friends that have done more are not famous. That maybe they think he's not using his notoriety the way that they would or they think they would if they were in the same situation. But again, I don't know these people, so I don't want to. Yeah, but I do. You know, we throw around a phrase all the time, hurt people, hurt people and seems accurate and that's, you know, I, I, I think that everybody involved in this have done way more for their country than I have. And I hope they kind of find some peace and figure all this out.

[Austin von Lechtman]

But our community is pretty bad with cannibalism.

[Unknown Host]

Like, I mean, the veteran community, yes, it's one of the most toxic communities.

[Austin von Lechtman]

It's crazy.

[Unknown Host]

It is insane.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I don't. I don't understand it.

[Unknown Host]

I think the explanation is pretty easy. They, like, when we're inside of the veteran community, whatever branch you might be in, doing your thing, it's about the team. Right. Or whatever, your element. And at some point in time, and I hope everybody realizes this, like, you're gonna time out in your military service. You will. SEAL community is great at this. Like, if you leave, the SEAL community will cease to exist. We can't do this without you. Your beating heart is what keeps this organization alive. And then you leave and they're like, oh, fuck, you're gone. We replaced you with three people immediately. Oh, yeah, you told us you were leaving. And yeah, we totally forgot we said those to you. And yeah, like your DD214s over there. See you later.

[Nick Palmisano]

Everyone is replaceable.

[Unknown Host]

Everyone's replaceable. And then you get out. And what I will say at least, and I can only speak for my experience, which was a long time ago, and my true feelings are everybody is. Their experiences are their own to do with what you want to do with them. If people want to write a book, write a fucking book.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

If you want to be the quiet professional, never talk about it and drink yourself to death at the vfw. I don't advocate for that, but that, like, do with it what you want to do. But what I see is when it leaves the world where you can leave him, Michael, fuck that dog. Nobody likes him. He's not even handsome. When you leave that world of the team is gonna get the credit for it. And individuals start to pull ahead a little bit more. There's this.

[Austin von Lechtman]

It rubs people the wrong way.

[Unknown Host]

It does rub people the wrong way.

[Austin von Lechtman]

It's so strange. I love the veteran and military community. I really do. But some of our behaviors, when we see the success of others, especially because it's like. I mean, we've all seen it. Somebody gets out, and then the commander's like, well, he's dead to me now. Like, that guy. That guy's a fucking piece of shit. And I don't know. I truly do believe a rising tide raises all ships. Like, if one veteran.

[Nick Palmisano]

Did you make that up?

[Austin von Lechtman]

I did. And I'd like that to go in the next Book, please.

[Unknown Host]

I might have heard Tim credited with that back when he was sailing with Christopher Columbus.

[Austin von Lechtman]

He was on Old Ironside when he said that.

[Unknown Host]

Wasn't he using the sextant on Christopher Columbus's vessel? I swear that his initials are on Plymouth Rock, are they not?

[Nick Palmisano]

It's. I believe they are. I believe you're right.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I just. I love seeing other people's success and it makes me want to try harder. Like, you know what I mean?

[Unknown Host]

For a lot of people, it doesn't land there.

[Nick Palmisano]

It doesn't land.

[Unknown Host]

They will see other people's success and they. The most common thing that I see, at least. And I'm not trying to be critical of people that feel this way because I do believe. Do what you want to. They will say the only reason that you are successful is because of. Fill in the blank. The jaw, in our case would be the trident, right? Which what I tell people is, go on fucking Amazon and buy one. I don't care. I'll send you the link. You can have your own trident. Go forth and do fucking great things. Probably wouldn't wear it out in public or make up stories. Leave that to Tim. But.

[Nick Palmisano]

I saw, like, I saw it pop, you know, I was like, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes.

[Unknown Host]

I'm sorry, Tim, I'm only gonna do that for a few more hours. They get. They'll say, you're only this because of that. And, you know, maybe that's the case. But let's also be honest. We're not all created equal. Some people are really well tooled to serve in the military, and they are going to struggle when they get out. And some people are really good at taking their military experience and figuring out what to do with it after the military. And those two people are on a different trajectory. And oftentimes it is fuck it is. So it is heartbreaking to see the amount of. It's like they're with the shepherd's hook and somebody's climbing a metaphorical ladder in their life, and they're, like, trying to hook onto their belt and pull them back down because that person's on a different rung. It sucks. It sucks, and it is super fucking toxic. I don't like it.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's wild, though, because, you know, to me, you know, you look at Tim, right? Just stay with the example of Tim, since we're making fun of him for an hour.

[Unknown Host]

I can do 90 if you guys want to go longer.

[Nick Palmisano]

But, you know, he devoted his life to becoming an elite fighter, allegedly. And allegedly an Elite jiu jitsu player. Allegedly. Right. The reason that. I mean, the reason that people know about Tim in the first place in a meaningful way is because of fighting.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

And then he had, you know, the most popular History Channel show for a couple years, and then he had his own show, you know, so. So, like, all of these things are the reason why he, you know, rose to prominence. Now, if he had been a firefighter. Right. And not in the military, people would be like, oh, cool. But because he was in the military, it's like, I feel like people forget that he was a fighter and did this other stuff that. And they just. They keep looking at, well, he only did this in the military. Which when I say only, I'm talking about the people that are talking crap about him compared to whatever they think they did. Well, you can go be a fighter. You can go.

[Austin von Lechtman]

You can do these things.

[Nick Palmisano]

You can write a book. You can do all these things. But it's like everybody forgets about that. And they just look at, well, I deployed twice as many times as him, so why am I not as big or whatever? I see that a lot.

[Unknown Host]

Those metrics get super dangerous and dirty. How many people have you killed? Or this side or the other? And I hear those. Or the deployment metric, or the Whatever, end of life, whatever the fuck you would want to call it. And anytime I hear that, I always ask the people saying that the generation of people that put you through training, did they have an opportunity to go into combat?

[Nick Palmisano]

That's right.

[Unknown Host]

And they didn't.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yep.

[Unknown Host]

But look at what they were able to craft and create and enable you to do. So they didn't get to deploy to combat, and you did. Are you better than them? I don't think so. They never had the opportunity. The world never presented them that opportunity. So putting a value, or all of your value in what's your number of deployments? What's the number of firefights you've been in? How many people you have killed? I mean, cool.

[Austin von Lechtman]

It's this constant game of one upping.

[Unknown Host]

Yes. And then also, guess what? I mean, Evan and I were talking about this yesterday. He's like, we won the gwad. I was like, fucking when there was no aircraft carrier landing with mission accomplished on that one. Because I feel like we're still fighting terrorists, so maybe we're just calling it something else. Yeah, it's going to trend back towards what it was pre 9 11, which I'm glad I got to see that. My first five years in the military were pre 9 11. It was amazing. I drank enough alcohol to kill a fucking donkey. You know, like, lived on fucking per diem, traveled around, talked about how badass that we were going to be. And then when we got pressed for real the first time overseas, we're like, wow, we fucking suck. Thank God we're generations ahead of the enemy that we're fighting. It's literally the only reason that I feel like we won. But I understand what that was like. And so there wasn't this, how many combat deployments, this, that or the other. I'm not saying it was a healthier writ large ecosystem, but this metric of, well, I served in war and what I did in war is more important than what you did, even though you didn't have a chance to go to war. What are we doing here? Yeah, like, that scale is never going to balance.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I always thought it was funny when I first joined and like, as soon as I got to my first unit, people were like, your generation's weak. Your generation's pussies. Like. And I'm like, y'all are training us, brother. Like, yeah, I'm not sure I'm the problem. I don't have any influence.

[Unknown Host]

Like, yeah, I also think, like, there's just been weak and, you know, people who could be described as pussies around. Since forever.

[Nick Palmisano]

Forever.

[Unknown Host]

Since forever. There's another aspect with Tim that I think makes people very uncomfortable, and that is he can beat the living fuck out of almost everybody on earth. And I don't know if this is an issue on the women's side of the house, but a lot of dudes get really uncomfortable with that.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yes.

[Unknown Host]

So there's that aspect as well.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And it's always dudes that like, don't fight at all. And it's like, brother, if you don't train at all, you can't fight. Like, I went the first jujitsu class I did, I was 26. I trained with the professor's like, 15 year old kid and he beat the shit out of me.

[Unknown Host]

Did you try just seeing red?

[Austin von Lechtman]

I did. And then I passed out. Yeah, but he would. And I could have picked this kid up over my head and he was just so good. And that's when I realized, like, oh, my God. That's when I. And I've never been an overly cocky person, I don't think. But that's when I realized, like, oh, wow. Like, I'm not shit.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. And for guys, especially in the communities, special operations community. And again, I can only speak for the Navy. I mean, we used to Call it going over the berm. If somebody rubbed you the wrong way and you got into an argument, you'd fucking go over the berm and you would settle it.

[Nick Palmisano]

We'd say go into the wood line.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Or in the Conex box or whatever it is. The problem is, what if you got a dude who feels totally comfortable running his mouth, but he can beat the fuck out of your dick? What are you gonna do with that? I actually don't wanna go over the burn with you, so. Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Can we just talk it out?

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, let's be reasonable.

[Unknown Host]

There's an aspect of that for sure. I think he's gonna be okay.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, he's gonna be okay.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, he'll be okay.

[Nick Palmisano]

He's.

[Unknown Host]

I wish people have had the ability to see him behind the social media presence and facade. I've had a good opportunity to spend time with him when literally nobody is there. And he is one of the most generous, kindest liars that I know.

[Austin von Lechtman]

What people don't talk about too, or they don't see it. Right. Because all you see is the forward facing success. But what you don't see is getting up at four in the morning to do like, like establish your business. You don't see working late nights like after you've gotten off work, especially if you're in the military. And it feels like when you see it on social media, it feels like, ah, God, this person must be just lucky or they must have a hookup or whatever. But it's always people with incredible work ethics that rise like that. Like I think Cody, Cody Sanchez just quoted it, but she was basically like, there's no such thing as like luck in business. There's just working really hard.

[Nick Palmisano]

There is luck in business. There is.

[Unknown Host]

Luck should be defined as the, the intersection of hard.

[Austin von Lechtman]

You get what I'm saying?

[Unknown Host]

Yes.

[Austin von Lechtman]

You get what I'm saying.

[Nick Palmisano]

I just wanted to disagree with you aggressively, publicly and aggressively.

[Austin von Lechtman]

There is luck. But you get what I'm saying? Like lucky people worked really hard for nine years. Like we just, we just read about Jeff Bezos.

[Nick Palmisano]

A lot of at bats, a lot of iteration, you know, like nothing typically works right out of the gate.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Yes.

[Nick Palmisano]

Except for the Cleared Hot podcast.

[Unknown Host]

I've been at this for like 7 years. I know you have, but that's the thing to. People don't. And again, I mean I've heard the stat that there's a thousand podcasts a day that are started, I'm sure which.

[Austin von Lechtman]

There might be and they don't make it past episode. Like Three, right.

[Unknown Host]

Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But I blame most of those on Joe because he tells almost everybody he meets. Hey, you should start a podcast. Like, hey man, shut the fuck up. Just kidding. Joe, I love you. You can keep telling people that if you want, but say there's a thousand a day. If you go online and you look at what a successful podcast is, they're looking at 100 to 1,000 downloads on an episode over a 30 day time period. Oh, wow, those numbers relative. So if you take. Let's take Rogans as an example, who has billions of downloads, probably fuck. It wouldn't surprise me if he had over 100 billion downloads. And then there's the one with 300. There's a little bit of gap in between, but even. Have you guys ever watched JRE number one? Yes, Michael, it's fucking fantastic. It's filmed on a laptop, rear facing camera with snowflakes coming down. Fucking pull up jre. It's amazing where it started to where it is right now. Granted. Did Joe have some advantages, a fear factor. Dude, comedian. Yes, of course he did. But fuck me, he's on episode like 14 million right now. He cranks him out like seven a day, right? I went and did a. He let me use his studio to interview him one time, which I'm sitting there, I'm like, this is really weird. You're like letting me. This is like borrowing the Millennium Falcon right now. And I don't know how to drive. He goes, dude, this is my fourth one today. Like, what? How do you do that? He looks me dead in the eye and he goes, weed. I'm like, okay. But he just fucking goes, yeah, look at this shit. Oh, damn. Look at the second video down under. Look at that.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Three hours ago, man. They're already hopping on it.

[Unknown Host]

That's JRE1. I told you. Fucking snowflakes, dude.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh my God.

[Unknown Host]

Hat on backwards.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Somebody watched this on MySpace.

[Unknown Host]

This is.

[Nick Palmisano]

Hey, this became. I had a MySpace.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I did too.

[Unknown Host]

This became and is probably the most.

[Nick Palmisano]

Powerful media on the planet.

[Unknown Host]

Object, entity on the fucking planet, I think. But here's where it started. Joe, who's probably galactically high there, doesn't even know that he's talking into the computer scene.

[Nick Palmisano]

Doesn't know the snowflakes are falling. That's a setting on the computer he accidentally hit.

[Unknown Host]

But yeah, I mean, you know what people say. Oh, must be nice. Or lucky. The 2000 plus episodes later of iterations. When I first started doing this, it was. There was no video cameras it was a little zoom recorder and two microphones and I used little five pound plates to hold the microphones down. So I'm traveling around with a fucking suitcase with an extra £10 in it like an idiot. And finally a camera, then multiple cameras. And I used to be in another office suite down the hall and slowly built. It's like, yes, there's luck involved in that too. But, like, I don't have a single superpower other than I can grind. And that's. I mean, you have to.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, you have to. So, yeah, I have.

[Austin von Lechtman]

People ask me about getting into content creation a lot. And like, is that what you consider yourself to be?

[Unknown Host]

A content creator? He does.

[Nick Palmisano]

He considers himself to be a content creator.

[Unknown Host]

I'm going to say he is a content creator.

[Nick Palmisano]

He is.

[Unknown Host]

Let's talk about the people flocking to him at the coffee shop. All of a sudden, all of a sudden I'm there just trying to feed my poor wiener dog some water and fucking. I come out and there's multicam everywhere.

[Nick Palmisano]

And I can tell sometimes he feels bad for me. He's like, he'll be like, hey, Nick. Nick used to be kind of famous too. And I'm like, it's okay, you don't have to do it. I don't need that. I don't need.

[Unknown Host]

There was. I heard, I heard brakes locking up outside as people were like, Jay turning in to come get pictures with you. Then they're asking you to send it to him. That was a covert way of that guy trying to get your phone.

[Nick Palmisano]

And they're always surprised that he has, like, his voice really sounds like this, you know, because it, you think it's a bit like, who would want to content creat.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Who would want to sound like this?

[Nick Palmisano]

Who would want to sound like, you know, Beaker? Who the. Is Beaker from the Muppets? You know, like.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, yeah, famous content creator. I'm going to give it to you. It's good. I. I would say 75 people ran into the store to see him.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yes. Maybe 100.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, that'll go in the third book.

[Unknown Host]

Are you writing a book, too?

[Austin von Lechtman]

I'm going to get Nick to write it for me. Then I can put anything I want in it.

[Unknown Host]

I clearly.

[Austin von Lechtman]

No, but people ask me and I recently had somebody, they're like, what, like, what is your trick? And I showed them, like on, I think YouTube, it has almost an exact number and it said like 4,367 videos. And I'm like, I did like, when I started, I'd do like 10 in a day. It wasn't like that abnormal.

[Unknown Host]

Your videos are fucking hilarious.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That's a huge, huge compliment coming from you.

[Nick Palmisano]

Don't build them up.

[Unknown Host]

Don't build them up. And it's true, because. And here's why I don't. God knows when I first stumbled across it, but anytime people are making fun of officers, I'm fucking in.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh yeah. I am an officer now and I love it.

[Unknown Host]

I retired as a fucking officer, but I did 12 years enlisted first and I chose to go down the officer pipeline because I couldn't fucking make E7 in the Navy. And I was trying to figure out ways where I could still progress and do something right. So I switched. I mean I was a limited duty officer and I tell people, emphasis on the limited and probably light on the duty, but people don't understand. They think that again, the SEAL community is an Elon Musk multi billion dollar rocket kitted out with dudes in the most high speed gear headed to Mars. And it's a bunch of retards on a short school bus licking the flavor windows and generally unwilling to quit. So it over time works out okay.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

And people will think that I'm joking when I say that and I'm dead fucking serious.

[Nick Palmisano]

But I think that's literally everything. I think most people in life, including myself, you're like, I don't usually know what I'm doing and you just have to figure it out.

[Austin von Lechtman]

You're just normal, but you work really.

[Unknown Host]

Hard, you know, I had, my wife had some friends come over the other day, they wanted to talk about. They were basically ideating on kind of what they want their future to be. And they were asking me, hey, how do you do the things that you do? And I gave them an honest answer. And that answer is, I actually don't know how to do any of the things that I do. The coffee shop, I have never, yes, went to an architectural meeting, a legit blue sky build. When they say, well, what do you want it to look like? You're like, fuck. I probably maybe should have thought about that before I started paying you guys, right? Or also, aren't you guys supposed to give me the ideas? This would make that a little bit easier. I've never had, I mean, I had people working for me in the military. That shit's so easy. You wanna know what's challenging? A barista with an average age of 17, having 30 of them, 30 to 40 people working for you and worrying about payroll and insurance and infrastructure and a management staff And.

[Nick Palmisano]

And all the rules.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, yeah. And then also, by the way, health.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Rules and that environment, the climate of.

[Unknown Host]

The workplace, and we don't care about that.

[Nick Palmisano]

I knew it.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I knew he was gonna say it.

[Nick Palmisano]

That's why I said it.

[Unknown Host]

But then, like, the retail stuff, I don't know what people want to buy. And I actually constantly say this to our managers because I let them. The market gets to determine what we're gonna sell.

[Nick Palmisano]

That's right.

[Unknown Host]

Because I'd be fucking bankrupt if I only sold the shit that I like. It'd be like massive black dildos in there. And like. Yeah, maybe some garland and a pumpkin pie. I don't know why it was that particular pairing, but I can't pick it.

[Nick Palmisano]

The first, when I first start. When. When I first started my first company, Ranger up, the apparel company. The first.

[Unknown Host]

Is that a phrase inside of the Ranger regiment. Ranger up.

[Nick Palmisano]

Ranger up. So I'll tell you. I'll tell you where it came from.

[Unknown Host]

I know there's, like, the rangers lead the way or like, follow me out the airport.

[Nick Palmisano]

I tell you. I'll tell you where it came from. My buddy Danny, he. He came back. He was. He deployed right away to Afghanistan.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

Like 2001. Right. He came back and was Tim with him probably.

[Unknown Host]

And Austin let me have my phone.

[Nick Palmisano]

And Danny. Danny got back, and when he got back, we were all. We all had like, a party for him. And he, you know, he was like, half an hour into it, and he goes, man, you know, I know this is lame, but, like, I'm so tired. Like, I think. I think I'm gonna go to bed. And I just go, dan Ranger the fuck up. And he was like, oh, my God, I can't believe you just said that to me.

[Unknown Host]

It's funny how that clicks, though. And you can turn. You can create it.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That's so good.

[Nick Palmisano]

And it. It just became like, this kind of thing. So it started with, like, a joke.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

And Ranger up at the beginning was. It was all comedy. Like, there was no tough guy anything. The first 30.

[Unknown Host]

Was there some short shorts, though?

[Nick Palmisano]

Always short shorts.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

But the.

[Nick Palmisano]

The first 30 shirts that I made, only one of them did well. And. And I'm just talking about iteration, like. Yeah, the idea that this sounds about.

[Unknown Host]

Like my journey is in soft goods retail as well. So. Except for that one where that. Where it did.

[Nick Palmisano]

Good one. Just take that off. It was the only. The one shirt was the only reason that I kind of kept doing it, because I was like, fuck, like 29 out of 30 were failure. But then it was like, all right, why did this work? And so then you start iterating on that idea. And that was, you know, that was how that company grew. And it grew to an eight figure business. And I got to do a lot of, like, really incredible things because of it. But it started as a hobby. It was. I was bored with my Fortune 100 gig.

[Unknown Host]

What were you. What was the Fortune 100 gig you were doing?

[Nick Palmisano]

I worked at John Deere.

[Unknown Host]

The tractor people.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

They're the green ones, right?

[Nick Palmisano]

The green one.

[Unknown Host]

I have one of those.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

It's not like a big tractor. I almost rolled it the day I got it.

[Nick Palmisano]

I'm just saying it was.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Are you drifting?

[Nick Palmisano]

It. It was.

[Unknown Host]

I was not respecting the slope.

[Nick Palmisano]

It was a great company. Great company, great people. Like, I genuinely thought. Because you hear a lot of crap about big companies, I genuinely thought they cared not only about their people, but passionately about the product.

[Austin von Lechtman]

So.

[Nick Palmisano]

I love John Deere.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That's crazy to hear about a company that big, too.

[Nick Palmisano]

If I ever. If I. If I ever get a big piece of land, I will definitely buy a John Deere tractor. That being said, I'll give you one example of when I knew I probably needed to be an entrepreneur. Do you remember David Letterman?

[Unknown Host]

Yes.

[Nick Palmisano]

Okay, so David Letterman, for a period of time, you could send in products donated to kids and he would maybe highlight your products on his show. And so I thought this was a great opportunity to focus on John Deere gifts and toys. So I sent this crazy, what I thought was hilarious letter to David Letterman and a bunch of toys, like a couple grand worth of toys. And he had this bear on the show. A dude dressed in a bear costume. I sent, like a 4x T shirt, John Deere T shirt. So I don't tell anybody about this. I just do it. And he, like, read parts of the letter.

[Unknown Host]

No shit.

[Nick Palmisano]

On the show, the bear comes out in the John Deere T shirt, which.

[Unknown Host]

Is gonna drive a huge spotlight towards John Deere.

[Nick Palmisano]

It was great.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

And I got in trouble.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Because you didn't tell me.

[Nick Palmisano]

I didn't tell anybody. I didn't ask anybody. I just was like. And that. This is the thing is they were right. Because they were at the time, I think, a $35 billion company. And I am just some, like, junior executive. Like, I don't have the right to put the brand at risk over, but at the same time, like, I needed that in order to be happy.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

And so that's. That's how I ended up kind of like starting the hobby. Me and a buddy, you know, like, hey, let's do this for fun. And then it was like it got bigger and all of a sudden I'd work my, you know, eight, nine hours at Deere and then I'd be working like eight, nine hours at home. And you know, and it just got to the point where my boss called me into the office and was like, hey, you know, you're going to get a promotion. He told me that on Friday and then I came in on Monday and I said, hey, I'm resigning. Because I was already making more money than I ever thought I'd make at Ranger up. At. No, at John Deere.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, okay, gotcha.

[Nick Palmisano]

And my, my promotion was going to be like 100 grand raise. And I was like, if I take this, I'm never getting out of it. I'm going to do this forever and I don't want to do it.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

So then I went then in the course of a very short period of time, you know, I was, I ended up like almost bankrupt, you know, divorced. You know, I had a one year old and a three year old. Like I went through it, but for whatever reason, even while all that was going on, like I felt super alive. And then Ranger up started working and, you know, the rest is kind of history. But yeah, like, you know, like the journey is not easy and there's a grind and you don't exactly know how it's going to work out and you have to, you have to be in that situation where you're like, I've got 57k in credit card debt and 1300 dollars in the bank and no money coming in. And I have a one year old.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

And I have a.

[Unknown Host]

And it's the 29th of the month and I have. And it's February where there's only 20.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Hot dog casserole tonight, baby.

[Nick Palmisano]

And you've got a one year old and a three year old and you're like, yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

You know, and everything can just get pulled out from under you. Like literally at any time for any reason. Yeah. Like there could you. The factory could catch fire and all the inventory is gone.

[Nick Palmisano]

But my process for everything, whether, you know, whether it's. Whether it was Ranger up or at John Deere or now with my new company, Diesel Jack or Office Joe.

[Unknown Host]

Hey, for people out there watching, go buy a fucking Blu Ray. I know you threw it out.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's on all the streaming services.

[Unknown Host]

You threw it out in the 70s, but go get one so you can.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Watch that if you own a Blu Ray player, you may be entitled to compensation.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Or send me an email and I'll send you one of those, too. For the two people that still owe one.

[Austin von Lechtman]

It's the same people.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's still 10% of the market. No, but the. The process for me has always been like, learn what the. How it works.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

And then ask questions about why it works that way. And then if there's something that seems stupid, see if you can go around that. So, like, when we were doing. When we did the movie range 15, you know that the.

[Unknown Host]

Which is nonfiction, right?

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's a true story. It's a true story.

[Unknown Host]

I just made the assumption.

[Nick Palmisano]

I'm gonna write. I'm gonna write that book, you know? Range 15, the True Story. We didn't, you know what? Hat the doors kept closing. It was like we went to Jared Taylor and I went to Hollywood. We were, you know, we. We.

[Unknown Host]

I don't know if I would take Jared to Hollywood.

[Nick Palmisano]

Jared is better at talking to people, despite the fact that he has no filter whatsoever than any human being I've ever met in my entire life.

[Unknown Host]

He's like, literally holding a fucking hand grenade with the pin out. I love him, but, God, you never.

[Nick Palmisano]

Know what's gonna happen. You never know what's gonna happen. But people love him, and he is.

[Unknown Host]

They should.

[Nick Palmisano]

They should.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

But he is better at connecting human beings than anybody I've ever met.

[Unknown Host]

I had him on the show. We talked for three hours. I don't remember a single fucking thing you talked about. I think we talked about aliens and fucking gophers and everything in between. It was amazing. He's all over the place, and I think he stayed for four days.

[Nick Palmisano]

That sounds right.

[Austin von Lechtman]

At the VFW.

[Unknown Host]

This is one of the best VFWs. I'm like. I mean, I've never been in there, but. Okay, sounds good. How long did you stay with Ranger up?

[Nick Palmisano]

About 10, 11 years. Like, we did it for a long time, and then I, you know, I sold it. The whole reason, like, Diesel Jack started is, you know, I sold the company, and I had to contractually work for another year for them, and it was great.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

And then right around the time that Covid was happening, they. You know, they. They. The hedge fund that had bought it kind of felt the strain, and they were like, you know, hey, you've gotta lay off this. They made every company lay off a certain amount of people. And I was like, ah, it doesn't make sen. Like we're doing. We're growing all this stuff. And long story short, I kind of said, well, hey, how about, you know, I'll just leave and you keep these people. That was kind of like. So that was. I left.

[Unknown Host]

Do you guys make a lot of V necks?

[Nick Palmisano]

Not a lot of V necks, no. I wear those now because I don't like anything touching my neck. You know, just saying.

[Unknown Host]

It's a weird choice.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's the Jiu Jitsu.

[Unknown Host]

It's the Jiu Jitsu 1600s.

[Nick Palmisano]

But, you know, hey, you know, if you were graced with a neck like this, you know, it just.

[Unknown Host]

But I'm just saying it's controversial, all right?

[Nick Palmisano]

It's a bold move.

[Unknown Host]

I don't see it often. It's a bold move, usually paired with an ascot of some kind. So it's just. It's hard for me to get around.

[Austin von Lechtman]

We've had enough controversy for the week already, Nick.

[Nick Palmisano]

I don't like anything touching my neck.

[Unknown Host]

Like, just so you know, your shirt's still touching your neck.

[Nick Palmisano]

Collared shirts. It is technically, collared shirts drive me nuts. Like, I. I despise them. And even. Even in Jiu Jitsu now, I significantly prefer no GI Jiu Jitsu.

[Unknown Host]

Why?

[Austin von Lechtman]

When my uniform top touches my neck, I'll throw a conniption like it.

[Unknown Host]

You know what scares me after starting Jiu Jitsu is zippered sweatshirts.

[Nick Palmisano]

Oh, yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Just the feeling of that being just ripped across your neck would. It's just horrendous.

[Nick Palmisano]

That would hurt. Yeah, that would hurt a lot.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, I never thought about that. And now that's going to be an intrusive thought.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. Speaking of Tim, he said nice things about your Jiu Jitsu. Anytime I'm meeting anybody.

[Unknown Host]

Actually, you know what that is, though? Proof he's a liar. Because I've only rolled with him once when I was a blue belt years ago, and he absolutely fucking demolished.

[Nick Palmisano]

But he demolishes everybody.

[Unknown Host]

No, I would fuck him up. Now I have to fucking smash him worse than he's ever been smashed in his fucking life.

[Nick Palmisano]

That's a strong statement.

[Unknown Host]

It's like I told him on the phone, his top pressure is weak. His cardio isn't there. He obviously doesn't train outside of Jiu Jitsu, so I can dominate him at will, I think. No, I've also rolled with him one time, like 40 years ago.

[Nick Palmisano]

Well, he said your Jiu Jitsu is good. He must. He must have watched some videos or something. I don't know.

[Unknown Host]

Did he though, or does he make.

[Nick Palmisano]

Or is he A dirty liar. Up.

[Unknown Host]

He's a kind man. He's being generous.

[Nick Palmisano]

He typically will tell me whenever I'm meeting somebody whether or not that person would beat me at Jiu jitsu. Like. Like, that's how he categorizes things.

[Unknown Host]

He 100% sees the world through who he could physically dominate 100% without. He's a caveman.

[Nick Palmisano]

He said, you would beat me at Jiu Jitsu, but I was the better wrestler.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Because I've never done a second of wrestling in my life.

[Nick Palmisano]

Listen, I'm just telling you what he said.

[Unknown Host]

You know how I beat wrestlers? I sit down.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Quick guard, pull.

[Unknown Host]

I refuse to engage in wrestling with them.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. I mean, it's smart.

[Unknown Host]

Well, it's just grappling people who think that they're going to come in. I don't give a. What your belt is. If you hit a high enough level wrestler, you're so. Like. Just because all you're going to be doing is playing defense and trying to keep them off, you're not going to get them on their back.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. And even if you do, they don't stay there long.

[Unknown Host]

I was rolling with Jim Miller one time, who has huge wrestling background, and I used to say, he's a monster. I used to say that I swept him, but I realized he corrected me. He goes, you attempted to sweep me? He did put his knee down, and I scissor swept him, and he was completely back towards the ground. But before he landed, his fucking hips had switched like a cat. I'm like, yeah, you, dude. Thank God.

[Austin von Lechtman]

When do they teach you how to levitate?

[Unknown Host]

No, he just. Their hips turned over so fast, you can't get them on their back. You just can't get them on their back. And even if his back had hit, like, it's so ingrained. And I don't understand the rules of wrestling other than it seems to be the death if your back hits the ground. So the second it hits, they come back up. You're like, man, I actually don't know what to do with that. Like, I can keep you off of me.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

But this is gonna be the most boring five minutes of our entire lives.

[Austin von Lechtman]

You know, and very tiring.

[Unknown Host]

It totally. Like, you're gonna have ungodly forward pressure, and I might be able to stop you, and there's no chance I'm gonna do anything offensive. And. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's. It's rough.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. No, Tim is being extremely kind. Yeah. Jujitsu is fun, but it's certainly isn't fucking magic. There's plenty of people who have my number. Not Michael, but it's plenty of people. He's a purple belt as well. It's just a room full of purple belts.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, just. Just a bunch of purple. But I'll probably be a purple belt forever.

[Unknown Host]

Why do you say that? Tim seems to advance people super fast. Yeah. How long you been training, Tim? How long's your blue belt been trained? Like, 16 years.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, he, he, yeah, at one point he was just like, why don't you just come under me? And I was like, all right, I'll do that. And so, you know, at some point.

[Unknown Host]

He was just like, nine years ago when you were a blue belt?

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, at some point. At some point he was just like, hey, you're a purple belt now. And just, you know, our structure is like. He just tells me, hey, the next time we roll together, you need to be. Your attacks need to be more varied. And so then I go home and I think about, okay, what do I need to do? And. But I'm not. I so aggressively wanted to be a black belt in judo when I was a young man, and then I wrestled, and it didn't matter at all. What, like, there's no belt. It's just like, who can win? And so with jiu jitsu, because I didn't really start belted jiu jitsu, my wife is a much better jiu jitsu player than I am.

[Unknown Host]

Well, they have to be more technical.

[Nick Palmisano]

She's extremely good.

[Unknown Host]

My wife's better too. She's a three side black belt and she's fucking savage.

[Nick Palmisano]

So she. She was the one that brought me back to the mats because I was. I've always rolled, but I was rolling like no GI with, you know, like, Brandon Garner, Bryce Mahoney. And like, we would all kind of meet up at Ranger up and we'd roll no GI and whatever. And she was like, why don't you put the gi back on? And I can't even remember when that was, but she set me up for failure because women operate on a different wavelength than men. And so they were like. She's like, hey, my husband's gonna come in. And they're like, oh, that's great. And she's like, yeah, he's super good because of, you know, he's a black belt in judo and he's this. And so she kind of bigged me up thinking, like, she's trying to be, like a supportive wife but not realizing.

[Unknown Host]

Soldier ass right down the river. So I show up, people Are like, oh, really? Have him here at noon.

[Nick Palmisano]

And there's like a murderer's row of black belts and brown belts and that's all I had. And like, at the end of like three hours, I was like, I hate all of you. You know, like, we, we. It was like a three hour.

[Unknown Host]

It's good for dudes, though. That's. I. I think. I actually think the world would be a better place if more men specifically experienced that 100% and just had deal with getting dominated and controlled and having to go look in the mirror and be like, okay, that sucked. I suck. I can be better. This is a super long path, but I'm gonna keep making myself uncomfortable and keep going back. I think it would round the edges.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I wish I. I wish more people could experience too, what I mean. And I'm sure it's true for any, like, combat sport or whatever you want to call it, but, like, it will carry you through the worst parts of your life. Like, because when you're on the mats, you cannot think about anything else. It doesn't matter what's going on because you're just focused on not getting choked or not getting armbarred or whatever. And it's so uncomfortable. It's like, it's almost like a form of meditation. Like, it pulls you into it and it's the only thing that you can focus on. That's what I. Every single time I leave the mats, I leave. Even if I got my ass kicked the whole time, I leave feeling better than I walked in.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, for sure.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. I particularly like Jiu Jitsu when things are not going well. Because just, you know, if you're hanging on my back trying to choke me, I'm not like, oh, man, how are we gonna make payroll?

[Austin von Lechtman]

But honestly, like, honestly.

[Nick Palmisano]

No, for sure.

[Unknown Host]

Can you imagine people's. Well, I mean, I think we all can imagine it because we all didn't start Jiu Jitsu when we were a child. People who can't escape those thoughts that I can't imagine. I just don't know why I just said I can't. I can't imagine the overwhelming nature of those inescapable thoughts. If you don't have an outlet that turns the volume down a little bit.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yep.

[Unknown Host]

It's. People are probably.

[Nick Palmisano]

I actually think that, like, a lot of the problems we have with kids and mental health and all those things are. And this is probably controversial, but the, the zero tolerance policies in high school and middle school.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

For violence around fighting.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

We've decided is this what it is.

[Unknown Host]

Switch to, like, if you're violent at all.

[Nick Palmisano]

Are you a Jeff?

[Austin von Lechtman]

It was like that right around when I graduated high school.

[Unknown Host]

What year did you graduate?

[Austin von Lechtman]

12 or 11. One of the other.

[Unknown Host]

He's a 2011.

[Nick Palmisano]

He's a young man.

[Unknown Host]

Dude, you are a youngin.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, it was 11.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. I'm gonna run. I was like, I was 94, so I was 96.

[Unknown Host]

I'm not that far behind you.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I'm not gonna tell you when I.

[Nick Palmisano]

Was born, so, you know, but I.

[Unknown Host]

Mean, there's still stuffing people at lockers. When I was in high school.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yes. Yeah, there were. There were fights. I'm not. I'm not trying to make it sound like, you know, in. In the 90s, it was like this hard, you know, but there were fights almost every day.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

You know, and not like crazy, but, you know, guys got mad at each other, they fought, and then oftentimes they'd be friends afterwards or. Yeah, but I do think that creates politeness. It creates politeness, but also grievances are dealt with, and they're dealt with immediately, and they don't build to something else. Like, you know, you did something bad to me. You know, we fought, and now, for better or for worse, like, we have now taken those emotions, whereas you did something bad to me. And now you're making fun of me online, and I'm in my little group saying, this guy's a. And they're like, you should do something. You know, like, you end up with these unhealthy kind of permanent problems that are really. We had a disagreement. So what? But then it becomes something bigger because it's pushed aside. It's not dealt with the way that we naturally deal with things. You know, it is like, I think fighting for young men is important. They either you either have to do it as a combat athlete or you have to do it in real life. But, like, kind of figuring out, like, two things. One, standing up for yourself. And two, I can get my ass kicked. Like, I am not unstoppable. You know, I think those are really important lessons, and I. I think taking it away has created this problem where kids, not most kids, obviously, but kids will resort to ultra violence or unhealthy thought processes or taking their lives or all these things that, like, really didn't exist the same way that they do now.

[Unknown Host]

I think they existed, but a much smaller.

[Nick Palmisano]

Smaller. Yeah, of course. Things. Yes.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

But. But you didn't see multiple school shootings happening. You know, you didn't see.

[Unknown Host]

Not Even aware of one in the era that you and I went to school.

[Nick Palmisano]

Me either.

[Unknown Host]

And I don't think if you look at the rise and increase in gun ownership in population, I don't think statistically it diverges. Yeah, it doesn't. It's not like, nope, we still had the same act like we had my dad had. That's probably a statute of limitations is. But he had a fucking.357 Magnum in his sock drawer. It's like that was his level of skiff that he rolled with. You know, maybe he was in a sock sometime. Harder to see, but like. But yeah. I mean, I could have any time gone in there. But not even a thought process.

[Nick Palmisano]

Not a thought process.

[Austin von Lechtman]

It gives people an ability to regulate their own emotions better too. And I also think that, I mean, people can tell if you're willing to go hands on, like it. And hopefully that doesn't sound really weird, but I don't know, I think it would give more. What I say is it gives people that are meek more confidence and it gives people that are too confident some meekness. Like, it just. It'll give you what you need. Because if you're like hyper confident and you show up to any place where they're hitting each other or sparring, you're not leaving super confident. And if you're not confident, you show up. You can learn. I always tell people that are getting started too do it for at least six months. Because six months is long enough to become proficient enough where a new group of people will come in. And that's when you really see if you've improved because you're training with the same people and you're kind of all getting better at the same rate. But then a new person shows up and you're like, oh, wow, I actually have learned some skills.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. And you should train with that person and abuse them. That's where you practice all your high consequence moves. Just joking. Austin, how did you decide to start doing the content you do? Are you in the army still?

[Austin von Lechtman]

I'm in the army. I'm active duty.

[Unknown Host]

I thought you were getting out.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That's a rumor that I might have started.

[Unknown Host]

Okay. Do you want to continue with that rumor or.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I'm not sure right now. I sort. I have achieved a level of notoriety that I'm very proud of. And I don't want to just get big and like deuces. I'd like to give back a little bit. I actually was just talking to somebody about this. He was like, well, you've kind of like already given back. And it was nice. It was a very kind thing that that person said to me. But I want to. I'm actually going to start a new job pretty soon where I'm doing content, like unofficially for the army. And it's going to be, you know, morale. The way that it's structured is going to be fun, but it'll be for morale.

[Unknown Host]

Told you.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. Did a recruiter tell you that?

[Unknown Host]

So what do you know, Captain?

[Austin von Lechtman]

No, I'm a first lieutenant. I'll be a captain in the next couple months.

[Unknown Host]

In the army though. Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Because the captain is like a four star general, right?

[Unknown Host]

Fuck yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

He's an O2.

[Unknown Host]

Okay, so. Oh, two. Yes. So you guys start second lieutenant, then first lieutenant, then captain, right? Yeah. No, it would always people up. Army guys calling a navy base. If you say Captain, that's an 06.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Unknown Host]

They're like, oh, sir. And I like. Because I would get those calls. I'm like, oh, yes, or what? They're like, no, dude, I'm a 03. I'm like, oh, sweet. Me too.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Lieutenant carries no weight.

[Nick Palmisano]

None.

[Unknown Host]

Okay.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, yeah.

[Unknown Host]

I thought you had been in longer than that. I've been.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Listen. Yeah. I've been in 13 years in February and it's because I did almost 10 enlisted before I commissioned.

[Unknown Host]

This is where your content comes from.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, Yeah, A lot.

[Unknown Host]

I now understand exactly why you are so accurate in your descriptions of the inner workings of the military.

[Austin von Lechtman]

People say it to me all like I had. So my, my brigade commander while we were in Poland was considering changing the policy when he heard about the social media stuff.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And my battalion commander actually went to bat for me and she said, sir, just watch it. Just watch the videos.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And so a couple days later I saw him and he's huge. This huge dude. He's like six five, you know what I mean? And so he starts walking straight towards me and I'm like, all right. Who like got drunk and got in a fight?

[Unknown Host]

That's never. And then you got a fucking serpentine when that happens.

[Austin von Lechtman]

But he walks up to me and he goes, dude, you're fucking hilarious.

[Nick Palmisano]

And he shook my head with this.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Gigantic hand, you know what I mean? And he was like, he was like, but you're just a lieutenant. Like, how, like how do you know all this stuff? And I was like, well, sir, I was enlisted for a long time first.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And. And so. But he became a big fan of a character that I had in my early skits. The character was me because all the characters were me. But he became a big fan of this Marine veteran, Blake. And he'd always wear these glasses and, like, every third word was raw. And that was his favorite dude. And Blake had a pet raccoon named Raccoon.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And so probably a red truck. He loved it. I think he did, actually. But how I got started is I just started making videos. I made.

[Unknown Host]

Like, where did the idea come from? Because you were obviously in the military. You were aware that social media started one day. We were just like, fuck it. Pretty much, I'm going in on this.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, I started making videos. I got really lucky. So to counter my own quote earlier, I got lucky. Cause my.

[Nick Palmisano]

You already are a liar.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, I should write a book. My 20th to 27th video, somewhere in there did like, 60K, which is. Which at the time, I was like, I'm famous. Like, you know what I mean? And it was a. It was a very, like, classic. One of my skits where I'm taught. I'm a. I'm a dude pretending to talk to a commander.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, he talks to himself in all of his.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, I know. I love it.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's like, hey, hey, look, it's me, Austin.

[Austin von Lechtman]

My counselor said I needed to do something with the voices. So here. Here it is. And it's healthy and it's doing well for me. But I'm like, sir. Yeah, we got two new NCOs coming in. One of them, you know, he volunteers. He's got letters of recommendation. He's got a master's degree. This guy's got a dui, and he runs fast. And the commander's like, I want that guy. But it's funny, because that was so true, though. The lighting was terrible. Like, I had words on the screen, and the words were, like, off the screen. It was an objectively bad piece of content. But the message resonated with people so much because so many people had had that experience, and it just kind of took off. And I was like, oh, I can do this every day. And I did. I've done it every day since.

[Nick Palmisano]

Despite all that content, you were actually a good actor.

[Unknown Host]

When did the army first catch wind of this, though?

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, pretty early. Cause, like, with. So I was at.

[Unknown Host]

And you are in uniform in some of them. And when I first saw him, I was sitting there wondering about, like, how is this received? Probably depends on the pay grade that you ask and the exposure to it and how much they can laugh at themselves and the fucking military.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I have had general officers reach out to me and say they loved it.

[Unknown Host]

Perfect.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And so.

[Nick Palmisano]

And I've had people, but there's another one that secretly hates you and wants to ruin your life. I guarantee that that's true. I guarantee there is some dude that's like, someday I will ruin him.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah. I had one guy walk up to me one time, and he wasn't even in my chain of command or anything, but he was like, I don't really like what you're doing online. And I was like, who are you? Like, what? Go talk to my boss?

[Unknown Host]

That's all you came back with?

[Austin von Lechtman]

Literally. Literally.

[Nick Palmisano]

Well, I would have. I was expecting.

[Unknown Host]

I would have expected gray hair.

[Nick Palmisano]

I thought you were gonna say something funny there.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. You come back with like, dude, your wife loves it. She sends me a bunch of dick pics.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I have people literally every week walk up to me and be like, my wife loves your stuff. And I'm like, four years ago, that would have been a fist fight. Like, that exact quote. So that's kind of funny.

[Nick Palmisano]

It is funny, though, because he. He has somehow transcended our community. Like, he's not. It's. You know, with, you know, with Matt or Tim or Jared, like, you know, they're. They're all famous inside of a subset of people.

[Unknown Host]

But.

[Nick Palmisano]

But with him, like, my kids are. Have grown up around Tim Kennedy. They've grown up around the black rifle crew. Like, they've grown up, so they're not like, wow, it's Tim. They're like, you know, hey, it's Uncle Tim. When they saw me in a picture with him, they were like, oh, my God, you know, mandatory fun day. I'm like, why do you know, mandatory fun day? And they. They just think his voice is funny and the stuff he does is funny.

[Austin von Lechtman]

My face is funny. So, like, my mom thinks I'm handsome.

[Nick Palmisano]

At least in high school. Like, high school kids follow him, which they don't realize.

[Unknown Host]

They probably think you're doing straight comedy about the military. Unfortunately, what they miss out is you're.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Actually doing what I'm saying is what we do.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And I don't even. Like, I don't even play it up. Like, I mean, sometimes it's played up, obviously, but, like, yeah, it's funny that you say that. So early on, my. My content was, like, super specific to the active duty army. And then I saw somebody say, we do that in the National Guard. And so then I changed it to just army. And then I saw somebody who was like, we do that in the Marine Corps. And I saw. I changed it to Military or. I changed it to US Military or something. And then somebody. The first person that reached out to me from another country was this British officer. And he was like, dude, we thought you guys didn't do this in the American military. And I was like, no, brother, we do it harder.

[Nick Palmisano]

We do this so hard.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And so then I just changed it to military. But I have this like. Like, I. I just had this. This French dude reach out to me, and he was like, if you ever come to France, you're not paying for a single drink. And I was like, I'll take you up on that for sure. But. So it's funny. I've made it more and more broad in general while still applying to the audience. And honestly, I've tried to do more mainstream stuff. Like, I'm trying to get into geopolitics, and I kind of make it funny with, like, you know, I put flags. It's still me talking to myself, but.

[Nick Palmisano]

Only talks to himself.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, I'm aware.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I don't have the budget for any. Any more actors yet.

[Nick Palmisano]

I'm gonna. I keep trying to pull this back in, but in this right here, in.

[Unknown Host]

The Blu Ray that you have to buy, he.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's not just on Blu Ray. It's streaming everywhere.

[Unknown Host]

Then why did you bring me a fucking desk? Because you can't get rid of him anywhere else.

[Nick Palmisano]

Because it's higher. It's higher quality.

[Unknown Host]

I'd say put that in Tim's backpack, but it's too full of grenades.

[Nick Palmisano]

It is higher quality than streaming. I knew it was coming. You see it? He gets a little smirk right before he's about to drop it.

[Austin von Lechtman]

This was the most fun project.

[Unknown Host]

Nobody can read me. Nobody knows what I'm gonna say.

[Austin von Lechtman]

This was the most fun project I've done. One of the most rewarding things I've done. And, like, so I was so nervous. I've never acted before. Nick sends me the script. I'm reading it 6 million times. I'm still reading it on the plane over to North Carolina. And then I got there, and he's.

[Nick Palmisano]

Going to be in a scene. Him and Jared are. They play recruiters next door.

[Unknown Host]

Jared would be a great recruiter.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, yeah.

[Unknown Host]

He.

[Austin von Lechtman]

He played the part well.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. He would just be like, what do you want to do? We don't really do that, but, like, here's the paycheck you get.

[Austin von Lechtman]

You want a Hellcat?

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. You can get a Mustang at a 30% interest rate right off a base. When you're an E2 and probably could marry a Stripper. If you wanted to just.

[Nick Palmisano]

Just. Just low key. Selling it without selling it.

[Unknown Host]

He would. He would probably have an exceptionally high enlistment rate. Oh, yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, definitely. He's so personal.

[Unknown Host]

And the people coming in would actually know what they're getting into.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, he would. He would be honest.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

So.

[Unknown Host]

But still be able to sell them on the fact that it's going to be horrible.

[Nick Palmisano]

So when I. When I was envisioning these recruiters, and these are the recruiters that are next door to the office that this whole show's about, I knew that, like, originally I was like, man, I've got to have Jared in this role because he plays, like, the shitbag recruiter. Doesn't care that he's there.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

You know, his uniforms messed up and he's just aggravated all the time. And I always wanted him arguing with somebody. And we met at a comedy event where he was doing stand up.

[Austin von Lechtman]

We met at a comedy event where I learned that I'm bad at stand up comedy.

[Unknown Host]

Internet comedy and stand up comedy are not the same thing.

[Austin von Lechtman]

They're not the same.

[Nick Palmisano]

But the way he gets this exasperated, I was like, man, this would be so perfect with crazy, aggressive Jared and like, this exasperated, frustrated dude playing back at him. So I wrote it with the two of them in mind, and then I asked him if he would do it.

[Unknown Host]

And, man, I could not do the acting thing.

[Austin von Lechtman]

They made it. They made it really easy.

[Unknown Host]

I don't think so.

[Austin von Lechtman]

They made. With the right team. I don't think it would have been fun with anybody else. But, like, I showed up and Jared and I flowed really well. So you made a really good choice there. The script was well written.

[Nick Palmisano]

Picking me was a great idea.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Well, I met Jared. I know how that sounded.

[Unknown Host]

Clearly, I was the lynchpin.

[Nick Palmisano]

This is where my humble guy facade breaks.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I met the good pick with Jared, but. And then I was so nervous because this is not a group of people that will tell you you're doing well if you're not doing well.

[Nick Palmisano]

That's true.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And they were very complimentary. Once we got going, it's like everything just flowed. And I remembered my lines, and we were able to do a bunch of takes. We were able to play with it, have fun with it, and it was just. I mean, it was a. It didn't feel like working. It felt like hanging out with the boys, you know, it was just. It was fun.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. They're one of my favorite parts of the show. These. These two guys.

[Austin von Lechtman]

We got described as the peanut gallery Muppets, as Well, at the premiere.

[Unknown Host]

I like that. I like that. How'd you get it pitched and sign off as far as the project is gonna get done? Where is it streaming right now? All the streaming services right now.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's for sale on Amazon, Apple and YouTube.

[Unknown Host]

Okay.

[Nick Palmisano]

So you can get it on any of those. Where it's going to land long term? I don't know yet. We're kind of still talking to people about.

[Unknown Host]

Is the idea that this is season one and there might be more.

[Nick Palmisano]

100%, that's the plan. The show's about an E6, Joe Houser, that leaves Fort Lewis as an infantryman, just. And the opening scene is literally him trying to get his. His DD 214 and getting all kinds of crap from an S1, you know, trying to.

[Unknown Host]

You know, which is an admin person. For those of you like, what the Fuck is an S1?

[Austin von Lechtman]

It's HR, basically.

[Nick Palmisano]

He's trying to get the form that says he's out of the military and he's a civilian. And the opening scene, you know, we kind of have that out there that's got. It's got a ton of views, but people are like, man, this hurts a little bit. Like, it's funny, but it also is bringing back flash.

[Austin von Lechtman]

My favorite opening scene in any show I've ever watched, honestly, of a dude.

[Unknown Host]

Trying to get his DD214.

[Nick Palmisano]

Just trying to get his DD214.

[Austin von Lechtman]

The way that it's portrayed and the other things that happen along the way are so spot on. Just like, you could not encapsulate the military experience better than the first five minutes of the show.

[Nick Palmisano]

So he gets his DD214 finally, and he drives across the country to start his job as a graphic designer at a boutique marketing firm. And he learned how to draw in porta Potties while deployed. That's.

[Unknown Host]

That's some interest. That is our.

[Nick Palmisano]

That is our main character.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That's politically incorrect art, too.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, God.

[Nick Palmisano]

And so, you know, the whole show is about veteran transition. And so the first season is about finding, like, sexually or. Well, it's a great question. So episode one covers some of that.

[Austin von Lechtman]

It's funny you mentioned that.

[Unknown Host]

Almost 2025. We have to be clear.

[Nick Palmisano]

Episode one is. You'll enjoy episode one.

[Unknown Host]

Okay.

[Nick Palmisano]

But yeah, I mean, the whole idea, you know, when. When I talk to people that are just getting out, that are struggling, and I spend a lot of time. I do a lot of work with the American Legion. I do a lot of work with the Independence Fund. I've done a Lot of work with Warrior Rising. And so all of these organizations typically are dealing with veterans that are. You know, they recently got out or. Or maybe they've been out for a while, and they feel lost, and it's in. They typically. This is just me talking. I feel like when veterans are having a hard time, they typically have either not found tribe or not found purpose. And so even though the show's ridiculous, it's comedy, it's not. It doesn't take itself too seriously. I promise. The theme of every season is about the things that you have to do to kind of find happiness in life. So season one is tribe. So he lost his tribe of the military. He's showing up at this place. He's a fish out of water, and he's trying to figure out how he fits in and whether he has tribe. So that's the. That's kind of like the baseline of season one.

[Unknown Host]

Okay. I would add to that, honestly, trauma, but not trauma occurred during military service. It's before I've. As I'm sure we all have. I've had far too many friends make the decision to kill themselves, and I have stopped trying to make sense of an irrational decision. I realized you can't logic it. I can understand. I understand that they got to a place where it was their logical decision. I don't understand getting to that place. But I have. I have shifted my thoughts on. Because people say, well, why is veteran suicide so higher? Why do guys struggle so much when they get out? And I didn't have a lot of deep conversations with guys when I was in about their upbringing.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Like, hey, dude, like, at Thanksgiving, did your uncle touch you under the table? You know, we weren't talking that much about that. Or were you abused or any of this stuff. The number of guys. And this isn't. It's not a. I'm not saying that all people are like this, but the number of guys that I served with who brought in a full fucking sea bag of trauma before going into the.

[Nick Palmisano]

Military, assuming a sea bag is some kind of Navy thing, you guys would.

[Unknown Host]

Probably call it a duffel bag.

[Nick Palmisano]

Thank you for that translation.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Does it come before the D bag?

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. It could probably hold 75 grenades.

[Nick Palmisano]

So stop making a grenade change. We're just gonna. We're gonna completely embrace it, and from now on, we're gonna. We're gonna use grenades as our measurement of both volume and weight.

[Austin von Lechtman]

We should.

[Unknown Host]

We should.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

But they brought a full. They brought a full bag with them in, and they do find a tribe and they find a purpose. And if you think about this, if you were somebody that was abused and that could be, let's say you were bullied or the victim of abuse you couldn't control, what would be a better job than finding something where you get to fight up other people that in the world you perceive as being able to do that? So you find this. You like, this is awesome. I'm gonna do this job. You get to go do that job. And you. But yet you encounter even more trauma along the way. Then you get out of the military. Most of the guys will geographically separate, maybe go back home to where they were from and. Right. And so they lose their tribe and they're geographically separated. And now they have the shit that they brought with them and then the stuff that they picked up along the way. And I think for a lot of people it's just far too much. I don't, you know, I don't necessarily think it is the military service that is driving the suicide on the far end. I think we have to look more holistically and start trying to figure out who these people were before they joined the military. Because I don't know, the military does break some people, some of the jobs for sure. But there is that aspect of. What did you bring with you? And I was actually, I did a podcast with. He was a psychiatrist and psychologist. He joined the Army National Guard, I think it was at 63. He was the oldest dude to ever join. He vehemently believes that we should shift the enlistment age from 18 to 21 because he thinks that will have probably the longest or the most meaningful impact on the tail end because people are going into that environment more prepared to deal with the trauma that they are going to experience.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, they're a little more mature.

[Unknown Host]

They are. I mean, the prefrontal cortex on adult males is 25 to 27 is what they say setting them up for success. And so there'd be a little bit of a hijink inside of that, obviously, because you'd have to restructure stuff and. But that to me is a way more interesting idea about fixing a downstream problem than throwing up your hands and saying, there's nothing we can do about this. Because I hate to tell you, like all the computer based training about suicide and checking on your buddy and all this, it's not fucking making an impact. It's having zero impact whatsoever.

[Austin von Lechtman]

It's funny you talk about that. And, you know, I've had a couple buddies that chose to take their own life, but when I'm getting. And I don't get near as much hate as some people do, but give it time.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, it's coming until your book comes out.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's coming. When I am, I'm gonna publish a fake book under your name just to see what happens.

[Austin von Lechtman]

When I have those moments where I, like, see a bunch of comments or whatever, I think about the times when people have told me, like, I reconnected with a friend. I actually had a girl message me and say, I reconnected with. I mean, she said her elderly father, I don't know how old he was, but, like, she was like, I haven't talked to him in 20 years, but I sent him one of your videos. And whatever war he fought in, he had the same experience. And it was probably about the fucking motor pool or formation or something. And she said, now I've reconnected with my father, and I don't even read my DMs anymore at night because I started crying as soon as I read this. You know, this girl's telling me she hasn't talked to her dad in forever, and now they've reconnected.

[Nick Palmisano]

Bottom line, you're a hero.

[Austin von Lechtman]

But I agree. I think comedy isn't like the kind of comedy that we start a slow cloud.

[Unknown Host]

The kind of you go with it.

[Austin von Lechtman]

The kind of comedy that we like isn't promoted enough in the military. Like, we make those jokes, but it's almost like, I don't know, sometimes the seniors are like, you know, I don't.

[Unknown Host]

Know if the world is ready for the type of comedy that really gets my rocks off. It is fucking dark. But God damn, the shit I have laughed about in the complete remote isolation of the backwoods, where nobody could possibly hear us with any listening device, would fucking drop people dead in their tracks. But I also think that's probably a coping mechanism and how you survive as well. But, yeah, it's. Man.

[Nick Palmisano]

Well, that's. That's the funny thing about, you know, range 15 was like. We pushed it with range 15. We pushed the limits of comedy with that. And you almost universally. People like, it either gets a 10 or a one star. There is almost. Nobody's, like, solid seven. Like, it's either, you know, this is hilarious, or you're the worst people I've ever heard of.

[Unknown Host]

You know, Expands the gambit, if you will. Yeah, yeah, that's okay.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

You know, I mean, what are you gonna do? It's. Yeah. I don't know. So, Austin, you stay in. If you stay in, how many? So you're well, you've been an officer now two plus years.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Does the army reset your retirement calculator like the Navy does by 10? So the small prints on my LDO paperwork was, yeah, you owe us 10.

[Austin von Lechtman]

More for retirement from the time you commission.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, my God. We call that an ad. So in the army act, did you.

[Nick Palmisano]

Know obligation or was that like surprise?

[Unknown Host]

I did know that. I did know it, but I didn't care. I ended up getting medically retired just under the 17 year mark, which was. I didn't want to do that. I was actually, I think, five to seven days away from just separating. And that's when I waited to do my discharge physical because I was like, fuck it, whatever. Maybe I won't even do it. And the doctor looked at me and said, there's no way I'm signing this. Well, you need to, because I have plans. And he ended up. I ended up extending for a year and went out to Nico and did the whole MEB PEB process. So it didn't really matter. And I would have been okay with it, but it's. I'm glad that the army doesn't do that. So if you decide to stay in though, how do. How are you going to do both? How are you going to. Because there is a point in my estimation where what you're building will grow to a point where it probably won't serve the army as much as they necessarily want it to. Where they'll probably say to you, hey, this is in somehow way, shape or form getting in the way of or bumping up against your ability to professionally do your job as a soldier.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah. I mean, right now my plan is to stay in. I've got seven years until I can retire. Seven years and change. So I wish I had an answer for you, but I'm gonna tackle it the best I can when it comes. And if somebody says like, hey, this isn't jiving anymore, then I'll, you know, I'll bow out gracefully. But I think that what I'm doing is good. You know, I think I walk a really fine line of professionalism and comedy and realism.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And. And so I'm hoping that people will continue to see that. And so far they have. My chain of command has always been super supportive. I've had may one that one guy and then maybe one other person.

[Unknown Host]

You're still relatively junior though, too. I'm curious if it'll shift as your rank.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Right.

[Unknown Host]

Kind of ascends.

[Austin von Lechtman]

The cool thing is the.

[Nick Palmisano]

As the. The envy, the 04. Envy starts setting in.

[Unknown Host]

Well, if you take away the social media aspect of it or the notoriety, just in the military structure, Right. The higher you go and rank, the more influence you have. Not that I would necessarily agree with that argument, but I could land at.

[Nick Palmisano]

A place where I could see where they're coming from. I could see them not wanting him to be a commander, making this kind of comedy.

[Unknown Host]

What do you do in the army? What is your job?

[Austin von Lechtman]

I'm an MI officer. I'm a platoon leader right now.

[Unknown Host]

What is an MI officer?

[Austin von Lechtman]

Military intelligence officer.

[Unknown Host]

Okay. All right.

[Nick Palmisano]

I think he's asking you, what do you do?

[Unknown Host]

He works military intelligence.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, I heard cats. Right now I don't do any MI as a platoon leader. Really. It's just managing guys.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, I don't know if that's going to get any better. As you go up. I think the number of guys you manage just might increase. Job satisfaction will stay exactly the same.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I am. I am excited, though. My next gig should give me the opportunity to use this talent to do something. I. I think I'll serve.

[Nick Palmisano]

Incredible talent.

[Unknown Host]

I'm gonna give it to him. He is talented.

[Nick Palmisano]

No, he's.

[Unknown Host]

He is.

[Nick Palmisano]

He's good. I've never met anybody. I have never met. I have never met anyone that talks to themselves as well.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I talk to myself so good.

[Nick Palmisano]

Well, as this guy does, hey, the.

[Unknown Host]

Rest of the world is going to try to tear you down. I mean, I generally roll out of bed in the morning, look in the mirror, I'm like, what's up, you piece of shit? What are you going to fuck up today?

[Austin von Lechtman]

It already makes me very uncomfortable to speak about myself positively. And Nick knows that I'm getting ready right now. But yeah, I'm excited to see, you know, what I can do. And then. Yeah, but maybe at some point an opportunity comes along and I have to be like, hey, guys, I got to go. Like, I want to take advantage of this. I don't know what that looks like, you know, but I, I love, I love wearing the uniform. And I think even through the comedy, you can see the love for the institution because I. I am unapologetically American and I do believe the United States military is one of the greatest institutions on earth.

[Nick Palmisano]

I was the trademark holder of that phrase.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Really?

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Unapologetically American. God, I'm surprised, you guys. Trademark.

[Austin von Lechtman]

No way.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, you said you were. Did that leave with Ranger up?

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Okay.

[Nick Palmisano]

That left with Ranger Up.

[Unknown Host]

Okay.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Don't sue me, please.

[Nick Palmisano]

I'm not. I don't Care at all.

[Unknown Host]

It would be somebody else. It would be the.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, yeah, I guess. I guess at this point it would be somebody else.

[Unknown Host]

He might be able to put in a good word for you.

[Austin von Lechtman]

But yeah, I just. I love what I do. I love wearing the uniform. I'm very proud of it. And I don't know, I'm going to see where it goes after.

[Unknown Host]

Let's say you're able to do the other seven plus years, whatever it is. I mean, assuming you're still able to, and I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to continue to build. Will you just lateral and full time into what you're. You do it outside of your military service now?

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, right now I'm trying to figure out. And I was actually talking to Nick about this in the lobby and a couple of my buddies. I'm trying to figure out the product that I want to sell, and I want to create something massive and I know I can do it.

[Unknown Host]

What are you ideating around right now?

[Austin von Lechtman]

It's dippable pre workout. That's what I'd like to do. That's the idea I have now.

[Unknown Host]

How the did you come up with that, people?

[Austin von Lechtman]

Well, I have a video series that went viral.

[Unknown Host]

Have you heard about what people are doing with Zen right now?

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah. Yes. Where they're putting it in their ass.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. And what?

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Unknown Host]

It's thin permeable membrane, dude.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I'm gonna put. I'm gonna put thin permeable membrane on a T shirt.

[Unknown Host]

But yeah, I literally just saw that headline. I'm like, why is this in my fucking newsfeed? Like, people are fisting Zen up their ass.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Like, yeah, I made a video series where it would be me in the gym and I would, like lift something and I'd be like, you know how I can do that? Because I have 16 Zen pouches in my ass. And I specifically picked 16 because 15 come in a can and people picked up on it and they're like, you.

[Nick Palmisano]

Had to crack two can?

[Unknown Host]

Fuck. Has Zinn taken over in the military?

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, God, yeah. It's every. And it's funny because I get pissed if it's out at the shop at that time close to my work. I'm like, what the fuck? Like, I need my fix.

[Unknown Host]

I don't remember when I first heard about Zyn, but God damn, it's everywhere. Is it four or five years ago?

[Nick Palmisano]

Is it better for you than dip?

[Austin von Lechtman]

It's 100% better because there's no, tobacco. And it's literally straight nicotine. Nicotine itself isn't that healthy, which is what the people that sell me nicotine tell me.

[Unknown Host]

Well, it's a nootropic and about, I think, a half the dosage of a single Zyn every two days.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, probably. But, yeah, it is better for you. Like, you're not getting all the crap that comes in Tobacco. Is it good for you? I mean, I would debate that.

[Nick Palmisano]

I always thought, like, tobacco wasn't really the worst part. Isn't it, like, all the stuff that.

[Austin von Lechtman]

The carcinogens and stuff.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, I used to hear that they would. There was a little bit of fiberglass in there, so.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Irritate the front side of your. Or the inside of your lip.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

I mean, maybe the best litmus test is for somebody who's on, like, a Zen pack a day, like a can. If they were to stop cold turkey, are they going to have issues?

[Nick Palmisano]

Oh, I got a headache, definitely.

[Unknown Host]

Okay. All right. So there's probably an addictive nail kick that kind of answers our question as to whether or not it's better for you. I've never tried one, so it's never been my thing. I had braces in high school, and I was fucking playing baseball riding home in this guy's truck. He goes, hey, man, do you want to dip? And he's like a senior and I'm a freshman. I'm like, all right. So I throw in a Kodiak.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Puked everywhere.

[Unknown Host]

Kodiak, Wintergreen.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Man, I feel like I took a garden hose to my braces to try to get out for two days.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Hell, yeah.

[Unknown Host]

That winter green taste.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

But it killed any desire I ever had to try that stuff again. And I would watch guys just freaking.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That's how smoking was for me. I tried a cigarette one time and I was just like, I don't. It, like.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, it was gross. The first time I tried it, I.

[Nick Palmisano]

I dipped through Ranger school. I showed up, like.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Because everybody did it up to a certain point.

[Nick Palmisano]

Not anymore.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Were you Distinguished Honor Graduate?

[Nick Palmisano]

I was not.

[Unknown Host]

I just.

[Nick Palmisano]

I was not. I was in the running. I was in the running. I got beaten. By Tim. No, by Lucasaurus. He was. He was in my squad. And I went to. I went to school with him prior to. So I've known him for years. And he deserved it. He was. He was better than I was.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

I'm okay with it.

[Unknown Host]

I've never been, but I don't have a single fucking thing.

[Nick Palmisano]

Me either.

[Unknown Host]

I try to. I'm like, what's the baseline standard to graduate? I'll do 1% above that. Not because I want to, but that's generally my max capability.

[Nick Palmisano]

So I worked really hard to be 1% above average.

[Unknown Host]

You know what, though? And like, all these courses, that's fucking good enough. If you meet the standard to graduate, then you fucking graduate.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, these things are miserable. These are miserable courses. People really don't know how miserable these schools are.

[Unknown Host]

They also don't understand, like, the term honor graduation. People who've listened to this podcast will know where I'm going. The honor grad of my bud's class is in prison. He and his wife lured a couple back to their apartment and cut them up with a spider.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, my God.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

And put their bodies into garbage bags. He used to work at a grocery store chain, so they distributed the bodies throughout the grocery store garbage can network because he knew that the velocity that they would get thrown away. And then he got caught stealing T shirts from a Hooters in the middle of the night. And when they looked in his wife's purse, there was a fucking Spyderco knife with, like, human flesh and hair on it. And the driver's licenses of the people. Yes.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, so they wouldn't have gotten caught if they weren't dumb as shit.

[Nick Palmisano]

Well, but they were really smart about, like, my point, 99% of it.

[Unknown Host]

That was the honor man of my bud's class. Maybe let's not put too much into it, you know? What does honor mean to you?

[Nick Palmisano]

Did he write a book?

[Unknown Host]

No, he's still in prison. Okay. I'm trying to.

[Nick Palmisano]

You can write a book from prison.

[Unknown Host]

I guess. I think. I think he gets mandatory parole in a few years. I am going to try.

[Nick Palmisano]

What do you mean? How do you get parole for that?

[Unknown Host]

I don't think his sentence was life. Can you look up Ben Seifrit S I F R S Mandatory parole.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Like he has to get.

[Unknown Host]

He has gone up for parole multiple times and has been denied. And wherever he is, I got you. Yes. Honor man. Honor, courage, commitment. Not a big deal.

[Nick Palmisano]

Wow.

[Unknown Host]

Okay. He's gonna get out. Almost 20 years ago, they got divorced in. In prison. It fell apart. You know, I guess it's tough to.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Have a long distance relationship.

[Unknown Host]

Totally.

[Nick Palmisano]

Shots were fired through the bathroom door.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Yeah. There was a gunfire gunfight. I think he killed him with a gun. Okay, so second degree murder, but cleared him in the other one. Yeah. Erica Seifert. Yep. That's the couple.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That's the victims.

[Unknown Host]

Those are the victims? Yep. Yeah, keep going down. Honor man on the right. Okay, Keep going down because I know there's going to be a mandatory parole here, so.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Mandatory, yes.

[Unknown Host]

Mandatory release days, 20, 30. Fuck, yeah. Six years away. I gotta get him on the books.

[Nick Palmisano]

How did he get out of life?

[Unknown Host]

That is second degree.

[Nick Palmisano]

But how is that second? Well, I guess. I don't. I don't. We don't know the story. So when you say she got first.

[Unknown Host]

Degree in second degree, fuck, that means she was the ringleader.

[Nick Palmisano]

I think she was the murderer.

[Unknown Host]

She's eligible for all in 2024. There's no fucking way they divorced in 2010. Pussies.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, you might as well write it out at that point, right?

[Unknown Host]

I mean, if you're married and you're in a different prison and it's like, would she care if you were into your bunk mate who's a dude? It's like, so.

[Nick Palmisano]

So she. She probably. She shot.

[Unknown Host]

There was a gunfight for sure. Well, not a gunfight. My God, why am I saying that? There was a gun involved.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

I don't know if they ever recovered the gun. I really think that the Spyderco knife with the DNA and flesh and hair and the IDs, was probably tough to argue around.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, no, that's hard.

[Unknown Host]

It's real Jason Bourne. I mean, that's what we teach in the SEAL teams.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, I mean, you guys. You guys know how to distribute bodies via grocery store chains, you know?

[Unknown Host]

He did. He did. I think it'd be a fascinating podcast. I mean, question one, like, hey, buddy, what have you been up to since I last saw you?

[Austin von Lechtman]

You don't open it.

[Nick Palmisano]

You're a coward. You're a coward if you don't do that.

[Unknown Host]

I haven't seen you since Bud's graduation.

[Nick Palmisano]

What you been doing?

[Unknown Host]

Bring me up to speed, dude. What have you been up to? Give me the wave tops. You know, other than getting wave tops. Ass bored out by your roommate.

[Austin von Lechtman]

But what's Wednesday prison chow look like?

[Unknown Host]

Probably Mac and cheese. Yeah. Office Joe. Well, talk to me about the production company you started, too.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, so. Oh, yeah, I guess we were talking about that. So when.

[Unknown Host]

That's how I do it. I have no idea what the I'm gonna talk about. I can go whatever subject you want.

[Nick Palmisano]

When. When I stepped down from Ranger up, the company was like, well, if you're leaving, then we have no reason to have a North Carolina office anymore. Anymore. So they can, you know, the people that you have there are. Can move to north. To Ohio, or we're going to get rid of all their jobs. And I was like, oh, crap. So I kind of thought about it and then I was like, hey, guys, I've got some good news and some bad news. I was like, the bad news is that next Friday you're all going to get laid off. And they were like, oh, my God, like, what the. You know, unless you want to move to Ohio. And no one wanted to move to Ohio.

[Unknown Host]

And the good news.

[Nick Palmisano]

Nobody wants. It's not worth it. And I was like, the good news is you can have the same job at new company I'm starting. And they were like, well, what's the company? And I said, I don't know yet, but I'll tell you on Monday. And went home and I thought about, like, what am I good at? You know, what do I, you know, what would I enjoy? Made some phone calls to a couple of guys that had. That have had run agencies before. And that's how Diesel Jack Media started and named after my. I had a Jack Russell for 15 years named Diesel Jack Russell, Diesel Jack and launched a marketing advertising agency and, you know, kind of grew that to a pretty significant company. And I've always, you know, since range 15, I've always wanted to get into, you know, production in earnest. And we've done a lot of, A lot of great work. We've done some documentaries. We did, you know, send me about the fall of Afghanistan.

[Unknown Host]

And do you just like the process as far as that? Content creation and production?

[Nick Palmisano]

So everybody likes different things. I don't like content as much as I like making artwork you like.

[Unknown Host]

That's what I'm saying. So, yeah, you can call it what you like, the end result, what you want. Do you like the iterative and design and creative process to.

[Nick Palmisano]

I love, I love the creative process. I love coming up with ideas as a team. I love writing. I think that's probably my best, like, skill set. Yeah. But I also really love watching so like, you know, in Office Joe, I'm in it, but I'm like a super minor character. I didn't want to be in it.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I wanted to, but the bastard scene was good.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

Thank you. I wanted to see it, like, brought to its rightful conclusion. And so what I like is the fact, you know, usually, you know, if you look at Hollywood, you know, there's. There's a dude that writes it, there's a. There's, you know, then another writer that kind of writes over what that guy did. And they, you know, producers get involved and it's some version of that original idea, but it's not the original idea. And then someone else directs it, and they put their spin on it. And then there's an editor, and they put their spin on it. And so by owning the production company, like, I wrote it, you know, I directed it. And I'm not saying that like any. Any movie, any film you make, it's a huge team process with a lot of incredibly talented people. But I like seeing the vision from Soup to Nuts. And then it's like, hey, if you don't like it, it's my fault. But I've. I've watched a lot of really talented people that are in the Hollywood world that I know. I know they're better writers than. And like, their product hits the market, and everybody's like, man, the writing is terrible. And it's like, it's not their fault. It's because 43 dudes had an opinion and like, how does Disney make something with bad writing? It should be impossible, but it's because there's 43,000 people that touch everything.

[Unknown Host]

Well, when was the last time Disney actually made something that was new? I feel like most, and I say this with absolutely no data to support this. Totally anecdotal. I feel like there hasn't been, like, a new movie made in a really long time.

[Nick Palmisano]

A really long, actually. Yes.

[Unknown Host]

Not even just Disney.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Well, they've made them, but you haven't seen them because they all flopped well.

[Unknown Host]

But it's like they're retilling the ground.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

I mean, like, okay, superhero movie, but it's in this genre.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yes.

[Unknown Host]

You know what I mean?

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, I get where you're saying yes. You're saying there hasn't been a truly original idea.

[Unknown Host]

It's like you're out there like it. Let's just do another pass with the jump John Deere over this dirt and make it look like something else. But it's 98% the same thing.

[Nick Palmisano]

But I think that that's the transition from making films to making content. That's why I'm really, like, very hardcore about, you know, when I'm making an ad, that's content. Right. If I'm making a, you know, a silly thing on the Internet to make people laugh, that's content. But if you're making a movie or you're making a show, you shouldn't think about it as content. You're telling a story. The problem now, and this is really interesting, is I know you're making fun of these right here. Losing this as a medium for sales is why Independent film has suffered significantly and it's why you don't see a lot of new movies. Because. Yes, because this right here, people used to make more on these than they did actually in the theater, or at least a comparable amount. So now if you don't win in the theater, you're not getting any, any additional money from Netflix or Amazon or whatever after they buy whatever license they buy.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, I've heard the back end deals on those are pretty microscopic. You'd have to multiply it by a.

[Nick Palmisano]

Massive number, massive amounts. So, you know, because of that, they don't want to take risk. Right. Why would you do, why would you deviate from some, you know, if you put, you know, I mean, pick your current, you know, who's the dude right now that's like in everything. The rock, good looking guy was in Top Gun, Maverick.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, Glenn. And he was in Twisters.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, he was in Twisters. Glenn, is it Glenn?

[Unknown Host]

Glenn is his first name.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Powell. Powell.

[Nick Palmisano]

Glen Powell. Right. And no savant. No, no shade on Glenn Powell. Right. He's killing it. He's killing it and I'm happy for him. But you know, if you put Glenn Powell in something, you're gonna do all right. Right. So like what, you know, he's, you know, put him in a rom com, you know, it's going to be all right. Put him in a quasi action movie, you know, it's going to be all right. Right. He's actually done some interesting work. But the formula is you take a known quantity, you put, you know, action in particular because action is universal and Netflix and Amazon now want to make sure that they, that international audiences get it and you know, you don't. You can understand an action movie regardless of language. And so literally that's what they're looking for. Action movies, horror movies.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

You know, if the plot's complex, it probably needs to be in your native language.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, wow, I never thought about that. That's really interesting.

[Unknown Host]

Tougher to follow if you got to read the subtitles.

[Nick Palmisano]

I wouldn't expect a content guy to understand.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I can barely read.

[Nick Palmisano]

I'm obviously not actually throwing shade, but yeah, so that's like the challenge right now is they have to make move. They have to make money in the theater. So then you think about Office Space. Right. Is considered a classic, you know, movie like our, our generation knows that movie in and out, completely flopped in the theater.

[Unknown Host]

Have you ever seen Office Space? I have. Is it because I told you too recently?

[Nick Palmisano]

No.

[Unknown Host]

God, every movie reference I use with him, he's like, nope, never seen it.

[Nick Palmisano]

Completely flopped in the theater. Did it really completely flopped.

[Unknown Host]

And now it's like a cult classic.

[Nick Palmisano]

It, it was in the, the five dollar bin in Walmart and Best Buy.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I think Napoleon Dynamite did that too. I think it flopped. Like when it first came out, people.

[Nick Palmisano]

You know, people started buying it and they're like, oh shit, this is really good. And now it still makes millions of dollars a year now.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. But well, so then how do you solve that? Because technology is not going to go backwards. I can't imagine them coming out with a Blu Ray 2.0.

[Nick Palmisano]

So, you know, I, I think that, I think there's a few different ways that you can solve that. So one way to solve it is, you know, at some point there's probably going to be some negotiation where people get paid based on views. You know, like that's a reason.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That's literally what happened with social media. Like when you were doing stuff in the early days, you weren't getting paid. And now we all get paid based on views usually or length watched.

[Nick Palmisano]

I'm really glad I was part of that. Not getting paid portion of the time.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Thanks for, thanks for, you know, thanks.

[Nick Palmisano]

For crawling so you could run first.

[Unknown Host]

Guy through the wall.

[Nick Palmisano]

So I, I think that's, that, that's one angle. The other angle is if you look at what the Angel Studios has done, you know, with the ch. First with chosen, but now with all their stuff, they launch on their own platform and they typically have, they typically have the, the content. They typically have their content for free. And then you provide money if you enjoyed it. But they also have like a tip. Yes. And they've made a fortune.

[Austin von Lechtman]

What? Really?

[Unknown Host]

I can kind of see that. I can see that.

[Nick Palmisano]

And almost because people would appreciate that it's free. Yes.

[Unknown Host]

That they would want to reward you. I mean, it's. I mean, I'm having a hard time connecting it in my head, but I can see why people would do that.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah. And I bet you there. So probably not everybody's giving something, but those that do give it's probably like bigger than you think it would be.

[Unknown Host]

And probably more than the cost of it would be to buy or rent it.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Right? Yeah. So maybe one in five people are giving something, but it's 20 bucks on average or something like that.

[Nick Palmisano]

And then, you know, they have a new show movie and then a show coming out called Homestead that is, I think, you know, Jeff Kirkham, that name rings a bell. Jeff was one of the original investors in Black Rifle Coffee.

[Unknown Host]

Okay.

[Nick Palmisano]

He And Evan served together. Okay. It. The. It's based on a book called Black Autumn and then a series and. But in Homestead, it's through Angel Studios, they actually are featuring like all of the products that are used. So there's like an ad network built into it. So at any point you can like click on the screen, oh, that's pretty cool. And be like, what's this knife? And it like pops up. And so.

[Austin von Lechtman]

So the stuff that they're like, if I had this.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yes.

[Austin von Lechtman]

In the. In the thing, somebody could click on.

[Unknown Host]

But in TV shows and movies now, brands pay to have their thing on the table. They're missing that click to purchase it. But the brand. Sure.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

But it's not showing up accidentally.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's not.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Well, yeah, no, I get that. But the idea that you could.

[Unknown Host]

Like the idea that you could. Then they're being there. Reducing barriers to purchasing.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, yeah. Massive.

[Nick Palmisano]

In Office Joe, though, I basically put all my friends stuff in it.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, of course.

[Nick Palmisano]

It was like.

[Unknown Host]

I mean, Jack Carr did the same thing with Chris, like the half face blade knives and. Yeah. And most of the people, unless you're in his particular friend network, wouldn't notice it, but the ones that did were like, oh, fuck, that's awesome. Yeah, so I get it.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. So, you know, the way we kind of built the universe is like you have your core group, but then. And because it's about, you know, it's about a design agency, the people coming in every episode are the interesting addition. So, like, Tim Kennedy plays a 500 pound, you know, evil executive named Silas Raithmore. You know, and he's.

[Unknown Host]

Is this the real thing?

[Nick Palmisano]

This is really an office Joe.

[Unknown Host]

Okay.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

I didn't know if it was a book.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's a true story.

[Unknown Host]

It's a true story.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. No, Tim. Tim went method. He went method. He gained.

[Unknown Host]

Tim is method.

[Nick Palmisano]

He gained 300 pounds.

[Unknown Host]

He put a fat suit on for.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, he did. He put a fat suit on.

[Unknown Host]

Just like when he tried to hide in the fucking jiu jitsu gym by putting on prosthetics. It's like, get the fuck out of here, Tim.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That's one of the first Tim Kennedy videos I ever saw. He put on like a really shitty mustache and went to a jiu jitsu gym and he pretended he wasn't.

[Unknown Host]

He was mauling people. Like, that's so weird.

[Nick Palmisano]

I hate that video.

[Austin von Lechtman]

No, you didn't. Oh, my God. It's.

[Unknown Host]

What.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I literally told him about it when he was in Poland. That was when I met him. Yeah, that is hilarious.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. What would he last undercover, about seven minutes?

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, he can't. He can't.

[Unknown Host]

Not in Austin or in Jack, Texas.

[Nick Palmisano]

You know, Jack Mandeville, you know, played a hedge fund guy. Mary Dague. Do you know Mary? You should. Mary Dade would be a great person. She's really funny. She was EOD tech and she lost both of her arms, you know. You know, she says being bad at her job.

[Unknown Host]

I was gonna say there's a super fucked up joke there that I'm trying.

[Nick Palmisano]

Oh no, she, she's, she's, she'll make it. She. Yeah, so she plays a. I said the Jaguar.

[Austin von Lechtman]

She's a community.

[Nick Palmisano]

She plays a gang leader in the, in the show. So she has no arms and she, she has a, a gang of people that all act like they're Hispanic, but none of them are Hispanic.

[Unknown Host]

Okay.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's really, it's a weird show, but she's amazing in it. She is amazing in it.

[Unknown Host]

And how many seasons are you guys gonna do? As many as you can.

[Nick Palmisano]

I have five planned.

[Unknown Host]

Holy.

[Nick Palmisano]

I have five planned. But you know, obviously like season one has to be successful. Okay. Right now everybody, everybody that has, has kind of has watched it and we've had, we've had. It's been, it's been really good. We've had, you know, thousands of people have, have bought it and the feedback is great and actually the interesting feedback is people are like, man, I was expecting range 15 all over again. And I'm actually pleasantly surprised. It wasn't that. It was totally different and none of us wanted to remake range 15 that we did that and for the time it was right. But this is approachable. You can't watch it with a 10 year old, but you can watch it with a teenager. It's not, it's like, it's like I would put it at like a light R heavy PG13. You know, there's some, there's some violence but not a like funny violence. There's probably more F bombs than we needed. But you know, that's, that's just the way we went with it. But it's, it's not like range 15 where you know, you can only bring your weird friends to range 15 or they're going to be uncomfortable.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, that's more like a stream, that one at home with a limited audience. Yeah, yeah, it's a safer bet. Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

You're a weird friend. I love that.

[Nick Palmisano]

No, I mean, listen, like, you know, in range 15 there's a scene where like one of the heroes of the whole thing. The woman that literally figured out how to cure the zombies doesn't know who the medal of honor recipients are. And she gets murked in cold blood and nobody ever talks about it again. She's. She spent an hour and 15 of a 90 minute movie helping the team and then just gets murdered for no reason. It's so dark. It's one of my favorite parts of the whole movie. But like, you, you know, people are like, what the fuck is wrong with you?

[Unknown Host]

You know, like, the hardest thing to believe in that movie was actually Brian Cowan as a soldier. He is. God damn, that guy is fucking hilarious.

[Nick Palmisano]

He's hilarious. Yeah, he's hilarious. I remember I did, I did Fighter and the Kid many years ago and it must have been for range 15 and we spent the entire episode talking about chimpanzees fighting and how they rip off your testicles and jaw.

[Unknown Host]

He was asking me why we don't clear rooms with hornets or snakes. Why don't you guys take jars of hornets and throw them into the building and then just wait. I'm like, well, I don't know. Could, couldn't.

[Austin von Lechtman]

The logistical issues of getting a jar of hornets. My question was like, how actually a bad idea? I mean, I believe if there was.

[Nick Palmisano]

Hornets, where are we getting all the hornets?

[Unknown Host]

I mean, Halliburton obviously, but yeah, it's like, are we getting a government contract for these hornets? Are they going to attack us? Are these trained hornets? Were we paying per Hornets?

[Austin von Lechtman]

Trained?

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

Do they? Yeah. What if they turn on us?

[Austin von Lechtman]

You can do pheromones. You could put pheromones on blue.

[Unknown Host]

On blue with fucking.

[Nick Palmisano]

You know a lot about Hornet. Hornet fighting.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Or snakes or. Why don't we use darts?

[Austin von Lechtman]

I'd like to be a hornet fighter like in my off duty time in season two of office Chair, please.

[Unknown Host]

Okay. Has he already signed up for season two?

[Nick Palmisano]

He has signed up for season. He. He's been awesome. He's been like helping, you know, promote the show.

[Unknown Host]

And here's the move you guys don't have.

[Nick Palmisano]

What's the move?

[Unknown Host]

You don't have a hair on your. Your fucking balls unless you cast Tim Kennedy as a stolen valor dude that gets called up.

[Nick Palmisano]

So I.

[Unknown Host]

At a fucking Applebee's, that motherfucker rolls in there and he's in his uniform telling stories on Veterans day trying to get a fucking free meal.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And then one of us catches some part of his story that's not quite right.

[Nick Palmisano]

So straight up, in season one, the character Tim Kennedy plays hates Tim Kennedy.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Kennedy, yeah. There's a picture of him.

[Nick Palmisano]

He talks a lot of. About Tim Kennedy as Tim Kennedy.

[Unknown Host]

I think he would do it. I'll pitch it to him if you need me to, from a distance.

[Nick Palmisano]

But he'll 100. Oh, he would. He. He would. He would 100. He would 100. Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

I mean, he's gonna have to lean into this a little bit.

[Nick Palmisano]

I told him, I told him if I was him, I would wear a T shirt every day that just says coalition asset and that. That would be it. I'd wear. Or, you know, didn't he just mean.

[Unknown Host]

That he was there as part of the U.S. coalition? I think people are taking that one too far. He's not saying he was like Jason Bourne moving around on the battlefield.

[Nick Palmisano]

He was not saying that. What he was saying is that he was assigned to the mission, not to an individual unit. So basically, headquarters got to decide where he was going at any given point or time. That's all he meant by that. But of course, it's, you know, people.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Got to run with it.

[Nick Palmisano]

Just drop Kennedy and he'll take care of the war.

[Unknown Host]

Well, I'm going to. I'm going to see him in Nashville next week. I'm trying to think of the most fucked up way to say hello to him. And I haven't figured it out yet, but it's. It's going to cut deep.

[Austin von Lechtman]

To your point, though, leaning into this stuff is always 100%. It's the right. The right move. Anytime anybody's like, some dude on was it yours or mine he posted, is that Captain dipshit, the lieutenant with, like, cartoon tattoos on his arm? And I was like, that's. I screenshot it, put it on my story. I was like, this is. I was like, that's the best that there's much worse things I've been called. But that's one of the funniest for sure.

[Nick Palmisano]

I used to just post and, you know, I don't really. I'm not, like, big into social like I was when I did Ranger up, but Ranger up had, you know, over a million. And so people would hate every day. And whenever they hated, I would just post the gif of it's not your fault from goodwill hunting.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, that's funny.

[Nick Palmisano]

And I would do it over and over again until they quit. Like, it didn't matter if it took hours, but it'd be like you. It's not your fault.

[Unknown Host]

Let me ask you this. How much attention did you pay to the positive comments? Because there is this inherent negativity especially.

[Austin von Lechtman]

When it's your art.

[Unknown Host]

Like, I bet you for every negative, there was 99, 100. And I'm asking you this because I am so guilty of this.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

And it's funny, too, how people that you don't know, you're like, you just cut me to the bone. How did you know me better than I know myself? And you'll ignore every single piece of positive feedback and affirmation and get so fucking spun over one negative comment. It's something I work on.

[Nick Palmisano]

When I was younger. I cared a lot. When I. When we. The first few times, like, something, you know, somebody said, something negative or. Or whatever.

[Unknown Host]

Now you just pretend like you don't.

[Nick Palmisano]

No, it's still, like, obviously nobody likes to see negative stuff. But I now, I've been in social for better or for worse. Like, I kind of tried to get out of it, and then I got sucked back in for a long time. And so I've seen every iteration of, you're great, you're bad, you're. You're great, you're bad. So I don't take any of it seriously. You know? Like, me personally, I'm only speaking about me. I always try to do good things. Even if every time that I have fired back and maybe done damage to somebody that was trying to do damage to me, I felt shitty about it, and I haven't done it in years.

[Unknown Host]

I was gonna say the same thing. You're like, fuck, yeah, I got you.

[Nick Palmisano]

I got you.

[Unknown Host]

And then you're like, actually a piece of shit.

[Nick Palmisano]

Why did I.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Well, it's. Because when you. When some rando says something to you, it's meaningless, but if you respond. I don't respond to any of it anymore because people. One guy messaged me, and he was like, can you please delete your comment? Because I've got people, like, threatening me in my DMs.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. And.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And it was in no way serious. Like, I just said. I said something funny back. And I'm like, I don't think you guys. Do you understand? I talk shit on the Internet. Like, if I do say something back, like, I don't know.

[Nick Palmisano]

And even. Even with the Tim stuff, like, I. Early on, I got a little overly engaged, and my wife and even Tim were like, just. Just don't. Because I, Like, I've seen, like. You know, when they're like, you didn't really get injured. Like, I remember his wounds. You can see the scars. Like, you. You know, like, I. You know, they talk shit about Afghanistan. Like, I was There when he came back with, you know, shit all over his pants from when he was walking through the sewers carrying the kit. Like, I was physically there when this stuff happened, and, like, him crying after all of, you know, when we were mission complete, we couldn't go back, you know, and you're talking about the save our allies stuff. I'm talking about the save our allies stuff, you know, and so, like, this idea that, like, you know, he didn't help. He wasn't a problem. It was for a, you know, a grift. Like, I take that stuff super personally because I was with all of those guys, you know, and he doesn't sell that. Like, he was this grand hero. Like, he's. If you watch every interview, he talks about, you know, Gabler and Sea Spray and, you know, the Air Force guys, Sean Herlihy chief among them, that did way more than he did. And it's true, they did way more than he did. Right. They were. They were there longer. They, you know, but he contributed significantly in a very dangerous situation. And. And there's no question about it. We. We flew 12,000 people out of Afghanistan between the 8,397. I think I could be slightly off on that number that we brought to UAE or the. The, you know, 3,000, give or take, that we brought to Qatar on two UAE planes that, you know, we had because of our friend Joe Robert, you know, who was lucky. We were lucky enough had those relationships or with the three planes that Glenn Beck and Mercury One paid for. So we had five airframes, right. 12,000 people. Like, you know, this is all.

[Unknown Host]

And it's like, some of that evac stuff is touched. Tough to watch.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

It's people clinging to the outside of airplanes. Like, man.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. And so, you know, it's not like. It's not like Tim is sitting there going, I personally saved 12,000 people. It's, you know, we had 12 random veterans, and some of them had fantastic connections. And then we had Sarah Verardo that was opening doors left and right.

[Unknown Host]

You know, Sarah, like, she is a fucking powerhouse.

[Nick Palmisano]

She's a powerhouse.

[Unknown Host]

Are we allowed to say her name? Does she know I'm dead serious? Like, I don't know if she likes.

[Nick Palmisano]

She doesn't like attention, but I'm going to give her attention.

[Unknown Host]

Okay. As long as it's not something we got to go back.

[Nick Palmisano]

Sarah Verardo is, you know, when all our clearances were coming from various folks in the State Department or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you know, it's. It's not like if we were just 12 assholes that were doing whatever we wanted, you know, we'd all be in prison right now. Like, that's not how things work. And so.

[Unknown Host]

Tim would be in prison. He is a prison.

[Nick Palmisano]

You know, so it just, you know, and there was. And there was stuff that happened where people were upset with. With, you know, the team, and. And I don't want to get into all.

[Unknown Host]

It was a fucked up situation.

[Nick Palmisano]

A fucked up situation with a lot of people doing their best, and because of all kinds of things, nobody got the outcome they wanted. And, you know, I will say that, like, that dude did everything he could to do what he thought was right with the time that we had available. And that's it. And so, you know, like I said.

[Unknown Host]

There'S a lesson to be learned there for him. You just. You have to expect that that level of notoriety, the scrutiny that you're gonna get is almost unbearable.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

So just be careful. I mean, that's the lesson to be learned. Will he learn it?

[Nick Palmisano]

Different story, you know, with that, though. Like, I don't think he did anything wrong. Like, literally every interview he. He gave the credit to the other people.

[Unknown Host]

I'm not. I'm not trying to say that he did anything wrong. What I'm saying is it. Preciseness matters, because that's where people will come after you. If you crack the door, they'll kick it open.

[Nick Palmisano]

I know what you're saying, but I also think there is nothing he can do that someone won't hate. I truly believe that. If Tim Kennedy.

[Unknown Host]

That's true of all of us, though.

[Nick Palmisano]

If Tim Kennedy was like, I'm giving a million dollars to deaf kids. Somebody would be like, what about blind kids? You fucking hate blind kids. Like, 100%. That would be what happened, happened.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

And it is true of all of us, but not. Not to the same extent.

[Unknown Host]

Like, that's what I'm saying. With that level of notoriety, this, the. The scrutiny from all.

[Nick Palmisano]

You have a lot of notoriety.

[Unknown Host]

I don't think so. I'm resoundingly an idiot, which I think I wasn't arguing.

[Nick Palmisano]

I mean, notoriety and being an idiot.

[Unknown Host]

Are separate, but I think I'm known for being an idiot. So therefore. So what I try to do is set the bar low and then trip over it. You know, it's like, I don't.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Solid.

[Unknown Host]

It's like I, like, I do the best I can. I've been an underachiever my entire life, and I have no desire to change that.

[Nick Palmisano]

You just. You have different delivery Your delivery is understated. His delivery is amped up because that's your personality. Like, you know, you have an understated, biting, sarcastic personality.

[Unknown Host]

I don't find myself to be sarcastic. I don't know what you're talking about.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That was so. I almost was like, what?

[Nick Palmisano]

You were about to be like. No, you are sarcastic. And. And Tim is like. He's like a fountain of energy.

[Unknown Host]

Here's what I could tell you. I can't wait for his next fucking book to come out. I got ideas. I think Tim might have been the second man on the moon. We all know Neil Armstrong, the astronaut, but do we know the astronaut known as tk?

[Austin von Lechtman]

Harriet Tubman was a sniper, and Tim taught her how to shoot.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, I got ideas. You know, like, we're talking about. He might have been there writing the Gettysburg Address. I'm not sure.

[Nick Palmisano]

You know what?

[Unknown Host]

Coaching George Washington that way.

[Austin von Lechtman]

He wasn't.

[Nick Palmisano]

Honest to God. I don't think he's willing to go this far, but I think a historical Tim Kennedy series of Tim Kennedy through time.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, he is just.

[Austin von Lechtman]

It would be so good.

[Unknown Host]

He already dressed up as George Washington.

[Austin von Lechtman]

For a black rifle, powdered wig and all.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. So there's that. But we could do Abe Lincoln next. He's gonna have some height issues there. He's a little wee. Actually. He's not that wee, but I think the only thing I have on him is I might be a quarter of an inch taller. But, yeah, we'll put him on the moon first. Maybe he's teaching Amelia Earhart how to fly.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Have him kill racism. You know what I mean?

[Unknown Host]

God, fascism, Nazism. Just have him kill the isms. Yeah, he's gonna be okay. Yeah, he'll be all right. Of course he is.

[Nick Palmisano]

I mean, of course he is.

[Unknown Host]

Do you think there's anything that we can do that would. I was gonna say force the veteran culture to stop being this destructive cycle, but I don't think that's the right word. Do you think there's anything that we can do that would encourage them?

[Austin von Lechtman]

I think that there's a small contingent in our community that is hyper vocal. And I don't think you're getting rid of them. I. I wish the positive people would be more vocal.

[Unknown Host]

Like, it almost seems like the positivity, though. It's. Again, it's. I think the negativity bias plays into that a little bit.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

I think it's harder to get more traction being positive than it is negative. And so then I think that it probably becomes enticing. Especially if you show this pattern of getting attention for being negative.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I think you can. Yeah, I think you can gain quick attention being negative. But anytime I put out a video, I want to be speaking in the positive. And it's really hard to describe how I think about it. I think I've done a pretty good job of it so far. But, like, of course you do.

[Nick Palmisano]

Of course you think you've done a great job.

[Unknown Host]

If I was to grade myself, it would be an A plus plus.

[Nick Palmisano]

On a scale.

[Austin von Lechtman]

What was that?

[Nick Palmisano]

On a scale of 1 to 10? I'm a 12.

[Austin von Lechtman]

But you gain. You gain attention really quickly when you're just crapping on people. But, like, that is not an audience you want.

[Unknown Host]

Like, that doesn't feel good either. I don't think you feel.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And when somebody comes up to you, are they. Are they just like, what up, bro? Tim. You know what I mean? Like. Like who. What are you saying? Because when people come up to me, they're like, yeah, you're really funny. I also had a first sergeant, like, thanks. Thanks for making that video. Like, it's kind of fun, you know? It feels good.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

But when you're just tearing people down, like, it's just how I don't get those people and my mind doesn't work that way.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

I don't know. I think that you do a positive show. I think I try to.

[Unknown Host]

I wanna. I don't know if I have any goal other than trying, I mean, for myself, like pie in the sky. I would rather try to leave the world, like, a little bit better than I came into it. I mean, like, that's kind of it.

[Nick Palmisano]

That's.

[Unknown Host]

I don't even know what the fuck that means, but that's kind of my underlying goal.

[Nick Palmisano]

We were talking about this, I think it was this morning. It's like the lens that I always try to, you know, is this going to make the world better or is it going to make the world.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

And that's literally like, even I even make that decision now when I'm responding to somebody. You know, that, like the temporary stuff. Let's say today everyone was like, nick's the worst. Okay? In two weeks, they'll have a new worst.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

You know, will it affect how, you know, how I am with my kids? Will it affect my relationship with my wife? Will it affect my job?

[Austin von Lechtman]

Your friends?

[Nick Palmisano]

Won't affect anything that's meaningful. In fact, I can just shut my phone off and I won't even know what people are saying. Like, really, like. And so, you know, one of the things, you know, when. When everything was. When everything hit the fan, you know, Tim. Tim and I were talking, and he was, you know, just kind of like, this sucks. You know, people suck and blah, blah, blah. And he's like, how are you doing? And I was like, yeah. You know, like, I'm a little tense right now because my son just deployed, and he just went, what am I even talking about? What am I even talking about right now? You know, because my.

[Unknown Host]

You know, that's powerful.

[Nick Palmisano]

My. You know, he. He pinned on. He was. He was my son's first salute.

[Austin von Lechtman]

No way.

[Nick Palmisano]

He flew out. He flew out. He only had. He was on the ground, literally, for six hours. He flew from Texas, landed in Raleigh, drove three hours to Boone, saluted my son at his rotc, you know, graduation pin on ceremony, etc, drove back to Raleigh and. And flew to a, you know, a business meeting he had elsewhere.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That's amazing.

[Nick Palmisano]

So, you know, like. And it's weird to have a kid deployed, you know, and it's weird to.

[Unknown Host]

I'm glad that none of my kids had any interest in military service. How many kids you have? Three. Like, 21, 8, 21, and 19 boys. And then a daughter who's 16. And I am resoundingly the most boring, uninteresting person they've ever met, which is perfect. They're like, whatever, Dad. I don't up.

[Nick Palmisano]

I don't push it. In fact, I. When he started. When he started thinking about military service, I was like, go, Air Force. They take care of people. You know, they get lobster. It's a good. It's a good.

[Unknown Host]

Build the Runway last.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's a good life, you know, he.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That's so good. And I'm gonna steal that and use it.

[Unknown Host]

They 100% build the fucking Runway last. So it's like, first we need to do the defac.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yep.

[Unknown Host]

And then the bowling alley and then the golf course. The golf course is, oh, hey, we're out of money, and our base doesn't have a Runway. Well, here's your fucking money for the Runway.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah. So funny.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

I mean. I mean, I actually have no idea if that's true, but I've been saying it for years, so.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Well, regardless of whether it's true or not, you know, we all hate them because they just have it better than us.

[Nick Palmisano]

They do. They have it a lot better.

[Unknown Host]

They do. What else do you guys want to cover? Been out for, like, two and a half hours.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. What do you want to talk about? You Know, I'm game for whatever you want to talk about life, you want.

[Unknown Host]

To talk about politics, man, there's not even anything to talk about politics wise at this point. We kind of wait. I'm. I'm curious to see what kind of game they bring. Yeah, they're talking a big game. I would love to see a lot of the change that they're talking about, shaking stuff up.

[Nick Palmisano]

I would love to see a reduction of the cost that we spend on so many. Absolutely.

[Unknown Host]

I don't know how much of the game that they're talking. They're going to be able to.

[Nick Palmisano]

That's what I think, too, because Congress has to ultimately pass all this stuff.

[Unknown Host]

And he's told Vivek and Elon, you have until 4th of July, 2026.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

And that, I mean, we're talking this momentous, gigantic undertaking. I don't think, even if it was Trump's only sole focus, that he would be able to accomplish a fraction of what they're talking about in the four years that he has.

[Nick Palmisano]

The big thing that I think no one is thinking about. Maybe not no one is thinking about, but. Yeah, like, first of all, you know, government employees are not evil or anything like that. There are a lot of government employees that are doing great things. There are also some that I would have happily choked to death when I was, you know, in uniform and was dealing with finance or dealing with, you know, whatever. But. But there are a lot of people that are doing, you know, really good work. Let's say you did reduce the government by 50%. You know, some of the. They're talking even bigger, but let's just say you were to cut it in half. That's millions of employees.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

Who now are unemployed.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

And, yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Through the lens of trying to decrease the size of the government, you might be creating a little bit of an unemployment issue.

[Nick Palmisano]

You might be creating an unemployment issue, you might be creating other problems we're not even thinking about now. That being said, we cannot operate the way that we're operating now. You cannot, you know, forever increase the deficit.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

You know, at the rate we're doing it now, I mean, we will end up in a. You know, will end up not being the currency that the world is based on, and that'll be a catastrophic problem.

[Unknown Host]

So here's a hot potato one they're talking about. Should veterans benefits be on the chopping block, I think.

[Nick Palmisano]

And I. I won't be careful.

[Austin von Lechtman]

We're gonna. Yeah, we're gonna alienate a lot of people.

[Nick Palmisano]

I be careful I don't think. I think that if you are going to send people to war, then you have to pay for the results of that war.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And like, and like what, what should happen is access to those benefits should get easier because like we have this massive budget and it's kind of just like where the fuck does it go? Like we have, I don't know. I, I heard about all these benefits to joining the military and then I see people, some people, it seems real easy things like voc rehab. It's like the most amazing program ever, right? But it seems like so few people can get access to this stuff. It's like really, it's gate kept and it's odd to me. I don't know why, but people are acting like it comes directly out of their pocket. Like it's, you know, I want a third sauce packet.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, I think the, the benefits program would benefit, no pun intended, from a little bit more.

[Nick Palmisano]

I think you did intend, intend your pun, sir.

[Unknown Host]

I didn't intend that.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Scrutiny on the program itself, but then also scrutiny on people's ability to actually use it, like.

[Unknown Host]

Yes, but then also people who are using it and gaming the system and that should be reviewed as well.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That's fair.

[Unknown Host]

But I think not through a malicious.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Lens, but like unbiased.

[Nick Palmisano]

I think you have to be careful with that stuff. And I'm not saying one of the things that happens when you start worrying about the exceptions is you start building this colossal system that is very expensive, that deals with the exceptions.

[Unknown Host]

I'm not so sure it's the exception.

[Nick Palmisano]

You think it's more people than not?

[Unknown Host]

I think it might be split more towards 50. 50 than not really.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yes, that's an aggressive statement.

[Unknown Host]

I didn't feel like it was aggressive. I feel like it was softly delivered.

[Nick Palmisano]

So you, you think, you think 50% of veterans.

[Unknown Host]

No, no, I said I think it's closer to 50%.

[Nick Palmisano]

You think 47% of veterans.

[Unknown Host]

I'd said closer to 50. I mean, we don't have to put a number.

[Nick Palmisano]

58.9%.

[Unknown Host]

Hold on now you want to count? You don't want to fucking count. You don't want to count grenades in fucking Tim's backpack, but now you want to fucking count?

[Nick Palmisano]

Okay, we'll just say there's there were 49. All right, there were 49.

[Unknown Host]

I think that there are, there is a reason that entire communities and ecosystems exist and you can find these without searching that hard that are coaching people towards this never ending. This is what you need to say. This is what you need to do.

[Nick Palmisano]

I do think that exists.

[Unknown Host]

I know for a fact it exists. And I was having a conversation with somebody the other day and they were talking about. Even more interesting than that is the. And I know almost nothing about Reddit other than it exists and that I guess there are sub sections called sub fucking Reddits. I'm literally at the end of my knowledge of Reddit when I say that. But he was talking about. It's almost comical in nature. There's entire forms that exist of like, hey, I'm getting a divorce or my girlfriend's breaking up with me and she's gonna go report me. How do I. And she knows, she knows that I was gaming the system. And the fucking response, you know what I mean? It's. I don't want, I don't, I don't believe it is incredibly widespread, but it is real. And if we can't hold ourselves accountable and have that level of integrity, how can we expect the taxpayer to support that? There's nobody who's going to be able to look inside of the veterans benefit program other than veterans and be able to determine what is legitimate and what is not.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, it seems like it always, when you're talking about this kind of stuff, it always goes so far one way or the other. And it's really difficult to find that middle ground where we're actually being fair.

[Unknown Host]

Oh, it's not going to be easy for sure. But I think it's important, I think.

[Nick Palmisano]

I think we are better off over benefiting than we are under benefiting. I would rather, I mean, listen, everybody has to live with the decision that they're making. You know that that's. At the end of the day, everybody has to live with the decision they're making. If somebody's gaming the system, they know that they're a piece of crap. They know that they're.

[Austin von Lechtman]

And that's all they'll ever have.

[Nick Palmisano]

But I would.

[Austin von Lechtman]

The guy that wants a couple grand a month out of the government, he's.

[Nick Palmisano]

Not starting, but I would, I would much rather have.

[Unknown Host]

We don't know that.

[Nick Palmisano]

I'd much rather have a few of those than have some guy and I've watched guys that have serious issues not be able to get. I'd rather, I'd rather err on the side of, you know, you get your stuff than make somebody jump through hoops that really needs it.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, I do want to clarify that last statement though, before somebody cuts it. I don't have an issue with veterans benefits.

[Nick Palmisano]

Whatever. Whatever. Content man.

[Unknown Host]

Michael, put that down that we'll.

[Nick Palmisano]

Why don't you talk to yourself about that?

[Unknown Host]

So we're going to cut out that comment and we'll make a clip out of this.

[Austin von Lechtman]

But somebody that's trying to game the system and they know they don't deserve it, I don't know. That's just, they're just heard like, you.

[Nick Palmisano]

Know, I know that like when I went through my final physical or whatever, the things that I was actually worried about, I'm 0% for. Like I got during a training exercise, I got thrown from the, the TC hatch of a Bradley and landed on the front of it. And like my, I broke off a piece of my elbow and like over the, over the training exercise I worked it out of my, you know, kind of like pushed it through the skin. And then ever since then I've had a patch right here that just randomly sweats and I lose feeling in my arm a little bit. That's zero.

[Unknown Host]

You need to go get that checked out.

[Nick Palmisano]

That's zero percent. That's.

[Unknown Host]

I have a random patch of skin that sweats profusely.

[Nick Palmisano]

No, it really will like, I'll, we'll be in an air conditioned room and.

[Unknown Host]

Have you talked to a doctor about that?

[Nick Palmisano]

Only the, only the, that first VA appointment that I had.

[Unknown Host]

That's a compensation and pension appointment. They're not there to fucking diagnose anyway.

[Nick Palmisano]

So I, so, so like that was like, that was like 0% and that was like a thing I was worried about. I was like. But then they, they were like, hey, you know, you were infantry. So we're going to, we're going to like examine your spine. And I have like a bunch of, you know, which is common for infantry. A bunch of chips in my spine. Yeah. And they were like, you know, that was like 10%. So I'm like 10% because of that, but like not 0% for the pneumonia that they misdiagnosed and then gave me the wrong medicine, which made the pneumonia worse.

[Unknown Host]

Did it make it on your rating paperwork though?

[Nick Palmisano]

It's, it is on my.

[Unknown Host]

So there is actually value even to be rating at 0% because you can still see. So it's like, I don't want people to think that that means that that didn't. First off, the fucking VA math doesn't make sense. It's like 30, 40, 20, 15. Your total rating is 30. Like what are we doing here? Yeah, are we adding and dividing by fucking 3? The math doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense, but it's the most Bizarre shit ever. Like, okay, this number adds up to 678 and you're telling me the number is 30. Okay. But I know there is value. It's not a matter that it's not real, but if you can get it there, the 0 still has value for treatment.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, and I'm good. I don't, I don't need any of this stuff. But it, I was frustrated. I remember leaving because I didn't even really want to go. And you know, all my friends were like, you got to go. At least go.

[Unknown Host]

I wouldn't have gone if it wasn't required for that MEB PEB process. I literally had to go do it.

[Nick Palmisano]

And now as I'm getting older, you know, and like sometimes my back really hurts now, you know, now in the top with time and you know, so it's. I understand the need for it, but I do remember being very frustrated with how hard it was. To me it's like, hey, my elbow's not right. My, there's something wrong. You know, I definitely have massive scar tissue in my lung from the pneumonia and I get pneumonia easily now. Thanks like that. I feel like that would should have been, you know, it's just very random. But then, you know, now I understand. It's much, much easier for people. And I think that it depends there.

[Unknown Host]

You know, there are some catch alls that may or may not apply to people that are more difficult to necessarily verify. I guess would be. Yeah, and there's. There are ways to game the system. I'm not trying to say I think that it is a system wide issue. I do think it should be on the chopping block with everybody else, with all the other systems. I'm not saying it should be chopped. I'm saying it should be. We should.

[Austin von Lechtman]

You're saying somebody should do an assessment?

[Unknown Host]

Yes, that's it. Let's just start there and then let's base our actions off of what the assessment we find. We're going to do that to all the other government agencies.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I think they do a review, it's called like every four years.

[Unknown Host]

It depends on your rating, like a PNT permanent.

[Austin von Lechtman]

But I mean the government, I think the government does a massive review and I cannot remember kind of like the audit.

[Nick Palmisano]

I do think though, the fundamental problem.

[Unknown Host]

That they'd never passed.

[Nick Palmisano]

I'm gonna look it up. The fundamental problem though, and I do think this is a significant problem. We always find money to send young men and women to war.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

Trillions of dollars.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Saw the Economist article.

[Nick Palmisano]

Trillions of dollars will emerge from nowhere in order to send. You know, and I can say this now, and it's not an insult to young people. It's because I now have a kid that's literally, you know, doing that. We always find money to send kids to war. And then. Then it's huffing and puffing when it's time to pay for the results of that war. Like, I have a problem with that. I have a fundamental problem with that. Because I would prefer that the huffing and puffing happens before we.

[Unknown Host]

I'd rather huff and puff about sending people to war.

[Nick Palmisano]

100%.

[Austin von Lechtman]

All the benefits that somebody has or that they were promised, those people should be grandfathered in, regardless of what any decision is made about future benefits, too. Because I've seen that. Like, I remember. God, I can't remember who the sergeant major of the army was that did it. I think it might have been Chandler, but it was. He wanted to change tattoo policies. And then, like, people were not grandfathered in.

[Unknown Host]

So, like, that's going to have immediate impact.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Tons of people lost their OCS packets, green to gold packets. Tons of people couldn't go to walks, like, become warrant officers. And it's like, this is. That's cr. That's criminal. That's crazy to me.

[Unknown Host]

No regards. Not even a single letter.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, that. The. I don't know. I'm. I'm not the guy to solve that problem, though.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah, I think you are.

[Unknown Host]

I'm just saying. I think. I think all.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I'll make funny videos about it.

[Nick Palmisano]

I think you should. Through the power of the content, you should all argue with yourself until you solve the problem. Like, one guy thinks that they should be cut and the other guy doesn't.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

You're like, no, I'm not doing that.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I don't want to do anything to alienate anybody. I just want to give everybody a hug.

[Unknown Host]

I feel like Austin's doing a good job. I don't think he needs our Austin suggestion.

[Nick Palmisano]

Austin's doing awesome. In all seriousness, you know, a lot of, you know, popular veterans, this guy is genuine in every way. Like, he has. He has helped everybody that has asked him for help. And, you know, I've. I've been in this world a long time, and I know just about everybody. And, you know, some people kind of get high on the horse and start really believing the hype about themselves. And, like, he's not like that. He spends a lot of time with people and tries to do the right thing. So it's been a. It's Been fun working with him. He crushed it in Office Joe.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I appreciate it.

[Unknown Host]

Streaming now.

[Nick Palmisano]

Streaming now.

[Austin von Lechtman]

The fun Office Joe was the most fun, rewarding thing I've done up to this point. And it also. I don't know, I felt like it was like. I've had moments where I felt like, kind of like, wow, this is a big deal. And that was the biggest for me because, like, now I can go on prime and click on a show that I was in, right? And it's because of Nick. And how many people can say that? Like, you know, it's. It was one of the most profound moments of my life, like, seeing it on Prime.

[Unknown Host]

That's cool, man.

[Nick Palmisano]

We gotta get you in season two.

[Unknown Host]

I am not an actor.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I feel like I wasn't either.

[Nick Palmisano]

I feel like you can definitely act.

[Unknown Host]

I mean, I haven't tried.

[Austin von Lechtman]

So you could make him a coffee shop, like, barista. Sometimes very disgruntled.

[Unknown Host]

Sometimes I do serve coffee at the shop. I know how to do drip coffee and a latte. So regardless of what you order, there's one of the two things together. Like, I'll take a mocha, blah, blah. I'm like, here's your latte.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Sorry.

[Unknown Host]

I can run the cash register. There's.

[Austin von Lechtman]

There's got to be a funny role.

[Unknown Host]

I don't want a funny role. You guys don't want me involved in that. It's.

[Nick Palmisano]

I feel like we have to force it, though.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I know. You know, we could make you a pastor.

[Nick Palmisano]

This actually. I can actually see it. I could actually see that.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Just a really disgruntled negative.

[Unknown Host]

Which way?

[Nick Palmisano]

Are we going, like, Catholic priest, or are we going, like maybe a pastor?

[Unknown Host]

But that just tells people to fucking give up.

[Austin von Lechtman]

That's what I'm saying.

[Unknown Host]

The depression, like, they come to me with their problems. I'm like, listen, it's not going to get better. Listen, all right?

[Nick Palmisano]

Just fucking look at how it. Look at how it ended for Jesus.

[Unknown Host]

Shit. Can it now, like, just give up. Start a drug addiction.

[Austin von Lechtman]

How do we solve these problems in our marriage? Did you have a prenup? Oh, you already. The boat has sailed.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah. Explore the terrain outside of your marriage.

[Nick Palmisano]

I don't know.

[Unknown Host]

Have you ever heard the saying, the grass is greener? Not giving marital advice, people. I'm joking. I don't believe in that. Yeah, no, I'm not. I don't. I don't think I would be a good thespian. I appreciate the offer, though. All right. Yeah, I'll have you guys back on for season two. How's that. Yeah, I'll promote season two. Where. Where can people find you guys? Social media wise, Other than mandatory Funday, obviously.

[Nick Palmisano]

I mean, he's. Everybody who doesn't know that. Nick Palm. I'm Nick Palmishano on everything except for Twitter or X, where I'm still Ranger. Underscore up. But Nick Palmishano, they let you keep that one. Yeah, because they don't want to run it.

[Unknown Host]

All right, fair enough.

[Nick Palmisano]

So. And that was like.

[Austin von Lechtman]

No kidding.

[Nick Palmisano]

Well, that was my personal. Oh, yeah, it was a personal one. It wasn't the brand. So the brand had like, a different one. Yeah, like Ranger up with that one. So that was always. It's been mine. So.

[Unknown Host]

And just mandatory fun day for you.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, everywhere.

[Nick Palmisano]

Fun day everywhere.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Even. Even on Snapchat, which is for the devil.

[Unknown Host]

Do you Tiki talk?

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

He's big on.

[Unknown Host]

You're on TikTok.

[Nick Palmisano]

He's huge.

[Unknown Host]

You're a piece of.

[Nick Palmisano]

I'm on Tick Tock. But I've posted.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I am depending on where I am for the military. I'm the most significant strategic threat to the military.

[Nick Palmisano]

You are. You could take the military down.

[Unknown Host]

Do you repost the same content across all. I'm like, I'm on.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah, I post the same stuff everywhere.

[Unknown Host]

Okay. God damn. I don't. I can't.

[Nick Palmisano]

The amount of time I used to put into content versus the way he. He can do it. And like, I mean. And I'm not throwing shade. I'm saying, no, no, no. Yeah. He'll sit there for like 15 minutes and make like four videos and just post them all at once. And I'm like, you don't try to time them or anything. And he's like, well, you know, I used to time them, but I just found it's pretty much the same no matter what. Just post them all. And like.

[Unknown Host]

Well, that's what you learn after 4000.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I walked outside of the hotel and made this video and I did it in one take. We're at three hours and it's got 44,000 views, so I'm super happy with that one. But, yeah, like, it just. I just run with it. And I've always found trying to script it or anything like that, it just never is as good for me. And it's funny, you're talking about the process. You enjoy the writing. I enjoy idea generation and then filming and then literally no other portion of the process. Like, I don't want to edit. I do edit. And, you know. Yeah, but that's what I enjoy. And that that's the strength and that's what I lean into. That's why I do volume. It's really low quality. Really high volume.

[Unknown Host]

I think it's high quality.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Well, I mean, as far as, like, I don't have. I don't usually use like, good cameras and stuff. It's all on my phone.

[Unknown Host]

What are you talking about? Your phone at this point is a good camera.

[Austin von Lechtman]

I guess that's true.

[Unknown Host]

I mean, you guys, cinema camera, your goddamn pocket.

[Nick Palmisano]

They're pretty amazing. Yeah, they really are.

[Unknown Host]

Amazon Prime, Apple, anywhere else.

[Nick Palmisano]

You can get it on Google, play, YouTube.

[Unknown Host]

Okay.

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. Or you can order it on blu [e-mail] I can't get behind that.

[Unknown Host]

Hey, I can get behind the streaming.

[Nick Palmisano]

It's still 10% of the market because it's higher quality than all the streaming services.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Is it really?

[Nick Palmisano]

Yeah. Oh, way higher quality.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Unknown Host]

Yeah, that is actually. That makes sense. Yeah.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Yeah. Whenever they get their AARP subscription, they can pop this in. Yeah.

[Nick Palmisano]

Words hurt. Yeah, words hurt.

[Unknown Host]

You could call somebody on your rotary dial phone. All right, gentlemen, until next time, thanks. AT&T customers. Switching to T Mobile has never been easier. We'll pay off your existing phone and give you a new one free. All on America's largest 5G network. Visit t mobile.com carrierfreedom to switch today. Pay off up to $650 via virtual prepaid MasterCard in 15 days. Free phone up to $830 via 24 monthly bill credits plus tax. Qualifying port in trade and service on Go5G. Next and credit required. Contact us before canceling entire account to continue bill credits.

[Austin von Lechtman]

Your credit stop and balance and required.

[Unknown Host]

Finance agreement is due.