RideShare RoadTalk: Conversations In Motion
A Washington DC based podcast where unfiltered talk space examines the meaningful lives of local and visiting ride-share passengers.
We'll engage in topical (and personal) conversations and explore our varying perspectives on politics, culture and DC hot spots while enjoying the ever changing landscape of the Nation's Capital. So buckle up and join the conversation...Let's drive!
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RideShare RoadTalk: Conversations In Motion
Ticketmaster, Long Snappers & Connecticut
In Episode 14 of RideShare RoadTalk we unwrap the insanity that is the concert ticket resale market, St. Andrews golf lottery, the magic of Connecticut and college football long snapping...Buckle up...Let's Drive!
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Inquires: Foundation Digital Media | Kuna Video
Welcome to another episode of Rideshare Road Talk Conversations in Motion, a podcast where we create unfiltered talk space that examines the meaningful lives of my passengers, while engaging in personal and topical discussions. I'm your host and driver, john Fondas, and we're cruising the streets of Washington DC. Buckle up, let's drive. Hey there, how you doing. Come on in.
Speaker 2:Thank you, good to see you Good to see you.
Speaker 1:What are you guys into tonight Anything fun and exciting?
Speaker 2:A concert.
Speaker 1:Cool, what concert.
Speaker 2:Georgia Smith I'm old, dial me into that. She did a really good Tiny Desk concert with NPR like two years ago, okay, and she's a Brit, so she came across the pond. Well, there we go, check at the same place. So we were just like what should we go to All?
Speaker 1:right, where's it happening? Anthem, yeah, love that place. We've never been. Oh my God, I won't spoil it for you.
Speaker 2:It's cool, right? Everyone says it's a great venue. I'm not going to spoil it. You're supposed to go see a comedian named Tom Segura there. Oh yeah, I had very annoyingly work so we couldn't even go. So you're going now.
Speaker 1:So now, enjoy it excellent. I'm going to anthem. I'm trying to go to anthem next friday for a concert and my son's coming back into town and it's sold out. But like the after markets are so expensive, it's like, bro, I can't spend like eight hundred dollars on what are you trying to do uh dream theater it's like a prog. Uh, I've heard of that metal band.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, just tick pick is uh, I found that recently and there's there's no. I don't know how it compares, but there's no fees okay, so they roll everything in? Yeah, maybe I think it's. I think it is theoretically a little bit on the cheap side yeah that's how they, you know, make okay some volume there, but I don't know. I it's, but it's been. It's what I've been using, because it even just feel like whenever you get tickets and it's like a 20 fee just makes me feel bad.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, I mean, with with all the craziness going on in dc. Right, you think the one thing that actually needs some kind of oversight and regulation would be that the ticket market resale, because um yeah, it wasn't Taylor Swift supposed to fix that?
Speaker 2:what?
Speaker 1:happened. She was supposed to help uh, kamala Harris get elected too, so I don't know how that worked.
Speaker 2:Louis CK stopped doing that before everything, you know, even everything when he was like at his height and uh had just like wouldn't allow secondary tickets. I don't know how he would prevent it, but he could only buy it from his site and had like a specific barcode or something like that. So you couldn't actually, if it resold them, it would like void the ticket so that he could only charge. It would only be, like you know, 60 bucks or whatever, and affordable instead of like getting gouged by all the ticket resales.
Speaker 1:Foo Fighters tried that a bunch and I'll found a name drop like when anthem first opened the very first show, they, they christened the place and my wife and I were fortunate enough to get tickets and it was like I don't know how we did it. It just was like a miracle, um, but it was so locked down, like there was like language about prosecution and all this stuff, because they did not want aftermarkets, because it would have been just insanity what they could have charged aftermarket for those seats.
Speaker 2:It's cool of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. But I think the luxury of being that big of an artist, that you have that kind of latitude and control to do that, yeah, I think if people actually knew what happened behind the curtains with promoters like Live Nation and what's the other one, and Ticketmaster to an extent like how much of a cut they get versus what the artist gets, it would be like a riot. Yeah, there's always the middleman is what really right that corrupts the enjoyment or the event.
Speaker 2:Like if Ticketmaster is giving you some good service, like, but it's just, they're just in the way, it's just a gouge for sure.
Speaker 1:I was very fortunate enough to go to Scotland to play golf at St Andrews. I went twice and you know lay person knowledge. It's a very hard tee time to get, and so a lot of people will use these tour providers. Yeah, huge markup. I mean it's expensive trip anyways, but you're talking like three to four $5,000 markups on top of you know, errors never included and it's a bucket list. So if you're passionate about golf, you'll you'll do it once If you can.
Speaker 2:My coworker my boss, uh, last year went and did that with all of his like his golf buddies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a thing for sure. But I was determined not to do that and I built the whole thing by myself and I found out there was like this well, it's not secret anymore, but there was a clandestine lottery that you would enter at a certain time of the year and they would give you, like, the dates that are totally busy, don't bother. And they would give you these open dates and then they'd give you three different weeks in which to choose, and first time got it, was it like?
Speaker 2:is it like a? You're kind of like luck of whatever you put in for. If it's like gone, it's gone.
Speaker 1:It's like hey, preference of these three weeks they're going to try to get you a tee time somewhere on the old course. They do an old course plus one the other courses on property and it was very reasonable. I mean, forget the exchange rate, you know, I think it and this was pre-COVID by a year, so it was maybe 500 bucks for that, and then airfare I was getting people there coach for like seven or 800 bucks. So when you do the math, it's like and if you're frugal, you know, two grand all in for a week in St Andrews with nothing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty great. So there you go, and counterparts are paying five to seven. So hopefully it won't get fleeced that bad tonight, I think we used this one.
Speaker 2:I think it's Tick, pick right, you got these. No, it's not Just get them at Anthem.
Speaker 1:You guys from DC originally, or where's home? I am Cool, washington, yeah, I could kind of claim that too. You know the dmv I grew up in in near rockville, thanks. So you dc proper is what you're saying. Yeah, oh boy, you're.
Speaker 2:You're like a unicorn then when I first came down here, I was like I'll move to virginia. Maybe I live in, I grew up in connecticut, um, but I was moving down out here later and just like, oh, maybe Virginia is pretty nice, like no, you're moving to DC and all of her friends are from DC, so it's it's. I didn't even realize that it's how rare it was until, yeah, I mean, neither did I, cause I was like don't bother, it really is.
Speaker 1:I do think if I had to, I would go. Maryland before Virginia. Oh, you have to, yeah, except I like Maryland.
Speaker 2:I don't know what there's. I get way too lost in Virginia. I probably get just as lost in Maryland. But I the wineries, I like that, but beyond that it's I don't know.
Speaker 1:Where in Connecticut?
Speaker 2:from Fairfield County. It's called Trumbull. It's a 1989 Little League World Series champs.
Speaker 1:Okay, give me a guidepost. Where is that going to be near?
Speaker 2:Bridgeport, fairfield, it's like the southern, it's like an hour outside of New York City, it's like on the southern, If you know the shape of Connecticut it's like a rectangle a little thing on the front. It's like where that little piece on the front like meets the big rectangle. So it's very close to New York city.
Speaker 1:And who knew we were doing geometry?
Speaker 2:I don't know how to uh yeah.
Speaker 1:That's cool People that I feel like um, I mentioned, I just mentioned it to our babysitter two seconds ago and she was like oh yeah, I grew up like he lives like 20 minutes from there when my my oldest son was in the football orbit for college and stuff, um, we went up to a camp at uh, at yale, and he also went and looked at some other smaller school up there and it was kind of like a cattle thing. There wasn't any real interest, but I just, we just went for the experience, you know. But we we happened into, um, old saybrook, yep, really cool little town. There's a lot of cool little yeah, and there's this bright yellow kind of like colonial looking hotel on the water and the food was great yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of, just like, the food is always pretty solid. There's tons of italians up there. That's your thing, but uh and uh the like, a lot of the like water towns, like in guilford and all that area yeah that's kind of near where I don't we don't live on the water, but it's pretty close and there's a ton of like the beaches suck, but it's nice, uh, just to kind of have that backdrop. Do they suck because they're like it's?
Speaker 1:on the.
Speaker 2:Long Island Sound. So they're like the water's not great. Versus like sand or just dirty water, cold, More of like cold dirty water. Not dirty water, but like like you can go in it and it's not like a health problem. It's not like crystal beautiful right like there's nothing.
Speaker 1:There's not like surf.
Speaker 2:It's the long, it's like a long island. It's like a. It's like a river that you are not a river like. It's a sound that you just like. It's between new york and connecticut and it's just like commercial shipping. Yeah, no, I don't think I have. I don't think it's like, uh, like rojoboth or bethany or deer Ocean City, that kind of beach and, like North, like Cape Cod or Rhode Island, rhode Island beaches are really nice. Yeah yeah, it's pretty up there.
Speaker 1:Newport's a fun town.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my buddies lived up there. He went to School of Providence and he's never come back. He's just been up in that area.
Speaker 1:That's cool.
Speaker 2:His family goes on vacation there every year.
Speaker 1:It's really we did go up to Bryant, who's one of the schools that was recruiting him to play football. My mother went there, middle of nowhere. There was no town If there was one bar with a little main street. I would be like cool, bro go. But how do you tell an 18-year-old kid like, hey, here you go? He's like yeah.
Speaker 2:That little bar might be called the library, because my mom always loves us to tell the story how her mom used to call her when she was in college. She'd be like, oh, I'm at the library, but she meant the bar. It was meant at the bar. I wonder if they've changed names after 50 years.
Speaker 1:That's a classic, it's a staple, Solid little business school from what I've learned. Yeah, they have really good pipelines right into Boston and New York. You know, for the finance and business majors I think it is a good school. I think I applied there. The price tag was just it was out of control for a very small school like that. Yeah, I mean it was like the 70 and change.
Speaker 2:Jesus. Before that I didn't think that was yeah, Ours was. Well, we went to state school, so we went to the University of Delaware.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, and Molly, I didn't know that she had.
Speaker 2:You get state Because DC has no state school. You get to pay state school prices no you get to apply for a Subsidy, a credit Subsidy grant A scholarship. You apply for a scholarship through DC to go to baseball. That's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:There's something called the Common Market Exchange. Let's say there's, you know, 13 states that are in the exchange, If your home state doesn't have a particular major you get the other ones If you want to go to a different state school and swap.
Speaker 1:And my son wound up at tennessee. That's where he is now. Please football, tennessee. No, no, he's just a regular student. He flamed out, he was at maryland, got sick, got in the portal, went to east carolina, hated it and said dad, that's enough, and so he's at tennessee um, probably still really awesome experience in tennessee.
Speaker 2:Oh, he loves it.
Speaker 1:He absolutely loves it more than playing football but for whatever reason, you know, University of Maryland or no school in Maryland had business analytics and Tennessee did and it was like in-state. I'm like giddy up, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really awesome.
Speaker 1:See ya, that makes so much sense. Like 48 versus 25. Like okay.
Speaker 2:It's interesting that they don't. Yeah, it sounds like a very common major.
Speaker 1:You would think I mean they have it now and he was grandfathered in I see. Yeah, I mean Smith at Maryland is a very well-regarded business program, business school. So it was very shocking. He goes to Maryland, puts all this hard work in for years, gets opportunity to go to maryland and then ding dong makes out with the girl and gets mono, like literally right in the middle of camp, and with mono there's such a wide berth with recovery you just don't know yeah and the doctors couldn't clear him and right eventually he's like dude, like what are you doing?
Speaker 2:what, uh? What position did he play? He was a long snapper. Nice, my friend, this long snapper for cop or uh delaware yeah he's just really good at that and just dude it.
Speaker 1:Tell you, man, it's. It's a little more prevalent now, but, like five to ten years ago, you could have stealing scholarships if you're a long snapper yeah, he like that, he just didn't want to.
Speaker 2:My friend stopped because he got drug tested and was like I'm just gonna, I want to party. I don't want to be a long snapper, like he was getting like a very minimal scholarship that didn't matter so much right? He's like yeah this is not worth it. Like he was trying to do everything. It's a lot of hard work, yeah I mean it doesn't matter fairly.
Speaker 1:You're playing like a few snaps a game, but you still trying to do everything. It's a lot of hard work, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it doesn't matter, even when you're like fairly, you're playing like a few snaps a game.
Speaker 1:But you know you still have to do, you have to work out Every day. Yeah, exactly, do it all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, showing up to some balls and you know it's a lot of time. It's one of those positions that no one.
Speaker 1:The joke is and I've seen it firsthand. It's like you know. You get all these guys, the skills guys, and how do you do that?
Speaker 2:I mean, these guys were throwing the ball 15 yards between their legs in like less than a second, I know, and it's like four or five a game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I just the physics of that. Like he was good but he wasn't like a superstar good. He was good but he wasn't like a superstar good, but he would throw like from 14 yards he would snap like .68, .69. That's pretty ridiculous. Like I can't throw a regular pass as a quarterback, not that accurately. No, I can't throw it that fast, you can't. It was fascinating to watch that. That's pretty cool, pretty cool. Yeah, how long ago was your friend?
Speaker 2:at uh delaware. How long ago was that? Uh 20. He graduated in 2010, so oh, okay, 15 years ago he actually had a kid today, so long enough for wow, a lot of stuff, yeah yeah, but he, uh, he was on the team. He was on the team for the first like year and there was always just like one, so he was playing with joe flacco yeah the super bowl you know all the funny stuff.
Speaker 2:That's the claim of like delaware. Football is not that great, but they do have two got to go there the year that flacco is starting to just senior year.
Speaker 1:Your pardon, that's quarterback, you yeah and him and rich gannon.
Speaker 2:they're the I the Delaware is of a very small number of schools that have two Super Bowl winning courts, See there you go.
Speaker 1:I think it's so amazing what they've done down here with the development yeah it's beautiful.
Speaker 2:It's insane. We walked when the All-Star game was here from like over here all the way to the stadium. Yeah, I assumed I guess I knew we could do that before. But what was over here before they built? All this oh nothing, it was a shitty yeah.
Speaker 1:There was the open air kind of seafood market was there. It still is, which is cool, and everything else was like just weird. There was like a little tiny marina.
Speaker 2:That's still there too, right yeah, they built it back up, but it was like a little tiny marina.
Speaker 1:That's still there too, right yeah they built it back up but it was like just weird, like Motel 6, weird Admirals Inn, just weird third tier.
Speaker 2:And now there's like the most expensive real estate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Did they do the second part? Wasn't there like a phase two happening? Yeah, I think it's like downtown. When did we used to be down here? Um 2015?, like when I had like softbook hands and stuff? No, when it kind of all it wasn't even build up then. It was like three years after I got here.
Speaker 1:Are you guys heading straight in? Are you going to eat something down here? I?
Speaker 2:think we're going to go straight in oh okay, but yeah wherever it's safe to follow right now.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, this will be cool. Yeah, wherever it's safe to follow. I know this is like no, no, no, this is this will be cool. There you go, man. Thank you so much, guys. Enjoy the venue.
Speaker 2:It's really cool. Thank you so much. It was nice talking to you. Absolutely, have a good one.
Speaker 1:Good luck with the tickets for next week. Yeah, I got to figure something out for sure. Take care now. Thank you for Road Talk. If you've enjoyed what you've heard, we'd love for you to review the podcast on your favorite listening platform, like Apple or Spotify. Your support helps us so much, and don't forget to reach out on Instagram with your feedback or topic suggestions. Until next time, let's drive you.
