Virginia Farmer Lost 11,000 Twitter Followers Over 3-Year-Old Video, Rebuilt His Following

Stephen Ellis [00:00:00] Especially on social media and local social. I call Facebook local social media because that's more of the people that you know. The Twitter and the Instagram a lot of times are more of the people that just want to hear or see what you're saying and, and you don't have a personal relationship with them. But in local social media, whether, whichever form that may be, somebody can argue with you. Howdy. I'm Hannah Newin Schwer a production lead at a soybean seed facility in central Illinois, and you're listening to the Vance Crow podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:32] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today we talk with Stephen Ellis, who is a restaurant owner and a farmer. He's actually a farmer first, and he realized that he could build a restaurant out on his farm and have people from the city come out and enjoy his own cooking, which is a great story. But it becomes even more interesting when Steven, after running this restaurant for three years, building it up to being a significant part of the way his family generates income, gets slammed straight into Coronavirus. And Steven did a whole bunch of different things to be creative, to keep his business running, to keep people employed, to keep people fed in his community. And this is a fun and interesting conversation with one of those people that makes up the fabric of our society. The people that are grinding away at their work day in and day out. They aren't in the cities, they aren't a part of the regular anywhere people. And so when I get a chance to talk with somebody like Steven, it fills me with enthusiasm and excitement because he just speaks so plainly and so clearly says what he really believes that it's, this is a refreshing conversation. You'll notice because Steven's out in the countryside every once in a while, we have a little bit of snafu on the recording, but stick with it because almost every time Steven's saying something super interesting is exactly when we get a little bit of a pause, but it works out. We're gonna get to that in just a second. But there are two things I wanted to talk about. The first one is, I've been doing these private interviews for people that have grandparents or parents that you wanna capture their values, their family stories, and oftentimes the conversations that you could have with them or your attempt to get them to write it down, it just doesn't quite translate.

Vance Crowe [00:02:15] So what people have found is if you get a private interview with me, I can sit down with your parents over a Zoom call and have a chat with them and record it. And you will see family stories captured values that the people have always wanted to articulate that never quite seemed to come out, or you never quite seem to have the time to sit down and really crystallize it, come out. And I would say some of the most gratifying work I've ever done in my life are these private interviews. So if it's something that you'd be interested in, go to the store of Articulate Ventures, which is store dot Articulate Ventures, and there you'll find a link that you can buy a private interview and we'll get it scheduled with your parent or grandparent. And don't worry, even if they're not technically savvy, you can tell from this podcast series that I've done, I can get pretty much anybody online. And all I need is somebody to be able to just set the camera in front of them and we'll work it out. So it's something fun and it's really easy to do. The other thing I wanted to bring up is that the Articulate Ventures network continues to grow. We are doing some really interesting things. We've done book club in vr, we do the Circular Firing Squad, which is a debate program, but we're also doing things like writing and giving people a chance to put down their ideas and then get feedback from other members of the community to make themselves better writers. And as Steven and I talk about in this interview today, the ability to articulate what you think persuasively is a superpower. And there's so few places in this world where we can go to have the knife edge that we're working with sharpened, you put it stuff out in social media and you find yourself not really making your ideas better, but instead fighting over the minutia of ideas.

Vance Crowe [00:03:56] But in the Articulate Ventures network, people are there to get better and to help other people in the network get better at the same time. So this is an interesting place for you to build out this skill. If you've ever decided, Hey, I want to be a better public speaker, I want to be a better writer. I want to meet people from all over the country that think like me and are open to new ideas, then consider joining the Articulate Ventures network. And you can do that by going to Network dot Articulate Ventures and sign up. You can sign up for a monthly plan just to see if you like it or sign up for a whole year to be a part of this community. It is a wonderful community. It is a place that is growing things that I never imagined possible. And I would love it if you as a listener would like to join us. Alright, without further ado, we're gonna head to the interview with my man, Stephen Ellis. Stephen Ellis, welcome to the podcast.

Stephen Ellis [00:04:47] I'm glad to be here. Glad you considered me worthy of a conversation.

Vance Crowe [00:04:51] Well, you run a restaurant and that is rare in today's day and age, what is going on in the world of running a restaurant in the era of COVID all the time, everywhere.

Stephen Ellis [00:05:03] It is not fun. There's, there's no way to get around it. You're basically just trying to stay in business until the world opens back up again. Virginia has not been as bad as some places, but it's still, even what they consider open now is 50% capacity. And when your margins aren't, of course 50%, even when you have a good day, it it, it's not enough to cover anything. So basically you're just trying to minimize expenses, find things people wanna take home, take out stuff, and hope to be here when it turns around.

Vance Crowe [00:05:41] So let's talk about your restaurant. What kind of restaurant do you run? Where is it? Who are the people that come in there?

Stephen Ellis [00:05:47] Alright, I first off to start the story, I'm a farmer. I've farmed my whole life. I grow green commodity crops here in Eastern Virginia. My restaurant is on my farm, which is five miles north of Tappahannock. It started as I had a building that was dilapidated and decided to decide what to do with it. My father said he was 80 and he wasn't gonna do anything with it, but I was welcome to, since this would be on the farm that I would once have. So I got the dilapidated building, started fixing it up, not sure where I was going with that. Then a good friend of mine in church that was a good caterer decided that he would, you know, offer to open a restaurant in the building. And I'm like, sure, you know, you, you want it and nobody else has stepped forward and that would be a great idea. So we did the extra tuning that you have to do to make a restaurant and biggest things in the rural areas, septic system and cooking and all that stuff. But anyway, we created a restaurant and he did a diner for breakfast and lunch. He did very well with it. He's very good at what he did. And then he got ill and became where he couldn't be there as much, and it's one of those things that you either all in or not. And when his lease ran out, he said that he wasn't physically capable to keep doing.

Stephen Ellis [00:07:20] So I hemmed and hawed having never been in a restaurant back room, much less, you know, run one and talked to a few people that I didn't quite trust as much as him, of course, and told my wife that a, a business would be worth more than an empty building. So that I was gonna give it a try. I went into it with the same things he did. But being a farmer, I of course more towards farm to table and trying to get, you know, a clientele of, you know, coming to the farm and eat that type of thing. I'll try to wrap this up quickly, but what we found out is that people have more money and more time at dinner than they do at breakfast and lunch. So naturally I moved more towards seafood, which is big in our area. I'm near the Chesapeake Bay. I went more to seafood, more to fresh cut local beef, cooking barbecue on the grill, did dinners and it, it, I mean, not to blow my own lawn, but it blew up. It did really well. You know, I had doubled income from 17 to 18 to 19 and then of course COVID hit and my big plans have been set back on, on the heels. Like I said, I was able to maintain the business and we did a month or two, I was strictly take out and that that did well when there weren't as many other people open. But soon as the people who are great at takeout, which is pizza places, Chinese places, you know, the people that have done takeout, the whole thing, they were able to capitalize on that and more natural for people to go there.

Stephen Ellis [00:09:01] So when they opened back up, I, I went back more to what I was doing and, and now it's more of like a 30% takeout, 70% eat in and where there for a while, you know, of course I had to do all takeout. So I am a three years into it. Started from the beginning not knowing anything but what the previous tenant was doing. Just followed his plans to get going and then tweaked it as I saw things that worked and didn't work. So

Vance Crowe [00:09:31] Then are you like behind the, in the kitchen you're like slinging oysters and, and whatever seafood that you gotta do? Or is, have you found somebody else to do the type of cooking?

Stephen Ellis [00:09:42] It it over blew everything. Of course, I wasn't gonna be in there at all. I just was gonna be a manager. But this is a business that people come and go. They just, some days they're, you know, there and the next day, whereas Johnny, Johnny decided he's not working here anymore. And so you work that day, you know. So I have done everything in there. I've cooked, you know, cleaned, washed dishes. So I've done it all. But my strength is not in that. I'm, I'm really good at prepping ahead and like cooking for a family. So on like weekends I know I have to cook, I'll cook pans of lasagna and you know, smoke a sirloin, prom rib, something that I can do that I can just slice and serve. Where the professional chefs and cooks are great it, you get a order five minutes later you've whipped it up, handed it out. That's not my strength.

Vance Crowe [00:10:34] So what about the restaurant industry? Did you learn that you weren't expecting? Like when COVID happens now all of a sudden you've had to have realized things about the way your business works that you didn't know before?

Stephen Ellis [00:10:46] Well, I realized the way and, but COVID was different because there were just so many things became, I don't know, it just, people are scared, you know, there's no way to say that it, my clientele, people that spend $30 on a seafood dinner or older and more established people, they got scared more than the younger crowd. So I was sitting there going, I don't have this line of 30, you know, 65 year olds coming in to buy high dollar meals. So then I had to switch back to a more reasonable lunch fair, you know, and, and, and just try to provide something that people can use take. I did family home dinners that worked really well where you did kind of like a KFC type thing, but everything home, home done. But a bucket of chicken, two sides and a dessert, take the whole thing home for 30 bucks. That did really well as far as volume. It, it wasn't a big money maker, but it, it kept people employed. Then I started ratcheting that up to the little bit more higher end and found there was a still a market for people to buy seafood. They just, you know, didn't want to sit in a crowded restaurant to do it. So I was able to move into seafood and like I said, I was able, I, I hear horror stories from the big cities where they shut all the way down and doing 10% of what they did. Mine was never that bad, but you know, 50 or 60% was what I was able to maintain.

Stephen Ellis [00:12:23] But you are running on five and 10% margins, so you still run it behind. So,

Vance Crowe [00:12:28] You know, one of the things that I discovered through Coronavirus for all the people that I know that are running businesses, everything from restaurants to construction to any type of business people are running. The ones that looked at it and said, I've gotta change as fast as possible, are the ones that are, I don't know that anybody's flying high right now, but at least the ones that kept their heads above the water. Are you a naturally creative person? Is this something that was like easy for you?

Stephen Ellis [00:12:58] I don't want to come across as saying it was easy, but that is my nature. I don't make schedules, I don't make plans. I don't have a whiteboard. I wake up in the morning and whatever fire I have to put out, I put out knowing that I can figure it out some kind of way. And so that's why I think I did okay with it, especially at the beginning. Like the first weekend I, I just stayed up all night and I was trying to figure out, I'm five minutes out of town, I'm on a farm, people would come into me as a destination restaurant, they've shut that down, I've gotta do takeout, what will they drive to takeout? And I made the theory that they weren't gonna drive up there for $8 hamburger, you know, one, but if you put, you know, hibachi dinner together where you had rice and chicken and thing and a whole a big aluminum pan, you know, this big and and fed four to six people, they would drive up there and buy that and go home and feed the whole family. So that was the biggest jump that I did was just saying, what will people spend money on right now? I can't in any business, you can't. And that's where the commodity business kind of is a hard one because you've got a product and they tell you what they'll pay for it. But any other business you basically is like, I have to create something somebody will exchange money for and what will they exchange it for more readily? And it's easy to say yes. You know, if I offer a whole dinner for $25, I could sell as many of 'em as I want, but I may lose $5 on every meal that I sell.

Stephen Ellis [00:14:37] The price point is where it was the hard, it's trying to figure out, yes, I can ate something, people will come get now, try to figure out how to make money on it. And so that was the way I broke it down was, you know, your business just got exploded. You know, you went from a hundred thousand dollars a month to nothing, you know, they were gonna say, you're shut down and what do I do to keep it from dying? And so the first thing I said is I've gotta figure out something people will spend money on. And then after I get that, which was the same way I built the restaurant is figure eight something people wanted to buy and eat. And then after I had them wanting to eat it, then figure out how to make money off of it. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:15:18] You brought up the point about the, the, you brought up the point about the, you know, commodity grain farmer oftentimes has the mentality that the way that I make money is that I work harder than everybody else, or that I eek out a margin by, by controlling my costs in some way. But at, at the end of the day it's about volume and you're talking about the restaurant business which has forced you to be entirely creative. So I think it's an interesting dichotomy that you have here because you are a commodity farmer, right?

Stephen Ellis [00:15:47] Yes. Yeah. I, we had never even done produce until now. And I do now have a son that just graduated college and he's interested in produce and started that and we're gonna do a produce market on the other side of the parking lot from the restaurant and try to bridge the two together. 'cause people are trying to buy local and if he can sell the meats and the produce and stuff on one side of the parking lot and they come and buy six tomatoes and go, well I might as well get a sandwich while I'm here. Or if they walk into the restaurant and they, you know, have eaten and that was pretty good, you know, wonder if you got it from over there. And we're hoping that will be where we get to, but it is just hard to do anything, you know, until the world gets moving again.

Vance Crowe [00:16:32] So how has Virginia been as far as being clear about what rules they want you to follow? Do you think that they're like, have they been reasonable rules, rules that you understand?

Stephen Ellis [00:16:44] I am very much an independent thinker, independent person and, and I wish I didn't have any rules and let people decide whether they felt safe to do what was available. So my theory was, you know, I open the restaurant, people would decide whether it's worth their risk in time to come to it. But of course government being government, they decided they were gonna lock it down. We were lucky. I, I tease, don't tease, but we, you know, you're talking about this with everybody all the time, is we really didn't have a first suite bad. We had it in our area, which is rural from the big cities

Vance Crowe [00:17:21] About

Stephen Ellis [00:17:22] 50 minutes outta Richmond, an hour from an hour and a half from DC hour and a half from Virginia Beach, Norfolk. We had COVID, but we had COVID that people caught somewhere and came back home with. It wasn't like everywhere. So you, you heard of somebody getting it, but it wasn't that was, you know, last spring and summer. So to me at that point it was like this is all just, you know, wasteful, you know, the world is shut down and there's no reason for it to be, there's eight people with it in our county this fall and winter. It actually made it to our area I think, and it became more of a thing that was passed from person to person and it never got overwhelming here. Not that it doesn't overwhelm the individuals that get it, I don't wanna make light of it, but it wasn't an overwhelming thing where, you know, half your workforce was out or you know, whatever. You just, somebody gets exposed, you find out whether they expose anybody else, they stay home week 10 days or until they get a negative test. You know, that type of stuff is just, you had to follow the rules. Now the one thing they did do is we have a pretty strong health department and they pretty much said, if you don't do what we tell you, we're gonna pull your license. And a couple people tried that and they pulled the license and just, you know, in a court eight months later trying to figure it out. But I, I did, was smart enough not to fight that system that once they pull you, once they pull your health license, it's, it's gonna be hard to function as a business in the long term.

Vance Crowe [00:18:59] You know, this brings up a thought that I've been playing with in my mind, which is at some level, at some point if the government control continues to ratchet up, you will have people that will say, it is my moral responsibility to have some form of civil disobedience.

Stephen Ellis [00:19:15] Right? But

Vance Crowe [00:19:16] It seems like in today's day and age that if you try to have civil disobedience, they just won't let you play in the game at all. Right? Like taking away your health license. Right. So I don't know how civil disobedience is going to to come about because one side gets framed as those people are rioting. That's the language of the unheard. And the other side is you said that something was wrong with masks, you should never work again.

Stephen Ellis [00:19:41] Right? Yeah, I run with that. I'm very outspoken on my Twitter accounts and they, they wiped me clear, you know, just a couple weeks ago and it was over, you know, playing music on the background of me, a video, but I'm not so sure that it wasn't, you know, all the other things that I have said over, you know, somebody went and looked at me.

Vance Crowe [00:20:04] What do you mean they wiped you clear? So for people that don't know Stephen Ellis, you have a pretty prolific Twitter feed and you were just wiped off the map.

Stephen Ellis [00:20:12] Yes, I have, I was changed names all the time, but I was s Ellis 1994 is what I started it at. My name's Stephen Ellis, I was hedge whisperer for a long time. I'd made fun of, you know, being able to market as well as people that are paid to, you know, it just was a joke. And I, I built up to, you know, pretty substantially it was, you know, 11,000 or so followers and I just got an email, well I got, so I couldn't see tweets anymore and I looked on my email and it said that, you know, we've suspended you because you played a Alicia Cara video three years ago on your Twitter and it's been, you know, they

Vance Crowe [00:20:53] Reached back three years

Stephen Ellis [00:20:55] To hit you off. Yeah, yeah. It was three years. I know be I know the song, so I know that the song was that old and you know, I, I didn't do it lately, but yeah, the tweet was at least three years old. Now I will say that they had gone over time and said, you played music in your video, we've deleted it. And so that had happened seven or eight times and you were 12 hours, you were back on. So I guess they finally just said, you know, we're gonna keep getting people, not people, but it's music companies have a software, I think that's just, you know, searches. And I'm pretty sure that, you know, they just had enough complaints and said, well that's enough of that. So I was gone. Wouldn't allow you to sign back in and a new one using the same phone number and email anyway. Well, I don't have but one phone number I wasn't gonna use, you know, my, it doesn't work to use your house phone. So I happened to have the restaurant account, which I hadn't, I created three or four years ago and hadn't used for the last two and just swiped my name and thing and started fresh with 300 people instead of 11,000.

Vance Crowe [00:22:13] So how did that feel? I mean, like, I often talk about like my good friend Dwayne Faber, I think he is like one of the best people on Twitter. He is fantastic, he's hilarious. He's also somewhat philosophical, but I'm always poking him and I'm always saying, man, you're building barns on rented land. Like if you become big here, somebody else can take it away. But I don't actually know anyone personally that had been knocked off like you had. So now knowing what, you know, do you wanna spend as much time building barns on this rented land?

Stephen Ellis [00:22:46] I don't know. I personally, being in a rural area, love any of the social media. I, I'm not a big Facebook fan. Facebook work works wonderful for promoting the restaurant more so than a Twitter or a Instagram or something. Instagram might work well too, but it's not a picture oriented thing. What I'm doing, I like Twitter because I get to meet people like you. I get to meet people like Favor and Jared McDaniel and all these people that are similar minded. I won't ever say like-minded. 'cause the reason that we like each other is we don't think

Vance Crowe [00:23:20] Exactly Jared Mc ain't like-minded to anybody,

Stephen Ellis [00:23:23] Right? Right. But we're similar minded and we found each other, you know, in rural areas across the whole country where I would never been able to bounce ideas off of them, you know? And so I can't foresee not doing it. I don't know what will be the next thing that comes up that we'll be able to hook up with each other and not be, you know, so I don't put a lid on, I guess is, you know, nobody's telling you what to do, but you do have that fear that you say the wrong thing at the wrong time. And not only is that gone, then the restaurant gets attacked and that's gone. You know, and then, then what do you do? You know, you're dealing in a world where everybody is just looking for the next person to follow.

Vance Crowe [00:24:09] What do you think is the reason for that? Because we didn't always live in a culture where people were prepared to take their grievance against you all the way out to the point when they can obliterate your, your business or your ability to generate income or even be employed by somebody. Why do you think this changed in society?

Stephen Ellis [00:24:29] I think it's a power structure. Like we have, like I'm talking to you as a farmer from rural Virginia, you know, because I was able to be seen and heard on social media, you knew who I was. Same thing on the negative side. There's a whole lot of people that nobody has listened to anything that they've said their whole life and, but yet they can go on social media and start 12 negative things and one of them may stick and balloon into something bigger and bigger and then all of a sudden they are the center of attention for a little while that they haven't had their whole life. And you can't blame 'em for that. I wish it was more positive instead of negative, but I just think that it's a, we don't have a caste system, but we definitely have the, the people that have, and the people that have not and the have nots are trying to figure out a way to be heard. And sometimes being the squeaky wheel gets you heard more than anything else that you can do.

Vance Crowe [00:25:27] Yeah, I'm always surprised. Like I have people on Twitter that show up and like the only thing they want to do, it seems is to strike, is to, is to hurt me in some way, right? Where you're just like, there's nothing productive about what you just said there. There's nothing insightful. Right? There's nothing that makes me think more deeply. It's you trying to say to other people, look how big of an idiot this is. And to me, like there have been people that I had held in like high regard thought, you know, you, you seem like a person that's got your shit together. You've, you're raising children. You're, you seem sensible. You seem like a happy person that I would like to get around with. And then you see them tweet at you and you're like, well that wasn't designed to make me feel good. Why, why would I engage with you if this is what you're trying to do? And, and it's, it's, it is very, very difficult for me to wrap my mind around

Stephen Ellis [00:26:23] Right Back in the old days, we call it old Twitter, but people were very harsh and if somebody came at you, you just literally took an hour out of your day and tried to break them down into the smallest species you could break them down to so that they would never do that again. And you know, we used to do that all the time and people quit messing with you, you know, because they're like, it's not worth it. I say one mean thing to him, and he takes a half hour of his life to totally destroy everything I've ever put on social media everywhere. And so, you know, it, what, what I guess it said armed defense, you know, is the best policy. If you were, you were prepared to defend yourself, it wasn't as bad. But, but now you can't say anything back to people much. You know, it just pretty much you have to ignore them and that's what they hate more than anything else is being ignored. They're trying to get attention and arise from you. And if you, you know, mute it or whatever, it, it goes away eventually.

Vance Crowe [00:27:25] The ignoring is real. So I had, and the power of it, even though it's so hard because you wanna get that cathartic release of being like, zing, I just got you. But I had a professor in college, probably the, the best lesson I learned in all of my undergraduate studies is this guy, it's in comms 1 0 1, like the basic class. And the professor is sitting in this lecture hall style and, and he says, has anybody in here ever been cheated on? And so a couple of people kind of like meekly raise their hands and he's like, and I'm guessing, you know, you were hurt and you had this fight and you told them how angry you were and it didn't make you feel better, but it was kind of ended that whole thing. He said, if you ever get cheated on again and you really wanna hurt that other person, don't say anything at all.

Stephen Ellis [00:28:14] Right? Because

Vance Crowe [00:28:16] The human mind has to have closure. So somebody does something wrong to you and you reply back to them with anger, you've just now kind of completed that loop. But if somebody does something to you like a betrayal and you never have a response for them, you never give them that cathartic release, they will literally never get over it. They will have to go to counseling over this because the brain is not designed to live in a world where you don't give people feedback. And I think that that's true. And the only downside to doing this strategy on Twitter is I find that some people get so wound up that you've ignored them, that now they go like chimpanzee crazy and they're just like throwing things constantly. And I've even had people go out and write articles about me. So it's like, all right, I like this ignoring strategy. But it does have some downsides.

Stephen Ellis [00:29:04] Oh, I'm sure it does. But we always, I've always been a theory and especially on social media and local social, I call Facebook local social media because that's more the people that, you know, the Twitter and the Instagram a lot of times are more the people that just want to hear or see what you're saying. And, and you don't have a personal relationship with them. But in local social media, whether whichever form that may be, somebody can argue with you. If you argue back with them, the, the narrative will be those two fools arguing. But if one person, you know, argues with you and you just politely dismiss, then it was, did you see where that crazy person went after him? You know, it becomes, takes away. And I've tried to teach my children that, and family is that your perception of how it looks is, you know, if, if two people are angry, then they're both fools. If one person's angry and the other one's holding their calm, then it's the one person that's full no matter what the subject is. You know? 'cause people are gonna judge you based on, you know, the, the visceral reaction to everything.

Vance Crowe [00:30:11] So you mentioned now that, you know, you met your chef or your caterer at church and then you've talked about teaching your kids lessons along the way. Can you talk about like how your value system got built up and, and what, why, how it's informing the way you raise kids now?

Stephen Ellis [00:30:29] Sure. The biggest thing would be my parents. My parents Will

Vance Crowe [00:30:32] You tilt your camera down just a little bit? Sure. There you go. Better?

Stephen Ellis [00:30:37] Yep. The biggest thing is my parents. They are in their eighties and been married since, you know, high school sweethearts, you know, everything. We basically, you know, grew up in a home that went to church every Sunday. One played the Oregon one, taught Sunday school, you know, deacons. It, it was just, that was the social media of the time was church. We did picnics all summer, everybody visited. And we've gotten away from that, you know, of course now everybody's doing travel ball and so the world is different beliefs were a community based thing and it, it, it really worked well that, you know, I was brought up in that them being, having stable marriage and raising kids taught me a lot about how to do that. So basically it, it comes from them and then once you've been parented, well you don't want to be the one that didn't do it. Well, you know, you, you've, you've got somebody to live up to. So you know, you basically, you've got this man that everybody, you know, has known and looked up to his old life and you don't want to be the black sheep of the family that, you know, couldn't do anything well. So I was lucky to find a wonderful wife and Susan and I decided from the beginning that when we had kids that that was, you know, our job.

Stephen Ellis [00:32:11] And I kind of think faith is kind of that job too, is there's not a whole lot you're gonna leave. You know, the restaurant will probably be gone before I get straight. The farm is the farm. It people rent land, go back and forth, but you're gonna be judged on how well your children react in society and, and how well they're thought of. That's gonna be the main thing that people judge you on, you know, when you're old or when you're gone.

Vance Crowe [00:32:37] Do you and your wife go to church regularly?

Stephen Ellis [00:32:40] We, I, I'm, I haven't since the pandemic. We were regular churchgoers and then I started the restaurant and then that became a Sunday operation. And so I kind of got out the habit and then the church got shut down for two or three months and now they do a, a neat drive-in service. And I've been, you know, once every month or two, but I, I don't go as regularly as I do, but I still think about all the things that I learned in 40 years of going

Vance Crowe [00:33:09] Weekly, I'm intensely curious about, about church. And in fact, at the beginning of this year, or the beginning of, I'm sorry, last year, 2020, I had decided that I was gonna try and, and go to 52 weeks of church. Just like I had run 500 miles the year before. I was like, I'm gonna try and go each time. And there's something like very difficult for the modern person to think about with church because you're like, particularly if you go to like, I don't know what your church was, but mine was Catholic. So very, very, very little changes week in and week out,

Stephen Ellis [00:33:42] Right.

Vance Crowe [00:33:42] And you're just doing this ritual and so this, it's like this thing over and over again. And it's hard for me to wrap my mind around, well if we know like the ritual part of it, can't we just skip that? Give me the unique part

Stephen Ellis [00:33:55] And

Vance Crowe [00:33:55] Then let's just cut everything out. Yeah.

Stephen Ellis [00:33:57] And I'm

Vance Crowe [00:33:57] Curious about what other people get out of the ritual that I maybe am not observing on my own.

Stephen Ellis [00:34:05] I think you're very astute seeing it that way. And I think that's why there's two reasons I think like church is getting less and less in society. One is that that, you know, I've seen it, why do I need to see it again? Or I can watch the same thing on tv, you know, while I'm doing, while I'm cooking brunch. And so people are less likely to go physically to the place. The other thing is that people seem to judge too many people based on how they were dressed when they came, what they had done that week before they got there. There's just a whole lot of judgment there that isn't needed. The cool thing about our driving church actually grew our numbers, and I honestly believe a lot of that is people felt comfortable. They could come sit in their car, listen to it with their flip flops and shorts on and you know, whatever. They didn't have to dress up, they didn't have to be judged, they didn't have to make small talk, you know, they just got to hear the base form of the belief system and then they could turn around and go back home. And I'm not so sure that people don't mess up religion, you know, more than anything else. And religion's, basically the reason that they are so many different ones of them was because the people in power wanted to keep power and they would, you know, make up a different rule you had to follow if you wanted to stay with us.

Stephen Ellis [00:35:39] And they wanted you to stay with them because you got, they got some of your money. I know that's totally not, you know, what you want to think about religion, but the politics of religion is that, you know, they're trying to cut a piece of a pie and keep more of the pie for themselves. And sometimes if we could just get back to the belief system, and I did a little bit of Middle East history and college, the belief systems are very, very similar. You know, the base base points all coming from the same route except for the far east. They, they just got lost their way when, when the people started being in charge, you know, when the Europeans decided to, you know, make it so nobody else could be in it. But their particular country, you know, they, they broke it up into a political and religious system. The countries broke it up and became different systems and, and then people got more independent and they got cast out and that's where, that's the group that came to America. A lot of 'em.

Vance Crowe [00:36:42] Yeah. And there's an interesting function that the, that the breakup of churches created in Europe that I think we actually are the major beneficiaries, or at least we were in that our federalist system came from the idea that people looked around Europe and they said by having all these different churches after the, the Reformation and when, you know, Martin Luther breaks up the churches and then they break up into all their own different styles, then you had a bunch of different people trying different social experiments. This group believes the way you get to heaven is that you work really hard and that if you are successful, then that proves that you have predestination to heaven. Oh, shoot. So that group of people And, and you know, you have all, you know, you have the Catholics and then you have the Episcopalians. And so political philosophers like Thomas Jefferson were looking at that and they said, we should replicate that here, only remove the religion part of it so that that way we can have this federalist democracy where if you're living in St. Louis, it's gonna be different than the way it is in East Virginia. And I love that. But I think we are definitely losing that over time. People want a more homogenous thing. There are groups of people that say, well I can't allow there to be freedom in Eastern Virginia that doesn't exist in Missouri. So we've gotta ratchet down on you guys. And I think we're, I think we're losing, one of the things that religion showed us was truly possible was that you can run a whole bunch of different experiments and see how they work in different locations,

Stephen Ellis [00:38:14] Right? Yeah. That's what, like I say, I, I, I was big in the election thing and then once the election was over, I knew it was over and everybody was like, no, it's, you know, they're gonna find this thing, whatever. I was like, no, it's just the United States of America and you have to convince a state board of elections to admit they did everything completely wrong. That wasn't going to happen and each state could legally do it a different way. And so, you know, if take it to a Supreme Court, Supreme Court's gonna say, you know, we're not in charge of that election. They are. And they say it's okay, it's okay. Which is, you know, what basically happened. And nobody wants that anymore. Like you said, they want, you know, same rules for everybody. But what we're finding out and what this pandemic has done is that the states do still have autonomy and the states that are opening up quicker and easier and more freedoms are gaining population that, you know, the people are moving from these places that they have the thumb put down on them so hard they can't breathe. And every little thing is, and and they're moving to a South Dakota that, you know, basically says if you know, you, you, you don't bother me and you know, you stay on your ranch, we're not gonna come check on you. You know, you get to do what you want. And Florida, you know, opened up in a quick, big way and they just, you know, booming. I was down there a couple weeks ago and it's just, it's like a different world, you know, because one, it's, you know, beautiful and sunny and libations flow freely, but it just, you know, everybody has a different mindset.

Stephen Ellis [00:39:53] They don't look like that. They're walking around scared. And, and in the long run, that's gonna be what happens to the United States, I think is that the populations, and especially now, which make me think of something else, especially now that we're doing everything remotely. You don't have to be in Manhattan to work for that company. You can be in rural Pennsylvania and be able to visit Manhattan every couple weeks, you know, and, and still work and do the same job you were doing. It's gonna drive the people to spread back out, but then what does that happen when they all come to a rural area and want to vote back to things that they voted for?

Vance Crowe [00:40:35] Yeah, it's been surprising to me, like if, and I, I had a mayoral candidate on the other day for the city of St. Louis. To me, one of the things that you hear people say when they're, the elections aren't going their way, is like, well maybe I'll just move to Canada, or oh, if this gets really bad here, I wanna move to New Zealand. And what people are forgetting when they say that is we could easily have that in the United States if we would allow states to have as much autonomy as was originally put there, right? 'cause you could make it. So if you wanna live in a place that has more freedom, but lots less social support, some states can do that.

Stephen Ellis [00:41:13] And

Vance Crowe [00:41:13] Then you have other states that wanna have some other system. And then if you don't like the way that your place is being governed, then picking up and moving allows you to find the people that wanna live in the same way that you do. But this idea that we should, you know, homogenize everything to the point where all the rules are the same everywhere is what makes then the fight over power to who gets to set the rules so much higher. And instead of having that battle be on the state level or the county level or, or all the better on the city township level, we're doing it at the national level and you only get one vote and it's a, it's a, that that is a recipe for an unstable system.

Stephen Ellis [00:41:52] Yeah, yeah. Like, like say most of us know, you know, that the president wasn't supposed to have the power that they have now, you know, it, they were just supposed to be the focal point. And I've always said that we really do need somebody that who's a real good talker to be the focal point and then somebody that knows how to run everything, be behind them running everything. And, but that's not our system. So like you said, we, we we're into, you know, this bigger thing I always enjoyed when a government was split, you know, when you had the different parties controlled the house and the Senate and, and the executive branch and literally not much got done, you know, and that's where I feel like the federal government should be, is not doing much. So now, you know, I think we're gonna have a time where we're gonna see more and more get done and the pandemic is pushing that too, where more and more could be federal, the states aren't gonna be a function without the federal money and that's how they, you know, control them to bring everything into line, I guess like you're saying. And to, and to try to keep some of the independents that people are trying to develop in certain areas. They wanna stamp that out. It seems to be,

Vance Crowe [00:43:08] You know, you're in an interesting position and, and probably better position than I am to answer the question. So I get invited to a lot of places to say, how do we bridge the divide between city and rural? And because you run that farm that's on the edge of a town and you're actually serving people from in town, what do you think the divide could be described as? Why is there a difference between people in the rural and people in the more urban environments?

Stephen Ellis [00:43:35] This is what I tell people, and some people say it's not quite true, but I honestly feel this way is if you grow up in a rural area, you don't have septic systems, you don't have town septic, you don't have town trash pickup, you don't have a wet, you know, water system. If you grow up in an urban area, a lot of the things that you do in your life from day one, you don't know any different, but the government takes care of it. The government brings you your water, the government takes away your trash, government takes away your, your waste in the country. You go buy a piece of land, then you have to pay to have a septic system put in. You have to drill your own. Well the rural areas just naturally do more for theirselves and their urban areas naturally rely more on government to help them function day to day. And I think it's subconscious, you know, I think that's why you see the, the blue and the red on the thing is the, the blue states, they're not bad people. They just, well if government's taking care of X, Y, and Z, why not let them take care of UV and w also in the rural areas, they're like, you've done all this yourself and you know the government is going to come in and take over parts of it that you know, you can handle yourself. You naturally don't want that. The counter argument, which is one of my bigger Twitter arguments that we've ever had is that now that the federal government has helped farmers so much that the rural area is actually getting a larger percentage of help from the government than they were before.

Stephen Ellis [00:45:17] And that you can't argue that, you know, what you may get as a, what was the acronym? To see that payment or whatever, you know, came in is equal to all of the trash and water and everything else that you know, they've done for you. And there is a valid point to that, but that doesn't mean that the mindset isn't still, you know, I did this myself here, I don't need your help versus you helping me in eight different ways. You might as well help me with 12.

Vance Crowe [00:45:48] Yeah, I had a guest on named Larry Sharp and he had a very interesting way to describe what you're saying, which is for every unit of government you add, you take away a unit of community and that that is just, it's the one-to-one ratio. Because if the government is stepping in to say, hey, we're going to, we're gonna mediate how these people get along or what you're allowed to do and what you're not allowed to do, then the function of the community, like church used to be like, Hey, don't go to that restaurant. 'cause I got so sick there the other day that I couldn't get outta bed for a couple of days. People are like, oh, okay, well we're not gonna go to that restaurant. You don't need inspectors there because people will tell, right? But now that we have people not interacting with other people in their community, and I think even more so now with Coronavirus, we have asked the, the government to step in in the place where normally just human beings colliding with one another, seeing each other at restaurants or sporting events or you know, work or whatever. But we've gone from having, I think it was getting lower before coronavirus to being virtually non-existent, which makes government so easy to step in and fill that void,

Stephen Ellis [00:46:56] Right? Yeah, it is, it's, it's different. That was the cool thing about that was the big positive I had from the restaurant. I enjoyed creating something, I enjoyed the feedback when it was good. I hate the feedback, when's bad of course, but you gotta hear that. But I enjoyed seeing people that I hadn't seen in 20 years, 30 years when we got married, we had kids young and then, you know, next thing you know, you're 28 years old with three kids and so your whole life is doing what they need to do, which is way I think it should be. I was really big in little league, so I did have that summertime where I interacted with a lot of people and, and then, you know, playing ball and stuff. But more than anything we were at home raising kids and we actually lost groups of friends and stuff. Not 'cause we didn't anybody did anything wrong, it's just we weren't there anymore. They kept on doing what they were doing and we were sitting at home. And so when the restaurant opened back up, I was actually able to reconnect with some of them, you know, because they'd come in and give me a try and we'd talk and, you know, so I'm, I'm learning more that as, especially as you know, kids are going out on their own, you gotta figure out how to function in society again. But this thing of everybody has to stay in small groups isn't great for that.

Vance Crowe [00:48:21] So when, when you and I decided to do this interview, you went out on Twitter and asked people, Hey, what should we cover? And one of the themes that I noticed really emerged from there was about parenting and about the, the role that you've played in helping people kind of think through the way that they parent. And we can take this in any direction you want, but I'm really curious about, as a father that is watching your children in their prime ages to be interacting, to be exploring the world and having them endure coronavirus, what is it that, that you're doing to make sure that they are not losing years of, of these, of these prime time of their life?

Stephen Ellis [00:49:03] Well, we're lucky that, you know, a lot of us are in essential businesses, you know, with the restaurant and the and and farm, you know, a lot of that didn't stop. So, so my boys have been working hard and they interacting, my daughter's in college and a lot of that's online. You know, she got sent to college and then couldn't leave her dorm room, basically just stuff to eat and did everything online from there, which I thought was really not the way to do it, but you know, you don't have control over it. So hope, hopefully that'll open back up so she can have a real college experience. But I don't know, the thing with kids is hard because what is best for them now is usually not best for them long term. Like it's real easy to make their life easy and to provide everything they need and to take away all their bumps and hiccups people have gotten. So if the teacher's mad at your kid in school, it's the teacher's fault. And you know, one of the things I used to say is he doesn't listen to me. Why would he listen to his teacher? You know, you have to realize that you kid is your kid and you've gotta love them, but if somebody took time at their day to call you and tell you your kid is having trouble, there's some truth there. You know, it's not all made up. They didn't spend 20 minutes of their time to, you know, just blow smoke. So you've gotta realize your kids are not infallible and that they need to be punished.

Stephen Ellis [00:50:36] They don't need to be hurt, but they need to be punished. And each kid has a different thing that punishes them. You know, we've had some that you threaten, you know, to smack their leg and they won't ever do anything in here again. We've got some that would look at you and say, that doesn't hurt and, you know, keep right on rolling and, but you find out what hurts them. And like that one in particular, love video games. You take away his video games, he'd rather, you know, anything happens in that. So you just have to individually parent. But the thing is, you can't just be their best friend as they're growing up. You know, you have to set boundaries. You have to say, you know, I'm your best friend by telling you what is best for you in the long run. And, and one of the best things I've noticed and has worked well for my kids as they're getting job offers and stuff now is, is we've got a generation of people that won't look you in the eye and shake your hand and, and, and look you in the eye while you're talking to them. And so that's one of the best things you can teach your kids is, you know, the old Midwestern politeness works in the society. You know, you go into an interview and that person has your attention, you know, no matter who it is, and they look you in the eye and you can carry on a conversation, then you have a whole lot better chance of getting that job than the person that may be better mentally at the described action that needs to be done, but can't function in society with other people.

Vance Crowe [00:52:07] So I had a professor in graduate school named Xang Wang, and he talked to me about how when China instituted the one child policy and at the same time as these kids were coming of age, they did so much on the internet, he was like, it is very difficult to get young people to look you in the eye to be able to have this sort of personal interaction. And I remember vividly thinking like, well, at least the US is protected from that. Like, we're definitely gonna have this culture where you've gotta see people and man, did it happen fast here? Right? And not only I think it was already on that trajectory, but, you know, I talk to, to young people all the time that say, I, I can't get my friends to meet with me in person. Right? Like I, they're too scared. Or if we do meet, they wanna meet in masks and they wanna sit far apart. And like you think about the, the implications of that over the long term are really rough because it's not going to be easier when you're in your thirties to try and look somebody in the eye and learn how to shake their hand. That is going to be difficult, right? So you gotta learn it when you're young and I think parents are, and I'm going to be facing this myself in a, in a, in an uphill battle to get people away from their computer screens to be able to learn those skills, like shaking hands and looking people in the eye,

Stephen Ellis [00:53:25] Right? And now they don't want you to shake hands anymore, so, oh

Vance Crowe [00:53:28] God, you're

Stephen Ellis [00:53:29] Right. Oh, you're right. Yeah. But it just, it literally, you know, like you say the, the, the little things in life is what gets you moving. That doesn't mean that all your problems is fixed. You know, I'm trying to open a new store and can't get financing because my previous one dropped in revenue by 40, 50%. You know, so I'm jammed up today. That doesn't mean that I have any answers whatsoever, but in life I was able to accomplish different things that I, and I feel a whole lot of it based is based on, still, based on personality. You know, you know, you don't have your job unless you have the ability to talk and function. You wouldn't have gotten your previous jobs and you wouldn't be able to podcast unless you could talk with anybody and be able to take it in, repeat it back to them in a way that's, you know, interesting people that don't have conversational skills and don't have even writing skills that can flow in a way that sounds like conversation are really in a bind. And, and it's something that it doesn't just come natural. You have to practice that your whole life.

Vance Crowe [00:54:40] Yeah. I was the beneficiary of being the middle child is seven. So if I didn't learn how to speak fast and be persuasive, My mother was never naturally predisposed to taking my side. So I had to find a way to become more convincing than other people. But to your point, like being able to articulate the complex ideas in your mind is a superpower, right? And the ability to be able to write and the ability to be able to, like you said, listen to what somebody said and be able to articulate it back to them, man, that opens so many doors. It opens more doors than many, many, many technical skills ever will. Now, that's not to say you should just rely on that thing, because unless you are a, you know, at the top elite 1%, you're never gonna be able to make money just off your communication. You have to have other skills there. Right.

Stephen Ellis [00:55:31] But

Vance Crowe [00:55:31] I think that to not develop that skill means even if you have the technical ability, you're locked out of the world.

Stephen Ellis [00:55:38] Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was something I, I did FFA, you know, all through the years and did, we were small, so you did every part of FFA, you know, so you would, we had good teachers and we would do public speaking and do it, and they'd always say, you, you wanna do public speaking? I'd say, no, I wanna do extemporaneous speaking. And they're like, well, why is that? And I was like, I don't want to have to prep ahead of time. I don't want to, I don't want to have to spend the time memorizing my, you know, words and all that. I said it was the coolest thing is you walked in a room and they gave you a topic, and in one hour you wrote out a speech and then you gave it, you know,

Vance Crowe [00:56:18] Five

Stephen Ellis [00:56:18] Minute speech right after. And most of the time it wasn't an hour, usually a half hour, 45 minutes. But I like that, you know, and I was 14, 15, 16, and that became my normal is, you know, I, and it's one of those things is, you know, like I said, I, I don't like prepping ahead, don't like planning ahead. It just fit me. And so I did well at that. And, and then once you do that, then you're not scared to do anything else. You know, because you basically, you know, have no research, because back then there was no phones. You know, you didn't have an encyclopedia, you had a topic and you had to come up with a cogent theory to explain it in a short amount of time, and then publicly tell people you didn't know about it, and they judge you on it. And it's, that's one of the coolest things that anybody should have to do at some point in their life. I, I joke about the TED Talks is, you know, I feel like I would love to do Ted Talks and they'll go, well, which one could you do it on? And it's like anything, just, you know, let me have the opportunity to talk for 30 minutes. And I may not be perfect at it, but I could tell you something about it. And the same thing with, I've noticed, I, I haven't gotten into it, but I started to notice people talking about this clubhouse, which is where the people get together that are higher up in business and stuff, and, and, and give their own little, you know, talks that people can either see or not see. And I feel like that might be my next thing is if I ever could get in that and just, you know, 20 minutes a week, not do a podcast quite, but just, you know, when I had time just come in and say, this is what we're talking about today.

Stephen Ellis [00:57:52] I feel like that would be

Vance Crowe [00:57:53] Fun in they're quick man. Because, because the journalists in the world, they want that thing gone. They want that, that is, they are coming for clubhouse. There's no, in my mind, it is just a matter of time. The only upside to it is the people that they have targeted, like the Mark Andreessen's of the world or the, the, the, the techno guys that are at the top of this. If you knock them out of, of clubhouse or you somehow ban this, then they are going to take their money, their hedge fund money, and they're going to build things that you're not able to block. Right? Yeah. And I think

Stephen Ellis [00:58:26] That

Vance Crowe [00:58:26] This is actually the world we're heading towards, but if you want to get on Clubhouse, do it quick. 'cause I think that that is a ship that's gonna have a lot of torpedoes shot.

Stephen Ellis [00:58:34] Okay, well I haven't even figured out how you get on it. I thought you had to get invited or something. But anyway, it just, I at this point that, that, that shows interest to me more so than some of these other social medias, just because it, it goes back to a strength that I feel like I developed.

Vance Crowe [00:58:51] So, so you brought up the idea of handshakes and you can't do 'em now. Do you shake people's hands?

Stephen Ellis [00:58:57] We do. And usually it's people my age, we and I, and it is not a race thing or cast thing. I live in an area that is basically 40% white, 40% African American, 20% Hispanic. So we're all together all the time, all work together all the time. So race isn't a big thing here, you know, it seeps in, but you know, it's people my age, you know, people from age 35 to 55 stick their hand out and shake hands, you know, no matter where, where they're from, the younger people, you know, not the heads. And the older people are naturally more standoff. Could it affects them harder? But yeah, I still, I asked before I do it now, I said, you still shaking hands? And they're like, hell yeah, I am. And you know, you shake hand, pro hug, you know, whatever you do. But it's just not a natural thing where the, every time you meet somebody, you stick your hand up. I don't, I'm not quite there anymore because so many people are affected by this different ways.

Vance Crowe [01:00:01] Yeah. I mean, I think certainly I wouldn't assert myself on it, but I feel like handshakes now have become weirdly a form of civil disobedience, right? It is. If you come to my home and we, we do business together, we're gonna shake hands, right? And I mean, if for some reason somebody didn't want to or they felt appar, but, but to me that's a way of saying, I am not afraid to live. Right? And like that's, I think that that is one of the most dangerous parts about Coronavirus is that it has given people a way to allow the existential fear that every rational human being feels like the, the fear of death is a, is a uniquely human thing, right? Animals don't realize they're going to die, right? But humans do. But if you allow every single action to be clouded by, this may kill me, so I can't breathe the same air as you, I can't shake hands then are you living like, I'm not so sure that you are?

Stephen Ellis [01:00:57] No, it's entirely different setup. And like you say, you pick and choose and like different areas from what you say, but I feel like the ones that, the areas that got crushed by government, you know, where they, they didn't even allow people to sit outside and eat, you know, where they, they, you know, weren't allowing anybody to go into work anywhere and nobody goes to school. Those are the ones that are rebelling faster because it was such a harder imposition than the ones where they incrementally, like in Virginia, they incrementally took everything away. Well, you can go out to eat, but you just can't sit within six feet of the next party. You know, you can go out to eat, but you know, you gotta have a mask on till you get there. That's different than saying you no longer can, you know, I, I was trying to figure out how to make money off of people that so many nobody knows how to cook. You know? It, it just, a whole world of people have been raised with easy access to food and don't know how to cook. And so I was going to, and I did this for a while too, is not only sell the meals to go, but the preparation meals. You know, like when you put everything together with a, a sticker that says put an oven for 20 minutes at three 50, and that's all they had to do. And I didn't, the world was kind of slow and I was busy farming. I didn't like push that as much as I should. But I still think in the long term, that's gonna be something that works really well in the, in the new world is prepped meals that they know what it tastes like.

Stephen Ellis [01:02:31] They know where it came from, but all they have to do is follow, you know, microwave directions.

Vance Crowe [01:02:37] I love it, man. I think that that kind of creativity is the thing that allows human beings to be resilient, right? To, to figure out how to overcome whatever comes our way. Stephen Ellis, this has been fun. I'm so glad we did this. I've, I've always wanted to do it. I remember back when Coronavirus was first hitting and you were talking about what you were doing through restaurant, and I'm glad we finally got to it. If people wanted to follow your new Bandit Twitter handle, how would they find you?

Stephen Ellis [01:03:06] It's still SLS 1994, but I put an underscore between SLS and 1994. So it's S-E-L-L-I-S 9 9 4. And that'll get you back into the Twitter thing. The 17 South restaurant in Virginia will get you on the Facebook where I have a whole lot, you know, a little bit more long form there where, you know, every week or so, I'll, I'll just kind of tell you the crap we're dealing with in the restaurant industry and, and how we're trying to do it. And hopefully we have something that you may want to eat there. So that's another

Vance Crowe [01:03:42] Way. And how can people find your restaurant and I, when I hit East Virginia next, how can I get to where you're at? What's the name of the place?

Stephen Ellis [01:03:48] It did Intonations of it. I used to be 17 South at Stephen Ellis Farm. Done it. If, you know somebody else wants to do it two, three years from now, I'm fine with that. But it's the farm at 17 South and it pretty much, you know, my slogan was Eat at the Farm, so I just went ahead and named it that. So it's the farm at 17 South. It literally is on 17 south, 50 minutes south of Fredericksburg. Like, so if you, we parallel 95, so anybody going up and down 95 can get to me within 30 or 35 minutes. But yeah, it's in north of Tappahannock, which is east of Richmond and south of Fredericksburg.

Vance Crowe [01:04:40] Well, nothing would make me happier than sit down with a group of people, shake hands and eat dinner at your, at your place, Steven.

Stephen Ellis [01:04:47] Yeah, we, we joke with the younger people is you ever heard of a hoedown? The old big parties where, you know, the whole world came to and Dan's one, I was like, if this thing breaks this summer, I, I want have a hoe down where I just like, bring in a tractor trailer, flatbed, put a band on it and everybody, 10,000 people outside just enjoying life again. But never,

Vance Crowe [01:05:10] I, you'll never regret it. You know, Jason Mock had his field days where he did a band and everything and it was in the middle of COVID during the summer and there was something truly magical about it. It really brought back what it is to be human. Yeah. So when you get that chance, Steven do it man.

Stephen Ellis [01:05:26] Alright, thanks so much. Thank.