Steve Vartazarian

Steve Vartazarian (00:00):
It was 2014, Bob, I moved into this nice home in Encino. First time I could afford my own house. Five years later, one night somebody was pushing on the window, there was a couple of people running around the backyard, I opened the door and I opened fire.

(00:14):
I've known Mauro since the '90s. I've known him for a long time.

Mauro Fiore (00:25):
I've known Steve since before we were both lawyers, and I've been a lawyer for 25 years, to tell you how long I've known him.

Steve Vartazarian (00:30):
Yeah, we've known each other for-

Mauro Fiore (00:30):
He was a real cuckoo back then too, let me tell you.

Steve Vartazarian (00:32):
Yeah. I was something else, man. I was a ton of-

Bob Simon (00:35):
Back then? Still is. Welcome to this episode of Bourbon of Proof, where we like to interview those who are successful at both law and life. We do it over a series of many brown liquor pours, whiskey and bourbons, and we're so honored today to have Steve Vartazarian here, who is one of the most preeminent trial lawyers in California, has tried some of the biggest and most difficult cases, our trial lawyer of the year for Los Angeles lawyers, what, two years ago?

Steve Vartazarian (01:17):
Yeah. Three, three years ago.

Bob Simon (01:19):
Three years ago. A long time LA kid, right?

Steve Vartazarian (01:22):
Born and raised.

Bob Simon (01:23):
Born and raised.

Steve Vartazarian (01:23):
Born and raised in the valley.

Bob Simon (01:25):
Our co-host today, Mr. Mauro Fiore.

Mauro Fiore (01:27):
Hello, hello.

Bob Simon (01:28):
Back as always.

Mauro Fiore (01:29):
Thank you for having me back again, Bob.

Bob Simon (01:32):
Are you going with an odd job look today?

Mauro Fiore (01:34):
Yes, I am. Random tasks.

Bob Simon (01:36):
Random tasks. Again, today we're filming on location in the Arts District, this is Bike Shed, thanks to Charles Lew and Tom Hardy for we're filming in their private bar today. We're going to start off just drinking.

Steve Vartazarian (01:48):
Great.

Bob Simon (01:50):
We're going to start with this High West Double Rye, and this is one of the more limited edition ones.

Steve Vartazarian (01:54):
Let's do it.

Bob Simon (01:55):
Yeah, let's get right into it.

Steve Vartazarian (01:57):
Yeah. Listen, I need a drink. It took me about an hour or two to get here.

Bob Simon (02:07):
20 miles away, it takes an hour, not even probably. All right, my friend.

Mauro Fiore (02:11):
Very nice.

Bob Simon (02:13):
Have you had this one? You had to have. No? First of all, cheers.

Steve Vartazarian (02:20):
Cheers, cheers.

Mauro Fiore (02:20):
To your health.

Bob Simon (02:23):
To his health.

Mauro Fiore (02:27):
Oh, that's nice. Double Rye.

Bob Simon (02:30):
Double Rye. The reason we selected this, Steve was once the sheriff in his own home.

Mauro Fiore (02:38):
Double rye for double barrel shotgun.

Bob Simon (02:39):
Double barrel shotgun.

Mauro Fiore (02:41):
Tell us that story, Steve.

Bob Simon (02:44):
By the way, we're going to have our media team insert this video. Do you still have the video?

Steve Vartazarian (02:46):
I have the video.

Bob Simon (02:47):
Fuck, it was cool.

Video (02:48):
His injuries. Homeowner in Encino grabbed his shotgun when at least one and possibly three suspects tried to smash their way into a home last night. The homeowner's security camera captured the picture of one of these men approaching a backyard sliding door. The homeowner heard the suspect try to break the glass, and that's when he opened fire causing the suspect and possibly two others to take off running. A neighbor's doorbell camera captured the audio.

(03:20):
If you come to my house and I catch you trying to break in, I'm going to shoot, I'm going to ask questions later.

Steve Vartazarian (03:26):
I heard there's all these robberies going on. Poor people up in Encino, widowers, retired folks, things like that, who've been living there since the seventies. The homes are getting old so they're getting their homes remodeled, and all these contractors have been coming in for the last five years, beginning in 2015, '16, and people started getting robbed and home invasions, burglaries, this, that. I heard of that, I'm like, "No one's fucking robbing me. That's not going to happen." I grew up in North Hollywood and around guns and stuff like that so I know how to protect myself.

Bob Simon (04:05):
I heard a story recently. You used to have hair down to your shoulders, riding bikes.

Steve Vartazarian (04:10):
Yeah. I used to ride a lot of motorcycles. I still do, still have many.

Bob Simon (04:14):
Are you in his motorcycle club?

Mauro Fiore (04:16):
I don't think he's ever rode with the Brothers of Justice, but you got to ride with us.

Steve Vartazarian (04:20):
The Brothers of Justice. I've seen you guys roll up.

Mauro Fiore (04:21):
Yeah, you got to ride with the Brothers of Justice.

Steve Vartazarian (04:23):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (04:23):
They only commit white collar crimes.

Steve Vartazarian (04:28):
Yeah. Anyway, long story short, I got a dog who didn't do shit, I got a shotgun that did a lot, and I just planned. It was 2014, Bob, I moved into this nice home in Encino, first time I could afford my own house, and the best thing that I did was put this reinforced 3M security film on all the windows in the back of the house. The realtor said, "It'll buy you time. It'll buy you time," I'm like, "I'll take that." That's a good insurance policy for me.

(04:59):
Five years later, one night I came home from one of the sushi bars. It was around 10:00, we're getting ready to go to bed, my kids were asleep and my wife's like, "There's something going on in the backyard. Get out of the bathroom." I just got home, I was going to take a shower and watch Seinfeld or something, which is what I usually do, regular night. I went out there and I saw somebody was pushing on the window, there's a couple people running around the backyard. In a moment like that, it really tells you about your character. You have less than a second to react on what you're going to do in some situation like that, and there was an anger that came over me that was so compelling I couldn't stop what it was telling me to do, which was to kill these motherfuckers.

Bob Simon (05:56):
Wow.

Mauro Fiore (05:56):
I love that. My kind of anger.

Steve Vartazarian (06:01):
I come and I see that, I start walking towards the door, my wife tries to say, "Don't open the door," I opened the door and I opened fire. As I did, there was people scrambling coming towards me, there was a few over here onto the side. When I saw them, because it was dark, I came out and I started shooting, and once I fired a few rounds, they fled and I think I hit one of them in the shoulder, but they took off and they were nowhere to be found, so the next day, I moved.

Bob Simon (06:34):
Really?

Steve Vartazarian (06:34):
I was out.

Mauro Fiore (06:35):
Holy shit.

Steve Vartazarian (06:36):
I was out.

Bob Simon (06:37):
Wow.

Mauro Fiore (06:38):
I drink to the Second Amendment.

Steve Vartazarian (06:39):
The next day, and I'll tell you why, I'll tell you why.

Bob Simon (06:43):
I've seen the video, this went a little viral, which I saw a guy running outside with his tidy whities.

Mauro Fiore (06:49):
No, he was wearing boxers.

Steve Vartazarian (06:51):
I was wearing boxers. Thank God I'd been working out a little bit so I was looking good. I don't want to look like some ... You know what I mean?

Bob Simon (07:01):
Did you stage it? You staged it, didn't you?

Steve Vartazarian (07:04):
I'll tell you, and here's what I was going to say about moving out the next day, it tripped me out, man. When we try these cases and we have to make these crazy important decisions, I don't flinch for a second. I could turn down a five, $10 million offer after I sit down for my closing argument, when they whisper, "You go 10, 10," I'm like, "Get the fuck out of here, I'm not taking that. I'm going to let it roll." Two seconds. I've been prepared years, I don't get nervous ever. My heart beats maybe just a little not out of fear or anxiety, out of excitement. I can't wait to tell this jury whatever the hell it is that I'm doing. I'm pretty cool, man. Under pressure I never fold, never, it's never happened.

(07:50):
Dude, the day after this thing, I woke up, I was a fucking basket case. I burst a vessel in my eye, I woke up, every little crack in the house I was like ... My wife, my kids were there, and what I heard was they come into your house, they tie you up, disable your wife by hitting her in the head with a gun, fucking put your kids duct tape in the closet and they hit you up when they know you're at home so they can make you open the safe and take all the shit that you have. When I reflected on that the following morning, that is not a stress that I've ever been used to or I could've labored under. It was more than what I could bear.

Bob Simon (08:30):
[inaudible 00:08:31] than you need either. Get rid of that stress, get the fuck out of there.

Steve Vartazarian (08:34):
This is what I was thinking. People are like, "Oh, these fuckers are never going to come back. They're never going to come back." I was like, "That very well may be," but the math ... Then I started doing, that's what we do, we start evaluating shit. Here's the math that I did. I was like, "Wait a minute. I've worked 25 something plus years to get to where I'm at and I'm not even close to where I want to be, and these people can come and fuck it up in two seconds?" I was like, "That doesn't make any sense." I got on the phone, I started making phone calls. At that time, 2019, it's not too long ago, but I didn't have what I had now. Now is a different story, but back then-

Bob Simon (09:19):
Funny back then, four years ago.

Steve Vartazarian (09:21):
Yeah, four years ago.

Bob Simon (09:22):
It shows you you had how many eight figure verdicts of results since 2019, since four years ago.

Steve Vartazarian (09:28):
2019.

Bob Simon (09:28):
Four years ago.

Steve Vartazarian (09:29):
In that four years. I'll tell you guys both, I've known Mauro since the nineties, I've known him for a long time.

Mauro Fiore (09:38):
I've known Steve since before we were both lawyers, and I've been a lawyer for 25 years, to tell you how long I've known him. He was real cuckoo back then too, let me tell you.

Steve Vartazarian (09:45):
Yeah. I was something else, man.

Bob Simon (09:48):
Back then? Still is.

Steve Vartazarian (09:48):
Yeah. Still is, but I'll tell you, my life came to fruition, Bob, in those four years. From 2019 until now, I've settled more eight digit cases than I ever expected to-

Bob Simon (10:04):
That's because you tried so many of these when people were ... You were the underdog and you punched them in the mouth every time.

Steve Vartazarian (10:10):
Yes.

Bob Simon (10:12):
It's funny because I was at your house, this was 2018 before that happened.

Steve Vartazarian (10:18):
Yeah, the year before. I remember you came for the barbecue, and at that time-

Mauro Fiore (10:23):
I was there too.

Bob Simon (10:24):
Right before Christmas because you had the tree up. I remember all that. Yeah.

Steve Vartazarian (10:27):
Yeah. What I did was I called my agent and I'm like, "Listen, I got to get the hell out. I can't live like this, this is insane." I'm like, "What's the safest place you can go to?" They're like, "Some place in Beverly Hills, some gated community, or Hidden Hills." I'm like, "Hidden Hills? I'm not going past Valley Circle." As a valley guy I swore to that since I was born. I'm like, "I'm not going past Topanga and shit, that's insane. That's in the middle of nowhere."

Mauro Fiore (10:51):
It's not that far actually though.

Steve Vartazarian (10:52):
Now it's not that far, but I went and I looked at it and-

Mauro Fiore (10:56):
For people from not around, near Hidden Hills is Calabasas.

Steve Vartazarian (10:58):
Yeah, Calabasas.

Mauro Fiore (10:59):
The famous Calabasas.

Bob Simon (11:00):
The really nice gated community.

Steve Vartazarian (11:04):
Yeah, yeah.

Bob Simon (11:04):
Kardashian land.

Steve Vartazarian (11:06):
Yeah. I live across the street from the Kardashians.

Bob Simon (11:08):
I know. I dropped you off that one night.

Steve Vartazarian (11:11):
I started looking at these homes and they're like, eight million, 12 million, I'm like, "Yo, no, no." I was looking at the two to three range at that time. I didn't have the money, I didn't have it, I didn't have it, man. I had saved a lot, so I never had to worry, but I didn't have that kind of cash. What I did was we stayed at the AKA or some shit off of Wilshire and Beverly Hills.

Bob Simon (11:36):
What's the AKA? What?

Steve Vartazarian (11:37):
It's a condo for rent long-term. We rented it for two months, stayed there, and I got my ass on the phone and I started calling all the defense attorneys that I had relationships with, told them my predicament, and I'm like, "Please pay me now, man, so I can move the fuck out of here."

Bob Simon (11:51):
What?

Steve Vartazarian (11:52):
"This is how much I need down. Can we settle this case? No more posturing, stop fucking around, don't bill it. You know it's going to settle for X, this, that. Can we do it now instead of a year from now or eight months?" Some of them were like, "Okay, okay, okay." I got some cases resolved, I got paid, and I was able to put a fucking down payment on those homes.

Bob Simon (12:15):
Now he bought the block cash.

Steve Vartazarian (12:16):
Yeah. Well, close to it.

Mauro Fiore (12:19):
I remember right around this time because we went to Santa Barbara, me and you and Gary and your wife.

Steve Vartazarian (12:26):
Oh, yes.

Mauro Fiore (12:27):
We were on the plane.

Steve Vartazarian (12:28):
I was on the plane back.

Mauro Fiore (12:29):
And you were telling Gary this whole story.

Steve Vartazarian (12:32):
I was telling Gary this story, and Gary's like, "Why don't you buy a $15 million house?" I was like, "From where, dude? Where am I going to get 15 million? Where am I going to get?" You need 50% down on these homes. You know what I mean?

Bob Simon (12:43):
Gary has an interesting philosophy on real estate, but it works well for him. He tells me the same shit. I'm like, "Why would I do that though?"

Steve Vartazarian (12:49):
Yeah. He's like, "Why not?" I'm like, "Dude."

Mauro Fiore (12:51):
I remember on the plane you were showing us the pictures and I was like, "That looks like a great place to me, man."

Bob Simon (12:56):
Yeah. For 15 million, probably a really nice place.

Steve Vartazarian (12:59):
Yeah. I got a call and they were interested in letting me stay there for six months. I've never told this to anyone. They're like, "We'll give it to you for six months, we're going to charge you some insane fucking figure, and that'll go towards your down payment, and we'll only take 10, 15 grand of it." I was like, "No problem." Six months, I move in, and now I'm trying to close it.

Bob Simon (13:27):
God, that must've been stressful.

Steve Vartazarian (13:29):
I wouldn't qualify for the loan in 2018, '19, but finally everything came together.

Bob Simon (13:34):
This was right around COVID hit, right around then too.

Steve Vartazarian (13:37):
That's the other thing, man. This is November of 2019. We went up in Santa Barbara for Nick's trial college thing, and all of a sudden COVID hits.

Bob Simon (13:51):
I didn't take a plane up there, I just drove my car.

Steve Vartazarian (13:54):
Wow. We don't do that anymore.

Bob Simon (13:55):
It's not far, it's an hour drive. What the fuck?

Mauro Fiore (13:58):
Gary said, "Do you want fly on my plane?" Sure. You know how hard I am to convince.

Bob Simon (14:02):
What did you say? If somebody asked you to open an envelope-

Mauro Fiore (14:05):
I said, "I'll go to the opening of an envelope if someone invites me." Gary's like, "You want to fly on my plane to Santa Barbara?" Sure. It took me an hour to drive to the airport. It would've taken an hour and a half to get to Santa Barbara.

Bob Simon (14:16):
Mauro flies in more private jets than anybody I've ever met in my life.

Mauro Fiore (14:19):
Oh, yeah. I always tell people, man, "I don't have a private plane." People think, man, I must have a private plane.

Steve Vartazarian (14:24):
Yeah, your there three friends. Oh, four now.

Mauro Fiore (14:25):
I have four friends of mine all have planes and shit, and they always say, "You want go here? You want to go there?" Oh, sure. I got my bags packed.

Bob Simon (14:31):
Yeah. We were on a text chain the other day and within how many seconds, he was like, "I'm in."

Steve Vartazarian (14:35):
I'm in.

Mauro Fiore (14:36):
Steve was like, "You guys want to fly to Austin on whatever day?" I was like, "Yeah, I do."

Bob Simon (14:41):
We were the only ones up at 5:30 in the morning when that text went out. You know Alex's wife, she was still sleeping, he didn't even ask, "Hey, can I go on this fucking work trip?" He's like, "I'm in."

Steve Vartazarian (14:50):
Yeah. This guy, you invite him anywhere, he's going.

Mauro Fiore (14:53):
I'm going, man. I'm ready to party, I'm ready. Bob says, "You want to go to Europe for six weeks?" All right.

Bob Simon (15:00):
Yeah, for real.

Mauro Fiore (15:00):
And I went for six weeks to Europe with the guy.

Steve Vartazarian (15:03):
This guy gets pissed off if you don't invite him somewhere and he finds out that you went somewhere.

Bob Simon (15:06):
You guys do that to me too.

Steve Vartazarian (15:07):
He calls, he's like-

Bob Simon (15:07):
What am I? The scum of [inaudible 00:15:08]?

Steve Vartazarian (15:08):
"[inaudible 00:15:08] and how come I wasn't involved?" I'm like, "You haven't invited." Then I got to get on my defensive like, "You did a lot of shit I didn't get invited to." Yeah, he likes being around, man. Everyone knows.

Bob Simon (15:18):
Yeah, of course.

Steve Vartazarian (15:19):
Yeah. We're going to go to Austin. I'm really looking forward to that. That's going to be a cool trip.

Bob Simon (15:23):
Let's do the second pour. Mauro, this one's on you, man. All right.

Mauro Fiore (15:31):
Well, everybody knows Steve as a restaurateur.

Bob Simon (15:34):
Well, not everybody. Listeners and viewers don't know this story.

Mauro Fiore (15:38):
People who don't know Steve's story, he owns some very high-end sushi places in LA, and what I mean high-end, if you go to any of his sushi places, bring your Amex black because it'll knock your socks off if you look at it by the time you're done, you're having dinner. Thank God I always go and ate with him so we never see the bill, thank God. I've had friends of mine complain, they're like, "I went to that place, but it was good, but it cost me 1,500 bucks and I don't even drink." I said, "Well, was it the best sushi you ever had?" "Yeah." I said, "Well, then you got your money's worth."

Steve Vartazarian (16:08):
That's how I bought the plane. No, that's not how, I'm kidding.

Mauro Fiore (16:12):
He's got these very high-end sushi bars, three of them right now.

Steve Vartazarian (16:16):
Five.

Bob Simon (16:16):
Five? Fuck. Everybody that I know, they talk about ... For those that don't know, Steve's also an amazing chef. You almost quit law just to do this.

Steve Vartazarian (16:30):
I mean, I thought about it. I never really considered it seriously. Before we go any further, what have you got?

Mauro Fiore (16:41):
Japanese single malt whiskey and goes along with the sushi theme. This is a 12-year Yamazaki Single Malt.

Steve Vartazarian (16:50):
All right.

Mauro Fiore (16:50):
Let's try out this Japanese.

Bob Simon (16:51):
Can you spin that so that we can show [inaudible 00:16:53]?

Mauro Fiore (16:53):
Even though Bob and I are bourbon connoisseurs, we're going Japanese whiskey for you.

Steve Vartazarian (16:56):
Hey listen, I brought some whiskey.

Bob Simon (16:59):
We're thinking of going Japanese.

Mauro Fiore (17:01):
I'm turning Japanese.

Bob Simon (17:03):
Oh, that's what it is.

Mauro Fiore (17:05):
Who sings that song?

Bob Simon (17:06):
Oh, fuck. Depeche Mode, I don't know.

Mauro Fiore (17:07):
Trivia. Violent Femmes.

Bob Simon (17:09):
Oh, really?

Steve Vartazarian (17:11):
Smoky, light, delicious, easy to drink.

Bob Simon (17:15):
Not my palate, but that's okay.

Mauro Fiore (17:16):
Definitely light.

Steve Vartazarian (17:18):
I don't like how it finishes. It's a little much for me. It tastes like Oban. Have you had Oban 14?

Bob Simon (17:23):
This almost tastes like a Johnny Walker Blue, which I think is one of the shittiest stuff out there.

Steve Vartazarian (17:28):
Please keep giving that to me as gifts.

Bob Simon (17:30):
So you can regift it.

Steve Vartazarian (17:31):
I like racking them up and I could regift it.

Bob Simon (17:31):
That's what I do too.

Steve Vartazarian (17:35):
I can regift it. I'm like, "Yes." Somebody gives me a fucking Johnny Walker Blue, I'm like, "Oh, thank you."

Bob Simon (17:37):
You know who to give that to. Yeah.

Steve Vartazarian (17:41):
I'm like, "I know exactly who I'm going to give this to."

Mauro Fiore (17:42):
I've regifted a bunch of those too.

Bob Simon (17:43):
What I do is I open it up and make sure there's no fucking gift message in there first. Don't make that mistake.

Steve Vartazarian (17:48):
No. I usually just take the bottle.

Bob Simon (17:50):
Well, yeah, that's smart, but open the box. If you give the box, [inaudible 00:17:53].

Steve Vartazarian (17:53):
Yeah. That's what I always do, I take it out of the box.

Bob Simon (17:54):
Oh, yeah.

Steve Vartazarian (17:55):
You give somebody a Blue in a box, they know.

Bob Simon (17:57):
Not really because as long as there's no gift message in. One time, somebody engraved my name on it as a gift and I almost gave it away.

Mauro Fiore (18:03):
And you gave it away?

Bob Simon (18:03):
No. Thank God I opened the fucking box.

Mauro Fiore (18:05):
Oh, wow. That would've been tough.

Bob Simon (18:07):
That would've been real bad.

Steve Vartazarian (18:08):
Yeah, that would've been bad.

Mauro Fiore (18:08):
I like that.

Steve Vartazarian (18:09):
That would've been bad.

Mauro Fiore (18:10):
I've regifted a few Blue Labels in my day.

Bob Simon (18:12):
Many.

Mauro Fiore (18:12):
I always get the same every year, I get two or three of them from the same people for Christmas gifts.

Bob Simon (18:18):
They never learn, they never learn.

Mauro Fiore (18:19):
I don't complain, I'll take them. Then I give them away.

Steve Vartazarian (18:21):
Yeah. It's a good regifting gift.

Mauro Fiore (18:25):
I remember Steve says he knows me since the nineties, I remember Steve would come when he was-

Steve Vartazarian (18:31):
I almost want to say I wish I didn't.

Mauro Fiore (18:33):
I used to have this poker game a long time ago.

Steve Vartazarian (18:36):
Oh, man.

Bob Simon (18:37):
Wait, you've been to his poker games?

Steve Vartazarian (18:38):
Dude, I used to go to his poker games in the nineties.

Bob Simon (18:41):
Get the fuck out.

Mauro Fiore (18:41):
He'd show up. I always tell people this story. Steve would show up and he'd have no money and I'd give him house chips on credit. I'd say, "Steve, I'm going to give Steve 300 bucks credit," and then he would have to play the whole night to try to get out of the $300 hole, and he would, the son of a bitch is a good poker player.

Steve Vartazarian (19:00):
I'd walk away with three grand.

Mauro Fiore (19:01):
Yeah. He'd walk around with 3,000 bucks.

Steve Vartazarian (19:03):
I'd be like, "Mauro, here's your 300. I'll take my three grand. Thank you."

Bob Simon (19:06):
People look now, we're in 2023, and since the nineties I was early teens that we met, everybody assumes now that Steve always had this success in cash, but you do.

Steve Vartazarian (19:19):
Yes.

Bob Simon (19:20):
We talked about this, we were at the CALA Convention. Do you feel like you had a chip on your shoulder because everybody thought you were just another Armenian lawyer?

Steve Vartazarian (19:28):
Absolutely, man. I was treated like fucking shit. Nobody cared about me. Now people look at me and they think, "Oh, this guy, he's sitting on 5,000 million or whatever the hell it is," and they think that that's how it's always been. It hasn't been like that. I grew up with some money, Mauro knows, my dad had cash and stuff and he was an immigrant, worked his ass off, but growing up, I always had a chip on my shoulder, especially when I entered the attorney world because I figured now I'm somebody. I took the bar, I went to Thomas Jefferson, by the way. I've watched the show so I know.

Bob Simon (20:05):
Let's play never have. Never have I ever went to an accredited law school right now. It's just me. Six of my partners went to Thomas Jefferson.

Steve Vartazarian (20:16):
I heard.

Bob Simon (20:16):
Best lawyers, yeah.

Steve Vartazarian (20:17):
I know. I know Greyson did, his wife.

Bob Simon (20:19):
Greyson, Sevy, his wife, my partners Travis Davis, my brother Brandon went there, Sevy and Greyson.

Steve Vartazarian (20:24):
It's a good school.

Mauro Fiore (20:24):
One of my old law clerks is there now in their second year.

Bob Simon (20:27):
That's a great law school.

Mauro Fiore (20:28):
In San Diego. He's still there.

Steve Vartazarian (20:30):
I'll say what Greyson said. I went there while it was accredited, so I feel good about that. Walking into CAALA or plaintiff's bar associations and just the bar itself, now I was expecting, I've taken the bar, I've passed, I'm a lawyer, I was with a firm, Cheong Denove Rowell Bennett at the time, Jack Denove, I just got hired. That's an interesting story as well. People are very nice. CAALA has always been very nice. I've never been disrespected in any way, but you're not seen, you're kind of written off. Who the fuck are you? You got people who are litigating these monster cases, and that's all that's being talked about. No one knows who you are. I acquired this chip, so to speak, relatively quickly. I was like, "Man, fuck this." I want to walk into a room and I want the person that I've met five times to remember my fucking name. I wanted acknowledgement, I wanted some recognition, and I wanted some goddamn fucking respect after all this time. I didn't have that.

Mauro Fiore (21:43):
I'm very similar to Steve. Bob grew up with the world's greatest dad. Me and Steve grew up with ... My dad was born and raised in Italy, he came to the US when he was 27. My dad was a real tough guy to deal with. My dad was an Italian, a real Tony Soprano type Italian.

Steve Vartazarian (22:03):
Yeah, my dad too.

Mauro Fiore (22:04):
I knew his dad, his dad's the same way. When you have a father that's very hard on you and you're always a loser, it doesn't matter what you do. I could do nothing until maybe the last five years of my dad's life that he ever gave me any credit for.

Steve Vartazarian (22:19):
Yeah. That's the thing. This life, a lot of great things happen, a lot of tragedies, but even the tragedies I've been able to see a silver lining from. For example, I think a lot of things have groomed me to be what I am. For example, I grew up in a machine shop in Sun Valley. I was sweeping the floors, cutting metal, I worked at a milling machine. After I graduated from high school, funny story, I went to five different high schools because they kicked me out of everywhere that I went to for stupid shit like lighting a cigarette in the classroom to try to impress a girl. You know what I mean? Shit like that.

(22:55):
My mom would come pick me up and the Middle Eastern poof, poof, "What are you doing? I kill you." You know what I mean? "I hate you. We came to America so that you can be somebody. You smoke a cigarette in the fucking class?" Take off the fucking shoe and hit me in the car. Anyway, when I graduated from Crespi, which took me in for my last year of school, everyone's walking on the stage and they're reading Brown University, Dartmouth, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, all these different, Duke, and then Steve Vartazarian, Pierce College. Dude, I tell you, when I got in the car to drive home, my dad just sit ... I thought he was going to be proud of me. We're supposed to go to Buca di Beppo, the Encino one on Ventura Boulevard and have a night.

Bob Simon (23:51):
That was our celebration place when I came [inaudible 00:23:53].

Steve Vartazarian (23:53):
Yeah, that didn't happen. Instead, I got in the car and my mom was there, and I sat in the back, I'm like, "Are we going?" My dad was so pissed he just drove home. He was so pissed. I don't blame him. Listen man-

Mauro Fiore (24:07):
No chicken cacciatore for you.

Bob Simon (24:10):
No, but it shouldn't be that way. I remember I went to a small high school in Pittsburgh and it was like everyone went to either community college or Armed Forces or a local college, but it was a different. My brother went to a university in DC, but God, dude, that's fucked-

Steve Vartazarian (24:23):
These kids were good kids. They studied for the LSAT or the SAT rather.

Bob Simon (24:25):
It's too much pressure on-

Steve Vartazarian (24:28):
They studies hard.

Bob Simon (24:31):
Who gives a fuck? I was thinking about homeschooling my kids. Who wants to put pressure on kids? Who gives a shit? They're supposed to be kids. It shouldn't be that way, man.

Steve Vartazarian (24:41):
Let me tell you, it shouldn't be. I look at my kids now and I could never even think about even raising my voice too much. I mean, I do, "Hey, don't do that," but the way that my dad treated me and raised me really shaped the person that I am today. I think if he was just, which is such a dichotomy to say, if he was cool, nice and supportive.

Mauro Fiore (25:03):
Yeah. I'm just laughing thinking about my dad.

Bob Simon (25:04):
I don't think because my dad was, and I'm still this way. You are who you are.

Steve Vartazarian (25:08):
Well, then [inaudible 00:25:09].

Mauro Fiore (25:09):
I was talking to my wife the other day because-

Steve Vartazarian (25:12):
Maybe. I don't know. Then I'm not sure.

Mauro Fiore (25:14):
These days these kids have anxiety and some other ... High school kids, he's got anxiety, he's got to take medicine or go see a counselor or whatever. I told my wife and my wife got mad at me, I said, "If I would've told my dad I can go to class plus have anxiety, he would've busted a bottle over my head, two bottles if the first one didn't knock me out if I had fucking anxiety." My dad would say, "That doesn't exist. Anxiety, my fucking ass."

Steve Vartazarian (25:41):
No. I think we're the last of our kind. People aren't raised tough anymore, which they shouldn't be.

Bob Simon (25:47):
But you can raise to be tough and kind.

Steve Vartazarian (25:50):
I believe that, that's what I would try to do.

Bob Simon (25:53):
Every day when I drop my kids off for school, I say, "Be a leader, ask your friends what they want to do first and go to the playground, but be the leader."

Steve Vartazarian (26:01):
Absolutely.

Bob Simon (26:04):
It's all parenting. If you are present with your kids ... Mauro, we talk about this all the time, we're there with our kids. You have little kids too, man. We're there with them.

Steve Vartazarian (26:11):
I have two girls.

Bob Simon (26:13):
Three girls, a boy and a girl.

Steve Vartazarian (26:15):
Love, sensitivity, patience, kindness, support. Support's the biggest one where you cheerlead your kids. I wish I would've had a little bit of that. I don't know what it would've done, Bob, but that's what I do now. Thankfully we're in a place where our kids are going to be all right.

Bob Simon (26:35):
I'm going to pour this last one. I'm very excited. A trial lawyer friend of mine in Florida, Matt Dolman-

Steve Vartazarian (26:45):
I've got something here too.

Mauro Fiore (26:46):
He brought a special one for the ... We'll do that last [inaudible 00:26:51].

Steve Vartazarian (26:51):
Yeah, yeah. No, no rush.

Bob Simon (26:53):
Matt Dolman from Florida sent me ... I'm a big WhistlePig fan. I love this shit. I've never seen this bottle, but this is a WhistlePig 10.

Steve Vartazarian (27:01):
Nice.

Bob Simon (27:01):
Shape of a pig. Now, being the machinist, machine shop guy, Steve, when he does trial exhibits, he does his own exhibits, he'll take a skull of a human that was harmed, his client, and shave the skull to make it perfect. I've seen you fucking chisel shit.

Steve Vartazarian (27:19):
I have.

Bob Simon (27:20):
For your knee replacement or your hip ... Was it knee or a hip?

Steve Vartazarian (27:22):
Yes. It was the hip replacement trial.

Bob Simon (27:26):
I went to your house, the one that got burgled.

Steve Vartazarian (27:28):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (27:30):
He likes bungled, right? Bungled.

Steve Vartazarian (27:32):
I like burgled. Burgled's a pretty good one.

Bob Simon (27:37):
I've seen you at his house, we had a pig roast, which we run through the charity.

Steve Vartazarian (27:40):
That's right.

Bob Simon (27:41):
I saw Steve, he roasted the whole pig, shaved it like a fucking precision.

Steve Vartazarian (27:46):
Yes.

Bob Simon (27:46):
Now today we're going to drink out of the butt of this pig.

Steve Vartazarian (27:48):
I love it.

Bob Simon (27:49):
Because the fucking bottle's right here.

Steve Vartazarian (27:50):
Listen man, I'll take any part of a hog.

Bob Simon (27:52):
It was beautiful.

Steve Vartazarian (27:53):
I am old school barbecue.

Mauro Fiore (27:55):
Have you ever seen these smokers that he makes out of these big metal tubes? What are those tubes that you make smokers out of?

Steve Vartazarian (28:01):
Propane tanks.

Mauro Fiore (28:02):
He makes them out of propane tanks.

Steve Vartazarian (28:03):
My dream was barbecue. I love brisket and all that, Texas.

Bob Simon (28:08):
Mauro, I need your teeth for this.

Steve Vartazarian (28:09):
I took a year off.

Bob Simon (28:10):
He's good at this.

Steve Vartazarian (28:11):
In 2017.

Bob Simon (28:13):
Put his mouth around the butt.

Mauro Fiore (28:15):
Most definitely.

Bob Simon (28:16):
See, look how quick that was.

Steve Vartazarian (28:17):
That's a Mauro befitting task.

Mauro Fiore (28:19):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (28:20):
I'm very excited to do this because I've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to drink out of the butt of this bottle pig. There we go.

Mauro Fiore (28:27):
Okay. Jesus.

Steve Vartazarian (28:31):
There we go.

Mauro Fiore (28:31):
There we go. Got it.

Bob Simon (28:33):
No, you just pull it.

Mauro Fiore (28:35):
Huh?

Bob Simon (28:35):
You got a drink out of the butt.

Mauro Fiore (28:36):
Right out of the butt? Okay.

Steve Vartazarian (28:38):
Nice. Okay.

Mauro Fiore (28:39):
He's looking at you.

Bob Simon (28:43):
You look so natural tasting a butt.

Mauro Fiore (28:45):
That's very smooth. I dig it.

Bob Simon (28:52):
Wow, that's a big pool.

Mauro Fiore (28:55):
That's nice. WhistlePig 10, rye?

Bob Simon (28:58):
Yeah.

Steve Vartazarian (28:59):
That's my favorite of the three we've had.

Bob Simon (29:01):
We ask you that at the end, motherfucker. Wait.

Steve Vartazarian (29:03):
Oh, sorry, sorry.

Mauro Fiore (29:04):
You haven't watched our show? That's the last question.

Steve Vartazarian (29:06):
Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We're not done yet. You're right, you're right. Ask me at the end.

Bob Simon (29:08):
Oh, shit, that is good.

Steve Vartazarian (29:10):
That's delicious.

Bob Simon (29:11):
This is so good.

Mauro Fiore (29:11):
It is delicious. Who sent you this, Bob?

Bob Simon (29:13):
Matt Dolman out of Florida. You know Matt?

Mauro Fiore (29:15):
Oh, I know him.

Bob Simon (29:15):
Yes. We had dinner with him when he came from-

Mauro Fiore (29:18):
Yeah. He got the misfortune of sitting next to me.

Steve Vartazarian (29:20):
The proof is a little high though, right?

Bob Simon (29:22):
This one can't be more than 100, I don't think.

Steve Vartazarian (29:25):
It can't be more than 100.

Mauro Fiore (29:26):
This guy, Dolman, cool guy. We went to dinner in Santa Monica a couple of weeks ago and I got to the dinner, I'd been drinking since earlier in the afternoon, I was tuned up, and this guy sat next to me. Can you imagine? I was drinking, he sat next to me and this guy's like-

Steve Vartazarian (29:40):
This guy starts drinking at 10:00 AM.

Bob Simon (29:42):
How many hours are there in the day?

Mauro Fiore (29:44):
This guy's like, "This guy's nuts." I remember during the pandemic, me and Steve did a webinar.

Steve Vartazarian (29:47):
Oh, my God.

Mauro Fiore (29:49):
I was on his webinar.

Steve Vartazarian (29:51):
I called him. I'm like, "Mauro, we need somebody to talk about these things and trial," whatever the fuck it was, premises liability and shit like that. He's like, "Yeah, no problem." I'm like, "Listen, it's COVID, there's going to be thousands of people on this thing. Please, please, just hold it together."

Mauro Fiore (30:08):
When it started I was shirtless. I was shirtless when it started.

Bob Simon (30:11):
Did he Jeffrey Tube in you? Did you tube in him?

Mauro Fiore (30:14):
I had to put a shirt on, and then I think I drank an entire bottle of bourbon.

Steve Vartazarian (30:17):
By the end, he was like slip and falls. I don't know.

Bob Simon (30:21):
What?

Mauro Fiore (30:21):
I drank a whole bottle of [inaudible 00:30:23].

Steve Vartazarian (30:23):
Bob, he almost fell out of the chair, man.

Bob Simon (30:24):
Those shows are 11:30 AM shows.

Mauro Fiore (30:26):
Yeah. It was starting at 10:00.

Steve Vartazarian (30:27):
Yeah. He pulls out a bottle, there's people watching. We're trying to-

Mauro Fiore (30:30):
They're like, "What? Is he okay?" He was like, "He's fine, he's fine."

Steve Vartazarian (30:34):
I'm like, "He's fine."

Bob Simon (30:34):
Oh, my God.

Mauro Fiore (30:35):
That was the best webinar ever.

Steve Vartazarian (30:36):
That was, people loved that. People were texting me, they're like, "Is he going to be okay?" They're like, "Is he going to be okay?" I'm like, "It's Mauro, he'll be fine. This is par for the course for him."

Mauro Fiore (30:46):
My friend Ernest used to say, I wish I had your constitution because I can-

Bob Simon (30:51):
When I play Dungeons & Dragons, the number one attribute I want is constitution. You want your player healthy over other attributes.

Mauro Fiore (30:57):
Yeah, for sure.

Bob Simon (30:59):
You don't know what we're talking about, but it's okay.

Steve Vartazarian (31:01):
I do. You had Lew? What was his name?

Bob Simon (31:05):
Charles Lew. This is his place.

Steve Vartazarian (31:06):
Yes. You had him on, I watched that episode. I did a little research, I wanted to be prepared. I know that, I know that. I know the Italian restaurant in Pittsburgh, I think you got your first tattoo across the street.

Bob Simon (31:22):
Yeah. That was my grandparents' Italian deli across the street we went to. [inaudible 00:31:26].

Steve Vartazarian (31:26):
I think that was on that episode

Bob Simon (31:28):
God, I remember a lot of these episodes, but it gets a little fuzzy at the end. There's a few episodes I've done that I don't remember. That's true.

Mauro Fiore (31:37):
Some of the time, if we do too many in one day. Steve, let me ask you a question since your wife's a lawyer. How's it working with your wife? You used to work together with her, right? Now she doesn't practice anymore. What's the story?

Steve Vartazarian (31:48):
Well, now that's going to require another drink.

Bob Simon (31:50):
I didn't even see him have something over there. I just saw it was Pellegrino. Oh, my God. Look at this.

Mauro Fiore (31:54):
Look at this.

Steve Vartazarian (31:55):
Well, I brought the Pellegrino as a palate cleanser, which I'm going to take a sip. However, listen, I know-

Bob Simon (32:02):
What's in the box? What's in the box?

Steve Vartazarian (32:03):
10 years, 12 years are good, I know price points, 80 bucks, you can get a good bottle for 35 bucks.

Bob Simon (32:09):
Yeah, exactly. The High West, this is a $35 bottle.

Steve Vartazarian (32:11):
My story with this bottle is, I wanted to get to a point where I didn't want to fuck around. You know what I mean? I just wanted to go for it and have whatever it is that I wanted to have. That's one of my goals. This bottle-

Bob Simon (32:26):
Stop peeking, dude. He's fucking peeking.

Steve Vartazarian (32:28):
This bottle kind of represents that.

Mauro Fiore (32:30):
I'm dying with anticipation.

Steve Vartazarian (32:31):
You kind of know that. I know you like bourbon, so that's why I got a Pappy 23, and I think we shared it together.

Bob Simon (32:38):
Yes.

Mauro Fiore (32:38):
We did drink a whole fucking bottle.

Bob Simon (32:38):
We met Steve out for dinner. He came to Manhattan Beach, our neck of the woods, he brought a bottle of Pappy 23 and we drank the whole fucking bottle that night.

Steve Vartazarian (32:45):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (32:46):
Like pigs.

Steve Vartazarian (32:48):
I think there was a little left. I wanted to make sure there was a little left so you could-

Bob Simon (32:50):
I have this much left that I put in my shelf.

Steve Vartazarian (32:51):
I wanted you to take some home.

Bob Simon (32:53):
Oh, boy.

Steve Vartazarian (32:53):
I brought the big boy just because-

Bob Simon (32:57):
I've never seen one of these with my eyes.

Steve Vartazarian (33:04):
I felt like it was appropriate to do this here so I brought the Macallan 30 and I'm going to let you do the honors. I had a bottle, there was a little bit left, I'm like, "If I bring this, these guys are going to think I put Johnny Walker fucking Red in there." This is a new bottle.

Mauro Fiore (33:25):
The night we had the Pappy 23, I ended up leaving Manhattan Beach with Steve and somehow we ended up in the valley. We ended up deep in the valley. Bottom line is I took him home at, I don't know, 4:30 in the morning to Hidden Hills.

Bob Simon (33:39):
Is this where you dropped him off at the Kardashian's house?

Mauro Fiore (33:41):
No. I dropped him off at his house and I was like, "Who are these people across the street?" Looked like ninjas hiding in the bushes. He's like, "Oh, that's whatever Kardashian's house. She's got crazy ass security." [inaudible 00:33:56] at 4:30 in the morning, I got a Navy Seal waiting in the parking lot, waiting across the street from me. I thought I was going to get shot. I was like, "Damn, that's security."

Steve Vartazarian (34:04):
No. They have some serious security. You can't even fuck around.

Mauro Fiore (34:07):
Right across the street from his house. I was like, "Damn, let me get out of this neighborhood before they grab me." They're going to say, "You don't belong here."

Bob Simon (34:14):
You don't.

Steve Vartazarian (34:14):
Listen, I'll tell you this. Every morning I get up, I walk outside, I'm like, "Are they going to come and get me? Am I going to get accused of a crime here? Do I look like I'm going to steal something?" I feel like that, but then as every day goes by, I'm like, "No, I belong. It's okay. They know me now." All right. The 30. This is the Double Cask 30, two different casks. It's clean. This thing has been sitting for God knows how long, at least 30 years, maybe a little bit more. The reason why I like it is two reasons. One, it's smooth as hell, it just goes down super smooth. I'm a Macallan drinker, I'm an Oban drinker, I drink a lot of scotch, a lot of different whiskeys and stuff like that, but when it gets to this, there's something about it where it sits for that long of time, it just becomes something that's just so smooth and so flavorful that I really love it and it's a very special thing. Anyway, it has a procedure, everything's with little magnets here.

Bob Simon (35:10):
What the fuck, man?

Steve Vartazarian (35:11):
You can remove them here like this. Even the little things they have embossed burned into the wood, they're designed-

Bob Simon (35:19):
Damn.

Steve Vartazarian (35:20):
Super cool, man, super cool.

Bob Simon (35:22):
It's like a Rubiks cube to get my fucking whiskey.

Steve Vartazarian (35:25):
All right. I'm letting you do the honors.

Bob Simon (35:28):
It's like Pepperidge Farm bread, it's wrapped twice. That's a Mitch Hedberg joke. So good to get it.

Steve Vartazarian (35:35):
The only thing is I'm taking that with me when I leave.

Bob Simon (35:37):
Oh, please.

Mauro Fiore (35:37):
No problem.

Bob Simon (35:39):
Wow.

Steve Vartazarian (35:41):
I want to say I'm kidding, but I'm not going to.

Bob Simon (35:41):
Does dust come out of this when you do it like a mummy? It's like a mummy?

Steve Vartazarian (35:45):
A little bit.

Bob Simon (35:49):
Wow. That was like Mauro's Saturday night right there, late night.

Mauro Fiore (35:54):
I'll tell you, Saturday I ended up at Excess at Las Vegas [inaudible 00:35:58].

Bob Simon (36:00):
Give me your glass before you tell a very inappropriate story.

Mauro Fiore (36:02):
Watching Calvin Harris with the ray from even up.

Steve Vartazarian (36:05):
I'll take a little bit more since we're here.

Bob Simon (36:07):
Just a little bit more.

Steve Vartazarian (36:09):
Perfect. Thank you.

Bob Simon (36:10):
I like the color.

Steve Vartazarian (36:11):
Yeah. Help yourself, man. All right.

Mauro Fiore (36:14):
This is definitely a special treat.

Steve Vartazarian (36:16):
Cheers.

Mauro Fiore (36:17):
Cheers.

Bob Simon (36:18):
We'll do the [inaudible 00:36:20]. Yeah.

Mauro Fiore (36:27):
Cheers. Wow. It's just so smooth, huh? It's amazing.

Bob Simon (36:30):
That's good.

Mauro Fiore (36:31):
I'm not a Macallan drinker, but this I can drink.

Steve Vartazarian (36:34):
See, that's the thing. All these other things we've had, they're equally good, it's just a little bit of a difference of the smoothness, just a little bit of the rough edge is polished off.

Bob Simon (36:45):
What did you grow up drinking?

Mauro Fiore (36:50):
ARARAT.

Steve Vartazarian (36:52):
Coors Light [inaudible 00:36:54].

Bob Simon (36:57):
We were Keystone Light. We used to get [inaudible 00:36:59].

Mauro Fiore (36:59):
What's that Armenian Brand, the ARARAT?

Steve Vartazarian (37:00):
NOY, ARARAT and NOY.

Mauro Fiore (37:02):
Yeah. That's the thing, I grew up with a lot of Armenians, I always drank Armenian brandy.

Steve Vartazarian (37:07):
Armenian brandy. Listen man, my mom called me one day, it was 2009, she's like, "I'm taking you to Armenia," I'm like, "No, you're not." She's like, "We're going to go. We're going to go to Yerevan, Armenia," because that's where we're from.

Mauro Fiore (37:20):
The homeland, right? You got to go.

Steve Vartazarian (37:21):
There's different kinds of Armenians, but she wanted me to see it. It was important for me to know what it was like, and it was super cool, man. We got there, everyone spoke Armenian, which I was like ... It was new to me. It was my land, it was a different feeling. I felt like it was mine and stuff, it was awesome. First thing I did, I was like, "Where's the fucking cognacs?"

Mauro Fiore (37:44):
Armenian cognac, Armenian brandies.

Steve Vartazarian (37:45):
Yeah. The next morning I took a tour of the factory, NOY, N-O-Y, is one of them, ARARAT is one them, and they have these barrel tastings, Bob. They have you taste like things that are 100 years old. Super cool man, super, super nice.

Mauro Fiore (37:59):
Do you ever go to a Jons Market in LA?

Steve Vartazarian (38:01):
Jons Market.

Mauro Fiore (38:02):
These Armenian markets, and literally they have 100 Armenian brandies and cognacs. It's just crazy.

Bob Simon (38:08):
Jons?

Mauro Fiore (38:08):
Jons Market. For whatever reason, the Armenian market, yeah, it's Armenian.

Bob Simon (38:13):
The Armenian market in LA is called Jons.

Steve Vartazarian (38:15):
It's called Jons. It's been that way for a long time. By nature, I feel like I'm a cognac drinker. That's what I drink now at home. I'll go to sushi.

Bob Simon (38:24):
Interesting.

Steve Vartazarian (38:24):
Sake is my go-to. Sake, the different kinds of sake that I drink, they're the best that you can find. Some of them are run-of-the-mill, but I drink the whole spectrum. I love it. It's my number one thing, it's my love. But when I get home and I want another glass or two, my wife's like, "You're done." I'm like, "Please let me just have one more." She's cool, she lets me do what I want to. I'll go to cognac and I've been drinking this Louis XIII because I can get a good Armenian connection on it. It's not stolen, so don't get any ideas, but I get 10% off. I got to tell you, man, I really love it. It's delicious, it's really good. I love the really aged stuff, it's just a lot more expensive than-

Bob Simon (39:10):
Do you like the aged up for the taste of the story?

Steve Vartazarian (39:13):
I don't know the story.

Bob Simon (39:14):
The shit's been there for 30 years.

Steve Vartazarian (39:18):
The answer is yes to both, but I used to like the story when we say you're new money when you can afford some of these things and I don't buy them too often, but when I did, I was like, "Oh, this is so cool." We're at the club with a bottle of Ace of Spades or whatever. That kind of carried over. When I started getting some nice spirits and stuff like that, I was drinking them because they were cool to drink. Then I realized after years of drinking them, I was like, "This shit is actually really good." It's well-rounded, it's just smooth.

Mauro Fiore (39:50):
It's like in the bourbon business right now, everyone's in bourbon, there's a bourbon show, there's Pappy Van Winkle, Pappy 23. The bottle of Pappy 23 that you brought out to dinner that we drank-

Steve Vartazarian (40:02):
Yeah. That was exquisite, man.

Mauro Fiore (40:04):
It's good, man. Okay, I don't know if it's worth $40,000, whatever, they get crazy money for Pappy, but it's definitely head and shoulders above any other shit you can drink. Whether it's worth the thousands of dollars that people pay for it, I don't know, but it's just amazing.

Bob Simon (40:19):
It's just supply and demand, the story and demand.

Steve Vartazarian (40:20):
It's supply and demand.

Mauro Fiore (40:21):
It's just amazing how good it is. When you drink stuff like this ... I'm not a whiskey drinker, but this is amazing.

Steve Vartazarian (40:26):
I had no idea what Pappy was. I was watching Justified, the show with ... What's his name? Timothy?

Mauro Fiore (40:33):
Timothy Olyphant.

Steve Vartazarian (40:34):
Oliphant. Great show, great show. When it first came out several years ago, I remember they used to walk into the bar, "I'll have a Pappy. Give me a Pappy." I was like, "What the fuck is this Pappy?" I was like, "What is this?" I wasn't a big bourbon ... So I started googling it and I found Pappy 23, and it's the best of the bunch so I bought a bottle. At that time it was 600 bucks. Now, now it's 12 grand, now it's eight grand or some shit, some crazy thing like that. When I saw it, I was like, "I think Bob would love this."

Bob Simon (41:08):
Yeah. One of our friends from Alabama was in town for that trip. Oh, by the way, one of our good friends we played baseball with was in Justified. Do you remember this? He got killed in the season finale or the lead up to the season finale.

Mauro Fiore (41:18):
The guy who was in 45 there [inaudible 00:41:20].

Bob Simon (41:20):
Yeah. Jesse Luken.

Mauro Fiore (41:21):
Yeah, Jesse Luken. We used to play baseball and team.

Bob Simon (41:24):
He was in Justified.

Mauro Fiore (41:25):
We had a couple actors on the team. He was a pretty good actor. In that movie 42, was it 42?

Bob Simon (41:30):
He played the second base [inaudible 00:41:31].

Mauro Fiore (41:30):
The Jackie Robinson movie. He was great in that. He was a [inaudible 00:41:34].

Steve Vartazarian (41:34):
What happened to him?

Mauro Fiore (41:35):
I heard he's working as a waiter or something. He hasn't been getting too much new movie roles.

Bob Simon (41:41):
He gets roles here and there, but Jesse's a good dude. The actor life is hard. He had a spell of good films. It's one of our other friends and we were on the same baseball team with, he was acting, they're all working in the Cheesecake Factory down in The Grove, and they would take auditions and do stuff. Now Rackey, a good friend of ours is our trial tech, everything, he's with the guy launching a video game with us. Just a very smart dude. His brother's a lawyer in Boston. I have four cases with him right now from connection [inaudible 00:42:10].

Mauro Fiore (42:10):
Steve, how do you feel? Are you doing any cases out of town or are you just [inaudible 00:42:13] in California?

Steve Vartazarian (42:14):
I hear you guys doing all these cases up north. This guy's in Washington now.

Mauro Fiore (42:18):
I live in Seattle.

Steve Vartazarian (42:19):
You're in Texas, which I want to go to in November. My brain was always a smaller brain, so to speak.

Bob Simon (42:28):
Like a reptilian brain.

Steve Vartazarian (42:30):
I'm going to file a motion in limine on that. I was just focused on, in my whole life, I just wanted to do one thing, in my lawyer life. When I found out what that trial lawyer of the year was for CAALA, it's the only thing that I focused on. I didn't care about much else, I just wanted that and I sacrificed a lot for that so I never even gave any thought to going out of state or doing anything out of town even. I tried some cases up north and this and that, but now, yeah, now that we're a little bit more-

Bob Simon (43:04):
You had that accomplishment, dude. For those of you who are watching or listening, there is a very prestigious award in Los Angeles that it is the largest plaintiff bar in the nation. There's thousands of members.

Steve Vartazarian (43:16):
Right.

Bob Simon (43:18):
I'm on the board, been for a long time, and I have been in that room.

Mauro Fiore (43:22):
You know who else is on the board?

Bob Simon (43:22):
You, this guy.

Mauro Fiore (43:25):
I am.

Bob Simon (43:25):
We're almost [inaudible 00:43:26].

Steve Vartazarian (43:25):
So am I, so am I.

Bob Simon (43:28):
Well, whatever. I've been in that room where you are nominated for trial of the year by your peers, a real, a real award. I've been in rooms back there when they're voting to see who will win this prestigious award, and I've been back there with one year Nick Rowley won when I was up as a finalist, one year it was Maryann Gallagher, one year it was fucking Mike Bedard. You're sitting back there with legends and it's the most prestigious, hardest award to win.

Steve Vartazarian (43:57):
It's hard to win.

Bob Simon (43:58):
You have some of the most famous trial lawyers that are doing huge verdicts and social change. You had a lot leading, and you have to do so much to even get nominated for that award. I've never won. I've always been the bridesmaid for that award. You had $130 million verdict that year, you had so much leading up to that to even do it.

Steve Vartazarian (44:22):
I'm getting goosebumps as you mention that because it's all I ever wanted, like I said. When I heard that I was running against the likes of Dale Galipo.

Bob Simon (44:32):
Wow. He ended up winning later.

Steve Vartazarian (44:35):
I spoke for him the following year. Brent Wisner, who had hit those Monsanto verdicts for-

Bob Simon (44:40):
two billion.

Steve Vartazarian (44:41):
$2 billion, and people like this, it concerned me, but then I looked at my numbers and I had hit six verdicts in that year, guys. I'd hit five, six in a row, and the grand finale was 100 and change.

Bob Simon (45:02):
I remember because I was on, the year you were vetted I was on the committee and we got to vet all these cases. What people don't understand is these weren't these admitted fault layups, these were fucking hard cases, every one of them.

Steve Vartazarian (45:16):
No. Every one of my cases was, there was no admitted liability, no admitted causation or [inaudible 00:45:25], there was comparative fault, there was governmental entities involved in half of them, there was three defense attorneys, they always bring in people from different states and stuff because of the carriers, and they were very heavily defended and they were very difficult. I spent tireless nights thinking about how the hell I'm going to win.

(45:47):
A lot of people say, "Oh, you're a great trial lawyer." Yeah, maybe, maybe, but I think the magic comes from being a better evaluator, a better evaluator. For example, I can try a case, we can all try a case, I can give the transcript of a case that I tried to some third-year lawyer and say, "Ho there and read this shit," and they're going to be okay, but it's coming up with that that's the difference. I tell a lot of people that want to do what we're doing, "You don't have to be great in trial, you just got to not make outcome-determinative mistakes, know what to object to, don't fuck up, know what to say to the judge, keep your decorum, but it's the two months, three months leading up to it.

Bob Simon (46:32):
Leading up. It's all prep, man.

Steve Vartazarian (46:33):
It's all the prep and the evaluation. For example, my thing is this. People ask me, "How come you keep popping off these verdicts?", and I say, "Because I know what I'm going to lose." Mauro, I think he'll know this and he may have been in the same boat.

Bob Simon (46:48):
Wait, Mauro's never lost a case.

Mauro Fiore (46:49):
Oh, never.

Bob Simon (46:50):
Well, this month.

Steve Vartazarian (46:51):
I have enough defense verdicts.

Mauro Fiore (46:53):
If you're not losing, you're not trying cases.

Steve Vartazarian (46:55):
That's bullshit. Don't listen.

Mauro Fiore (46:57):
I win too. Will you at least I win?

Bob Simon (46:59):
He always wins, he always wins.

Mauro Fiore (47:00):
I win too.

Steve Vartazarian (47:02):
I used to go off things like this, Bob. If you're not losing cases, you're not trying them, or I should've lost some, I should've won. Bullshit.

Bob Simon (47:11):
I agree with this. I've lost two. One, I got a return appeal, the other I had a high low [inaudible 00:47:15] eight billions.

Steve Vartazarian (47:16):
I win every fucking case that I try and if I lose, I know I'm going to lose. Here's what we do now. What we do is we have this formula down at our firm, and Matt Whibley's my partner there and he helps-

Bob Simon (47:33):
Matt Whibley, by the way, he was in the band Sum 41.

Mauro Fiore (47:35):
He was the keyboard player, but his cousin's the lead singer.

Bob Simon (47:41):
Crazy story.

Mauro Fiore (47:41):
He said he could barely play the keyboard.

Steve Vartazarian (47:43):
Yeah, he sucked. He had to put numbers on the keyboard, one, two, three.

Bob Simon (47:46):
He got into law school with a fucking cutoff T-shirt, hair down below his shoulders, probably like you were.

Steve Vartazarian (47:52):
I told him. When he came to my firm, I'm like, "Cut that shit out." Him and I over the last 10 years ... No, we encourage him to do it now. We're like, "Grow your hair." He is like, "No." Anyway, our formula is this, Bob. It's very simple. We don't want to lose, so we decided a long time ago we're going to develop a way that everyone's going to subscribe to. I heard a lot of these talks that you've had, the Bourbon of Proof things that you've had. We teach everyone, it's not just me.

(48:22):
I spend about 30 to 45 minutes every day telling all the associates what I do. We gather around, we were in this bullpen, and I tell them, I'm like, "This is how I do this." I teach them this shit so they can do it too. I don't want be greedy with whatever it is that I know. But the product of all this is this, it's a valuation. We know how to value a case. If it's $10 and you offer me six to $8, I'm going to settle. $9 is too much, they're never going to pay this shit. $5 is too low, they know you're not going to accept it. What we wait for is for defense to offer us two bucks on a case that I know is worth 10 because when they get to trial, they're going to have to defend that $2 position.

Bob Simon (49:13):
$2 and it's unreasonable.

Steve Vartazarian (49:15):
And they're going to try to make it $2 or less. The jury gets so fucking pissed off that $10 case comes in at 18 to 22 bucks, and that's how I pop off these verdicts, I wait.

Bob Simon (49:28):
You have to find a trigger for the jury why do they get mad, and if they're not mad off these, one of these criteria is the low value where they are, there's some other stuff, but we do the same thing. I focus group some of these so hard because I'm like, "What the fuck am I missing? Why are they valuing it at $2? Am I crazy?" I went over prepared like you. Am I fucking insane? You realize you're not insane, they're just wrong.

Steve Vartazarian (49:52):
That's the beauty of it, someone's wrong.

Bob Simon (49:54):
Usually it's because the client [inaudible 00:49:56].

Mauro Fiore (49:55):
I have the luck that I'm friends with some of the best trial lawyers in the world.

Steve Vartazarian (49:58):
You know what? Let me ask you a question. I'm going to pour you guys a little bit more of this, whether you want it or not.

Bob Simon (50:03):
I want to drink out of the anus.

Steve Vartazarian (50:05):
I want to drink out of the anus too first.

Bob Simon (50:07):
Yeah. Wow. That was the first time you've ever said that in the past 12 days.

Steve Vartazarian (50:12):
That's really good.

Bob Simon (50:13):
How tight did you put this on?

Steve Vartazarian (50:15):
Hey, let me ask you this.

Bob Simon (50:16):
They really plugged the butt.

Steve Vartazarian (50:18):
Let me ask you this. You're friends with everybody, not everybody. I know there's some people-

Mauro Fiore (50:26):
A couple people that I'm not friends with.

Steve Vartazarian (50:29):
Yeah, yeah, a couple of people.

Mauro Fiore (50:29):
99%. Give it to me, I'll [inaudible 00:50:30].

Steve Vartazarian (50:30):
Here, here, I'll open it. Do we have to put our mouths on it?

Bob Simon (50:33):
You can if you want. I couldn't get that off with my teeth. I tried. See?

Steve Vartazarian (50:37):
No.

Bob Simon (50:40):
God.

Steve Vartazarian (50:40):
Wow, dude, this is-

Mauro Fiore (50:42):
You need a wrench.

Bob Simon (50:43):
Do you need some KY?

Steve Vartazarian (50:47):
I don't know. We may have to drink the 30 unfortunately. It's not working. It's got grind marks on it.

Bob Simon (50:54):
Look at that. See, we knew you could do it. We just loosened it up for you. Look at this guy. Oh, come on.

Steve Vartazarian (51:02):
No, don't put it back on.

Bob Simon (51:02):
Don't, don't put it back on.

Mauro Fiore (51:03):
What were you saying, Stevo?

Steve Vartazarian (51:05):
I want to ask you a question.

Mauro Fiore (51:06):
Yes, sir. That's really good.

Steve Vartazarian (51:14):
Mauro, you're friends with some of the most preeminent lawyers of our time and you spend a lot of time with them, Bob's one of them. You're friends with all these different people.

Bob Simon (51:28):
Give me the butt plug while we tell the story.

Steve Vartazarian (51:31):
How is it that you came to be friends with all these guys and why is it that they love you so much each and every one of them? I've always wondered that.

Mauro Fiore (51:38):
It's a weird question.

Steve Vartazarian (51:39):
I've always wondered that.

Bob Simon (51:39):
I want to hear his answer, but I think I know the answer.

Mauro Fiore (51:41):
I think my question is that I think the reason is I'm extremely low maintenance. I've hung out with you, I've been to your house.

Steve Vartazarian (51:52):
I love you.

Mauro Fiore (51:54):
We sit in your backyard, we smoke cigarettes, we could eat fucking microwave pizza. I don't give a shit. I'm easy to deal with. We can go to Nobu, we could go to the fanciest restaurant, or I could sit in the backyard and we can smoke cigarettes because he likes to smoke cigarettes.

Steve Vartazarian (52:10):
Don't tell people that. Only when I'm drinking.

Mauro Fiore (52:13):
Sit in his backyard and smoke cigarettes and drink.

Bob Simon (52:15):
And in class apparently.

Steve Vartazarian (52:16):
And in class, yes.

Mauro Fiore (52:18):
And just hang out in the backyard and eat Cheetos. I'm not difficult. That's why I think I'm easy to hang with and I have funny stories, and I'm a little bit smart so people like talking to me. I can talk about anything. I met this guy today-

Bob Simon (52:32):
He's like an amoeba.

Mauro Fiore (52:33):
I met this guy today.

Steve Vartazarian (52:34):
He's a very versatile friend.

Mauro Fiore (52:35):
Yeah. I met this guy today from Texas. What's his name?

Bob Simon (52:37):
Jefferson Fisher.

Mauro Fiore (52:38):
Yeah. Some YouTube guy or whatever. He said, "Oh, I'm from Beaumont, Texas." I was like, "Well, you know this guy, you know that guy?" He told Bob, he goes, "Man, this fucking guy named off five people I know from fucking Beaumont." Most people don't even know where fucking Beaumont is, but randomly, I know all these guys in Beaumont, Texas. I have a weird [inaudible 00:52:55].

Bob Simon (52:55):
Mauro knows a little about a lot, a lot.

Mauro Fiore (52:56):
I know a little bit about a lot.

Bob Simon (52:57):
Well, the reason is I think Mauro is so easy. We travel out because we could do whatever, we could do nothing that day, we could do everything. Whatever goes, whatever happens. Mauro also gives you shit. Mauro could sit down and ... [inaudible 00:53:14], I'll sit down, he'll tell me I'm a fucking idiot. We say some very mean things to each other, but it's out of true love.

Steve Vartazarian (53:20):
Like what?

Mauro Fiore (53:20):
Wait, wait. [inaudible 00:53:21].

Bob Simon (53:21):
No, I can't.

Steve Vartazarian (53:22):
Tell me some of the shit that you tell him.

Mauro Fiore (53:23):
Just whatever, whatever's at the time.

Bob Simon (53:25):
Every time I see him he asks me, "Do they make that clothes in a men's," every single time.

Mauro Fiore (53:30):
I like that shirt. Do they sell men's clothes where you bought it?

Bob Simon (53:33):
He does it in front of new friends of mine that we just met. It's funny, but he gives you shit, but he gives you the real.

Steve Vartazarian (53:38):
I'll say this. Okay. I like grade A shit-talking.

Bob Simon (53:43):
Oh, God.

Steve Vartazarian (53:45):
It's fun. I grew up doing that. I'm the guy who used to come in the room when we were in Palm Springs we used to go to in high school and this and that, and we used to roast each other and talk all this shit. This guy's shit-talking is 30 year Macallan, man. It is fucking refined, it's the best of the best, it's seasoned, it's experienced, it's deep, it gets you right here. You know what I mean? It doesn't get caught here. This guy could say some shit.

Bob Simon (54:10):
If you get in a text chain with Mauro, he pulls up gifs or gifs, it doesn't matter what you say, or memes that he just drops in. It's like, "What the fuck?" You don't think Mauro could find this shit [inaudible 00:54:20].

Steve Vartazarian (54:20):
Oh, he'll find it.

Bob Simon (54:20):
Just a [inaudible 00:54:21].

Steve Vartazarian (54:21):
Here's one thing about him. He's very articulate with his hatred.

Mauro Fiore (54:25):
Yes, I am.

Steve Vartazarian (54:30):
He doesn't have to say anything, you can just tell you pissed him off.

Mauro Fiore (54:30):
Have you ever seen this Chappelle episode, Playa Haters' Ball? I should've been on Playa Haters' Ball because I am the true player hater.

Steve Vartazarian (54:37):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (54:37):
Mauro, this camera here, could you look in and give your pitch to be on Playa Haters' Ball? Dave Chappelle's listening.

Mauro Fiore (54:44):
The most diabolical haters west of the Mississippi.

Bob Simon (54:49):
What is your shirt you got on here?

Mauro Fiore (54:50):
This just says East LA, man. I'm from East LA, I was born and raised in Los Angeles and on the East Side. The opposite valley is Steve. Steve [inaudible 00:55:00] Fernando Valley, I'm from San Gabriel Valley. It's Diamond Bar, Diamond Bar, way out east. LA's a big place.

Bob Simon (55:07):
A lot of bars, no diamonds.

Mauro Fiore (55:08):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (55:10):
Steve, we're at the end of the episode here, my friend. We had a fucking blast.

Steve Vartazarian (55:13):
This is fun, man. Thank you.

Mauro Fiore (55:14):
We got to have a part two with Steve.

Bob Simon (55:16):
I think we got it. We'll have a part deux, Steve.

Steve Vartazarian (55:20):
We're just getting into it.

Mauro Fiore (55:21):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (55:21):
We have to pick for you. We had four on this episode. What is your Bourbon of Proof? Which one do you prefer? Throw them all out. Put the three up here. You could pick your 30, dude. It's no fucking shame.

Mauro Fiore (55:34):
We got the double barrel, double rye, we got the WhistlePig.

Steve Vartazarian (55:38):
I got to tell you guys, I love this piggy [inaudible 00:55:42] rye.

Bob Simon (55:43):
It's good.

Steve Vartazarian (55:43):
This is the shit, this is my Bourbon of Proof right here.

Bob Simon (55:46):
It's literally the shit. This is nice.

Mauro Fiore (55:47):
All right.

Bob Simon (55:47):
Yeah.

Steve Vartazarian (55:52):
It's a good drinker. I really enjoyed this. This is like what I am. It's nice, it's got everything I need, it's got flavor, it's got everything. That's what I pick, that's my choice.

Bob Simon (56:03):
Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for watching and listening to this episode of Bourbon of Proof. From his lips to his anus, thank you for listening and thank you for drinking from this bottle of the WhistlePig out of the butt.

Mauro Fiore (56:13):
Thank you, Steve.

Steve Vartazarian (56:14):
Thank you.

Mauro Fiore (56:14):
[inaudible 00:56:15].