Pour one up and settle in, folks. On Session 12 of Bourbon of Proof, I sit down with founder of Rackico, Dave Racki, and co-host Charles Lew to dive into the world of tabletop RPGs, including his brainchild game, Ravel, and how technology (and Rackico) is changing the game for lawyers everywhere.
Dave Racki, Rackio Trial Services and Rackico Games
Dave Racki (00:00):
I do think there's a personality type that becomes a lawyer. And that personality type is someone that wants to be prepared, to plan, and to have everything go the way they want and they want to be in control. And all new lawyers need to let that go. They just have to let it go.
(00:14):
If the jury sees that one piece of evidence getting thrown out ruins your whole case, they don't think your case is very strong. And like you said, with hospitality, they can read those nuances. If you react to a judge's decision, like, "Ah," the jury's going to think, oh, this case wasn't that good anyway. So you have to take those classes.
Bob Simon (00:46):
All right. Welcome to this episode of Bourbon of Proof, where we talk to those that have succeeded at law and life. We do it over spirits, some a little soft, some little stronger, but we're very privileged to be here today with Mr. Charles Lew, who'll be co-hosting at his place, The Firm, which is a private whiskey club. Members only, geared toward whom?
Charles Lew (01:07):
Members.
Bob Simon (01:07):
Members. Funny. This is why I like the co-host man. He's very on top of semantics. He always drinks pre-production, post-production, during production.
Charles Lew (01:19):
So yeah, of course.
Bob Simon (01:20):
And on our first episode ever. Thanks for coming, dude.
Charles Lew (01:22):
It's always an honor to be with such a visionary.
Bob Simon (01:26):
Speaking of visionaries, we have Mr. David Racki. Dave Racki of Rackico Games.
Charles Lew (01:32):
Wow.
Bob Simon (01:32):
Yeah. Wow. That's right. Dave, for all listening, watching, is not a lawyer. Brother's a lawyer.
Dave Racki (01:39):
Brother is a lawyer.
Bob Simon (01:39):
Brother is a lawyer in Boston. But Dave walks law adjacent where he has a legal technology company that assists all lawyers in trials. So he's seen more trials than most lawyers, ever.
Dave Racki (01:48):
I've seen a lot of trials for sure. Dozens and dozens of trials.
Bob Simon (01:52):
Do you like it? Do you ever look at it and say, "Dude, these guys are fucking terrible."? Yes.
Dave Racki (01:59):
Well, most of them are good. Some of them are bad. I like it because it's not that much pressure. Well, it's a lot of pressure for my company because we're putting out tech and we're putting out evidence and stuff. But these lawyers have millions on the line and stuff. So I like it. I like going to court. I like the judges. I like the clerks, but they can be tough.
Bob Simon (02:12):
Dave also has his Rackico Games, which something we'll talk about is a gaming company geared towards taking RPGs to the next level.
Dave Racki (02:22):
Tabletop gaming.
Charles Lew (02:23):
That's exciting.
Dave Racki (02:24):
Digital tabletop game like DND.
Bob Simon (02:25):
I wore my Run DND shirt, marrying two of my favorite things. Hip hop and Dungeons and Dragons.
Dave Racki (02:30):
Very nice.
Bob Simon (02:31):
It'll be called Ravel after this. We'll talk about Dave's game, Ravel, which will hopefully be out maybe by the time this airs.
Dave Racki (02:36):
I hope so. This year, I think for sure.
Bob Simon (02:38):
So first we're going to kick it off, Dave.
Dave Racki (02:41):
Yes.
Bob Simon (02:43):
The first whiskey that I selected for you is something called Blood Oath.
Charles Lew (02:48):
God, love the name.
Bob Simon (02:49):
Yes.
Charles Lew (02:50):
Sounds very DND.
Bob Simon (02:51):
So this is the two... Yeah, it is very DND. We'll do an oath after this. We might do a spell, we might cast something.
Dave Racki (02:56):
We can cut our fingers.
Charles Lew (02:58):
We could do a blood... Yeah.
Bob Simon (02:59):
Geez, this is how you start diseases.
Dave Racki (03:03):
It's a blood oath.
Charles Lew (03:04):
And we're all tested. We're good.
Bob Simon (03:07):
All right. Well, he might not be. We didn't do it.
Charles Lew (03:09):
That's right.
Bob Simon (03:11):
But this is important because this Blood Oath came out on February 10th, 2021. This is pack number seven.
Charles Lew (03:17):
Wow.
Dave Racki (03:18):
Very nice.
Bob Simon (03:18):
This is right around when you started a company called Rackico Games.
Dave Racki (03:22):
That is right when we started our game company.
Charles Lew (03:23):
Amazing.
Dave Racki (03:24):
I love it. Let's do it.
Bob Simon (03:26):
I always think that great entrepreneurism is built out of depressive economic times. This was during the COVID era where he started his company and they unleashed the Blood Oath number seven.
Dave Racki (03:39):
I'm in.
Bob Simon (03:40):
You better be in or you're off the show.
Dave Racki (03:43):
What if I did say no?
Charles Lew (03:44):
You have no choice.
Bob Simon (03:48):
If you did say no?
Dave Racki (03:48):
All right, let me see. [inaudible 00:03:48]. Thank you.
Bob Simon (03:49):
Cheers, gentlemen. Thank you for coming.
Dave Racki (03:50):
Cheers. Thanks for having me.
Charles Lew (03:51):
Cheers. Blood Oath. Very nice.
Dave Racki (03:56):
It's a sipping whiskey?
Bob Simon (03:57):
You can shoot it if you want. It's really-
Charles Lew (04:00):
There's no rules.
Bob Simon (04:01):
As in your your campaigns, you can do whatever the fuck you want.
Dave Racki (04:03):
There you go. You get a res, I love it. Let me roll a one D100 on this. Critical miss, I just throw it over my shoulder.
Bob Simon (04:09):
Yeah, you trip when you swallow.
Dave Racki (04:16):
It tastes really good.
Charles Lew (04:17):
I don't know anything about Blood Oath, by the way.
Bob Simon (04:20):
They come out with this yearly and every design on it is all different, all different seal. Sometimes it has a lot of cool designs. I have the eight, I think, or the ten.
Charles Lew (04:27):
I love it.
Dave Racki (04:29):
Tastes good. Do we analyze it? It tastes like whiskey.
Bob Simon (04:31):
It tastes great.
Charles Lew (04:35):
It tastes like whiskey. Tastes good.
Bob Simon (04:37):
So Dave, you're a Bostonian, right?
Dave Racki (04:39):
I'm from Boston originally. Yep.
Bob Simon (04:41):
Tell us how you got-
Dave Racki (04:42):
It's the better Pittsburgh, as I like to say.
Bob Simon (04:43):
You're so dumb. How did you get to... Tell us about your journey in Los Angeles? Because Dave and I met when he was still working at the Cheesecake Factory.
Dave Racki (04:52):
I was.
Bob Simon (04:52):
Moonlighting as an actor or an actor.
Charles Lew (04:54):
How long ago?
Dave Racki (04:56):
At least 12 years maybe. It's been a while. And then we played in the LA Baseball League.
Bob Simon (05:02):
Baseball. Yeah.
Dave Racki (05:03):
I came on here in a Honda Civic. That's how I got here. Drove across country.
Bob Simon (05:06):
He's very literal.
Dave Racki (05:08):
I was going to go to law school. My brother was a lawyer and he said, "Don't go to law school." Well, I don't think because he didn't really like being a lawyer, but just didn't think it was for me at that time of my life. I was 22, 23. So I got in a car and I drove to LA to pursue acting. And then I worked at Cheesecake Factory and then met you and played baseball with you.
Bob Simon (05:25):
Yep. And then-
Charles Lew (05:25):
Did you act?
Dave Racki (05:26):
I did, yeah. I did a few things. I was in Better Call Saul and I was in Independence Day Two, although I had a big scene in Independence Day and it got cut, which was a bummer. And that was my swan song out of acting.
Bob Simon (05:37):
Better times. Now you're behind the camera, behind the television, behind the computer. Why would you say this?
Dave Racki (05:42):
I think you said it enough. I'm behind it all. I'm behind it all now. I'm behind the camera for sure.
Bob Simon (05:48):
He's a producer.
Dave Racki (05:49):
I'm a producer.
Bob Simon (05:50):
That was the thing if he was the producer of trials, actually live action trials because when our firm does it, many others is we lean on Dave and Dave's company to create our story arcs, to create our PowerPoints, to do our imagery. And also a good sounding board for someone that's not a lawyer to discuss, what the fuck is going on, man? How do you feel about it? Sometimes Dave will be texting us like, "Your case is shit, or, that was the worst witness I've ever seen."
Dave Racki (06:13):
You have to see that stuff. Especially because our techs are sitting there behind the lawyer and the lawyer's not really looking at the jury a lot of time. So we have eyes on the jury. You know what I mean? We can see how the jury's reacting to what you're saying. They're not believing that. Or that witness said something and some jury member looked at the person next to me and went like that. You know what I mean? Or sometimes I'll say to Bob like, "Oh hey, juror number three is wearing a Philadelphia Eagles key chain. You might want to mention something about Philly."
Charles Lew (06:35):
And you're not looking at it from a legal perspective.
Dave Racki (06:37):
Yeah. He's just focused on his case and trying to build his case in chief. And we're looking at, how is the case actually unraveling in the middle of the courtroom? It is really true.
Bob Simon (06:47):
Most lawyers shouldn't let them know much about the trial, so they see it as it evolves with fresh eyes.
Dave Racki (06:51):
That's way better for us, for sure. You want to hear how the jury might respond to it. It's the same way our tech's going to respond to it. We have all the evidence there, technically we could see how the case is, but it doesn't matter because someone's not getting in anyway. So you have to only be able to see what the jury sees.
Bob Simon (07:05):
So you guys do all of California Right now?
Dave Racki (07:08):
We're all the way up to San Fran, maybe a little bit above San Fran, but I don't know if there's many cases up there and down to San Diego. We go all over. Riverside, Santa Barbara.
Bob Simon (07:18):
You got to tell our viewers and listeners, what are some just interesting shit that's happened? You've got to have some stories, man.
Dave Racki (07:25):
I got a lot of good stories.
Bob Simon (07:26):
Well, we'll talk about your stories.
Dave Racki (07:28):
This is a good story. I promise-
Charles Lew (07:29):
Pick your top three.
Dave Racki (07:30):
I promised Craig I'll tell this one story at least. Tell me how you think. So we do a lot of PowerPoints as you know, obviously. We set up all the tech, we run wires everywhere. We have monitors everywhere, for the jury, projection screens. And we have clickers because we run the PowerPoints through our laptops. Because a lawyer just wants to get up there with a clicker. They have it all on their head. They may have a screen on the side that lets them know their notes, but they've practiced, rehearse this.
(07:51):
So Greyson walks into a trial and he's about to do his close and it's a 120 page PowerPoint.
Bob Simon (07:55):
That's Greyson Goody.
Dave Racki (07:57):
Greyson Goody, Greyson goody. For everyone that doesn't know. Excellent trial lawyer. And I think this was maybe five years ago, maybe when he was first becoming the Greyson Goody we know today. So he gets in with his nice suit and Craig had placed a PowerPoint clicker on the corner of the table. So Greyson was going to walk by, grab the PowerPoint clicker and go do his presentation. But Craig didn't know that Greyson was about to start. So he's in the middle of changing batteries on the PowerPoint clicker.
(08:20):
So he's like this in his bag. Greyson walks in, the judge says, "Oh, here we go. All rise." Greyson just grabs the PowerPoint clicker, goes into his PowerPoint and he starts doing the PowerPoint. Craig, our tech is sitting there watching his hand. Every time he goes like this, Craig goes next. Greyson doesn't know it. Greyson's clueless that this is happening. He gets to the ringer. All of a sudden Craig thinks he's at the end of it. It's like 111 pages of the PowerPoint. He gets the end and he has one of those classic slides you love to do where it says, here's all the people that would have to be in on the conspiracy for the defense's case to be correct.
Bob Simon (08:51):
Oh, that's like a 30 click.
Dave Racki (08:52):
And he clicks 30 different pictures in and he's clicking the doctor, the husband.
Bob Simon (08:59):
Oh man.
Dave Racki (08:59):
He's going like this and Craig's trying to time it up. Beautiful. After when Craig went up to hand him the batteries, there's no batteries of that clicker. That was the best.
Bob Simon (09:07):
We had one trial, which I didn't do, but one of the jurors fell in love with Dave Racki. We won't tell the whole story, but was trying to write him love letters.
Charles Lew (09:17):
Nice.
Dave Racki (09:18):
I had to tell the judge. I had to, I was like, "I'm not allowed to talk to you. I'm an independent third party." He wanted to make me pierogis.
Bob Simon (09:26):
Yeah. A guy in Palm Springs wanted to make pierogis, take him with a bomb. Dave's like, "I'm just here watching a trial." Guess you put out a vibe. I don't know.
Dave Racki (09:33):
Ask the lawyers, they were like, "Don't talk to him. Just say you can't talk to him." So I just sent to a message maybe after.
Bob Simon (09:38):
Man, that was fucking wild.
Dave Racki (09:39):
That was a wild trial.
Bob Simon (09:40):
And we had some [inaudible 00:09:43]. We had many nights playing UNO together in the middle of trial and things. But let's talk about the evolution of you coming out here to pursue acting. Your brother is a lawyer. Do you ever now think... You could probably try a case better than anybody right now seeing it so many times?
Dave Racki (10:00):
I think so for sure.
Bob Simon (10:02):
We've had these discussions and you're almost dead on with your intuition to do things. But it's also, most great lawyers we know were service industry folk, so.
Dave Racki (10:10):
Bartenders.
Bob Simon (10:11):
Bartenders, I was a telemarketer. What did you do growing up?
Charles Lew (10:15):
Bartended, ran security.
Bob Simon (10:17):
That's right. This guy was huge. He was 300 pounds at one point. Muscles.
Charles Lew (10:20):
I played security for a while, but I couldn't agree more. It's just people interactions and understanding emotions and being able to look at individuals and discern what drives them. So I think hospitality, to your point, Bob, is that's where you see the broadest range of emotions and you really get to understand people.
Dave Racki (10:40):
100%. That's 50% of trials or more.
Bob Simon (10:43):
So now you're at this point, do you ever say, "Look, I'm going to go take a two year accelerated path, become a lawyer and just start running game?"
Dave Racki (10:48):
I've thought of it.
Bob Simon (10:50):
Why wouldn't you do it?
Dave Racki (10:50):
Three years ago I thought of it before I had these two businesses that were pretty successful that I was running. If I didn't have the businesses, I would really think of it. I think that law's great and I think I could be good at it. I would want to do trials though. And not a lot of lawyers do trials. What's the percentage? Less than 5%, I would imagine.
Bob Simon (11:03):
Less than 1%.
Dave Racki (11:04):
Even trial lawyers don't do trials.
Bob Simon (11:06):
Correct.
Charles Lew (11:06):
That's a good point.
Dave Racki (11:07):
You know what I mean?
Charles Lew (11:07):
I think even the lawyers who do trials don't do them like Bob or other successful trial lawyers.
Dave Racki (11:12):
Totally. It would be fun. It's a lot at theatrics. It would be like acting. It would be like going back to acting, I would consider it.
Charles Lew (11:17):
It is.
Dave Racki (11:17):
It's like smart acting.
Bob Simon (11:19):
What do you think? There's some people that do, I know one guy, Brian Brighter does improv for lawyers and he teaches child lawyers how to do these things. Because you grew up doing these types of things, what are some things you'd recommend for lawyers to be able to role play or do fantasy play or be able to turn them into something else or think from another perspective?
Dave Racki (11:40):
I don't want to say this because it's almost insulting, but I do think there's a personality type that becomes a lawyer. And that personality type is someone that wants to be prepared, to plan, and to have everything go the way they want and they want to be in control. And all new lawyers need to let that go. They just have to let it go. The judge might even, nevermind what the defense does. The judge might say, that piece of evidence can't come in and that throws your whole case. Now 20 slides in your PowerPoint are out. You have to be able to adapt to that.
(12:06):
The more you can adapt to that, the jury will think you have a way better case. If the jury sees that one piece of evidence getting thrown out ruins your whole case, they don't think your case is very strong. And like you said, with hospitality, they can read those nuances. If you react to a judge's decision, like, "Ah," the jury's going to think, oh, this case wasn't that good anyway.
Charles Lew (12:21):
So improv.
Dave Racki (12:22):
You have to take those classes.
Charles Lew (12:23):
Thinking on your feet.
Dave Racki (12:24):
You have to be able to think on your feet.
Bob Simon (12:25):
The non-verbal is huge. Lawyers is a lot, even the pellet courts, they're reading transcripts. They don't get the feel for what's going on. How can you live this situation? Because there's a lot of nonverbal stuff, what the witness is doing or saying or how the lawyer's presenting it. A lot of non-verbal shit. Think of non-verbal shit, you have something behind your back.
Dave Racki (12:46):
I do. You ready?
Bob Simon (12:47):
I'm ready. I want to see what he's been hiding back there.
Dave Racki (12:49):
I came to present you a gift. That's so heavy. Here you go.
Bob Simon (12:51):
Oh my gosh. This is pretty fucking heavy.
Dave Racki (12:54):
I know it's not a bourbon, but it's a whiskey. I've never seen it before.
Charles Lew (12:56):
That's very cool.
Dave Racki (12:59):
And we have samurais in my DND game. I shouldn't call it a DND game. In my table [inaudible 00:13:01].
Bob Simon (13:01):
What do you say, tabletop?
Dave Racki (13:03):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (13:03):
Oh my God.
Charles Lew (13:03):
This is very cool.
Dave Racki (13:09):
Kind of looks like the design of the samurai game too.
Bob Simon (13:11):
I can't even get this out of here. I only have the strength of 12. Just kidding. [inaudible 00:13:17].
Dave Racki (13:16):
Gloves of strength. There you go.
Charles Lew (13:17):
Ladies.
Bob Simon (13:19):
I think this is tied in. Is this a joke? Oh my God. I'm afraid to break this. This looks like... Oh my God, this is outrageous. Remember that Kurt Russell movie?
Charles Lew (13:30):
Big Trouble in Little China?
Bob Simon (13:31):
Yes.
Charles Lew (13:31):
Amazing.
Bob Simon (13:32):
This looks like exactly-
Charles Lew (13:33):
It does, yeah.
Dave Racki (13:33):
I've actually never seen it.
Bob Simon (13:34):
Bro.
Charles Lew (13:35):
How have you never seen it?
Dave Racki (13:35):
I know.
Bob Simon (13:35):
One of the best scenes ever, whenever the guy at the villain at the end, the big, bad guy throws a knife right at Kurt Russell, he catches a thruster right back. It's one of the funniest scenes just out of nowhere.
Charles Lew (13:43):
Great classic.
Bob Simon (13:44):
I was just dying. Oh, this is good shit. I don't even know how we open this.
Dave Racki (13:49):
I hope it's good. We should definitely try it.
Charles Lew (13:51):
It's good.
Dave Racki (13:52):
Just rip his head off. There you go. Oh, there you go. I don't even know.
Charles Lew (13:57):
Unfortunately, I speak from experience. It's nice.
Dave Racki (13:57):
Is it?
Charles Lew (13:57):
Yeah.
Dave Racki (13:57):
Nice.
Bob Simon (13:57):
Oh, you know this one. Of course, he knows everything.
Dave Racki (14:04):
I wish I had something else.
Bob Simon (14:05):
I can't even...
Charles Lew (14:07):
There should be a little pop.
Bob Simon (14:08):
He knows how to do this. There's some secret thing. So Dave, in your game you have samurais.
Dave Racki (14:13):
We do. That's one of the starting 18 classes.
Bob Simon (14:16):
One of the things that I do think is important, we did a lot of community building within our firm, but a lot also role-playing and being different situations. And I do think that being within your game or other games where people are able to work together and have to problem solve. We're running campaigns with sometimes eight people. What's a max? Ten's too much.
Dave Racki (14:37):
Ten's too much. You could do 10, but that's too much, I think. Eight I would say. DM or Radler and six or seven others. When you do trials, you have teams though, right? You do trials in terms of teams of two.
Bob Simon (14:48):
We do teams.
Dave Racki (14:49):
Yeah. I think that's the way to do it.
Bob Simon (14:50):
Well, two up there and then somebody back that's writing and doing different stuff. But oh man, this was very interesting.
Charles Lew (14:54):
Yeah, that's very nice.
Bob Simon (14:58):
But I do think that... Man, this does smell good. If lawyers were able to get in situations like that and role play, have to play a different type of character, stay on brand with that character and problem solve and work together as a team, it goes a long way.
Dave Racki (15:16):
It does. Yeah.
Bob Simon (15:17):
This is interesting, man. Fuck. I just want to put its helmet on.
Dave Racki (15:24):
Wow. This one smells very nice.
Charles Lew (15:26):
It does. Yeah.
Bob Simon (15:27):
And even that cork is aggressive.
Dave Racki (15:29):
This smells like wood chips or something.
Charles Lew (15:32):
Citrus. There's a lot of citrus.
Bob Simon (15:33):
Citrus. God. This pallet on his guy.
Dave Racki (15:35):
Oh, maybe it's citrus.
Charles Lew (15:36):
It's citrus.
Dave Racki (15:36):
Wow. Not only does he have a good pallet, he knew that I had a bad pallet and that what I was selling was the wrong-
Charles Lew (15:40):
Correct the wood chip.
Dave Racki (15:41):
Corrected it to what it was. That was awesome.
Bob Simon (15:43):
That takes years of patience.
Charles Lew (15:44):
I like wood chip though.
Dave Racki (15:46):
Wood chips [inaudible 00:15:47].
Charles Lew (15:47):
I might utilize that in subsequent whiskey tasting.
Bob Simon (15:50):
It smells like wood chip.
Charles Lew (15:50):
Wood chip.
Dave Racki (15:52):
With a pinky up.
Charles Lew (15:53):
Well, you said it so definitively.
Dave Racki (15:55):
Well, that's what it felt like to me. I don't know.
Bob Simon (15:59):
Oh, that is very interesting. Tastes good.
Dave Racki (16:01):
Yeah, it tastes good. Yeah. I think, like you said, I don't want to harp on it, but improvise... Having a script and being able to bounce off it and having another lawyer behind you that can write you notes and when you're... You know what I see a lot of young lawyers do? They don't know how to lay foundation for a piece of evidence. And a judge or a defendant will object. A judge won't let it in. And they'll think that it's not getting in for some other reason. And they won't just realize they just need to lay foundation. If they just couldn't get out of their head. Sometimes you're in a brain loop. We all do that, especially smart people. You just have someone else, either tech or another lawyer, be able to be there and say, "Hey, go try this other route to get that evidence in."
Bob Simon (16:35):
That's where we have, to my opinion, embrace technology in the courtroom because we have our computer screens up and we have chat rooms open. Sometimes getting real live feeds back to the firm or mothership, even just HQ, we go back to several lawyers to be able to live stream the trial. Just messaging or giving advice on a lay foundation.
(16:52):
So that's what lawyers are afraid of. When I first started trying cases, my biggest fear was what if I don't know the law well enough or what if I can't get that evidence? And that's the biggest fear. Dave, if you have somebody with credibility that's able to help guide you, it's way easier.
Dave Racki (17:05):
It's actually pretty easy to lay foundation.
Bob Simon (17:07):
It is. And you know it better than most lawyers. You never took in evidence.
Dave Racki (17:08):
It is. You just have to know how to do it. If you do, yeah.
Charles Lew (17:12):
I got a question for you on that. One of the things we talk about at Mental Health Miracle Los Angeles very often is data. It's this reptilian brain that we are in possession of, and we're really not equipped for the amount of data, just the sheer volume of data that we receive on a daily basis. Some of us become much more accustomed or much more adept at dealing with that data.
(17:38):
But to your point, you're sitting in a trial, which is already a high pressure situation. You're in receipt of just a copious, prodigious amount of data. And now you've got to look at data coming in from external viewers saying, "Bob, what about this? What about this?" At what point do you just shut it off and say it's too much.
Dave Racki (17:57):
That's a good question.
Bob Simon (17:58):
It's a good filter. So if you have a good co... If I'm trying a case with somebody else, they're the filter to make sure the noise is sifted out and then you're getting it from one person that's giving it to you. That's why if you've seen us try cases, we do a lot of teams where it's a lot for us. For mental health and stress, I think it is. I've done a few cases by myself doing everything soup to nuts for a few weeks. It's a lot, man. It'll put you in the grave early if you do it like that.
Dave Racki (18:24):
You can't do that.
Bob Simon (18:24):
You can't do that.
Dave Racki (18:25):
You can't do that.
Bob Simon (18:26):
And I've been preaching because lawyers are very egotistical humans.
Dave Racki (18:28):
Absolutely.
Bob Simon (18:30):
We have too much, "Can't let go. I've got to do everything."
Dave Racki (18:32):
But you want to do it, but you can't do it.
Bob Simon (18:32):
You can't do it.
Dave Racki (18:33):
You can't do that. No. I.
Bob Simon (18:33):
T's not good for anything.
Dave Racki (18:35):
It's not right for the client either. It's bad for everybody.
Charles Lew (18:37):
Is there a point where you just shut off where you say, "Nobody talk to me, I'm in my zone. I know what I'm trying to do." Really?
Bob Simon (18:44):
It is. I do that a lot. Do it on the weekends at home with the wife and kids [inaudible 00:18:50].
Charles Lew (18:49):
No, I mean at trial. At trial, is there a point in trial where you say, "I know where I'm trying to go and everybody including co-counsel, stop talking to me."?
Bob Simon (18:57):
Yeah. But you'll know it if somebody's uncomfortable. What Dave says, he's in that moment where the judge is shoving you down. And I know as the person sitting at the table, I know what you have to say to get... He's seen me do it. We've been in trial and I'll write notes-
Dave Racki (19:08):
Little post-it note.
Bob Simon (19:09):
And I'll put it right back. And they'll ask us one question, the defense will object and be overruled. And then it comes in. It's easy. It's just one question you have to... It's so stupid. That's what I hate about the law-
Dave Racki (19:19):
It is stupid, but new lawyers get overwhelmed with it. They get overwhelmed because they don't know, they haven't been in that setting before. They've read all the books in law school and then they're doing the first case and they don't understand how to just slowly-
Bob Simon (19:28):
This is one thing that you've talked about being in the metaverse. Do you think that somebody could go with an avatar, be in a courtroom and be able to do realtime practice?
Dave Racki (19:37):
Yeah.
Bob Simon (19:37):
Imagine getting hammered by a real judge and trying to put on your case. Some people feel nervous in the situation. Maybe they put on a Minotaur suit. I don't know.
Dave Racki (19:45):
That is coming in the future I think.
Charles Lew (19:47):
Yeah, I think so.
Dave Racki (19:47):
Who knows how long. But it's coming I think.
Charles Lew (19:49):
But I think you would be equally nervous. One of the things I noticed the first couple forays and in the metaverse was how quickly your mind just adapts to the fact that you're in a virtual world and it becomes very real. It becomes no different than this conversation right now.
Bob Simon (20:07):
Are we in the metaverse right now?
Charles Lew (20:07):
We may be.
Dave Racki (20:10):
Maybe we are. Here we go. It's Neo stuff.
Bob Simon (20:13):
We're drinking whiskey, not dropping acid, you guys.
Charles Lew (20:17):
That's true.
Dave Racki (20:17):
Well, I didn't tell you.
Bob Simon (20:17):
That's part of the show.
Charles Lew (20:17):
By the way, [inaudible 00:20:20].
Dave Racki (20:20):
Special Costco version. It has acid in it.
Bob Simon (20:24):
That would be so fucked up if you came to the show and actually put acid in our whiskey.
Dave Racki (20:27):
I should have done that. I'm really regretful I didn't right now. That's pretty good that his chess plate comes off too. I didn't notice that. You can save that.
Bob Simon (20:34):
It's too heavy of an armor though. I like the lighter armor.
Dave Racki (20:36):
I do too.
Bob Simon (20:37):
RPG games.
Dave Racki (20:38):
Elven Ranger all day.
Bob Simon (20:40):
If you're playing this game, the game was always rigged for the ranger, which you had to correct.
Dave Racki (20:44):
It is.
Bob Simon (20:44):
Because it's his favorite player.
Dave Racki (20:45):
My other designers have had to tone it down down. And I've not been happy about it.
Charles Lew (20:48):
Your game's ranger happy?
Dave Racki (20:50):
Well, no. It used to be until my designers correctly told me that I need to-
Charles Lew (20:54):
So they made superpowered rangers?
Dave Racki (20:56):
They basically had arrows that could be ranges of 10, but were just as powerful as swords. So no disadvantage at all. Just only advantage.
Charles Lew (21:04):
So long range was just as powerful?
Dave Racki (21:06):
Just as powerful.
Bob Simon (21:07):
One thing that's interesting about, different from the DND is you can class over. So you could play 10 levels as a palette and then go to a thief if you have that different-
Dave Racki (21:14):
The whole thing is building your own character. So you're getting skills from all these different classes. And then at the end of it you have this multi-class that's really bespoke to you and has all the skills you want.
Bob Simon (21:21):
And they unlock these different things. So my guy started the big camping where I was a mechanic.
Dave Racki (21:25):
A gnome, I think.
Charles Lew (21:25):
Like a gnome mechanic.
Bob Simon (21:26):
No, I wasn't. The first one was an elf.
Dave Racki (21:29):
Oh, you were a dwarf or an elf or something.
Bob Simon (21:31):
It was mail wire, which nobody figured out was mail wire in, which was mail wire. And he was putting bad information into the robots the whole campaign, which they didn't get. But whatever.
Dave Racki (21:39):
You turned heel at the end, I believe.
Charles Lew (21:40):
That's pretty smart.
Bob Simon (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.
Charles Lew (21:42):
Pretty smart though, Bob.
Bob Simon (21:43):
It was. But anyway, so started out as a mechanic and I free were classed over but ended up being a general, he ended up being a general.
Dave Racki (21:49):
You were a general.
Charles Lew (21:50):
So you have general as a class?
Dave Racki (21:52):
Generals in advanced classes. Yeah. So there's 18 starting classes, then they split off into 54 advanced classes. There's three per starting class.
Bob Simon (21:59):
But you never see what these are. So you could go into any type of... But they have geomancers.
Dave Racki (22:05):
We got it all.
Bob Simon (22:06):
There's wizards, there's druids.
Dave Racki (22:06):
We've got it all.
Bob Simon (22:07):
It's different. Thing I hated about Dungeons & Dragons, you pick this thing, you're set.
Dave Racki (22:11):
You are set.
Bob Simon (22:12):
Now you can do five levels here, 10 levels here. But I like going with a story.
Dave Racki (22:17):
Me too. We're story driven for sure. We want to focus on story.
Bob Simon (22:20):
Thinking of story, so this is one of-
Dave Racki (22:22):
Already written?
Charles Lew (22:23):
I know.
Bob Simon (22:23):
Get the fuck out of here, man. What do you guys want to...
Dave Racki (22:26):
I want to seppuku myself from the samurais.
Bob Simon (22:29):
Seppuku is a skill that every player gets in his world. Tell him what that's seppuku is.
Dave Racki (22:33):
Well, instead of a monster killing you, if you decide you want to kill yourself instead that that was an older rule though. We don't now give seppuku to everybody.
Bob Simon (22:39):
Really?
Dave Racki (22:39):
Yeah. But we probably should.
Charles Lew (22:41):
I think that's a good rule.
Bob Simon (22:43):
But you fainted so you are down at zero hit points so you can...
Dave Racki (22:46):
You basically faint and [inaudible 00:22:48].
Charles Lew (22:47):
Do you go just back to zero or do you go sub-zero and then [inaudible 00:22:51].
Dave Racki (22:50):
You knock out at zero and then after three turns you're officially dead and then you have to roll a new character. And that's that.
Charles Lew (22:56):
How did I not get invited to participate?
Bob Simon (22:59):
Actually the new one because this-
Dave Racki (23:00):
Yeah, the next release will probably be like a month. We'll open it up to some more people, I think.
Charles Lew (23:04):
Because we've had some very in-depth DND conversations.
Dave Racki (23:07):
Really?
Charles Lew (23:07):
Yeah. To the-
Bob Simon (23:08):
What's your go-to class when you start a campaign? I have a theory about this. What type of character-
Dave Racki (23:12):
It says something about you.
Charles Lew (23:14):
So interesting answer. So the first character class I ever played, I was nine and my older brother... I grew up in Scotland. Too cold to do anything except play DND and play chess. I did a lot of both.
Dave Racki (23:29):
I love that.
Bob Simon (23:29):
And drank whiskey.
Charles Lew (23:31):
And drank. Yeah, of course. Started that at five unfortunately. But that's a much darker story. We'll save that.
Bob Simon (23:38):
We've been whiskey nipping my girls since they were zero.
Charles Lew (23:41):
Yeah, of course. It's good for you.
Dave Racki (23:42):
It's good for the parents.
Charles Lew (23:44):
Yeah. So first character class I ever played was a cleric who oddly enough, what I found out after I'd been playing for about a year, we actually ended up traveling around Scotland, playing. And my mom let me play at 11 and actually travel with my older brother.
Dave Racki (24:04):
This is awesome.
Charles Lew (24:05):
And I was introducing myself to the party at Leven in Glasgow, which is about 40 miles from where I grew up. And I told the character of the class, the group my name and one of them, one the more erudite, learned people in my class said, "Doesn't that mean coward in Latin?" And I said, "I don't fucking think so." Of course I didn't say fucking at 11. I said, "Not that I know of." And I catch my brother out the corner of my eye laughing. And I was like, "You asshole."
Dave Racki (24:39):
He told you to say it?
Charles Lew (24:40):
I've been running around for two years playing this character that he helped me name, that meant coward in Latin. So clerics always had a special place in my life. But the most successful class I ever had was a barbarian that I worked up for a long time. I played this character for years and years and built a whole thematic narrative and lore legacy behind this barbarian class. But yeah.
Dave Racki (25:06):
That's the stuff we love in our game. We have a barbarian class berserker and we have a cleric class called the Sage.
Bob Simon (25:10):
You can go ice or fire.
Dave Racki (25:12):
Fire barbarian, we had.
Bob Simon (25:13):
They're very interesting. I was always support class. Seems like I would start with cleric or someone, like I started as the mechanic or someone that's supporting the team through. Played my first bard ever, gnome bard.
Dave Racki (25:22):
Bards are great. Bards are underrated.
Bob Simon (25:24):
This is a very sadistic-
Dave Racki (25:25):
You're good at the bard. You play music when we play.
Bob Simon (25:27):
I actually download songs when it does something [inaudible 00:25:30].
Dave Racki (25:30):
And he sets it up and plays them.
Charles Lew (25:30):
That's amazing.
Bob Simon (25:30):
It's very. It's always topical what's going on. I get very excited about it.
Charles Lew (25:33):
What's your favorite?
Dave Racki (25:34):
It's got to be ranger. I like Sorcerer or Black Rage or Wizard, and I like rangers. I don't know. I like to be the mysterious elven person with a pass that comes out slowly over the campaign. I like to drop things on people late.
Charles Lew (25:46):
This is the most awfully nerdy conversation.
Bob Simon (25:50):
I was looking forward to this one. [inaudible 00:25:51]. So storytelling.
Dave Racki (25:58):
Here we go.
Bob Simon (25:59):
This is Jefferson's Reserve. They have one called Jefferson's Ocean. It's a single layer, which I've never had this one, but they take this one and they age it on the water. So they put this in barrels, they put it into the ocean, they put it in a ship and it would just sail around the world. And that's how they aged it. They would just pay people a piece of a position on their boat to put their whiskey barrels. The theory was when they're in Kentucky, the reason they have such good whiskey. They have such high and low temperature. It gets real hot, it gets real cold.
Dave Racki (26:27):
That's good for whiskey?
Bob Simon (26:28):
Yeah. Because it does different things to it.
Charles Lew (26:30):
To the aging.
Dave Racki (26:31):
Oh, interesting.
Bob Simon (26:32):
And it just has different flavors, pulls it out. So the theory was let's put it on the ocean and see what the fuck happens, because it's rocking and going through the Arctic to wherever-
Dave Racki (26:40):
And this is what happens?
Bob Simon (26:41):
Yeah. This is one of the higher ones that you can find, which I've not had this one. I'm interested to try Jefferson-
Dave Racki (26:47):
The top of it looks like a wheel on a-
Bob Simon (26:48):
Ship, but it has Thomas Jefferson on it, looks like. I know that from the nickel.
Dave Racki (26:56):
That's great.
Bob Simon (26:56):
But I didn't know it had anything to do with him.
Dave Racki (26:57):
You know that from the nickel. Nice.
Bob Simon (26:58):
Well, how do you know that picture from?
Dave Racki (27:00):
I don't know. I'm not [inaudible 00:27:03].
Bob Simon (27:03):
No, but... Is he on Mount Rushmore?
Charles Lew (27:07):
I said-
Dave Racki (27:08):
Would anyone know who's on Mount Rushmore? Nobody knows that.
Charles Lew (27:10):
Not really. No.
Bob Simon (27:11):
Teddy Roosevelt.
Dave Racki (27:11):
Teddy Roosevelt. Are both Roosevelts and George Washington?
Bob Simon (27:14):
Both Roosevelts.
Charles Lew (27:15):
Washington.
Bob Simon (27:15):
Abraham Lincoln.
Dave Racki (27:16):
And Abraham Lincoln maybe.
Bob Simon (27:16):
And of course, Donald J. Trump. He wishes.
Dave Racki (27:19):
He made it. Huh?
Bob Simon (27:20):
He tried. I think he actually tried.
Charles Lew (27:23):
The temperatures. And actually to Bob's point, the little bit of nerdy information-
Dave Racki (27:28):
I love it.
Charles Lew (27:28):
... actually influences the whiskey and the aging greatly. So Gentleman Jack, for example, Jack Daniels, which we're all familiar with, that was actually just positioned, I believe higher. It could have been lower but just higher than the other barrels, which gave it a more mellowed taste, which then became Gentleman Jack rather than just Jack Daniels.
Dave Racki (27:44):
I love it.
Bob Simon (27:47):
I like this rather put in the age, they just put very old.
Charles Lew (27:49):
Very old.
Bob Simon (27:49):
This is very old.
Charles Lew (27:51):
Which is an interesting... It's actually a legal issue now that the whiskeys and the bourbons have to deal with to be classified as X.
Dave Racki (28:02):
Well it's like brandy, right? There's XO, VO. That's what all that stands for on the brandy.
Bob Simon (28:04):
Brandy, Sherry, he's into alcohols that are named after women. This is his thing.
Dave Racki (28:09):
Brandy's great. You ever have Brandy?
Bob Simon (28:10):
Brandy with an I or Y, or an EI?
Dave Racki (28:13):
Oh, interesting. I like a nice Y, not an IE. You like the IE?
Bob Simon (28:18):
Depends where I am.
Dave Racki (28:20):
I'm not here for Brandy with an IE at the end.
Bob Simon (28:23):
Okay. So bottoms up. We're going to get to the last one here quickly. Guys, this is such a [inaudible 00:28:27].
Dave Racki (28:27):
How many do we have? Four?
Bob Simon (28:28):
We have four. There's a very cool one coming with Charles brings the flavor.
Dave Racki (28:33):
Oh, interesting. You know what other thing that I thought I wanted to go back to, it's not about DND, but I'm happy to talk about DND. Not DND or Ravel or tabletop games. But a lot of lawyers, I think this is in life in general. So I don't mean to give some big philosophical-
Charles Lew (28:49):
It's nice, Bob.
Bob Simon (28:49):
This is good. That's a good one.
Dave Racki (28:51):
Hold on. Let me try.
Charles Lew (28:52):
Yeah, you got to try that.
Bob Simon (28:53):
Give us your non wood chip profile.
Dave Racki (28:58):
It's mulchy.
Bob Simon (29:02):
Fresh cut grass I get.
Dave Racki (29:04):
To be honest with you, this one is just giving me very smooth. I'm not getting a lot of bold flavor.
Bob Simon (29:08):
But surprising this one's under proof.
Dave Racki (29:10):
Oh wow. That's surprising. That's the most impressive thing.
Bob Simon (29:13):
I'm always impressed when you can get a high proof and it's smooth.
Charles Lew (29:16):
That's nice.
Bob Simon (29:16):
We did one show-
Dave Racki (29:17):
Maybe caramel? It's like sweetie?
Bob Simon (29:19):
You're just making shit up.
Dave Racki (29:20):
I'm making things up. Yeah. That's what you do. When you don't know you just make it up.
Bob Simon (29:24):
See, that's a bartender when it's called mirroring.
Charles Lew (29:27):
Guys, I survived three years as a bartender having no idea how to bartend.
Dave Racki (29:33):
I've been there.
Charles Lew (29:34):
So when people would [inaudible 00:29:36]. And it took me probably until the first year of when someone would ask for a drink. Obviously vodka, soda, those you know, but when someone would ask for something that was a little more complex, you would have a general idea, and you would just-
Bob Simon (29:51):
Do the same thing.
Charles Lew (29:52):
I'd just grab three or four bottles, turn them, go like. And I'd be like, "Here you go." I clearly remember the first time it didn't work. I made someone a Long Island iced tea.
Bob Simon (30:03):
Which is pretty much everything anyway.
Charles Lew (30:04):
Which is everything anyway. And I push it across the table. If you do it confidently enough they're like, "Well, this guy must know, look how the way he poured it." And I pushed it across and I would never... Four people, they all pick it up and everybody takes a sip. Then the one dude looks at me, he goes, "This is a Long Island iced tea?" I was like, "Yeah, I've been doing this forever."
Bob Simon (30:24):
Are you stupid?
Charles Lew (30:27):
It is a Long Island iced tea. Are you stupid? He's like, "Hey man, I've just never had one like this, but it's fucking great." And I was like, of course it's great.
Dave Racki (30:32):
Your confidence. Exactly.
Bob Simon (30:35):
So I bartended for multiple years with no idea how to make anything more complex than a vodka soda.
Dave Racki (30:40):
That's amazing. You get by. Confidence is key. Well, that's what I was actually going to say.
Bob Simon (30:45):
In life, dude.
Dave Racki (30:45):
In life and in trials too. A lot of the new lawyers, or lawyers in general, doesn't have to be a new thing, get steamrolled by defense lawyers because they don't feel confident that they can do things that they can do. Say for instance, you ask a witness a question and the witness starts answering a different question. Cut the witness off.
Bob Simon (31:00):
Stop. We're talking about something else.
Dave Racki (31:02):
Yeah. Just stop. And you can do that. And a lot of new layers just don't think that... They think they're being rude if they do that. It's way better to be rude to a witness than to let the witness get in evidence that the jury's going to hear.
Bob Simon (31:09):
Exactly.
Dave Racki (31:10):
You know what I mean?
Charles Lew (31:11):
But where's the point where that young confidence is too much?
Bob Simon (31:15):
Where it comes off as brash or condescend or young punk.
Charles Lew (31:19):
One of my favorite things I've ever seen is that letter that you post on Instagram.
Bob Simon (31:22):
To Girardi?
Charles Lew (31:22):
Can you tell the audience about it?
Dave Racki (31:26):
You're never going to work in this town again?
Bob Simon (31:27):
Oh yeah, man. I've never told the story on the show.
Charles Lew (31:28):
It's so good.
Bob Simon (31:29):
Actually, let's tell it over this one.
Dave Racki (31:31):
All right.
Charles Lew (31:32):
Okay. We can save it.
Bob Simon (31:33):
Yeah, let's pull this now. Let's tell this.
Charles Lew (31:35):
What about this just?
Bob Simon (31:35):
Guys.
Dave Racki (31:39):
What about the caramel?
Bob Simon (31:39):
Nurse Ratchet, they need some help. God.
Charles Lew (31:44):
But it's such a good story.
Bob Simon (31:44):
You guys need an infusion?
Charles Lew (31:44):
I feel like there has to be a build up for that story. I feel that that story is quintessential Bob.
Bob Simon (31:51):
You put this in the case. I'll tell you the story. This was 2000, probably six or seven. So it was one or two years of practicing law and I was working at a small PI firm, Nojima & Lederer, still good friends of mine. I was working there through law school and I was trying to drum up business. I'm out there hustling, street hustling, getting cases. I was answering people's questions on listers and shit all over the place.
(32:12):
So this one guy came with a case, he's like, "Hey, I'm a lawyer. I referred a case to this guy Tom Girardi, and he stiffed me on the fee. He's not paying out the fees." Fast-forward now, it's like, oh shit. Of course he wasn't paying his fees.
Charles Lew (32:23):
Of course, but not when you did this.
Bob Simon (32:24):
Not when I did.
Charles Lew (32:25):
He was an animal.
Bob Simon (32:26):
He was an animal. He was the most well respected lawyer, getting all the awards, doing the whole thing. I was a young lawyer, I knew who he was at the time. So I took this case and then he obviously stiffed the guy, everything's in writing. It's so obvious what happened. So I filed a lawsuit against him to recoup the money and the client that he had, because that's how you have to do it in arbitration. He sends me a letter and I post it on Instagram. It's still one of the biggest people.
Charles Lew (32:49):
That's amazing.
Bob Simon (32:49):
Bro. And it just says, "Dear Simon," not even Bob or Robert, just Dear Simon, it's like you have-
Charles Lew (32:54):
It's so dismissive. It's amazing.
Bob Simon (32:56):
It's like, "You have 24 hours to dismiss this lawsuit, or I'll make sure you never work again in this town. Signed Tom Girardi." I was like, "What the fuck is this?" I'm getting a letter and walking it into John Nojima's apartment, he's like, "Fucking Tom Girardi, we sued Tom Girardi? Why would you sue Tom Girardi?" I was like, "Because he fucked this guy over." He did fuck this guy over. He's like, "You can do whatever you want with this case." I said, "Sounds good to me."
Charles Lew (33:15):
Were you nervous for a minute?
Bob Simon (33:17):
For a minute I was, because I looked him up. I was like, this guy's actually the real deal. What's he think he's the fucking legal mafia or something? So then I went to go to arbitration because you had a fee dispute first before you get to the case. And I learned some shit in law school, was like, you can put the adverse witness. You can call an adverse witness whenever you want your case. It was like through the arbitration. So I was like, I going to call Tom Girardi.
Charles Lew (33:38):
Awesome.
Bob Simon (33:38):
Bro. So Tom Girardi walks up. And one of the guys is good friend of mine, a great plaintiff lawyer, Thomas Johnson who was an associate with him at the time, had to represent him for this lawsuit. And we tell stories, it was so funny. So we get there and I was like, "I want to call Tom Girardi." And he gets there and then he sits down at the table at this arbitration. I was like, "Excuse me, our panel arbitrators, but," again, it's something I learned in law where I heard about, "witnesses that are testifying can't be in the room. So they got to leave." They're like, "That's right. Leave Mr. Girardi." So he had to go sit outside. I waited two days to call him. So he had to sit out there for two days.
Charles Lew (34:09):
So good.
Bob Simon (34:10):
And as soon as he came in, you could cross an adverse witness. So I was just like, "Isn't it true you didn't have a retainer with that client? Isn't it true you settled this case behind a closed door with a..." It was, what's his name? Roger Corman. He was doing B movies. This was the underlying case. So he settled this case. So Tom Girardi right now. Took the defense lawyer out of the picture, went with the defendant. Roger Corman went to his house behind closed doors and wrestled a settlement out of him somehow. Can you help imagine the shitty shit?
Charles Lew (34:37):
How old are you when you're doing this?
Bob Simon (34:38):
26, 27.
Charles Lew (34:39):
But that's the point. This is going back to what we talked about. 90% of 26 year olds are not [inaudible 00:34:45]. Not a chance.
Dave Racki (34:45):
Not a chance. 99%.
Bob Simon (34:47):
And I framed that shit after we won and they had to pay.
Dave Racki (34:49):
You should've. And I bet you it got easier to send letters like that after you sent that first one.
Bob Simon (34:53):
Yes.
Dave Racki (34:54):
You know what I mean? It's so nerve-wracking to send something like that. And then when you realize that people, all right, they're not as bad. It's not a big bad wolf like you think it's going to be.
Bob Simon (35:00):
But it happens all the time like paper tigers. It's like, meet me for a drink and let's talk about this.
Charles Lew (35:04):
But he's not a paper tiger.
Bob Simon (35:05):
No, he's not.
Charles Lew (35:06):
No.
Dave Racki (35:06):
Are you friends with him now?
Bob Simon (35:08):
Who?
Dave Racki (35:09):
Tom Girardi?
Bob Simon (35:09):
He's in prison.
Dave Racki (35:10):
He is?
Bob Simon (35:10):
He's about to be. You don't know this whole story? Oh, no.
Charles Lew (35:10):
Oh, yeah, yeah. [inaudible 00:35:14].
Bob Simon (35:13):
He got caught stealing hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of clients' funds.
Dave Racki (35:17):
Oh, so that was the start of it back then.
Bob Simon (35:19):
And I've been telling people ever since that this was going on, within our organizations and some people referring him cases, whatever. That's a whole different thing.
Dave Racki (35:25):
Well, good for you.
Charles Lew (35:26):
But that's a young lawyer... I had a similar instance, not as a young lawyer, just a couple years ago with a very, very established lawyer, someone who would be much more established with me in the legal field. And even then at 42, 43, I was sitting there saying, this is a very well-known lawyer. Do I really want to draw the line in the sand?
Bob Simon (35:47):
This is a story about me, dude.
Dave Racki (35:50):
It was Bob.
Charles Lew (35:51):
I was trying not to use Bob's name. But no, I think-
Bob Simon (35:54):
Can I take a peek at this?
Charles Lew (35:54):
Yeah, of course.
Bob Simon (35:55):
I just want to see what you've got going on.
Charles Lew (35:58):
To go back to what Bob was saying and what we were saying, the funny thing I think about now, especially as a adjunct professor at Loyola Law doing Web three and Metaverse, is at what point are the young lawyers or the young students who are becoming lawyers, at what point is it just brash and obnoxious? And at what point is it well-founded-
Bob Simon (36:19):
You know the line when you see it.
Dave Racki (36:21):
I'd like to think you know the line. Yeah.
Bob Simon (36:21):
Some people don't.
Charles Lew (36:24):
Do you really? I don't know that you always do.
Bob Simon (36:26):
Talk about lines, Macallan. You're a Macallan guy. This is-
Charles Lew (36:29):
I'm a Macallan guy.
Dave Racki (36:30):
That one's great.
Bob Simon (36:30):
Tell me the story. I've never even heard of this one.
Dave Racki (36:32):
I've never heard of it either. It looks awesome.
Charles Lew (36:33):
This is cool. So... The way I always start my Macallan stories grew up in Scotland, five years of age. I will never forget this. My pop-
Bob Simon (36:48):
He really was five the first time.
Charles Lew (36:49):
Yeah, I really was five. I know. It's somewhat embarrassing. My papa tells me at Hogmany, a big Scottish holiday, obviously new year's. And he says to my mom, "Give the wee one, wean, give him a him a dram."
Bob Simon (37:03):
Sure he didn't say weenus?
Charles Lew (37:03):
Yeah, wean. And my mom says, he's-
Bob Simon (37:06):
It's part of your elbow, by the way. Don't-
Dave Racki (37:07):
The weenus?
Charles Lew (37:07):
Is it?
Bob Simon (37:08):
Stop. What's this? This is your weenus.
Charles Lew (37:10):
Really?
Bob Simon (37:10):
Why would you go... Okay.
Charles Lew (37:12):
Well, we're called weans in Scotland. So he says, "Give the wean a dram or give him a sip."
Bob Simon (37:17):
A dram, huh?
Charles Lew (37:18):
So my mom says, of course, "No, he's five." And my grandpa says, "Well, he'll drink it sooner or later, so let's do it now." So he gives me a little sip, a dram, a half dram of Macallan. But what he does is he mixes it with lemonade. Now, your initial reaction to that would be appalled because you're thinking of American lemonade, but lemonade in Scotland, is Sprite or Seven-Up. So it's essentially just a diluted Macallan. So that was my first experience with Macallan at five.
Dave Racki (37:51):
I love that.
Charles Lew (37:53):
So this whole bar that we're sitting in right now, The Firm was actually inspired by Macallan.
Dave Racki (37:57):
Oh really? I love Macallan. Is that your favorite distiller?
Charles Lew (38:00):
Macallan is by far my favorite. We've got some extremely, extremely rare expressions of Macallan, but one of the ones-
Bob Simon (38:08):
Expressions.
Charles Lew (38:09):
Expressions, yes. But one of the ones I'm very fond of is this. It's a harmony. So actually I'm not even going to tell you anything about it. What I'm going to do is I'm going to pour it and I want your learned profile on it.
Dave Racki (38:23):
I'll keep mulch out of it.
Charles Lew (38:25):
Because I am very confident you're going to get this.
Dave Racki (38:28):
You are?
Charles Lew (38:28):
Yes.
Dave Racki (38:28):
Okay. I'm in. Let's do it.
Charles Lew (38:30):
I'm very confident because it is so pronounced and so well done. And we're going to put you on the spot. You're going to tell us also. You're both going to tell us.
Dave Racki (38:40):
It'll be a contest for us.
Charles Lew (38:42):
Because I'm very confident in both of your thoughts.
Dave Racki (38:46):
I want to hear more about Scotland. I went to Scotland. It was one of the only countries I've been to and I loved it.
Charles Lew (38:49):
Where'd you go?
Dave Racki (38:49):
Went to Edinburgh though. And I learned at Edinburgh that it's never been above 89 degrees, apparently. The hottest it's ever been up there is 90 or 89 degrees. And also it doesn't really get dark at night. Or at least when we were there.
Charles Lew (38:59):
It doesn't.
Dave Racki (39:00):
It was kind of light at 9:00 at night. I was like, what is going on here? It's awesome.
Charles Lew (39:04):
It is light all the time with incredible Northern Lights.
Dave Racki (39:08):
Yeah. It was awesome. We didn't see any green Northern Lights or anything, but that's probably the same effect of why it's like that. It was awesome.
Bob Simon (39:13):
I think you guys are making shit up.
Dave Racki (39:16):
Have you been to Scotland?
Bob Simon (39:17):
No. We've been talking about where we're going to go. We're going to do a Bourbon of Proof tour from Dublin to Scotland, 100%. We'll do a little dram for the wean over here. You sure it's not a Wayans brother?
Dave Racki (39:27):
I'd love to go back to Scotland.
Bob Simon (39:27):
A Wayan, Wayne?
Dave Racki (39:30):
You think Glasgow is better than Edinburgh to visit, or...
Charles Lew (39:33):
I think it depends entirely on what you're looking for. If you're looking for Hogwarts, you have to go to Edinburgh.
Bob Simon (39:37):
Hogwarts?
Charles Lew (39:38):
Hogwarts. If you're looking Harry Potter, you go... Bob, I'm going to take you to Edinburgh. You're going to walk around, you're going to feel like you were transported.
Bob Simon (39:46):
I got to take my kid.
Dave Racki (39:47):
There's a cobblestone road that goes up to Edinburgh Castle just literally looks like Hogwarts.
Charles Lew (39:52):
But if you want, like now-
Bob Simon (39:54):
I can smell what it is, I can tell you what it is.
Charles Lew (39:55):
Now Glasgow is quintessential Scottish character, but without necessarily the old-school ideologies that you would necessarily prescribe to Scotland.
Dave Racki (40:09):
Cool. I'd love to go to there.
Bob Simon (40:11):
Harmony's harmony.
Dave Racki (40:12):
Oh, I can spell something for sure. Oh, I don't know if I taste it. It smells like chocolate. It smells like chocolate.
Charles Lew (40:24):
Oh, there we go. See?
Bob Simon (40:26):
I was going to say cadaver, but he said chocolate. I was like, oh, chocolate.
Charles Lew (40:31):
So that's awesome.
Dave Racki (40:31):
It's very smooth.
Charles Lew (40:34):
So this is chocolate inspired, rich cacao. So actually, this particular one is inspired by rich cacao. It's a [inaudible 00:40:43].
Dave Racki (40:43):
It sounds like liqueur.
Bob Simon (40:44):
I thought rich cacao was a guy. Inspired by Richard Cacao.
Charles Lew (40:48):
Richard is an incredible individual. But it's actually the Roca Brothers, Roca family. But this is my love for affinity.
Dave Racki (40:57):
How many different expressions does Macallan do?
Charles Lew (41:00):
Quite a few.
Dave Racki (41:01):
More than 20?
Charles Lew (41:02):
Oh yeah.
Dave Racki (41:03):
Oh, really?
Charles Lew (41:04):
They do specials and limited edition. For example, I just acquired the bread collection. There's a James Bond collection coming up, which is inspired by James Bond.
Bob Simon (41:15):
Do they have a PP seven? Silence. Silence or PP seven?
Charles Lew (41:18):
Maybe a PP seven.
Dave Racki (41:19):
Golden Eye just got released.
Bob Simon (41:20):
I'm excited for this inside our council. Well, we're about to wrap up. We're going to end on gaming. So Dave-
Dave Racki (41:24):
Let's do it.
Bob Simon (41:25):
This is how we always end the show.
Dave Racki (41:26):
Now I'm getting drunk. I'm ready.
Bob Simon (41:28):
Okay. Just speaking of that, we got to ask you, Dave Racki, what is your bourbon of proof? What was your favorite? Where do you like to lie? Well, how do you like your whiskey?
Dave Racki (41:39):
Well, I don't know that Macallan's Bourbon. It's Scotch, right?
Charles Lew (41:41):
Scotch.
Bob Simon (41:42):
No, but it's whiskey.
Dave Racki (41:43):
I'm allowed?
Bob Simon (41:44):
Yeah. It's all brown.
Dave Racki (41:45):
Today, my bourbon of proof is that Chocolate Macallan for sure.
Charles Lew (41:49):
Cheers to that.
Dave Racki (41:49):
For sure.
Charles Lew (41:49):
I like it.
Dave Racki (41:51):
I thought they were all pretty good. I think maybe the Blood Oath was my least favorite.
Bob Simon (41:55):
I can see that.
Dave Racki (41:56):
I don't know. It just felt a little harsh.
Charles Lew (41:59):
I like the name.
Dave Racki (41:59):
I like the name.
Charles Lew (41:59):
The taste I wasn't crazy about, but the name I was sold.
Dave Racki (42:02):
I'm sold on the name and I'll do a blood oath with you anytime. But I'd rather drink the Macallan.
Bob Simon (42:07):
All right.
Dave Racki (42:08):
Generally speaking-
Bob Simon (42:08):
To Blood Oaths and Macallans and role playing and [inaudible 00:42:13].
Charles Lew (42:12):
Cheers.
Bob Simon (42:13):
To David Racki.
Dave Racki (42:13):
Thanks. Cheers to you.
Bob Simon (42:15):
Esquire pseudo.
Dave Racki (42:16):
Pseudo. Yeah. Adjacent.
Charles Lew (42:18):
Foe Esquire.
Dave Racki (42:21):
I started classing into lawyer and I changed, I'm a level 20 tech now.
Bob Simon (42:28):
Yeah. He's a tech slash thief.
Dave Racki (42:29):
Slash thief. Thief?
Bob Simon (42:30):
That's a great class. You can shadow walk, you can back step if you want to.
Dave Racki (42:33):
I can hide in shadows.
Bob Simon (42:34):
Yeah, that's good.
Dave Racki (42:35):
Just pop out of a courtroom with a big deposition. "Hey."
Bob Simon (42:40):
Well guys, there we were. Thanks for coming to this episode of Bourbon of Proof. Thanks.
Dave Racki (42:44):
Thanks.